Dads changing nappies, moms flipping through files!

A role-reversal is slowly sneaking into our household breaking the ‘home-hearth’ stereotype of women

See, papa is changing nappies; squeals a six year old RohitSaxena with disbelief, whose dad mingle with household chores as easily as salt dissolves in water. His mother is working with a call center, a high wattage job that demands working at odd hours. Daddy dearest runs a chemist shop, just outside his house and thus remain accessible 24/7.

Mumbai, like other metros in India, is witnessing change not only in its gender profile but also its unique expression since past few years. Globalization has literally forced women out from their traditional ‘home-n-hearth’ closets.

A role reversal is slowly sneaking into our household. Many believe that moms should not step into dad’s shoes. The traditional image of moms attending to kids’ daily chores gets a beating these days. Now, the sight of a dad changing diapers and peeling off potatoes won’t make a big surprise.

Salma Haidar, who works in an NGO believes, now the economic imperatives shape family construct.‘Earlier in our community the women were seldom allowed to peek out, leave alone attending offices for work. Now the situation has diametrically changed. Today they even work in shifts, as you find in news channels, call centers and many more similar workstations,’ says Salma.

‘Hard times require tough decision,’ pontificates a media executive Manuel Fernandez, who believes this reflect gradual empowerment of women. ‘There are many examples of such reversals of roles, particularly in a cosmopolitan city like Mumbai,’ he says.

Out rightly rejecting the contention that it’s the outcome of Western impact, he says, ‘this is wrong to say we have embraced Western culture. In our Indian traditions where women fought valiantly to defend her nation, had to leave her offspring back at home.’ 

Salam Slumbai!

 Govandi, in Mumbai’s backyard, boasts of a slumboat (like houseboats in Srinagar!) –where an entire slum float on sludge and water. It is probably an only city in India with such ‘distinctive’ feature.  Every monsoon when the water level raises this slum too gets ‘taller’.

The city which has a paucity of land and moving vertical – towards skyward, treats this as a living example of the adage - survival of the fittest – a Darwinian principle still not repudiated by scientific community unlike his many other doctrines. The people improvised this watery settlement by using plastics and rubber wastes to erect their floating tents – a habitat borne out of sheer exigency.

This may be an ‘eye-candy’ for news hungry scribes but for the city planners, MHADA, etal it’s a shame as they have miserably failed to stem housing crises despite their unceasing braggadocio appeared in advertisements and hoardings prior to every master plan. These are all seems to keep the visiting World Bank dignitaries in good humour. After all they fund many of our projects.

Even with scarce space the city still boasts of charisma to pull people from grey areas. For the last twenty year or so the city has witnessed huge influx of carpet baggers from dusty villages lying deep in hinterland. The immigrants are from all the four geographical zones of India.  

The city bounded by sea from all the four sides cannot stretch the land and thus a highly scarce commodity here. The ‘floating’ shanty in Govandi highlights another aspect of civic violation. Even the water bodies and nullahs in Mumbai are not immune from encroachment – they are not safe from the prying eyes of developers and land sharks, too!

The recent outbursts against a particular diaspora settled in Mumbai have much to do with the problem like these. It provides fodder to those riding on linguistic chariots. 

The general election is in the offing and the issue will undoubtedly raise questions on the nation’s richest city’s credibility. The prejudiced decisions may create more problems than solving it. The coming election seems to be fought on such local issues as it affects all of us.

Bail out India from political quagmire

India is undergoing astrange spasm as it isrocked by the twin evils of corruption and intimidation. The social strains at ground zero have a telling effect on polity which reflects fractured verdict in every successive election since past two decades. There have also been attempts to subvert the basic nature of our constitution. We are becomingincreasingly illiberal and restive andsuccumb to political indoctrination despite economic liberalism and exposure to global markets.

At this juncture we need a benevolent government that sticks to the concept of welfare state rather thanwhimsical and vengeful.A couple of years agothe buzz was doing the round that India with its impressive growth ratewould soon attain the status of super power. We never hesitated, at that time, comparing India with China.Now that hope has been belied and our growth rate has almost touched an all-time low (from 10% to 5%).

The falling growth rate, poor records of health care, tyrannical tax regime, trailing on foreign policy and even sports have put our heads in shame.There is a serious need to overhaul and cleanse the existing blighted system that has developed an attitude inimical to nation’s growth and people’s aspirations.Even several decades of the end of license-permit-raj the bureaucratic haughtiness is yet to be shaken to provide smooth passage to sound entrepreneurial and commercial development.

Our tax regime is extremely irrational and aggressive that needs to be simplified to pave the country’s economic prosperity. GST is a landmark legislation brought about to reform the paralyzed economy by this government.

Resources allocation is yet another front that requires serious pondering. The wasteful expenditure should be curtailed as our economy is still languishing in recession and economic downturn.

