Educating the Yemeni girls

Photo: Oxfam GB

With so much of ho-hulla over girls’ education where is Yemen headed? My own visits to different parts give me both optimism and causes despair. The concrete structures of the schools impress me but the fact that no special efforts are being made to motivate parents to send their daughters to schools and allow them to complete their education is disheartening. Recently, a colleague mentioned that during her meeting with education officials in a governorate, the officials grumbled that they built schools for girls but all the schools are running into a loss. What they meant was that the investment and regular cost of maintaining those schools is not matched by adequate enrollment and retention of girls in these schools. This is a clear example of schools being built without community consultations and agreements with parents. Community participation in the decision-making related to the location of the school, facilities required in the schools and the sex of the staff pay a key role in a community’s willingness to allow their daughters to get an education.

My own visits to a few schools located close to or inside villages demonstrated another side of the story. Village elders and school authorities informed that the demand for seats in schools is far higher than the capacity of these schools. They have developed an interesting strategy to deal with the problem. Every year, they enroll the older girls and reject younger ones. They believe that in this way every girl will have a chance to study, albeit late. The flipside of this strategy is that it reduces the ‘learning years’ that a girl has. Since a large number of girls are taken off the school by their parents when they reach the age of puberty, these girls have lesser number of years to pursue education.

The experience of the schools located close to or inside villages, however, demonstrates that a few simple steps can improve girls’ enrolment. If the reasons behind drop out is analyzed and remedial steps are followed in a comprehensive and integrated way alongside factors that have led to an increased demand for seats in schools, an enormous impact on girls’ retention in schools and completion of education can be ensured. Let us look at some of the steps that could be taken up.

Despite the fact that villages in Yemen are small and located far from one-another, the need to open basic and secondary school in disadvantaged and remote areas cannot be emphasized more. The above given examples show that unless schools are located within a distance that communities feel is appropriate a large number of girls in rural areas will continue to miss out education. If the government feels inadequate to build and maintain schools in all areas, it should aid and encourage nongovernmental organization to start bridge schemes, and nonformal education centres to provide quality education to small number of students in the local communities. Such education programmes should be recognized by the public and private sector so that their usefulness is not any less than qualifications acquired in government institutions.

Photo: Oxfam GB

Girls’ education, from basic to secondary level, to become a ‘viable option’ for parents, must be free. In a society, which does not regard education having any intrinsic value or does not see girls education as having any material value, any cost, whether school fees or the cost of book, stationary, uniform and transportation or hidden costs like those charged for student projects, is bound to be seen as an avoidable drain of family income and can discourage parents from sending their daughter to a school.

These two steps alone will not be sufficient unless all schools have women teachers. These teachers should be trained, motivated and supported not only in teaching but also in organizing community outreach activities so that they can induce girls into education. Often, parents are concerned about sending their daughters to a co-educational school because they fear for their safety and honour. For example, one of my colleagues after a focus group discussion with a community in Seiyun district shared that most parents in this community are reluctant to send their daughters to the school because a male teacher tried to molest a girl student. It is important, therefore, that the schools in participation with communities should put code of conduct for male teachers and students and sanctions in place to stop harassment and abuse of girls.

It would be a good idea to provide some incentives to poor families to motivate them to send their daughters to the school. The incentives could take the form of free food, stipend to pursue basic and secondary education, free transport, a fixed deposit that the girl can receive after she completes secondary education, etc.

Another important issue is that education and vocational training should not be rolled out separately. A step that is needed to convince parents about the usefulness of girls’ education is to compliment education with market-oriented vocational skills. This will help parents see immediate usefulness of educating their daughters.

Another critical step that is needed, at least, in the initial stage to give a thrust to these efforts is to give job/income generation opportunities to those women who complete their education in the formal sector. This step calls for coordination and collaboration between various agencies, both governmental and nongovernmental. It requires that the donor agencies which support basic and secondary education, vocational training and employment generation programmes should see these three as connected issues and their grant-making policies should reinforce these connections.

