India and Pakistan’s 70 years of Independence: A look back at how destiny set the midnight’s children apart.
India and Pakistan mark their 70th year of existence on 14 and 15 August. Seventy years ago, both nations stared at an uncertain future after the tumultuous episode of Partition, which killed more than a million people on either side of the new border.
As Jawaharlal Nehru and Muhammad Ali Jinnah were addressing their respective Constituent Assemblies, they knew the task ahead was not going to be easy. Both nations lacked the institutions that could sustain the test of time. Democracy was an alien concept in both countries — more so in Pakistan. A model of governance had to be institutionalised through a written Constitution. Moreover, both nation-states had a myriad of socio-political issues to resolve — ethnic and linguistic sub-nationalism, role of religion in state affairs, devolution of power to constituents and implementing land reforms.
While both countries faced similar socio-economic issues, India had the advantage of being the successor state of the British Raj. In 1947, India was home to about a quarter of the world population and ranked among the top five industrialised nations in the world. Pakistan, on the other hand, was nothing more than an amputated piece of land without a coherent industrial base or even a capital city.
In the backdrop of such challenges, Nehru and Jinnah came up with impressive inaugural speeches. While Nehru’s “Tryst with Destiny” speech set the tone for India’s future role as a responsible voice of the third world, Jinnah’s “secular State” speech sought to position Pakistan as a country where every citizen, irrespective of his religion will be treated equally.
Although, Jinnah’s speech sounded an antithesis of the very concept of Pakistan – a state for the Muslims of India. However, both leaders would not have had the slightest of idea on how the destinies of their countries would pan out in the next seven decades.
Lord Louis Mountbatten decided on the Partition of the Indian Subcontinent on 3 June 1947.
The sheer power of personalities
India had Jawaharlal Nehru at the helm of affairs till his death in May 1964, while Jinnah lost his battle against tuberculosis within 13 months of Pakistan’s creation as a separate homeland for the Muslims of the Indian Subcontinent.
Strong personalities have often shaped the early destinies of countries. Kemal Pasha Ataturk ruled modern-day Turkey from 1923 to 1938, transforming the Islamic Caliphate into a modern secular republic. Similarly, George Washington, the founding father of the United States, led the world’s first oldest democracy, first as a military leader and then as its inaugural president, in the process creating an edifice by which the country still stands by – more or less.
Despite all his flaws, Nehru was an institution builder, creating and nurturing several institutions that have endured the test of time. The Election Commission – arguably the best-run State institution — is perhaps the single biggest contribution of Nehru.
Whether every Nehruvian institution was effective is still debatable, but nevertheless, Nehru turned his vision of a socialist, democratic and secular India into reality before he passed away on 27 May 1964.
Nehru’s impact on India’s early history can be gauged by the fact that it was a young Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who had paid the richest tribute to his dear “Panditji“ in the Rajya Sabha:
“A dream has remained half-fulfilled, a song has become silent, and a flame has banished into the Unknown. The dream was of a world free of fear and hunger; the song a great epic resonant with the spirit of the Bhagwad Gita and as fragrant as a rose, the flame a candle which burnt all night long, showing us the way. Mother India’s beloved prince has gone to sleep.”
Jinnah died too soon to turn his vision of a Turkey-like Pakistan into reality. However, historians still debate whether Pakistan could have become South Asia’s Turkey had Jinnah lived long enough to fulfil his dream of emulating his idol Ataturk.
But history is the saga of many ifs and buts.
The reticent Jinnah never developed a second generation of leadership in the Muslim League. When asked who all he thought helped him achieve Pakistan, Jinnah remarked “I, my secretary and his typewriter”.
Jinnah’s death created a huge void in the national leadership, which could never really be filled. Pakistan struggled with political instability, the Constitution took nine years to take shape, while the idea of democracy failed in the nascent nation-state.
India’s first education minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad predicted the rise of army in Pakistan.
India’s Damocles Swords
In 1958, General (later field marshal) Ayub Khan took over the reins of the country. Since then, the military has shaped the destiny of Pakistan, either directly or indirectly.
Towards the end of 1960s, Ayub had strengthened the military’s hold over the State machinery and inaugurated a Constitution establishing a presidential form of government, elected by “basic electors” – a concept which was as vague as it sounds.
Meanwhile, India had begun to take baby steps into the world of democracy. Proving critics wrong, India successfully held four general elections. The Centre, aided by several states, also introduced legislations to implement land reforms, albeit with limited success.
Between mid-1950s and 1960s, India witnessed the climax in two major issues: official language and language-based statehood.
Nehru for the record was opposed to idea of creating states based on languages, fearing the rise of sub-nationalism. While Nehru’s fears might have been true to some extent, the move ultimately helped India to enrich the edifice of federalism – an idea which was already enshrined in the Constitution.
