The grandest temples built by almost every royal dynasty in India is in their capital city — Except the Rashtrakutas. Their capital was Manyakheta; their grandest temple is in Ellora.
In every other temple, art and beauty dull the viewers’ sense of awe, at the engineering, logistics, audacity and willpower of the minds behind it.
Ellora allows no such scope. No surprise that some petty minds have attributed it to ancient aliens. Could mere mortal men with hammer and chisel, sculpt away a mountain to present a temple?
Local legend has it that even its own builders could scarcely believe they had built the temple, and murmured that surely gandharvas and yakshas had helped them when they were not looking.
The temple is 90 feet tall, 200 feet deep, a 100 feet wide; an island of art in a lake of rock.
It is, perhaps, no coincidence that its patron, the Rashtrakuta King Krishna I, shares the name of the Govardhana Giridhari.
Another legend has it that the queen mother went on a fast that she swore to end only when the kalasa of the temple was completed; the sthapathi therefore, sculpted that kalasa first, to save her life, and also built the temple top-down rather than bottoms-up.
One small story for a queen mother, one giant leap for architecture.
Unlike Kanchipuram or Pattadakkal, there are no inscriptions in this temple.
Architecture
The tri-tala Dravida vimana , with an octagonal Dravida shikhara, comparable to the Pallava Dharmaraja ratha monolith in Mahabalipuram, the Pandya Vettuvankoil monolith in Kazhugumalai, and Chalukya Mallikarjuna temple in Pattadakkal; kosthas in the paada, kutas and shaalas in the vimana, leave us no doubt.
So, art historians suspect this temple was inspired by Pattadakkal Virupaksha temple.
The garbhagruham is surrounded by an open circumambulatory passage, punctuated by five parivaara shrines, three of which have octagonal Dravida shikharas, and the other two wagon-shaped shaalaakaara shikharas.
A sukhanasi, which spans the antarala/ardha-mandapa fronts the main vimana.
A marvellous set of four roaring lions tops the massively pillared sabha-mandapa. The body of the lions point in the cardinal directions, while the faces are turned towards the sub-directions.
The sabha mandapa has spacious porticos on north and south, and a large covered one at the entrance. This leads forward to a nandi mandapa, with a magnificent Nandi facing his master.
Porticos in the sabha-mandapa are clearly a continuation of Chalukyan architecture; they are also a feature of the Maaru-Gurjara category of Nagari architecture — the most famous examples of these are in Khajuraho.
Staircases fall away on either side of the sabha-mandapa entrance. Yes! – the whole temple is designed as a two-storey structure. The adishtaana is the lower floor, above a upapitha featuring majestic elephants, symbolically bearing the weight of the temple.
Damsels, sometimes lions, feature between the elephants.
The remnant walls of the hill serve both as a praakaara wall and as an intermittent maalika of different shrines, in one, two, or three floors. These include:
· A mandapa for Ganga, Yamuna, Sarasvati.
· A chitra mandapa on the first floor, in the northern wall, with extremely beautiful sculptures.
· A pillared mandapa in the eastern wall, with various murtis on the back wall.
· A mandapa in the southern wall, with sapta matrika.
· Some unfinished mandapas in the southern wall.
A trishula-stambha and an elephant, stand on either side of the Nandi-mandapa. The front wall is extensively covered with sculptures, both inside and outside, and has a mahadvaara in the middle.
The temple is unfinished, as mysteriously as Mamallapuram and Vettuvankoil. If it had been completed, internal staircases would have led to half-finished mandapas.
And yet,
Grammar stutters, adjectives wilt, metaphors go into hiding. How does one control one’s senses, when they are overloaded? Perhaps, that is why there are no inscriptions.
Autographs of sculptors? They chose to depict Bhrigu and Shukra, authors of two ancient shilpa shaastras, instead of themselves.
Sculptures
Sculptures in a temple are usually decorative. Two sculptures of Ravana lifting Kailasa in Ellora, though, are suggestive, and placed strategically.
One is chitraardham, a low-relief sculpture in the upapithaa of northern wall of the sabha-mandapa.
It strongly reminds us of a similar sculpture in Pattadakkal, which is located decoratively in a pillar.
The other is chitram, fully in the round, in the upapitha of the southern wall of the sabha mandapa. His heads in a circle, the enormous burden of lifting the mountain so telling that every face is crying out, his every muscle taut in strain, his hands stretching in every direction, Ravana presents the very picture of limitless hubris and impending humility.
Siva, smiling amusedly, seated nonchalantly, while a troubled Parvati leans on him in confusion.