To sum up there is a need not only to invest more in girls’ education but also to invest effectively. This calls for high level of donor and government commitment to increase investment as well as to strategically reform education curricula and delivery systems. And this commitment must be sustained over a long term to provide free and universal access and other facilitative services, and to achieve balance between education and relevant vocational training in schools.

Article originally published at Yemen Times: http://www.yementimes.com/defaultdet.aspx?SUB_ID=21889

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Women and Religious Fundamentalism

A message from Bhagawad Geeta as the Thought of the Day
in front of Baitil Aman Guesthouse, Shela Village, Lamu,
owned by Sidiki Abdulrehman

WOMEN’S support to religious fundamentalism could be explained with the help of notions of women as objects and subjects of community identity, conditioned as much by patriarchal values as men, their interests so intrinsically connected to the community that thinking of individual or collective interests may amount to blasphemy. Also, making an assumption that all women would like to oppose fundamentalism implies rallying behind universal notions of women-hood and sisterhood, and romanticizing women as universal peace-seekers.

Here, I would like to explore women’s identities, interests and values as complex interactive elements in the multitude of intersections and over-lapping themes of fundamentalism. I will attempt to analyze a few key intersections of religion, nationalism, caste, class, gender and community identity in India with a special focus on current trends in Hinduism to understand the layers of women’s support to religious fundamentalism. I will also attempt to link the growth of religious fundamentalism with increasing attempts to control women.

While approaching religio-spirituality, we should make a distinction between the values of the religio-spiritual realm and their practice. The growth of values is associated more with metaphysical aspects of the religion and is seen as the preserve of enlightened and unattached spiritual persons who could devote themselves fully to emancipate the soul. The practice of these values is considered to be closer to ordinary mortals. The intricate world of attachments in which women live makes them ‘incompatible’ to the demands of a spiritual world which is highly valued, powerful, and a typically male domain. Some women may strategize an escape from attachments and create a religio-spiritual space for themselves by renouncing their sexuality and sex roles through sanyas (renunciation of attachments) (Babb 1988, p. 280-285) and affiliations with religious movements and organizations looking for women in their fold to gain broader legitimacy.

To use Gaitskell’s analysis of South African women’s conversion to Christianity through the Christian Mission Stations (Gaitskell 1990, p. 253), these organizations provide women an alternative set of protectors and economic base which makes escape from the drudgery of life as a daughter, sister, wife or widow possible (Basu 1999, p. 200). In India, right wing organizations like the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and others, which frequently invoke the goddesses and female spiritual gurus of the past and use women in liturgy have attracted many Hindu sanyasins (female religious mendicants/proponents/ascetics) like Ritambhara or Uma Bharati. The invocations are not only a bait for women but also a reminder to the women affiliates to see the scope for their philosophy and activity in supporting everything that these organizations are doing, including promoting hostility towards faiths and people perceived to be damaging Hinduism.

Talking of the Sangh Parivar, Arundhati Roy says, ‘its utter genius lies in its apparent ability to be all things to all people at all times’ (Roy 1999, p. 181). A broad understanding of ‘violence’ beyond the direct physical and mental abuse and as produced in people’s perceptions may help us in seeing the image of the Sangh Parivar as it exists in the minds of middle class, poor and home-bound women. This perception of violence is linked to the notions of religious domination and subordination, which subvert the chances of survival of another value system. For example, beef eating, spread of non-Hindu values, unemployment, religious conversion, inter-religious marriages, adoption of a Hindu child, etc. may be taken as attempts to denigrate the status and spoil the purity of Hindu religion. Therefore, these may be perceived as socio-economic and cultural violence against the ‘Hindu’.

