by Aline Dobbie
Investment analysts point out that India could increase its growth rate to China’s level easily – with lesser investment than China – if it really decided to open the economy to foreign investors. The saying is that if one wants to get things off to a flying start go to China, but if you want to make money go to India. Today, India is at the same stage that China was a decade ago but, because now the Chinese are experiencing the resultant problems of their phenomenal growth, India could surge ahead. However, she must have the commitment to improving her infrastructure not just expediently but for the future, which means building to excess (not something of which the United Kingdom can ever be accused sadly). Indian industry can duplicate the success of China if it gets the flexibility that Chinese firms enjoy. “We are confident of competing with the best in the world. This is a new India”, those words were spoken by the President of the Confederation of Indian Industry. I do believe him and have confidence in the country. Unlike China, India’s software success rests on its human capital. It has the second largest pool of English-speaking technical power in the world and, as Bill Gates predicted, India is likely to be the next software superpower. Moreover, very recently a small Scottish company has been rewarded for its commitment to finding oil in India and significant quantities of oil have been found in Rajasthan, this can only be a good thing for Rajasthan, a relatively poor state and for the country as a whole. I like the connection with Scotland!
The image of India in the eyes of the world has also changed. It is known for its brainpower, its millions of talented engineering, business and medical graduates. Goldman Sachs predicted recently that India will become the world’s third largest economy by 2050. ‘Offshoring’ is the new ugly term used to describe the age-old phenomenon in which economic activity moves to where the skills and cost mix is most attractive to employers. Thus, has India become the call centre of the world. There is quite strong feeling here in Britain about this with the perceived subsequent loss of call centre jobs in this country, but this is what ‘globalisation’ is all about. Manufacturing jobs followed by service jobs were the front runners of this move and when one considers that wage costs are less than a fifth of levels here, with the Indian staff having a commitment to work and a good understanding of English, one understands the business motivation. America is also being affected by this trend and their politicians are beginning to bring this subject emotively into their rhetoric for the coming US election. However, as all of us know, protectionism of any kind usually leads to recession, and our countries should continue to generate and develop new jobs within our own countries with the money saved. Free trade is essential to prosperity in both the West and the Third World.
There are however so many Indias. The India of the twenty-first century surging ahead with its expertise in information technology plus the recognised advances in medicine, engineering, management consultancy, pharmaceuticals, textiles and tourism. What about that other India, the one that haunts and worries me, the India that still persists in her ambivalent attitude to women?
The ugly aspect of increasing dowry deaths across the social spectrum is a sinister medieval shadow that obscures India’s light and potential to be a global giant in this century. The whole dowry idea was officially outlawed forty years ago but it appears that everyone disregards that fact, and the authorities turn a blind eye. I am ashamed of this aspect of Indian life and can have no defence for the country when people who know I love and am loyal to the land of my birth, accuse it of this horrifying relic of ancient custom and practice. What does it say about some of India’s young men, who collude with their materially greedy parents or worse, calculatingly carry out these various murderous acts? Within seven years of a woman’s death, her family can file a case of dowry death but very little is achieved and usually the man is free to marry again and receive yet another dowry. Officially, there are 6,500 dowry deaths annually, but unofficially the figure could be 25,000. Because of the apparent ineptitude and corruption of the various police forces and the reluctance of the system to investigate and prosecute these crimes, in which the victim is usually burnt, supposedly in a kitchen accident, India is socially continuing to sanction the devaluation of women and this occurs across the broad spectrum of social caste and class, not just within the illiterate village communities.
Female foeticide is reaching alarming proportions. Those of us in the West who have been shown in documentaries the ruthless and heartless female infanticide of China have often said of the latter ‘we won’t go there until that country behaves in a civilised manner...’ ethical travelling does exist, but China has become aware of her bad image – I would not know if what is being done has actually reduced or just become camouflaged from western eyes. In India, where thank goodness there is a courageous and outspoken press the female foeticide nightmare is being exposed.
North India is where dowries are the biggest and dowry deaths most common. In Bihar, marrying off a daughter can reduce parents to penury. It is estimated that in Bihar 163,200 female infants are killed annually. The state is ruled by a woman! In Haryana, mobile clinics brought sex determination to the patients’ doorsteps with doctors carrying a generator and an ultrasound scanner to carry out the devious ritual. Apparently sex determination is done at one clinic and the abortion at another, making it difficult to accuse patients of female foeticide and often all this barbarism is carried out in makeshift operation theatres using equipment that has not been sterilised adequately. This adds to the risk for the young women and is the biggest cause of death of young women in India.
The social fault line runs deep and the alarming drop in the number of girl children can have serious social consequences. The decline in the gender ratio will play havoc with India’s population stabilisation programme, which requires a balanced gender ratio and a limit on the number of children born every year. Even those who do not believe in female foeticide but still want sons will need to examine their motives; otherwise, it might lead to an alarming reversal in the trend towards a declining population growth.
