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The value of a river will depend on a unique data-set to construct the water poverty profile and experts who can suggest future correctives say Soumi Roy Chowdhury Devendra B Gupta and Sanjib Pohit

In India the discourse about  new pathways for development hardly focusses on water. The narrative generally centres on two things: First the availability of water and second accessibility to good and safe drinking water. Public policies largely focus on the latter even as the Government launches flagship programmes like Namami Gange and National Rural Drinking Water Programme. 

But to be able to measure societal impact of any given programme it is important to have baseline and endline information.  In this case how river water scarcity or its quality impacts common  households. Specially information on the use of water livelihood aspects and quantifiable aesthetic value of the river are of utmost importance to gauge value.

Such information is however sparse and available only for pilot projects. Further no serious efforts have been made to compile them for better identification of water- stressed regions especially in the Indian context. However efforts are under way to create a data-driven policy-making in our country.

With the launch of the Composite Water Management Index developed by NITI Aayog one gets a sense of the macro picture of the effectiveness of water management across various States. Efforts like these must however be complemented with information linking household welfare understanding livelihood implications of water scarcity and the degree to which it impacts human population. All of these can succinctly bring disparate data sources together. 

Further river basins in India are of different sizes with habitation and livelihood depending on it. Therefore analysing the communities living off the basin is critical to take into account both the physical and socio-demographic factors associated with water scarcity. A water poverty index approach is appropriate for such an analysis as it can monitor both the availability of water as well as the socio-economic factors that hinder the use and access of the same. 

Elsewhere in the world water poverty index a relatively newly introduced policy tool has caught the attention of policy-makers in the realm of water-driven issues. However it is yet to catch the attention of Indian researchers and legislators 

The concept is based on the premise that the lack of adequate water supply in a country can lead to poor health of its population whereas despite its availability it is the user cost of clean water that can drive one to use inadequate and unreliable sources of water supply.

Therefore a country which is water-scarce should encompass understanding of different inter-related components: The availability of internal water resources and external water inflows followed by access to safe water and sanitation in the region. Equally important is to capture the share of regional water use for domestic industrial and agricultural purposes.

Scientific measurements of water quality parameters are equally critical to understanding the role of different kinds of regulatory mechanisms to preserve the water body including biodiversity threats.

Last but not the least the socio-economic ability of availing clean water resources and status of health information constitute the much-needed water data for a comprehensive analysis. The applicability of this kind of measure goes beyond just ranking the regions which is the usual reporting norm but  actually categorising the components. Targetted approach allows diagnosis of the source of water problem and helps identify those policy parameters that need more attention. 

Indeed this is by no means a simple task that can be accomplished easily. An inter-disciplinary team of researchers is needed to understand and analyse the water poverty index of a river basin. More frequently it happens that data is not available at the adequate level in India. For example scanty information is available on water scarcity or how the poor quality of the same impacts the health and developmental goals of the people in various communities across river basins. 

In sum working towards a unique data-set to construct a water poverty measure will require hydrologists who can advise on the water flow and availability scientists who can develop water quality measures and social science researchers who can assess the information on the use and implications of river water usage including health costs economic costs and other socio-demographic linkages. 

(The writers are Associate Fellow and Professors at National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) New Delhi. Views expressed here are personal)

Revoking MFN and imposing punitive duties on Pakistan would hit the Kashmiri traders hard 

Following terrorist attack on CRPF convoy in Kashmir Indian government has taken several steps to isolate Pakistan in international forum. Hitting Pakistan economically is of course a reasonable approach. On this front India has taken two steps: (b) abolish MFN status to Pakistan (b) impose 200 percent duty on Pakistani goods. Since India has notified World Trade Organisation (WTO) that it is revoking MFN status to Pakistan technically it is in a position to raise tariffs without being dragged to WTO on this punitive measure.

The real question is whether it hurts Pakistan and its traders only or do our traders suffer equally? 

First official trade between India and Pakistan is on a low level amounting only to about US $ 2 billion in 2017-18 with imports from Pakistan to the tune of only US $ 0.5 billion. Since India is not an important trading partner of Pakistan these interventions will have limited impact.

Second let us be realistic. Poor connectivity of Kashmir Valley implies that trading with Pakistan along the borders makes economic sense for Kashmiri traders especially producers of primary goods. Since India has revoked MFN status to Pakistan the latter can retaliate by imposing punitive high tariffs on Indian goods. Effectively the trading opportunities of Kashmiri traders would be further curtailed leading to economic hardships for them. 