The federalism debate was compounded by linguistic zeal in non-Hindi parts of India. While the federalism debate was being settled, the issue of a common language propped up. With none of the languages being spoken by the majority, the question was always expected to be the Damocles Sword for the Centre.
As the Centre’s deadline of 31 January, 1965 — the day Hindi would become the sole official language — approached, Tamil Nadu erupted against the decision. Other non-Hindi speaking states like West Bengal too voiced their dissent. It took days of rioting in Tamil Nadu for the Centre to scrap the idea.
In 1967, the Union government amended the Official Languages Act, 1963 to allow English to continue as a link language until the Parliament passes a resolution to reverse the decision. The Constitution had already accorded the status of official language to 14 (now 22) languages through the VIIIth Schedule of the Constitution.
Thus, India was saved from possible Balkanisation. Although debatable, one can say that India could take such decisions, partly due to its perceived commitment to socialist and pluralistic ideals along with the strong leadership provided by the Congress party.
But the language issue turned out to be the death knell for the “two nation theory” in Pakistan.
Muhammad Zia ul Haq, a Jalandhar-born Punjabi, visited India in 1987.
A farce called ‘two-nation theory’
Pakistan was the product of the “two-nation theory” – a belief that Hindus and Muslims had always been separate nationalities within India. It did not matter whether Indian Muslims came from different cultures and ethnicity. The proponents of the theory believed that religion will be the glue to stick every Indian Muslim.
However, the theory proved to be farcical from 1950s onwards, when ethnic sentiments emerged in East Bengal over the alleged economic and cultural indifference by Pakistan’s western wing.
Separated from each other by over a thousand miles, religion was the only common factor between the two wings of the country.
The obsession with the theory meant that ethnic and language issue was never given serious consideration.
Since the establishment of Pakistan, it was amply made clear that Urdu would continue to be the national language of the newly-carved nation-state. This is what Jinnah said in a speech at Dhaka:
“Let me make it clear to you that the State language of Pakistan is going to be Urdu and no other language. Anyone who tries to mislead is merely the enemy of Pakistan. Without one State language, no nation can remain tied up solidly together and function. Look at the history of other countries. Therefore, so far as the State language is concerned, Pakistan’s language should be Urdu; but, as I have said, it will come in time.”
Nevertheless, Bengali was made an “official language” along with Urdu, but it remained so only on paper. Bengali, as conventional wisdom suggested, was always considered a “Hindu language”, while Urdu came to be signified as the symbol of Islam in the Subcontinent.
Federalism as an idea never took off in Pakistan.
In 1955, four provinces of the western wing – Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – were unified under the One Unit scheme to bring “parity” between the two wings of Pakistan. The plan also nullified the numerical advantage of the Bengalis, ending up alienating the eastern wing. The controversial scheme was ultimately scrapped in 1970.
The Anti-Bengali sentiment transgressed the economic realm too. The eastern wing was discriminated in the allocation of central funds, with western wing receiving 70 percent of the funds between 1950 and 1970.
All these factors forced Awami leader Mujibur Rahman to seek more autonomy in the 1960s. However, Pakistan’s military dictatorship brooked no dissent as Mujibur and fellow leaders were jailed for their demands.
Things reached the nadir, when Bengali nationalists declared independence in March 1971. Nine months later, Bangladesh was born.
After the liberation of Bangladesh, India signed a friendship treaty with the newly independent country.
‘Bhuttoism’ and ‘Indira’s India’
Nine months before India entered the 13-day war with Pakistan which created Bangladesh, Indira Gandhi comprehensively won the fifth general elections. But Indira’s ascendancy also sowed the seed for her ultimate ouster.
With a mammoth parliamentary majority and control over most of India’s state governments, Indira wielded absolute power. But as John Dalberg-Acton once said, “Power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Indira’s new found absolute power soon came under Opposition’s fire.
The anti-Indira sentiment reached its zenith when the Centre declared Emergency in June 1975. In the next 18 months, Opposition was suppressed, media was silenced, lakhs were forcefully sterilized and a 20-point economic programme was enforced: all this only because she was convicted for electoral malpractice.
While “Indira’s India” was flirting with authoritarianism, a truncated Pakistan finally saw the dawn of democracy under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. In 1973, Bhutto became Pakistan’s first democratically elected leader after drafting the country’s third Constitution.
For the first time in Pakistan’s political history, a government pursued an ideology-based policy. Bhutto embarked on a socialist sojourn, nationalising heavy industries, addressing labour issues, implementing two phases of land reforms – with limited success and improving ties with the Warsaw Pact countries. In the process, Bhutto created a political ideology called “Bhuttoism”.
It was probably the only time in subcontinent’s history when both countries seemed to be on the same page on the question of economy.
Vajpayee made a historic trip to Pakistan in February 1999, where he and his Pakistani counterpart signed the Lahore Declaration.
1977: watershed year in the Subcontinent
If 1947 was the year both countries won their Independence, 1977 was the year when the destinies of two countries took completely opposite turns.
