India had walked the difficult road to independence but it is yet to cast off the chains that dwarf the spirit of freedom. We are yet to be free from our attitude towards gender, caste and other social ills
Freedom from colonial-era forest management law
Forest policies in India have always alienated people from the forests. Rights of the rural communities living close to forests were taken hostage by the government after the Indian Forest Act (IFA), 1927 came into effect. It gave absolute power to the forest department to take control over forests. Millions of forest dwellers who counted on forest resources for livelihood became illegal settlers under the law.
To reverse this injustice, the Indian government passed the Forest Rights Act in December 2006. It recognises the rights of forest dwellers, including Scheduled Tribes and others, to use, manage and protect forest resources.
“ About 40 per cent of the 60 million people displaced by development projects in past decades are tribals. ”
The new law didn’t put an end to the struggle of the indigenous people as several attempts at diluting the FRA have been reported. States have been responsible for derailing community forest rights by making their own rules to reclaim the authority over forests. In the process, they are losing the opportunity to empower tribal communities economically.
Because of the proposed bauxite mining project, which will affect over 244 villages. They are not the only victims of “development-induced displacement”. Forest dwellers in Orissa, Chhattisgarh and other states often don’t find a mention in environment impact assessments.
Despite this, some states have been pushing for dilutions in the law by arguing that the Forest Rights Act is hindering the country’s growth by stalling industrial projects. To help you make sense of this systemic attack on forest dwellers and their struggle to win freedom from exclusionary laws of the colonial era, we present a collage of reports and analyses.
Rights overruled (May 2016)
‘Claims of Forest Rights Act holding up growth are bogus' (December 2014)
Ministers mount pressure to dilute Forest Rights Act (September 2014)
Rights without benefits (November 2013)
How government is subverting Forest Rights Act (November 2010)
Freedom from Social Oppression
When seven Dalit men in Gujarat were flogged and humiliated for skinning a dead cow, it triggered spontaneous protests across the country. It also laid bare the years of discrimination and indignation meted out to ‘untouchables’.
Dalits, the citizens of a free country, face discrimination in hiring, choice of employment, the conditions of work and terms of employment. Even though Dalit Hindus convert to Christianity or Buddhism, they do not cease to be seen as social outcasts and their plight doesn’t end. The solution doesn’t lie in changing one’s religion but in delegitimising social discrimination.
“ In 2015, close to 39,000 cases of violence against Dalits were reported. ”
Mahashweta Devi, a writer and an activist, was one of those who questioned society’s jaundiced view of the low caste people and the “the indignity it heaps on its most oppressed constituents”.
Many believe that it is during the colonial rule the caste system became more prominent and a narrative was built around it. As India celebrates 70th Independence Day, we take you through stories that show how these people are left out of country’s social safety net and how difficult it has become to dislodge the beliefs that perpetuate the oppression.
Cull the caste (August 2016)
Mahashweta Devi, a writer who became a voice of marginalised communities (July 2016)
Dalits and nutrition: Where is the catch up? (November 2012)
Freedom from Open Defecation
Sixty-nine years after independence, we are still looking for freedom from high disease burden due to lack of sanitation facilities. Poor sanitation partly explains why India is home to the largest number of stunted children (48 million) in the world. Open defecation makes children more susceptible to diarrhoeal illness and infections that prevent them from absorbing the nutrients they need to grow physically and mentally.
In his maiden Independence Day speech in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi floated the ambitious idea of making India open defecation-free by 2019. The government had set the target of constructing 98 million household toilets and also functional toilets in 418,000 schools. However, going by the government’s performance in the last two years, the chances of meeting the target by 2019 look bleak.
“ Poor sanitation explains why India is home to the largest number of stunted children (48 million). ”
While the government’s ambitious Swachh Bharat Campaign has focused only on building new toilets, it is the people in the heart of rural areas who have been encouraging behaviour changes to increase adoption of toilets. Small yet significant people’s movements to discourage open defecation were reported from different parts of the country.
We have put together the sanitation report card of the NDA government, latest statistics and the positive stories we got to hear from the people of the country.
Begging to whistling, rural India doing everything to end open defecation (July 2016)
World Toilet Day: India needs one toilet every two seconds to achieve target by 2019 (November 2015)
It is no joke (Infographics)
Back to toilet school (September 2015)
Will India get freedom from open defecation? (August 2015)
Freedom from Forced Labour and exploitation
Of the many injustices that have blemished India, forced labour is one of them. In rural areas, where technology is either scarce or primitive, dependence of communities on manpower is immense. There have been instances where position of a woman member as a forced labour is legitimised by the notion of marriage. The “water wives” of Maharashtra are symptomatic of this malaise. It also links forced labour to ecological issues as water is so scarce in some districts that men resort to multiple marriages so that the wives can be deployed for fetching water.
In urban India, exploitation of labour is a reality. Those who are lured to migrate to urban areas with a promise of better job and higher pay, become victims of labour rights violations.
“ The new Child Labour Bill allows children of any age to legally work in brick kilns, glass furnaces, slaughter houses and other hazardous places. ”
While there has been furore over forced labour and dismal working conditions that Indians in Saudi Arabia are subjected to, the serious exploitations at home often go unreported. Our reports show how labour rights infringements are rampant in the country and how the poor are languishing in uncertain corners of mills and plants in absence of grievance redressal mechanism and strict punishment for labour rights infringements.
The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2016, which was passed by the Lok Sabha on July 26, was another nail in the coffin. Under the garb of family enterprises, children of any age can now legally work in brick kilns, beedi factories, glass furnaces, slaughter houses and other hazardous places. The law failed the children of the country once again.
Third side of a coin (July 2015)
Tamil Nadu’s garment workers ‘modern-day slaves’: Dutch Report (October 2014)
International garment brands not transparent about labour exploitation by their Indian suppliers: report (April 2014)
Freedom from gender bias
India’s progress as a gender-equal country is trifling even after almost seven decades of independence.
The steadily declining child sex ratio in India has reached alarming proportions and gender stereotype continues to remain deeply ingrained in our psyche. Social and economic progress has had minimum bearing on the status of women and daughters
India may be witnessing greater women participation in politics, but in most parts of the country daughters are still looked upon as “an unaffordable economic burden”. Preference of son over daughter and the infamous dowry system make female infanticide rampant in India. Sex determination tests and selective abortions go unchecked.
“ About 13 million sex-selective abortions had taken place in India between 2000 and 2014. ”
While Rajasthan and Haryana are pockets of success when it comes to sex ratio, the disparity between sex ratio at birth and child sex ratio (0–6 years) will only be known during the next census. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign incentivised protection of a girl child but the society is yet to warm up to the idea of making a transformational shift in the way it looks at the girl child.
Skewed sex ratio is just a part of the greater menace. Even the clinical research experiments have been sexist with women struggling to find equal representation in such projects. This string of stories document the inequality and imbalance of power in the country.
India witnesses one of the highest female infanticide incidents in the world: study (July 2016)
Making sex count (July 2016)
Unbuttoning the gender straitjacket (January 2016)
India’s child sex ratio has reached ‘emergency proportions’: UN study (July 2014)
Data indicates poor enforcement of law to check female foeticide (December 2013)
Child sex ratio worsening faster among STs: census report (November 2013)
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