The successive years of terrorist activities in Kashmir Valley has reduced the economy of the area to shambles. These actions will cause further economic hardship for those Kashmiris who are engaged in trading with Pakistan. The traders from the rest of the country who have multiple connectivity options would not face as much hardship as they can search for other markets. Frankly these steps would only affect the vulnerable Kashmiri traders depriving them of economic opportunities. May be the Government of Jammu & Kashmir or Government of India should take steps that would ensure that they do not suffer unduly by this knee-jerk action. This in turn would have the effect of driving a further wedge in the already precarious relationship between the Valley and the Indian Government. 

The third and the most important result is that it would lead to spike in informal trade between the two countries. A study of India-Pakistan trade by Taneja and Pohit indicates that while its true potential is to the tune of US $ 15-20 billion the numerous tariff and non-tariff barriers constraining the cross border exchange of goods between the two countries have restricted the current level to about US $ 2 billion. Much of this takes the form of informal trade. This has further ramification in terms of informal money market or hawala a mode of finance largely preferred and/or controlled by anti-social elements. Surely the very purpose of the step taken by the present regime by streamlining electronic payment in all sectors of the economy would be defeated if this trade is allowed to flourish 

Over the years the deadlock in India-Pakistan diplomacy has led to the establishment of an efficient system for cross border trade. By and large Middle-East is the preferred route through which it takes place. Many a times the official papers indicate that the destination is some hypothetical country but the merchandise instead is delivered to a port in Pakistan. The traders also use Afghan transit trade channel route or trade via China to deliver merchandise to the partner country. While the traders located in Mumbai or other Indian ports may continue to thrive even after India’s tough action in respect of trade with Pakistan the cost would solely be borne by Kashmiri traders who use the land borders for trading with the neighbouring country. 

Of course all traders using land borders would be hit hard as they would have to look for alternative markets for their products. However the ones located in the rest of Northern India are better connected than those in the Kashmir region and would be able manage better in the changed scenario. It is thus the Kashmiri traders who will bear the brunt of this action. 

In such a scenario the question that needs to be asked is whether it is worth it since access to economic opportunities is probably the best remedy for reducing terrorism activities in the Valley?

What’s the use of India’s track record of holding regular polls if voting rights of half its population mostly women are compromised at the altar of an inefficient registration system?

The over-riding discussion during this electoral season in India is obviously focussed on who will occupy 7 Lok Kalyan Marg in the capital and the treasury benches in Parliament after May 23 and what factors will determine this outcome. But little attention is being paid to one of the most critical pre-election issues — the unexplained absence of millions of eligible women voters from electoral rolls in many parts of the country resulting in an alarming gender gap in voter registration.

The subject of “missing women voters” has been underscored by veteran psephologists Prannoy Roy and Dorab Sopariwala in their  recently released book on Indian elections The Verdict. Based on the 2011 population census they estimate that the proportion of women entitled to vote in 2019 should be 97.2 per cent of their male counterparts. However as per Election Commission data the corresponding ratio is only 92.7 per cent. This shortfall of 4.5 per cent in the female voting population may seem insignificant per se but in absolute terms it translates into a whopping 21 million disenfranchised women which is equivalent to about 38000 women voters per constituency across the country. Such an exclusion is nothing short of a demographic disaster in an “alive and kicking” democracy and cannot be merely dismissed as an inadvertent enumeration error. The numbers are even more alarming when seen in the context of the consistent non-registration of women of voting age over the last 25 years going up from an average of three million in the early 1990s to six million during the 1997-2002 period to 19 million between 2002 and 2014. 

These figures also conflict with the trend of a progressive rise in electoral turnouts of women since the 1967 Lok Sabha elections when the male turnout was 11.25 percentage points higher than that of women the highest gender difference in voting recorded till date for any general election. Coming down to 8.36 per cent in 2004 and 4.42 per cent in 2009 the gender gap in actual voting stood at merely 1.79 per cent in 2014 while in 2019 the number of voting women is expected to overtake that of men in several constituencies. Calling this a startling transformation in the history of Indian elections Roy argues that the Indian woman voter especially in rural areas now clearly knows her mind and is determined to exercise her right without being swayed by her male kin.