After the Emergency was lifted in March 1977, Indira was booted out and the hodgepodge coalition Janata Party led by Morarji Desai came to power. Although the coalition collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions, the Janata experiment proved for the first time that the hegemonic Congress could be defeated.
While India applied the break on authoritarianism, Pakistan applied reverse gear to return to dictatorship.
On 5 July, 1977, General Muhammad Zia ul Haq overthrew the democratically elected Bhutto government. The racoon-eyed Zia cruelly put his former boss Bhutto to death in an obscure murder case and went on to rule for 11 years. Lacking a constituency of his own, Zia introduced Sharia law in a bid to gain the approval of Islamists. While reneging on his promise to hold elections till 1985, Zia consolidated the military as part of Operation Cyclone – the covert US plan to back Mujahideens in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan.
Zia’s policies created the mullah-military complex – a byword for rabid Islamisation of the State machinery. The dominant moderate voices were sidelined while Islamism gained ground in Pakistan.
The general was also single-handedly responsible for the rise of Pakistan as the “motherboard of terrorism”.
When Zia was planning a non-party election in 1985, Rajiv Gandhi had just won the largest ever mandate in India’s history. India’s youngest prime minister brought about many reforms in India’s democratic system such as penalising defections to bring long-term political stability, and reducing the voting age from 21 to 18.
Rajiv also gave the initial impetus to empowering India’s urban and rural local bodies. In 1992, his idea took form of the 11th and 12th Schedule of the Constitution.
The contrast between Zia and Rajiv administrations could not be starker than this: when Rajiv was overhauling the education system through the 1986 National Education Policy, Zia regime was busy promoting “Jinn sciences” with Saudi Arabia’s backing.
Pervez Musharraf first took power as a military ruler in 1999. He continued in power as president until 2008.
Going nuclear amid uncertainty
India and Pakistan were again at the cross-roads of destiny in the mid-90s.
India had three prime ministers – HD Deve Gowda, IK Gujral and Vajpayee – between 1996 and 1999. Coalition politics seemed to be failing once again after the Janata Party and National Front debacles.
While India was struggling with coalition politics in its 50th year of Independence, Pakistan had elected its most powerful government. In the February 1997 elections, Nawaz Sharif secured his second term as prime minister with a two-third majority.
If 1977 was politically significant in Subcontinent’s history, 1998 will go down in history as the year that changed the strategic balance of the region.
India conducted its first thermonuclear tests — Shakti I and II — on 11 and 13 May while Pakistan followed up with its own tests codenamed Chagai I and II on 28 and 30 May.
While many argued that the threat of nuclear war loomed after 1998, experts like Sumit Ganguly believed that the nuclear power has brought about a deterred both countries from going for an all-out war fearing MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). However, in his book, India, Pakistan, and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia, Ganguly also added that Pakistan would indulge in more unconventional warfare, emboldened by its nuclear capabilities.
In less than a year, however, the political situation in the nuclear-armed neighbourhood changed; that too in a matter of less than 48 hours in October 1999.
A day before Vajpayee was to take oath as the leader of the first majority-enjoying coalition government in India’s history, General Pervez Musharraf disposed Sharif on the night of 12 October 1999. And the reason for Vajpayee’s ascendency to power and Sharif’s downfall was the same: Kargil War.
Vajpayee went on to become the father of modern coalition politics. The UPA I and II governments that followed NDA I, as well as the current NDA II regime have proved the power of “coalition dharma”.
Narendra Modi is the first Indian prime minister from the Right-wing to enjoy a parliamentary majority.
Time to re-route our destinies in the 21st Century?
In the 21st Century, both India and Pakistan have been victims of Islamist terror. Although, in Pakistan’s case, it was more of its own doing. While the bane of terrorism binds us, Pakistan’s sponsorship of terrorism sets us apart.
In 2013, Pakistan saw a democratic transition of power for the first time – a significant event in the country’s chequered democracy. However, no Pakistan prime minister has ever completed a full five-year term. The one who was expected to break the jinx – Sharif – was recently dismissed by the Pakistan Supreme Court on corruption charges.
Our neighbour is yet again passing through a phase of political uncertainty. But the army does not seem to be taking over the reins of the country. When Pakistan goes to polls in early 2018, it will be the first time since Independence that two consecutive governments would have completed their full terms. This will be a good sign for democracy in the country.
Meanwhile, India under Narendra Modi – arguably the strongest prime minister after Indira – is witnessing the resurgence of the right-wing, the gradual repudiation of the Nehruvian legacy and the restructuring of India’s governance model.
There is however one question that needs to be asked.
Will there be any period in future when both nations would simultaneously be moving on the path of stability?
Nobody can answer the question right now. Only time will tell whether destiny will keep the two nation-states moving on opposite directions or help bring them closer at some point.
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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,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]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.
[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.