The Sangh Parivar has articulated a feminist politics that reflects upon such perceptions and created ‘a space for personal accomplishment to which unskilled working class women and frustrated middle class women [across caste, particular religious community and region] might be attracted’ (Sahgal and Davis 1992, p. 9, text in brackets mine). While taking on the persona of a religious saviour, the Sangh seeks to mobilize women against the ‘perceived perpetrators of the violence’. The counter violence or support to fundamentalist organizations is seen by these women as an issue of religio-political identity and collective empowerment to oppose ‘occupation of minds and cultures’.

Kandiyoti in her paper ‘Islam and Patriarchy’, talks about women resisting the old normative order slipping away without any empowering alternatives and women pressurize men to live up to their obligations to provide protection in exchange of submissiveness and propriety as part of patriarchal bargain (Kandiyoti 1992, p. 36). The exchange of submissiveness and propriety for protection brings forth the issue of women’s bodies being treated as sites of community identity in a patriarchal society (Kannabiran 1996, p. 32-33). Submissiveness and propriety by these bodies is essential for patriarchal honour.

In India, for example, Ritambhara’s speeches, marked by incitements to reclaim male honour, remind men to live up to their part of the bargain. Similarly, when Uma Bharati asks women to play a political role without compromising their ‘basic nature’ (Llewellyn 2001), she is reminding that impropriety by female bodies would damage the Hindu honour which corresponds to male honour. The Sangh Parivar seeks to secure women’s support by playing on the tensions between ‘deeply ingrained images and expectations of male-female roles and changing realities of everyday life’ (Kandiyoti 1992, p. 36), which put a demand on women to step in the public space. By using the lack of alternatives before women, it attempts to consensualize women’s investment in patriarchal values and simultaneously puts conditions on her public engagement.

The offer of male protection comes with (i) the condition that women will have to become consenting custodians of patriarchal values, and (ii) an implicit guarantee that they will get the residual power and benefits that would accrue from their support to the Hindu male communal coercion (Sangari 1999, p. 398-408). The perceived notions of danger and security and the chance to exercise residual power through patriarchal bargains may make this offer lucrative for many women (Jeffery 1998, p. 223).

According to Moghissi, fundamentalism is ‘an attitude towards time’. It proposes ‘an ideal past, initial conditions’ or ‘golden age’ which contrasts to the present and can be retrieved…’ (Moghissi 1999, p. 69). All may not view the fundamentalist form of return to the golden age as conservative or retrogressive. For example, by linking fundamentalist space with religion and women’s welfare, the Sangh Parivar makes it possible for a woman to occupy public space and for her family to explain their daughter’s feminism as a form of sewa (Sahgal 2000, p. 198). This may appear as liberal to many.

Similarly, in the context of Muslims, ‘attempts by disadvantaged groups to rise in ritual status by strict adherence to "tradition" or the Shariat are not seen by them as a return to medievalism but in fact as symbols of achievement’ (Pandey in Chhachhi 1988, p. 23). So, acceptance in a social group closed so far or the move upwards in the social ladder may appear progressive and create an incentive for both poor men and women to support fundamentalism.

Fundamentalism also has a unique feature of constructing its own version of the ‘true identity’. In India, this is evident from the Sangh’s move to homogenize identity by disregarding the variety of ‘Hindu religions’, which have existed within the concept of Hinduism (Romila Thapar 1989). An interrogation of gender, class and caste in India reveal that the Sangh is promoting a uniformly brahminized, class-based, transregional modernity and a principle of formal gender equality located in a dichotomous upper caste practice.

The impact is visible in the spread of practices like dowry in states like Tamil Nadu (Kapadia 2002), wearing of sindur and mangalsutra and practice of karwa chauth by Hindu women irrespective of the region and culture. In the homogenization process, women’s space as well as capacity to bargain is being curtailed further by emphasizing brahminized feminine constructs and collective identity (Basu 1998, p. 175-76). Traits like self-sacrificing motherhood and devoted wife are now also being channelized towards building and nurturing a Hinduised social cohesion. In this brahminized, class-based, trans-regional modernization process, women may not have the space to think of separating their identities from the image of the ‘homogenized community’.