What then would be the impact of leaving such a large number of women out of the electoral process? Could this represent a deliberate attempt to keep away a specific section of women from polling booths because of their preferences for or against any political party? Most pollsters agree that women’s increasing turnout and political assertiveness could be a major swing factor in these elections. Unfortunately however the decisive female influence could be diluted by a gender bias mirrored in the Sex Ratio of Voters (SRV) or the number of female voters per 1000 male voters.

Sociologists and demographers claim that the distorted SRV is a manifestation of the skewed population sex ratios in certain States especially Uttar Pradesh (912) Rajasthan (928) and Maharashtra (929). Significantly these States also account for the largest number of unregistered women in electoral rolls — Uttar Pradesh (6.8 million) Maharashtra (2.3 million) and Rajasthan (1.2 million). The enormity of the exclusion is evident from the fact that on an average 85000 eligible women will not be able to vote in every single constituency in a key State like Uttar Pradesh. In contrast women voters are likely to outnumber men in States like Kerala Andhra Pradesh and Goa which have healthy sex ratios of 1084 993 and 973 respectively.

The issue of “missing women” and imbalanced sex ratios in India stemming from gender discrimination was first flagged by renowned economist and Nobel laureate  Amartya Sen. Similar findings have also been expounded in the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) a nationally representative survey of about 42000 households conducted jointly by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and the University of Maryland in two waves in 2003-04 and 2011-12. The IHDS shows that despite rapid economic growth spanning this period India cannot claim to have a robust gender scorecard. The only bright spot has been a rise in women’s enrollment in education over the last two decades which could perhaps account for greater awareness among them and consequently their increased participation in elections. 

The IHDS has an interesting module administered to 30422 married women in the age group of 15-49 years. With a response rate as high as 92 per cent and the use of female interviewers to conduct studies in various local languages IHDS offers a host of intuitive results. Among these is a dichotomy in the social and political behaviours of women from different religions which perhaps also affirms increasing polarisation of the nation’s political space from a gendered perspective. There is thus clear evidence that gender is emerging as a fundamental axis of Indian democracy alongside caste class and religion.

The linkage between “missing women” in the population and “missing women” in the electorate has also been emphasised by Professors Mudit Kapoor and Shamika Ravi affiliated with the Indian School of Business and Brookings Institution respectively. They assert that in the last 50 years the absolute number of missing women in India has increased four-fold from 15 million to 68 million while the concomitant figure of missing women in the electorate has risen from 13 per cent to 20 per cent. 

With such multitudes of women being deprived of their entitlement to vote political decisions based on election outcomes will inevitably under-represent female priorities they conclude. 

What use is India’s track record of holding regular elections and consistently instituting a democratic Government if the voting rights of half its population are compromised at the altar of an inefficient registration system? In many ways therefore undermining women’s suffrage in India’s elections is akin to the market failure of its democracy in economic terms.

(The writer is Anupma Mehta Editor at the National Council of Applied Economic Research. Views expressed here are personal)

Forget the streets women are not even safe at home. Gender violence indoors is akin to an elephant in the room. Still we lack a uniform redressal mechanism

Recently the streets of Delhi witnessed an intriguing sight — hundreds of women marched on the roads brandishing huge replicas of belans (rolling pins) to protest against increasing perpetration of gender-based domestic violence and police apathy towards such incidents. The march was part of a Mahila Suraksha Padyatra launched by the Delhi Commission of Women (DCW) Chairperson Swati Maliwal on February 24 and is scheduled to end on Women’s Day. Maliwal’s aim was to connect with the victims of gender-specific crimes and women from all spheres of life across Delhi highlight the lacunae in security in the city and seek redressal from the authorities. She also issued a notice to all DCPs over the pendency of domestic violence cases under their jurisdiction. The belan being flaunted by the protesters was a symbolic reminder for women to become self-reliant and use any tool available to defend themselves when facing physical abuse at home. However it also became an ironic reminder of the inadequacy of the police to protect women from such violence.

