INDIA Right to life for females THE FOLLOWING interview with Trupti Shah, a member of the Baroda [in Gujarat, a northwest Indian state] Women's Group was given to Jacqueline Heinen in Brussels in December 1985. It has been translated from an edited text in French.
Question. We often hear of various types of discrimination against women in India, which seem to take extreme forms and even result in a much higher infant mortality among girls than among boys. What are the concrete facts about this?
Answer. The demographic data in fact indicates that, contrary to other countries, the proportion of women in the population as a whole is less than that of men. Moreover, we also find this phenomenon in countries such as Pakistan and Iran. At the beginning of this century there were 972 women for every 1,000 men, and the proportion of women declined steadily until it reached 930 for every 1,000 men in 1970, where it has stood roughly since then.
This ratio only reflects an enormous economic and social problem - that of the status of Indian women. The whole cultural and social tradition dictates that it is better to bring a boy into the world than a girl. Because of the dowry system, the birth of a daughter is perceived as an economic burden, while boys represent the continuity of the family, a support in old age, and so on.
Discrimination against females starts in infancy, with babies getting fed and cared for differently according to their sex. Not only do you see little boys getting a lot more affection, but the best milk is reserved for them, with little girls even being left to waste away. Of course, such discrimination continues as children grow up, in education and professional orientation, to say nothing of health care.
The disproportion between males and females is, in a way, a sort of concrete expression of these forms of discrimination. It should be stressed that this phenomenon has been aggravated by industrialization and technical progress, in particular by the introduction of new reproductive techniques. Thus, amniocentesis, a test for detecting possible malformations of the fetus during pregnancy, is systematically used for female infanticide, since this test also makes it possible to determine the sex of the baby. It has been practiced quite commonly in the country's big cities for three years. And when it has turned out that the unborn child is a girl, it can be seen that in 99 per cent of the cases, the women try to get abortions. Since amniocentesis can only be done at the end of the fourth month of pregnancy, the consequences for the health of women are catastrophic, since the abortion cannot be done before the 18th or 19th week. And such a practice is being justified in the name of birth control!
So, we face a situation totally opposite to what obtains in the European countries, where women are fighting for the right of abortion and contraception. In India, the feminists have to fight against the policy of the authorities, who under the pretext of population control, are massively disseminating contraceptives (such as Depo-Provera) that are banned in other countries because of the dangers they pose for the health of women. And they are not providing the slightest information about the side effects they can have. Moreover, they encourage family-planning offices to insert intrauterine coils in women without telling them. In such cases, the women only find out about this when they go to gynecologists because they think that they are sterile. Because of these coils, many women have gotten cancer and other very grave illnesses.
Furthermore, the government backs sterilization campaigns without bothering to make sure that the operations are carried out under good conditions. It happens very often that the women are not informed about the irrevocable character of this operation and that the medical teams in charge often leave out the preliminary examinations so that they can fulfill their quotas of International Viewpoint 10 March 1986
150 to 200 operations a day. Thus, in Rajasthan in 1984, several women died as the result of such a campaign.
You can see that the "right to choose" means two quite different things to women in the developed countries and those in Third World countries such as India. The problem in India is to fight for the right to information about the methods of contraception and abortion that are being imposed on women and to combat forced abortion, contraception and sterilization. This is a still greater problem because the international organizations that extend aid to the Third World, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, NOVIB (1) and OXFAM-India (2) all provide funds for the government's family-planning program without raising any questions about its sexist and racist character. Women's health is the least of their concerns.
On top of the very high infant mortality for girls, the life expectancy of adult women is very low. However, there are virtually no local medical centers equipped to meet the most elementary needs of caring for women and their infants. The only factors taken into consideration are the reproductive functions of women - who are seen primarily as wombs for assuring the reproduction of the race - and the enormous demographic problems that are posed. This is why, although there are no hospital centers, the family-planning network extends into the most remote corners of the country.
As regards the right to choose, the problem of course is that the existence of contraceptive methods do represent an unquestionable advance, because they can enable women to control their own bodies. So it is not a matter of demanding that they be banned. The problem is that women are treated as second-class citizens and that they are denied the right to exercise such control.
