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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)

Even as the Government is hastily drafting the quota Bill for the EWS section like most predecessors it has orphaned the Women’s Reservation Bill

The recent Bill reserving 10 per cent quota for the economically weaker sections (EWS) among the upper castes has been intensively debated over its utility propriety and Constitutionality but discussions have roundly ignored the group that has once again been given the short shrift in prioritising the policy of reservation. The obvious reference here is to the Women’s Reservation Bill or the Constitution (108th Amendment) Bill of 2008 which seeks to reserve 33 per cent of the seats in Parliament and all State legislative Assemblies for women. Although the Bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha in 2010 it is still not a law as the Lok Sabha is yet to ratify it.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had in its 2014 election manifesto promised to ensure its passage as part of its commitment towards women’s empowerment and welfare. In fact in a chapter titled ‘Women — The Nation Builders’ the BJP’s manifesto had highlighted the crucial role of women in the development of society and growth of the nation. It had claimed that one of its first tasks on assuming power would be to ensure one-third seats would be reserved for the women in both Parliament and Assemblies. This commitment forgotten through almost the entire tenure of the Modi Government has ostensibly lost out to political exigency and the need to appease a significant section of the electorate ahead of a ‘do-or-die’ election.

While the jury is still out on the actual benefits of any reservation policy for intended beneficiaries there is widespread consensus that an affirmative action to empower women politically does yield desirable results. And there is data to back this belief. With less than 12 per cent representation in Parliament as compared to a corresponding global average of 22.4 per cent Indian women trail their counterparts in many parts of the world.

While Nordic nations lead the way with an average of 41.5 per cent as many as 42 countries in the world have 30 per cent or more women MPs. Among these Sweden leads the way with 50 per cent reservation for women. It is not a mere coincidence that these nations are symbols of not only economic prosperity but also progressive social policies. Many others such as Rwanda (30 per cent) Nepal (28 per cent) Pakistan (20 per cent) and Bangladesh (13 per cent) have quotas for women in Parliament. Even sub-Saharan Africa has an average female representation of 22.6 per cent in Parliament.

Research published by the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) in May 2018 found that Assembly constituencies in India helmed by women representatives show significantly higher economic growth than those under men. Based on data for 4265 State Assembly constituencies across four election cycles spanning the period 1992-2012 the authors of the study found that women legislators in India enhance economic performance in their constituencies by about 1.8 percentage points per year more than their male counterparts. The study also noted women’s efficiency in creating vital infrastructure especially because they are less likely than men to succumb to corruption temptation for self-aggrandisement and criminal tendencies.

These figures are substantiated by another 2017 research study by Guilhem Cassan University of Namur Belgium and Lore Vandewalle The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies Geneva. Using two data sets collected by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) the 2005-06 edition of the Rural Economic and Demographic Survey (REDS) and the 2011-12 edition of the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) Cassan and Vandewalle document gender norms in variations across castes and how mandated political reservations for women lead to path-breaking changes in their lives.

The REDS data from rural India which lists respondents’ preferences for public goods such as water sanitation roads and electricity shows that gender quotas enable women to rise to the position of president in gram panchayats — 95.4 per cent of the presidents in gram panchayats reserved for women were female. The IHDS data on the other hand provides quantitative evidence of restricted mobility and stricter gender norms among high-caste women underscoring the need for policy to bring more women into the political mainstream.

In an Employment Policy Paper of 2017 on MGNREGA and its impact on women the ILO too highlighted the gender dynamics of affirmative policies. Using both waves of IHDS data (2004-05 and 2011-12) it shows that work provisions under MGNREGA have helped shift social and economic outcomes in favour of rural women engaged in wage labour thereby contributing to transformative equality.

Coming back to the quota Bill for the economically backward upper castes unlike gender-based findings there is no substantive evidence that preferential treatment based on financial status has the desired effects. While assessing the redistributive effects of affirmative action on poverty in 2010 which they claim is the first such study Aimee Chin and Nishith Prakash of the National Bureau of Economic Research aver that policies aimed at improving socio-economic outcomes for poor sections are not only highly controversial but also inconclusive in indicating any real benefits. “It remains an open question whether affirmative action policies successfully reduce poverty” they concluded.

Significantly a major roadblock in putting the new quota into effect on the ground could be the legal tangle. In the 1992 Indra Sawhney judgement by the Supreme Court a majority (six) of the nine judges on the Bench averred that economic criteria cannot be exclusively used for deciding on reservation. The court consequently barred such reservations based on poverty alone arguing that social and educational backwardness should also be addressed to counter the historic injustice faced by several generations of the country’s population — here again women literally fit the Bill.

Irrespective of its eventual denouement and fate on the legal front it is clear that the hastily drafted quota Bill which arguably has little data to support has the weight of the Modi Government behind it; whereas the long-pending women’s reservation Bill which is rooted in extensive research remains the orphan that nobody wants to adopt. Does this indicate another opportunity lost both for redemption of past neglect and for improving the metrics of performance in a nation riddled with low-performance outcomes?  

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