According to DCW data 15698 cases of domestic violence have been registered over the last five years but chargesheets have been filed in only 5573 cases signifying an abject action rate of only 35.5 per cent for such crimes. The gravity of the issue was highlighted by the first wave of the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) in 2005 which collected extensive information on domestic violence as well as women’s earnings and employment that have a direct bearing on abuse against women. The IHDS jointly conducted by the National Council of Applied Economic Research New Delhi and the University of Maryland USA is a nationally representative survey covering 41554 households in 1503 villages and 971 urban neighbourhoods across India. In an attempt to get to the root of the matter the IHDS asked women in the sample if “in your community it is usual for husbands to beat their wives” in the following circumstances: Leaving home without notifying the husband; failing to pay dowry; neglecting household responsibilities; not cooking acceptable meals; and having relationships with other men. While the last that is extramarital affairs was the most common reason for violence 30-40 per cent of the women interviewed reported being beaten for the other four reasons as well. 

The prevalence of gender violence at home is akin to an elephant in the room — it is becoming increasingly rife and brutal in most parts of the country but is still not seen as an issue demanding serious attention. One of the Government’s own leading surveys the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) released by the Union Health Ministry in 2016 revealed that every third woman in India has faced domestic violence of some form since the age of 15.

The passage of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 was a welcome measure aimed at tackling the issue as it comprehensively defines domestic violence to encompass all forms of physical emotional verbal sexual and economic violence. But despite its unimpeachable intentions this Act seems to have had little effect as seen from the NFHS report. Among married women experiencing physical sexual or emotional violence an alarming 83 per cent claimed that their husbands were the main perpetrators of this abuse with mothers (56 per cent) fathers (33 per cent) and siblings (27 per cent) of the husbands following in that order. The grimmest aspect of the data relates to the nature of violence itself. As if facing violence from intimate relatives were not terrifying enough a large number of women experienced extreme physical brutality at home — eight per cent suffered eye injuries sprains severe dislocations or burns and six per cent had deep wounds and gashes broken bones and broken teeth.

The sordid saga does not end here. What is even more horrifying to social scientists and activists working with the abused women is the ratification of such violence by victims themselves. The NFHS-4 shows that 54.8 per cent of the women aged 40-49 years actually justified domestic violence “against wayward women” and even among girls aged 15-19 years 47.7 per cent agreed for “the periodic need for violence by husbands.”

The IHDS and NFHS data are substantiated by data from the National Crime Records Bureau last released in 2016. The NCRB reports a whopping rise of 83 per cent in crimes reported against women from 2007 to 2016 and this pertains only to reported crime with a large number of such incidents surely going unreported. It also recorded a 45 per cent rise in cruelty and violence committed against women by spouses and other relatives during this period. In contrast to the high rates of violence the conviction rate went up only marginally — from 2.6 per cent to 12.2 per cent over these 10 years. Why is such a large number of perpetrators of domestic gender violence allowed to go scot-free?

Sunita Thakur a counsellor with Jagori a New Delhi-based women’s resource centre argues “Protection officers are often overloaded with work and have no guidelines for implementing the law.” This argument is corroborated by Anuradha Kapoor Director of Swayam another women’s rights organisation in Kolkata who criticises the involvement of multiple stakeholders in the process “ranging from protection officers…to service providers… to the magistrate…to a lawyer.”

The other problems include absence of a uniform protocol for recording the cases poor coordination between the protection officers and police women’s lack of access to legal recourse  and the prevalence of patriarchal attitudes which deter the women from reporting crime. Further the victims are often persuaded by the local police to settle the matter themselves “as it is a personal matter between the husband and the wife.”

How can women overcome these obstacles to justice and live with dignity and peace in their homes? According to an Economic Policy Working Paper 2013 of the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute enhancing women’s empowerment in terms of employment outside the home and possessing wealth or property could lead to a notable decline in their domestic abuse by improving the bargaining position of wives vis-à-vis their husbands and producing non-abusive marriage outcomes. Indeed wife-beating is less commonly reported by working women with the ability to support themselves financially. A growing body of literature also suggests that amendments in the Hindu Succession Act by several States in 2005 which brought girls at par with boys for inheritance of family property not only empowered women in their households relative to their male kin but also reduced incidences of assault and suppression against them.

Another solution is the implementation of far-reaching legal reforms to provide victims of violence speedy and fair justice. Ensuring greater autonomy for women in every sphere thus seems to be a critical step in the fight against domestic violence. Until then however they may have to wield the belan more often in their defence.

(The writer is Anupma Mehta Editor at the National Council of Applied Economic Research. Views expressed here are personal)