The two Ravanas are lifting not only the mountain in their sculptures, but also the entire mountain that is the vimanam of the Ellora Kailasanatha temple.
On the first floor of the sabha mandapa are two contrasting sculptures side by side — one of Siva emerging out of the linga built by Markandeya and kicking Yama in his chest; the other of Gangadhara.
But we have hurried inside in eagerness. Let us restart at the entrance.
The front wall of the temple forms a courtyard with the jutting tail-ends of the hill. All three are profusely decorated with various samhara-murtis in the north — Gajasamhara, Narasimha, Trivikrama, BhuVaraha and AshtaDikpalas in the south — all on their vahanas. These sculptures have suffered great damage.
Gajalakshmi.
As we enter, we are greeted by the essence of auspiciousness — Gajalakshmi — seated on a lotus, bathed by two elephants upturning pots of water over her, while two more fetch water from the pond filled with lotuses in front.
The whole panel is about 20 feet tall; traces of mortar and paint at the very top indicate that the entire panel was painted — as was perhaps every wall of the top.
There is grandeur in the remaining grayness; there must have been splendour in original colours.
The lotus spread a few feet forward in full three dimensionality, accented by the towering mace-bearing dvarapalakas on either side.
In sharp contrast on the other side, is a ferocious Gajasamhara Murthy, tearing apart the elephant skin which he holds overhead, while one hand holds a bowl for the blood, one hand reassures Devi, one foot rests on several ganas, and Kalabhairava, skeletal and terrifying, dances between his feet.
The inside of the front wall is also as resplendent with giant sculptures as the outside, but far less worn out.
Among these are Mahishasura Mardhini, Govardhana Giridhaari and Gauriprasaada.
The most arresting sight here is Tripurantaka — Siva astride a chariot, Brahma steering the horses, arching the majestic bow that in a later yuga, the Ikshvaaku prince Rama would string in the court of Janaka.
This is not on one wall, within one kostha, but traverses two walls, as the horses turn a corner, giving us a sense of their speed.
The three floating cities of the eponymous Tripura are shown above to the right.
Equally dynamic is a sculpture of Siva as UrdhvaTandava. Traces of painted designs are visible about this. The joy and exuberance of Siva as he dances with abandon, can be seen in his smile.
Head to toe, his body curves in flowing tribhanga, his left leg almost perfectly balanced in the middle, his right leg bent in balanced grace; his arms flow in every direction in symmetry; a seated gana accompanies him perhaps, attempting to synchronise with Siva’s own damaru.
Narasimha battling Hiranya is another extremely dynamic sculpture, complimenting UrdhvaTandava on the other side of the Nandi mandapa.
Narasimha has locked one hand of the asura, and has gripped his girdle with another hand, ready to lift the asura and slam him on the other side.
Notice Hiranya is entirely behind Narasimha. This contrasts strongly with the Pattadakkal depiction, where Narasimha is behind Hiranya, and the Kanchipuram depiction, where they are face-to-face.
Each sculptor, a century apart, has chosen a different pose at a different time in the combat.
Now compare the three depictions of Durga battling Mahishasura — they are almost perfect copies of each other, except in size.
The Pattadakkal sculpture is a miniature on a pillar; the asura is defeated and running. The other two are large panels several feet tall and high.
Very subtle differences mark them: in the Ellora version, arrows fly, showing the heat of the battle. In the Mamallapuram version, the asura is about to retreat.
Mithunas, dvarapalakas, ghata-pallavas, the entire Ramayana and Mahabharata in miniature — the cornucopia that is Ellora is endless.
No essay can capture them. One of India’s greatest artists, Sri Chandru, ex-Principal of Government Fine Arts college, Chennai, was so taken by the rajaleelaasana of Siva in a negligible corner under a mandapa, and its resemblance to this posture in Vettuvankoil, that he immediately tried to mimic it.
Bhrighu and Shukra would have smiled knowingly.
Paintings
We can see patches of mortar and some painting over them in several sculptures and walls of the temple. They are most visible in the sabha mandapa, especially on the ceiling.
It is quite dark here, so difficult to see and photograph. One wonders how the artists painted such beautiful pictures in such dim light.
Of note is a painting of Siva in what seems to be Bhujanga Trassa, one leg lifted as though frightened (trassa) by seeing a snake (bhujanga); a popular theme among Chola bronzes, where the left leg is raised; here, though, it is the right leg raised, a variation only found in Madurai.
The paintings of Ajanta are more famous. But there are also paintings in the Jain caves of Ellora not to be missed.
Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
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Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.
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.
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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.
2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
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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.