The Indian national movement, beginning in the 19th century, was imbued with simultaneous processes of socio-religious reform, specifically attempts to improve women’s condition within Hinduism. These attempts could be attributed to (i) initially, a desire to emulate what the reformers considered modern, i.e., the models of womanhood and conjugality of the colonizers, and (ii) later, the need to engage the wider masses in protesting against the colonizers. It would not have been possible to engage women in the protest without raising the issues which restrict their participation. During this period activists like Pandita Ramabai, Anandibai Joshi, Kailashbashini Debi, Tarabai Shinde, Haimavati Sen, Saraladevi, among others, challenged the patriarchal system by identifying the power dynamics which make man-woman relationships unequal (Chakravarti 1998, Sen 2000, Sarkar 1997, Omvedt 1980). Though dalit leaders started talking about caste, cultural, regional and class differences, but on the whole women were treated as a homogeneous entity.

The national movement identified the humiliated and colonized land with the image of a subjugated Hindu woman’s body – her body, sari and adornment encompassing present India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and parts of Afghanistan and Myanmar. The image stays even after 56 years of Partition. It also plays an important role in the projects of Hindu nationalism. The image of the motherland has been used to exhort proliferation of female deity or Shakti cult among women who find the concept of shakti empowering. The Sangh Parivar sees partition as a mutilation of the sacred body of the mother and holds Muslims responsible for this act of ‘desecration’ (Sarkar, p. 163-190 and 268-288). By laying claim to Hindu nationalist feminine icons and linking them to female power, patriotism, partition and a dream of Akhand Bharat the Sangh has successfully managed to mobilize Hindu women to support the cause of avenging partition.

Women’s support to the communalized politics of the Sangh Parivar also needs to be looked at from vantage point of individual women’s politics to benefit from the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution as well as BJP attempts to enlarge its vote constituencies. The BJP has much to gain by keeping women’s collective political empowerment within the bounds of socio-historically gendered subjectivities. However, any such analysis must also keep in purview the socio-historical factors.

Women in India have long been active in various types of social and political movements – at national, regional and local levels. They were engaged in grassroots caste-based politics during the Nehruvian period when political power was mainly with the upper castes.

The emergence of ‘backward castes’ and farmers’ parties brought in many other groups of women in politics. Throughout, mainstream politics neither allowed an orientation towards gender issues, nor allowed women to use their agency in collaboration with women’s activists to actively raise and interrogate issues of gender inequalities. If anything the incorporation of gender issues has been considered divisive in the mass nationalist/caste/community building processes and movements. The controlled participation did help some individual women to ameliorate their own situation but systemic gender inequalities have remained unaddressed (Jeffery 1998, p. 222) and women’s orientation towards collaborative agency has been constrained.

Women’s support to religious fundamentalism reflects a situation where women are caught between emancipatory aspirations and inherited notions of ideal womanhood. Notwithstanding multiple factors influencing women’s support to fundamentalism and the impossibility of talking about a common protest against religious fundamentalism, it is possible to turn this ‘situation of being caught’ into a ‘situation of struggle’. Not by ascription to the universal notions of womenhood and sisterhood but by recognizing women’s multiple realities of and exploring questions such as, ‘is there a dissatisfaction with the nation building processes because they have not addressed the issues of gender, ideology, power and identity’, ‘are the modernization processes being seen by women as socio-cultural and economic devaluation of women’, and so on. The contested relationships between women, religion, society, state, culture, nationalism need to be theorized afresh in the public space and ‘discursive and related historical frameworks alike need to be (re)addressed’ (Rouse 1998, p. 69).

Article originally published in Seminar #537, May 2004, India Shining at http://www.india-seminar.com/2004/537/537%20comment.htm

References:

Babb, Lawrence A. (1988), ‘Indigenous Feminism in a Modern Hindu Sect’, in Rehana Ghadially, (ed) Women in Indian Society, New Delhi/Newbury Park/London: Sage Publications.