In this respect, the use of the amniocentesis test is typical. Women are not being informed of the risk to themselves and their babies in taking it. There are no restrictions on this practice as there are in the West, where the tests are only done when the mother is above a certain age and the risks of malformation of the fetus are very high, or in the case of serious problems. The most retrograde cultural reflexes are being encouraged, as regards the attitude of the society, and therefore of women, with regard to the female sex. This test is made into an everyday medical practice cheap enough so that the poorest working-class women can afford it. Thus, in 1978-1982, almost 78,000 female fetuses were aborted after amnio
International Viewpoint 10 March 1986
Indian women outside industrial plant (DR)
centesis. And the trend has steadily increased since.
All of this shows how much the birth of a girl is considered an economic and social burden. The dowry system provides for setting the sum in accordance with the status and professional prospects of the fiance, so daughters are expensive, and all the more so insofar as the parents want to make a good match for them.
Moreover, when the parents-in-law find the dowry inadequate, that can lead to acts of torture against young women in order to drive her to suicide, or even to outright murder. In 1984 alone several hundreds of thousands of women were burned alive by their husbands shortly after their marriages, that is after they collected the dowry, the obligatory marriage price.
Q. How did the autonomous women's movement in India, which has existed almost ten years now, respond to such practices? What are its possibilities for action?
A. It is not easy to fight practices of this type that affect all social strata, because women are very much under the control of their families. When they complain about the treatment inflicted on them or try to take refuge with their parents, the latter most often send them back to their husband's families. Any proposal for breaking with that family is, thus, very problematical.
Nonetheless, the problem of violence against women was what gave rise to the first mass campaign by the Indian feminist movement. Several cases of women being raped by policemen had already been made public when the story of a 14-year-old girl raped by two police officers in 1978 made this question, which had previously been taboo, appear as a major social evil. It caused a stir throughout the country.
After the policemen were first pronounced innocent by the local court (which concentrated instead on the girl's "lack of morals"), they were sentenced to seven and a half years in prison by the High Court, which overruled the first judgement. But the Supreme Court in turn intervened in 1979 to rule that the girl had consented, and this unleashed a vast argument throughout the country, with a petition signed by well-known rersonalities, intellectuals, and so forih. Finally, through this campaign, the women's movement forced the government to revise the law on rape in 1980.
Q. What are the distinctive features of the Indian feminist movement by comparison with what you know of other women's movements throughout the world?
A. You could say that the birth of the autonomous women's movement in 1975 marked a new phase in the struggle of Indian women, who up until then had participated in movements against price rises or against corruption, but had never mobilized around their specific problems.
The influence of the feminist movement in the West led to the formation of the first women's groups in 1975 in the universities but also among working-class women. There had been a lot of women's associations connected with political parties, but they were regarded as transmitters of the line of the parties concerned and not as groupings designed to take up the questions of special concern to women. Moreover, neither the women's mutual aid or charitable associations nor the proreligious organization for aid to the Third nongovernmental nonWorld, based in the Netherlands.
nongovernmental and non-religious organization for aid to the Third World, based in Oxford in Britain.
23
BARODA WOMEN'S MOVEMENT FIGHTS VIOLENCE
A RECENT rape case in the Broach district of Gujarat has mobilized women's organizations in the area in a successful demand that the Supreme Court of India take over the case from local authorities.
The nightmarish incident occurred on January 6 in Devidab village, according to the Indian Express of January 21, 1986. A woman of the Adivasi tribe and her husband were forcibly taken from their home by four policemen after they had lodged a complaint about the kidnapping of a minor girl relative. The woman was repeatedly raped in the police truck and again at the police station. She and her husband were released only after relatives came up with a bribe of 2,000 rupees (approximately 160 US dollars).
The woman's request for a medical examination was refused by the government hospital at Rajpipla since the police superintendent had refused to authorize it. Insisting that she was a woman of "loose morals," the superintendent also refused to record the couple's complaints. Instead they were taken to the Sagbara police station where they were threatened and forced to withdraw their allegations.
The Baroda-based women's organization, Sahiyar, demanded that the case be taken away from the local police and called upon all civil rights activists and women's organizations in Gujarat jointly to initiate protest action. As a result the Indian Supreme Court on January 22 asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to take over the investigation.