Female foeticide will disempower Indian women and as sociologists stress, it is only empowered women who raise similar children and nurture strong families. Fewer girls will also mean that their childhood, their marriage and their future will come under a variety of social and physical threats, where only those who have power, wealth, and influence and are male will dictate their choices in life.
To end this sad subject on a positive note a positive campaign to promote the girl child is being started and, in 2004, the Health Ministry plans as its Republic Day theme to promote daughters. They do, however, need the support of religious opinion makers to eradicate the belief that only a son ensures a passage to heaven.
The final appalling fact is the rising number of girl children sold into slavery either for the marriage/servant market or as prostitutes. India has become one of the biggest slave bazaars for minor girls. Other than as sex workers, they are also exploited as labourers, drug peddlers and for their organs.
In the Murshidabad district of West Bengal, there was an unsavoury trade in minor boys who were supplied as camel jockeys for the Middle East. Now, it is the biggest supplier of minor girls for prostitution rackets involving Haj tourists. The Bedia community of Uttar Pradesh, which traditionally sold daughters to brothels, now gives them away to rich clients from abroad. There is a village in West Bengal called Jamtala Daspara in South 24 Parganas that has no teenage girls. Trafficking is the word to describe the slave trade in girls and the UN has said it is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world. Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata serve as business hubs. Mumbai is the import–export point and the undisputed capital of this foul trade.
These are the ugly sides of India. Every country has its unattractive aspects, be it bigotry of religion, criminal underworld, racism or some other human evil. Exploitation of its females is a blot on modern day India’s record as the beacon of democracy and religious pluralism. India has the ability to overcome
and totally subdue these practices. It just has to have the will and courage to implement sufficient legislation that cannot be misconstrued or sidelined to ensure that females are given their rightful place in society. There must then be a determination to use that legislation to eradicate all evil forms of gender exploitation. Naturally, all that goes hand in hand with a national commitment to reducing bureaucratic venality; were it to do all of these things, I think the country would power ahead as an economic force strong in principle and morally sound. India would become a country that we would all be able to admire and respect and, for people like me, continue to love, but it does require Indians both at home and abroad to stand up and be counted.
From time to time I become thoroughly cast down about the various awful injustices in the world, such as those of which I have just written. I have told you about them because they prey on my mind as an ordinary individual who wants to help and try and contribute to making the world a safer and a better place. The Esther Benjamins Trust is trying to do just that. This determined little charity was born out of one man’s personal deep grief at the loss of his first wife, Esther. Philip Holmes formed the trust in memory of Esther who took her own life in January of 1999 because of her childlessness. At the time of her death Esther was a Judge whose admirable qualities combined a sense of justice for the neglected and oppressed with a deep love for children. It is these values that now Philip and his co-workers are perpetuating through the work of the Trust that bears her name.
They work exclusively in Nepal, India’s very poor little neighbour state, on projects that help those children and young people most marginalised and discriminated against by society. The Trust has formed their own partner organisation in Nepal to run projects on the ground, The Nepal Child Welfare Foundation (NCWF) run by a core staff of former Gurkha officers. The close relationship between the two organisations and between the founding directors Philip Holmes and Khem Thapa lies at the heart of their increasing success. Jail children, i.e. those whose parents are jailed and with whom until recently they had to live though themselves innocent are stigmatised and disowned by ashamed relatives; Street children too are held in contempt in Nepal as they are looked upon as being ‘khate’, the Nepalese word for thieves. Disabled children too are victimised as the religious belief in Nepal is that disabled people are serving a sentence for misdeeds committed in a previous life and Circus children are the victims of illegal trafficking of children into India who are then enslaved into circus life. Recently reports show that there are also a high percentage of ethnic Nepalese children within India in the northern areas of West Bengal that fall victims to exploitation and cruelty.
Esther Benjamins Trust is achieving so much so rapidly and it is down to Philip Holmes and his new wife Beverley’s personal commitments that this is happening. Now they intend to go and live in Nepal for a two year period to help and encourage the ideas and implementation of the Trust’s aspirations to give Nepal’s underprivileged children a childhood.
For you who have read this book I just ask you to think of adorable Yashodi Gurung, of whom I have written; imagine her, the loveable little character that I have described to you, frightened, homeless, vulnerable, repeatedly raped, beaten, and enslaved; think too of the youngsters I described at Butterflies. Perhaps you know also of Future Hope the wonderful charity that does so much work in Kolkata for the street children, of whom I spoke in my first book.
When I was growing up in India the charity that made the most impact on me was Dr Graham’s Homes, in Kalimpong, which is in the foothills of the Himalayas. In the days of British rule Kalimpong was a hill station destination throughout the searing heat and humidity of the Bengal summer. My parents did their best to support the charity’s work and bought a lot of goods from the charity shop in Calcutta of the 1950s era. The Reverend Doctor John Graham laid the foundation of his dream – a Home and School for orphaned and abandoned Anglo Indian children in 1900. Today Dr Graham’s Homes proudly safeguarding the name of its founder and his ideals, still remains the only school that caters to nearly four hundred supported Anglo Indian children. In a world where traditions have given way to modernisation and globalisation, this small island of hope and love survives against all odds, balancing with great skill the traditional with the modern but never quite relinquishing the invisible threads tying it to the great dream that was started more than a hundred years ago.