Basu, Amrita (1998), p. 175-176, ‘Hindu Women’s Activism in India and the Questions it Raises’, in Patricia Jeffery and Amrita Basu, (eds) Appropriating Gender: Women’s Activism and Politicized Religion in South Asia, New York and London: Routledge.

Chakravarti, Uma (1998), Rewriting History: The Life and Times of Pandita Ramabai, New Delhi: Kali for Women.

Gaitskell, Deborah (1990), p. 253, ‘Devout Domesticity? A Century of African Women’s Christianity in South Africa’, in Cherryl Walker, (ed) Women and Gender in Southern Africa, Cape Town: David Philip.

Jeffery, Patricia (1998), p. 222, ‘Agency, Activism and Agendas’, in Patricia Jeffery and Amrita Basu, (eds) Appropriating Gender: Women’s Activism and Politicized Religion in South Asia, New York and London: Routledge.

Kandiyoti, Deniz (1992), p. 36, ‘Islam and Patriarchy: A Comparative Perspective’, in N. Keddie and B. Baron, (eds) Women in Middle Eastern History, New Haven: Yale.

Kannabiran, Kalpana (1996), p. 32-33, in K. Jayawardena and M. D’Alwis, (eds) Embodied Violence: Communalizing Women’s Sexuality in South Asia, London: Zed Books.

Kapadia, Karin (2002), (ed) The Violence of Development: The Politics of Identity, Gender and Social Inequalities in India, London: Zed Books.

Llewellyn, J.E. (2001), ‘Uma Bharati at the 4th Akhil Bharatiya Sadhwi Shakti Sammelan at the Santoshi Mata Ashram’, in Kankhal, 10 April 1998, http://courses.smsu.edu/jel807f/sadhwi.html

Moghissi, Haideh (1999), p. 69, Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism, New York: Zed Books.

Omvedt, Gail (1980), We Will Smash This Prison!: Indian Women in Struggle, London: Zed Press.

Pandey, Gyan in Amrita Chhachhi (1988), p. 23, ‘The State, Religious Fundamentalism and Women – Trends in South Asia’, in WLUML Dossier 4, August/September 1988, London: Women Living Under Muslim Laws.

Rouse, Shahnaz (1998), p. 69, ‘The Outsider(s) Within: Sovereignty and Citizenship in Pakistan’, in Patricia Jeffery and Amrita Basu, (eds) Appropriating Gender: Women’s Activism and Politicized Religion in South Asia, New York and London: Routledge.

Roy, Arundhati (1999), p. 181, ‘Fascism’s Firm Footprints in India’, in C.W. Howland, (ed) Religious Fundamentalism and the Human Rights of Women, New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Sahgal, Gita (2000), p. 198, ‘Secular Spaces; The Experience of Asian Women Organizing’, in Gita Sahgal and Nira Yuval-Davis, (eds) Refusing Holy Orders: Women and Fundamentalism in Britain, London: Women Living Under Muslim Laws.

Sahgal, Gita and Nira Yuval-Davis (1992), p. 9, (eds) ‘Introduction: Fundamentalism, Multiculturalism and Women in Britain’, in Refusing Holy Orders: Women and Fundamentalism in Britain, London: Virago.

Sangari, Kumkum (1999), p. 398-408, Politics of the Possible, New Delhi: Tulika.

Sarkar, Tanika (1997), ‘Women in South Asia: The Raj and After’, History Today, September 1997.

Sarkar, Tanika (2001), p. 163-190 and 268-288, Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation: Community, Religion and Cultural Nationalism, London: Hurst & Company.

Sen, Samita (2000), ‘Toward a Feminist Politics? The Indian Women’s Movement in Historical Perspective’, Policy Research Report on Gender and Development, Working Paper Series No 9.

Thapar, Romila (1989), p. 209-231, ‘Imagined Religious Communities? Ancient History and the Modern Search for a Hindu Identity’, Modern Asian Studies, 23(2).

