1) Preface: –
“Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.” – Lord Buddha
“Conflicts have no beginning and no end; everything grows together in mutual causation; no single actor carries all the responsibility and no single actor carries all the guilt” – Johan Galtung
- Conflict is avoidable facet of human life
- The absence of conflict is impossible to reach
- The maturity of society it thus measured not on the basis of absence of conflict but it’s capacity to resolve it
- The state with its judiciary is the final arbiter of all conflicts , but there always exists traditional way of setting disputes at family or village level.
- India was and is a mosaic of languages, cultures and ethnicities, not simply tolerating each other but accepting and harmonising all the diversities as part of the composite whole.
- India is a modern state created upon an ancient civilization and secular one created on the basis of profoundly religious society.
2) Genesis of Conflict :-
- The real problem in many of our States and regions is economic; the conflict is over resources but camouflaged in various forms of identity politics based on religion, on caste, on region, on ethnicity, on language and less frequently based on ideological divides.
3) Concept of Conflict : –
Incomatibility of perspective
- Conflict has been defined as a situation between two or more parties who see their perspectives as incompatible. Conflicts have a negative beneficial connotation, but some conflicts are desirable as they can create change.
Search for identity , Sense of Belonging & Social Capital
- Individuals see themselves as members of a variety of groups which often span a number of their interests. For example, an individual’s geographical origin, gender, caste, class,language, politics, ethnicity, profession and social commitments make him a member of various groups. Each of these collectivities, to all of which the individual belongs, tends to give him a particular identity,but together he has multiple identities.
- The search for identity is a powerful psychological driving force which has propelled human civilization.Identity is often evocative. It deals with a myth or an imagined community which has all the power and potential necessary for political mobilization.
- The sense of identity can contribute enormously to the strength and warmth of an individual’s relations with others such as his neighbors, members of his community, fellow citizens or people who profess the same religion.
- The concept of social capital, advocated by Robert Putnam, tells us how a shared identity with others in the same social community can make the lives of all those in that community so much more harmonious and meaningful. To that extent, the sense of belonging to the social community becomes a valuable resource;almost like capital.
- And yet, identity can also kill – and kill with abandon.A strong and exclusive sense of belonging to one group does, in many cases, lead to conflict.
- We live in an increasingly violent world, because of the conflicts we generate.The twentieth century was, by far, the most violent period that humanity lived through.Almost three times as many people were killed in conflicts in the twentieth century than in the previous four centuries combined together.
- The collateral damage of conflict is of both physical and mental. In the physical sense it leads to loss of life, infrastructure damage etc, but from psycological perspective it leads to erosion of faith in institution , public order , mutual trust . Building a road is easier than building the trust.
Conflict Life cycle
- The potential for conflict will always exist in a society with its members having different mores, interests, and socio-economic conditions and needs.
- Individual tension-An individual or a group have a sense that they are wronged.Poor Governance & Socioeconomic inequality are major reasons.
- Latent Conflict – Tensions may lead to simmering discontent and may manifest as request /milder protest before authority. This is the most opportune stage for administration to intervene and stop the conflict.
- Escalation of Tension :-The manifestations are being processions,, strikes, bandhs etc.Unattended grievances, overlooked concerns, neglected tensions by the Administration leads to this stage.
- Eruption:- Tensions if not managed properly lead to a situation where a small ‘spark’ leads to eruption of violence. The ‘spark’ or the trigger may by itself not be a major event, but it leads to further polarization of the people involved, and becomes an excuse for the violent eruption.Usually this the stage where administration engages in ‘fire-fighting‘ strategies.
- Stalemate: This is a situation similar to the ‘latent tension’ and has the potential to erupt at regular intervals.
4)History of Conflict and Resolution in India :-
- Multi-ethnic , religious and identity based conflict with serious geographical and historical overtones include secessionist movement in N-E region, Kashmir and Punjab.The conflict resolution for these have different dimensions such as – peace instruments like – Assam accord, Autonomous territorial councils , extension of PESA and Forest rights act in N-E region to enforcing AFSPA in disturbed areas and deployment of military personnel in ares like Kashmir and Punjab where the issue is not only of national security and sovereignty but also of national strategic importance.
- Linguistic conflict led to creation of states on the lines of language and protection of language through constitutional means resolved this issue
- Water conflict is yet to be resolved . Thought constitution has provided enough provision for water conflict resolution , the issues are far from over.The issues is intense in peninsular India (south India) as the river in this regions are mostly seasonal or carry a very low volume of water in the dry seasons.While north India fights against flood , south India fights against drought. Water management has been a great challenge for this vast county and the issue can be resolved only through comprehensive action by multiple civil society actors . water pollution only aggravates the woes .
- Ideological Conflict – Left wing extremism and their method to capture the state through revolution and exploiting the innocent of tribal to fight for their cause has been one of the major internal security threat that India has ever faced, however comprehensive approaches by govt has been able to contain the situation and deny them the ideological advantage.
- Communal Conflicts – Partition of India happened on communal lines and it is no wonder the issue still persists today with abrupt manifestations in isolated corners of society.Thanks to the visions of leader of India to establish a secular state , India is far more less communal the time of partition. More secular measures are need of the hour to eradicate this social bigotry.
- Regional Inequality – It is one of the major issue of conflict that India faces today. Bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh is its very recent manifestations.Economic deveopment and equitable distribution of fruits of growth can only contain this issue in a long term.
5) Role of state and solution for conflict resolution :-
- States and its apparatus tended to view conflicts more in terms of break-down of law and order and less in terms of failure of socio-economic , governance and political processes.Thus resorting to fire fighting mechanism .
- State should pay adequate attention to genesis and try to contain the conflict before it appears .
- capacity building and enhancing effectiveness of institutions.
- Indian Constitution with democratic polity has the ability for conflict resolution in a diverse society as India. Their measures if implemented in letter and spirit can bring transformation in Indian society and conflict of serious nature will be a thing of the past.
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On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]No need to remember all the data, only pick out few important ones to use in your answers.
The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.