How can we ignore their collective plight? If ever Gandhiji’s words had resonance it is with all these little ones: if we each do a little we shall achieve a lot. My respect and gratitude goes to all the founders and workers in these children’s charities for what they achieve against appalling challenges. Let us please try to help them. Both the Non-Resident Indians or NRIs and Overseas-Born Indians or OBIs can play a part in supporting the land of their ancestry. They have become a force to be reckoned with and respected in their adopted countries like the United States and Britain.
When one concentrates on negative issues it is only fair to talk also about the positive achievements. The child immunisation drive, launched in 1978, has saved the lives of close to 20 million children in the past 25 years. Satellite television has created a whole new industry and completely changed the way Indians are entertained and informed. In a country where owning a phone was more difficult than owning a house, the mid 1990s heralded the era of private service providers and introduced the concept of customer service. Millions of people across India’s cities and villages own cell phones. At the beginning of 2004, there will be over 19 million mobile phone users. Communication is always a tool for education.
For many in the countryside, prosperity has created a new rural middle class but others remain hopelessly poor, untouched by the changes that have swept through the cities. There is, however, a new attitude towards India’s immemorial poverty. The feeling is growing that its gigantic one-billion strong population can be a fantastic resource rather than a burden and that poverty is not immutable. India’s economic boom is being driven by the software and IT industry and people are really beginning to think of it as being able to deliver the country from poverty. Indeed, I do hope so.
Project Tiger became the role model for preserving the country’s ecosystems and also resulted in a range of legislation to protect wildlife. The number of tigers in 1972 before the inception of Project Tiger was 1,827. By 2002, the number was 3,642 but this commitment continues to face severe challenges as was shown to be the case in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Concluding on a cheerful and encouraging note it is so good to see the successful projects that various groups and charities have been able to fulfil.
Global Tiger Patrol, the charity that is achieving so much in many different ways with regard to tiger conservation throughout India is now in its 15th year. There is much that it has helped to achieve of which its Trustees and Volunteers can be proud. In its 2004 Report emphasis is laid on how dismal the prospect for Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve was in the Spring of 2003 when people thought the park was unlikely to survive under the climatic stress it was experiencing with such a prolonged drought. That indeed was how I saw it in November 2002 and about which Graham and I were so sad. However, thankfully the park is now looking as good as when it was in its heyday 20 years ago before the disaster years of the 1990s.
In preparation for the last dry months before the onset of the 2003 monsoon, the Forest Department sank 13 tube wells in the park and 6 in the outlying villages. Stocks of fodder for the ungulates were provided and used. Thankfully as a result of this support very few ungulates perished. When the park was originally created, 16 villages were moved out leaving behind many traditional wells. Two of the traditional step wells have been resurrected. Thirteen of the old village wells have been reactivated; the water holes have been deepened and additional tube well sunk. With the low capacity wells water is dragged out by hand, whilst seven others have been equipped with diesel generators. Every day more than 200 water holes around the park were monitored
, with water from the tube wells being transported by the two park tankers, one of which was donated by Global Tiger Patrol.
The ongoing drought situation had resulted in the local people outside the park having to sell 60% of their cattle and buffalo, which has reduced the grazing pressures. It is calculated that the numbers will not reach the previous level for another five years.
The Food for Work programme, initiated by the Indian Government in response to the drought resulted in a 6ft tall, thick wall, 15 kilometres in length being built by local people. This has provided a very successful barrier between the park’s buffer zone and some of the villages – village cattle are prevented from moving into the forest for grazing and animals from the forest are less likely to stray out and cause crop damage.
Amanda Bright, the Chair of Trustees of Global Tiger Patrol says “It is hoped that the drought has not caused any long-term harm and may have resulted in further measures being put in place to stand the park in good stead for years to come. Another golden period for the park perhaps? We wish it well.” I sincerely echo those sentiments and salute all who sought to help and maintain Ranthambhore through its drought-ridden years.
Within the last two months in 2004 The Prakratik Society, which was established in 1994, when it took over projects from The Ranthambhore Foundation, was awarded a sum of money in recognition of its success by The Ashden Awards. Dr Rathore, the son of Fateh Singh Rathore, the courageous former field director of the Tiger Reserve says “I could see that the park versus people conflict would ultimately result in the destruction of both the tiger and Ranthambhore. I knew the long-term solution lay in finding a way in which both the people and the park could live in harmony. This meant creating sustainable alternatives that could both improve the life of the local people and allow them to have a symbiotic relationship with the park and the tigers”.