The case is expected to become a national issue. It has already had a revitalizing effect on the women's movement in Baroda where Sahiyar is feminist group in 1980, but not last. For several years the thing that existed were the reform women's associations that organi beauty contests or afternoon sewi bees. Then we started up again small discussion groups in the versity on the personal proble relating to our situation in families, the discrimination we face With respect to our brothers, the problems of sexual harassment, and so forth.
On March 8, 1985, we decided to take a public initiative by organizing an exposition on sexual discrimination and the way that some women had started fighting against this state of affairs in the rest of the country. The idea was to lay the basis for developing an understanding of problems such as the dowry system, the misuse of amniocentesis and the situation of working women. The situation of working women. he exposition had to be as visual as possible, with a maximum use of photos and graphics, inasmuch as 75 per cent of women can neither read nor write. Nearly 500 people came, which was a success, and the exposition was then used in other cities.
Besides this, we discussed the economic and social problems facing women and the need for establishing links with other social groupings. Not all the women were convinced about this. Then came the uprisings organized in Baroda by the middle strata against the principle of quotas reserving a certain number of places for members of the Backward Castes (Untouchables) in the various aspects of social life, in particular in the educational system. This led a lot of feminists to take up the defense of the Untouchables and take part in demonstrations in defense of their interests, even though most of them came from the middle strata themselves.
It has to be said that these women's own situation certainly helped them become conscious of this problem, because in India women are considered Untouchables during menstruation, and in fact they cannot say that they belong to any caste, since their status will be redetermined by marriage. This example is a good illustration of how the struggle of women for their emancipation is playing, and will continue to play, an important role in the fight for radical social transformations. The place of the women's movement is alongside all of those, male and female, who are fighting to abolish the class system and the prejudices bound up with the caste system. But at the same time, it will have a decisive weight in the battle to assure that the new social relations bring a genuine emancipation of all individuals. International Viewpoint 10 March 1986 organizing meetings and demonstrations fessional associations of women in the liberal professions or the informal sector had such a purpose. It was only with the appearance of the autonomous women's movement that we saw such women's organizations.
coordinating committee of women's groups was set up in 1978, and it has given impetus to various initiatives - national conferences, Women's Day celebrations, as well as campaigns such as the one against rape, protest actions against certain sexist films inciting violence against women, and against the deaths of several young women subjected to torture by their husbands.
In 1981, the women's movement backed the strike by domestics demanding higher wages, two days off a month and medical insurance, a strike that in particular protested against the sexual aggressions to which they were being subjected by their employers. This struggle made it possible to get the unions to move a bit, but overall, unfortunately, the organizations of the workers' movement remain quite insensitive to the problem of the specific oppression of women. The trade-union leaders have done practically nothing on the question of day-care centers, canteens or the problem of working hours, no more than on the problem of sexual segregation of the workforce or sexual harassment on the job.
In the textile industry, the union leaders have even come to an agree ment with the bosses to limit the number of jobs for women, or to replace women with men in cases of rationalization or mechanization. This has not made the tasks of feminists in the unions any easier. And that is why the idea has arisen of forming women's unions. In several unions, women have formed committees in 24 order to be able to put pressure more effectively on the leaderships.
Q. Are there "women's places," as there are in other countries. And how is the movement organized?
A. Yes there are women's homes in several cities. Many women's groups after a few years have come to understand that it was not enough to engage in initiatives, campaigns, and demonstrations - no matter how broad - without offering some minimum concrete alternative for the victims of violence or sexual discrimination. This is what led to the opening of centers for battered women, rape victims, or victims of the dowry system. Other groups, anxious to avoid isolation, have built ties with broader social movements, such as the movement of shanty-town dwellers or the movement against castes and communalism, or they have become involved in actively supporting workers' strikes.
While there is no federation of groups in different cities in the proper sense of the term, the groups active on the same question have links. This is true for example of the groups that are active on the question of rape, the dowry system or forced contra ception. They all support the fortnightly magazine Manushi ['Human"], which is published alternately in English and Hindi, and which serves as a forum in which the various groups can discuss their respective positions and experiences. In addition, there are many local or regional bulletins, which reflect the diversity of the women's movement.
However, it has to be said that the development of the autonomous movement has been very uneven. In my city, Baroda, for example, there was an initial attempt to set up a