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Not a Grain in His Stomach

Photo: Homeless International

“Why did you open the door?” “Why didn’t you just move on, being nearest doesn’t make you any more responsible than the other ...”. “It’s not your responsibility to get this man transferred to another hospital”. “This man can put you in trouble, you are asking for trouble.” “Why did you not let the hospital just discharge him and leave?” “You have received enough security tips, trainings and updates to know that you do not do this.” "If it means anything, I am proud of you."

These are some of the questions, advices and comments that I came across between Thursday and Friday, the last week. All those who questioned my action stand vindicated. The incident runs like this: on Thursday 22 July 2010, I left home in the morning to office. I usually leave earlier to avoid traffic but that day I was delayed and so had to fall in the long queue of cars that begin from Westlands going all the way from there to Peponi Road, Thigiri Ridge, Red Hill Road and finally connecting to the Limuru Road. Nairobi roads are long, mostly two-lane and this route is no different. During peak traffic, if you are in a lane, there is no way you would jump the lane; unless, you are a matatu driver who would get into ditches, drive on road barriers, etc to complete so many rounds everyday to get the payment and so is willing to risk own and passengers’ lives. So on this day, the row of traffic moved like a snail ... may be like a caterpillar ... yes, like a caterpillar, if somebody were to look at the two rows of traffic moving in opposite direction from the sky, the rows would have looked like two caterpillars.

I reached Thigiri Ridge and Red Hill Road T junction and was waiting for the traffic on the Red Hills road to stop so I and the cars in front of me coming through Thigiri Ridge could take the right turn. All of us had the indicator on the right of the cars, blinking like जुगनू (fire-flies) in the night. There was a long queue behind me too. I was looking around as I waited for the queue to move. I am afraid of driving but the not-so-bad orderliness of Nairobi city traffic encouraged me to drive. People are polite, honking is rare. Nairobians do not think so. According to them, the traffic on the roads is unruly and matatus are a nightmare and those rare honks, are noise pollution. If only they knew traffic in South Asia, in particular, my homeland, Bharat Varsham! When my gaze moved to the left side, I saw a man staggering up the road, he was some 5-6 feet away from my car. He was looking at me too, straight, unblinking. I saw he was holding a little packet of groundnuts in his left hand. His unblinking gaze, unnerved me a bit and I looked away. But suddenly I saw him near my car’s left passenger window looking sideways inside the car and within a few seconds, I saw his body slowly move backward and forward as if he is one with the wind, his left part of the body rubbing against my car door, and finally and going face down forward.

It took me a few seconds to react. I put the car lever to parking and leaned to open the left door and see what happened. This man lay parallel to my car, his left hand up stretching beyond the back left wheel of my car and the right sprawled in the 4-5 feet space between the left side of my car and the edge of the road. He had blood on his lips. I moved to the left passenger seat with half my body out of the car and shouted to the people in the cars ahead and behind me to come and help me take the man to a hospital. Some from the front and back looked towards me and soon looked away. I heard a shout, “Lady, don’t be foolish, get in and move”. Before I could think or react to this advice, there was a young man, holding my open door and asking me to come out. Soon there was a crowd of workers who generally use the mud footpath along the edge of the road and those who get off the matatus at the junction on the Red Hill Road. Some were telling me that I should pay and settle the case then and there, some asking me to take the man to the hospital, some to call the police . I asked the young man holding the door to leave the door and bring the man inside the car so that I could take him to the hospital but he wouldn’t let go the door. The crowd was swelling. Soon a short middle aged man joined the young man. They seemed to know each other as well as the man on the ground. I told the young man that if he doesn’t let go of the door I will call the police first. The short man reacted and told me not to talk of the police and take the man to the hospital. The young man listened and left the door. I closed the door while the two helped the man get on his feet and get inside the car.