The astronomical figure of our black money stashed in international banks abroad has also added to the common man’s miseries. According to one estimates it is closer to around rupees three lakh crore – the equivalent of amount spent on our annual health care and education budget.

India has a glut of archaic laws that are instrumental in placing us in uncomfortable position. We need to do away with such Victorian laws, such as draconian land acquisition act which was recently modified and its amended version were presented in our parliament.

The moral and spiritual quotient of our nation has seen the worst fall as rape after rape has become the norm. Toughest law is needed to deal with the situation that may send the strong message to the perpetrators of the heinous crime.

Our police, on innumerable occasions are indicted of torture during the interrogation of undertrials. The custodial deaths too at times occur. The trend must be reversed and our law enforcers should rely on modern techniques during interrogation.

Besides this we also need free providence of health care and education till 10^th standard. And English should be made compulsory for the students to remove urban-rural disparity.

The blasphemy and sedition laws too should be removed to allow free expression as this the bedrock of progress of any nation. The history has proved this time and again.  

Do away with fake encounters, third degrees

In its landmark judgment sometimes back, the Supreme Court has elicited its displeasure over the fake encounters frequently carried out by the police. Media Eye revisits the ominous past and explores its wider implications.  

Human rights are frequently violated by thedabang (powerful) people and we meekly watch these happen right under our very nose. Cases of torture, custodial deaths, rapes, fake encounters, caste and creed-centric genocides and pogrom no longer spur our conscience the way it should.

An under trial charged with some petty crime like theft on condition of anonymity said that the police officials have meted out ‘inhuman’ treatment. ‘On one occasion they have even asked me to urinate over a meshwork of live wire. On my blunt refusal, they jabbed baton inside my arse so hard that I convulsed due to unbearable pain. The very next moment I was writhing in a pool of blood on the floor in great agony.’

Third-degree seems to have become a norm as our criminal jurisprudence reeks with age-old British legacy. Torture is widely used by the police. To eliminate the use of torture during investigation stage, it is absolutely necessary to impart scientific training to them. They should be provided with necessary equipments, such as lie detector and DNA Finger printing technology, to avoid third degree torture.

Article 21 of Indian Constitution says, “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.”  Therefore any form of torture or cruel inhuman and degrading treatment either during investigation, interrogation or otherwise needs the severest condemnation. No civilized nation can permit this to happen.

Terrorists too tortures innocent people. However, state terrorism is no answer to combat terrorism. This would only provide legitimacy to ‘terrorism’. In one of his soul stirring speech, former chief justice of India, Dr A. S. Anand in 8th International Symposium on ‘Torture’ said, “Torture is the wound in the soul so painful that sometimes you can almost touch it, but it is also so intangible that there is no way to heal it. Torture is anguish squeezing in your chest, cold as ice and heavy as a stone, paralyzing as sleep and dark as the abyss. Torture is despair and fear and rage and hate.” 

Violence cannot be spurned through violence. Had that been the case, the nerve-wracking problems of Kashmir, Kabul , Baghdad and Jerusalem would not have pushed the world almost to the brink of third world war. Similarly, fake encounters too cannot bring crime to an end. It is true that violence has surpassed all the previous limits. The demand that heinous crimes require exemplary punishment, too, is justified. But the law cannot be allowed to become a tool to serve unlawful acts, however pristine that may appear.

‘Encounter specialists’ are the product of the intoxicating thinking of our vocal middle class. To buttress their contention, they provide data showing soaring crime. But you allow this to happen today, tomorrow it may be possible that your son coming late in the night may fall prey to police’s bullets. And there is no dearth of ‘finding’ concocted pretexts and doctored evidence for these McCauley’s offspring. It is akin to replacing one set of crime with another.

‘We treat such news with urban callousness’

Says an official on mantralaya fire that gutted several floors of this iconic Maharashtra government headquarter over a year ago to MediaEye

Mantralaya fire that gutted the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh floors of the iconic head quarter of Maharashtra government have come as a shocker as it was found to be inadequately equipped for emergency firefighting…

‘I was in my office with loads of file to dispose. At around 2.20-2.30 people screamed …’fire erupts on fourth floor…They shouted, ‘run and reach to the ground floor to save your skin’… I thought it may be a small blaze that can be doused soon…but unfortunately it turned out  be a major inferno…reducing everything on its way to cinders….everything reduced into charred n smoky remains post tragedy  … I was part of the supervising team headed by the CM himself.

The fire tenders reached considerably late (though its office remains under one km radius of the iconic Mantralaya, at Nariman Point)…They cited traffic snarl as the reason for the delay…Blame game, post blaze, started being tossed between concerned government departments…this is of no use as the tragedy has already happened and five precious lives lost… The disaster management cell of the state woke up albeit late…in haste took several measures to douse fire… 40% building had suffered ghastly burns…many important files were reduced into cinders…pushed the state many years back…

Mystery clouds every investigative process post inferno. The reports blink at the truth. Why? On June 21, the fire gutted the state government headquarters at Mantralaya. The administration’s reaction was predictable – sirens and bells of fire-fighters pierced through the sleepy afternoon to douse the raging inferno, albeit much after the lashing demon has gutted everything in their reach and jumped over three floors to devour CM’s office and the communication center at 6^th and 7^th floors respectively. 

The civic agency wakes up after tragedy stuck, as usual. We are inured to this, no matter how much destruction it causes. The whopping figure – hundreds of crores have been reduced into ashes as almost one-fourth of the building has been completely burnt. This seldom move us as we lap up news with crispy snacks and steaming tea, glancing intermittently at our watches to ensure that 8. 30-local shouldn’t elude us; they shrug such news with typical urban callousness: bade badeshahronmeinchotee-choteebateinhoteerahteehain –who cares!

Post fire, the opposition came out with sabotage angle which lacks substance…again at their best to play political one-upmanship…   

Art of bluffing people

Media Eye

The politics in India has come of age and so do the bootleggers, bootlickers and law-twisters. Democracy has been reduced to ‘demoncracy’ now. The political class of the pre-independence era seldom smacked of debauchery and chicanery. Sixty seven year down the lane, we find everything in chaotic state.

‘If we grab power, we will free the state from its ninety-eight thousand crore debt,’ bluffeda prominent Maharashtra politician, seducing millions of hoi polloi a decade ago.The debt has multiplied and reached an astronomical figure now. Their ramblings, rantings, musings and utterings are all to keep the people in good humour.

Many development projects kick-started by the government promised to rehabilitate the people dislocated by it, but alas! Years after year disappeared like snowflakes but no sops reached them. Dushyant Kumar, a poet who died at the tender age of 32, wrote, ‘Yehantakaateaatesookhjaateinhainkainadiyan, hameinmaloomhaipaneekahanthehrahuahoga’ (Numerous rivers dry up prior to reaching here we know where the water has stuck). In Bihar, infamous for charlatans and political chicanery, during 80s work of a hydroelectricity project – called Subernrekha Project - on Chandil River in Ranchi district (now in Jharkhand) was in full swing. The area, which was surrounded by lush green overarching mountains, serpentine streams and dense forest (now, it is on the verge of extinction), was the home to distraught tribals and adivasis who were displaced and more than a quarter of century had passed since they are languishing behind uncertainty and yet not rehabilitated! A cruel joke played on them by the power that be. A scribe of an English tabloid Amrit Bazar Patrika who was trying to bust the racket was showered with bullets on Chandil highway! It is the political cannibalism at its worst.

Even our comrades are trying to dust every single grains of ‘Marxian truth’ from their totalitarian attire! Laissez faire has shoved aside the centralized economy. Kolkata will no longer portray a familiar picture of trade unionists holding placards with lustrous red sickle-hammer chanting monotonous ‘Band karo’ (shut down) mantra. Now the poor artists and scribes are soon to shut down their business. Thanks to the didi and her megalomaniac ways.

Shun politics of hulla bol

Jawed Khurshid - MediaEye

HallaBol – a concept popularized by late SafdarHashmi, a human rights ideologue and NukkadNatak exponent, has gained currency among various outfits – political as well as apolitical.

Mumbai is now witnessing the same, albeit with a Halloween twist, as droves of flag fluttering bikes vroom past in threatening proposition. Are they part of the same old political process that visualizes transition post election sans any tantrums?

Political parties have undergone a sea change since independence. The iconic austerity that marked every general election, then, is missing now. Earlier, men in khadi used to visit electorates in their constituencies with folded hands and customary smiles, requesting for their votes. Now it has been replaced by bike shows, shakti-pradarshan (through rallies, dharnas and bandhs or strikes) andtod-phod (destroying public properties).

Expressing dissents on policies is a natural right and granted to every citizens in democratic polity. Can anybody question this? Those who do are labeled as despots and autocrats, and rightly so. They become part of ignominious history, like Libya’s Gaddafi and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak.

Ironically, for today’s democrats the yesteryears’ people-centric approach remains a hangover. They provide various sops to keep electorate in good humor; the major economic benefits literally fell into the kitties of nation’s economic majors. FDI may trigger employment and provide semblance of orderliness to retail sectors but it is the corporate who will be the real beneficiary.

The general election is round the corner and with this the politicos have upped their ante in a horde to outmaneuver each other. The bike shows or halla bol to bolster their presence on city’s electoral map are greatly disturbing. The chaos, long jams and at times conflicts between political opponents too emerge, which has an ominous portent – that may mar the peace of this cosmopolitan city.

Today the gizmos have occupied the people, particularly the youth’s imagination. Facebook, twitter, et al are there to connect to the people particularly the genX, most political parties are eying for. This would ensure wider reach and exposes one to more interactive sessions a far cry for disturbing hulla bol.