Moving back to my seat, I noticed that the traffic on the Red Hill Road had stopped and the cars in the front had begun moving. The cars at the back also had begun looking for opportunity to pass my car. I opened the door on my side and asked the one immediately behind me to come forward but he and the other one behind him didn’t and moved away. In fact, the second one was visibly upset and raised both his hands in irritation before driving out of the lane and taking off. I looked at the third car and asked the person driving to please come forward. He asked me if I am all right and came forward. The fact that he responded while the others drove away, made me feel immediately grateful to him. I told him to call my office security and inform them that I will be at Aga Khan Hospital. By now, the man was seated at the back seat of the car with the young man and the short man who assisted him. The short man was accusing me of having hit him. The T junction where the Red Hill Road meets Limuru Road, I saw the traffic police person. I have been seeing him there regularly for a year and half now. I shouted asking him to come near. The short man was objecting and telling me that I am causing delay and that this is not a police job. The traffic police person came and as soon as he looked at the back seat he got into the front passenger seat. The short man at the back continued his tirade and at one point before the Muthaiga Mini market roundabout told me that the man has died. I almost panicked and sped fast but the traffic police person asked me to calm down, slow down and that the man is all right. I asked him to either get the short man out of the car or tell him to shut up. The short man didn’t need to be told, he was quiet now.

We reached the hospital and the man was assisted to walk into the emergency while I took the car to the parking. When I came back, a doctor and nurse were examining him and the traffic police person told me that the man has a catheter/needle unit that is used for administering intravenous fluids attached to his left arm. We heard the doctor and nurse ask for his name, age, and when he ate last. A few minutes later, the nurse came out and gave me his name and age asked me to go to the reception and register him. I did so and came back. Two security staff members of the organization where I work, joined the short man, the young man, the police person and me. We learnt one-another’s names – though I could never capture the name of the short man because of the way he spoke – and some more details about our lives while waiting for the doctor to finish and tell us what is wrong with the man.

A good while later the doctor came out and told us that the man says he was hit by a car but actually he is completely dehydrated, hasn’t eaten for the last two days and suffers from ulcers in his abdomen. After examining him, the doctor informed the man that he does have some tenderness on his left side whether it is from hitting the ground or the car, it cannot be said conclusively but he doesn’t have any bruise or anything else. The doctor said that she cannnot explain the blood coming from his mouth wihout putting him under some more check-up, which the man resisted. The man vomited a lot of blood while he was being examined. When further check-up was completed, the doctor and the nurse realized that he has a long pending illness, abdominal ulcer. They treated him for dehydration and gave him a painkiller to ease his stomach pain. About the ulcer, the man finally informed the doctor that he has been vomiting blood for a long time and was hospitalized in a place called Radiant Hospital in Eastleigh where his ulcer was being treated. Since he didn’t have the money to pay the hospital bills, he removed the IV fluids on his own and ran away from the hospital.

The man wanted to be paid some money and discharged. The doctor told him they cannot treat him there any further as a road accident case and that he needs longer term treatment for which they will transfer him back to the hospital where he was being treated till about a week back. The man was petrified. He pleaded to be discharged because if he goes to that hospital, they will ask him to pay up. He informed that his house-owner has thrown him out of the house because he hasn’t paid the rent for a few months now. He said he did not eat because he has no money to buy food. The doctors said that after discovering severity of his abdominal ulcer they cannot just discharge him unless he wants to be discharged against medical advice. The man wanted to be discharged.

I asked the doctor if it is possible that they refer him for further treatment elsewhere to a relatively cheaper place than a private hospital. The doctor suggested Kenyatta National Hospital which is subsidized. The man was not ready to go anywhere. I was told by the traffic the police that my responsibility ends here as the illness of the man has nothing to do with the incident but because the man says he was hit by my car, I will have to bring the car for inspection and we need to go back to the site for investigation. I couldn’t understand why the man would do this but his condition prevented me from thinking anything nasty about him. Rather it made me feel responsible to help him. The short man and young man were also now pleading with me to help the man and that if I leave him, he would die.

Together and with the doctor we argued with the man to come to Kenyatta Hospital. He was not ready. He only wanted the money and kept asking me to give him what I would spend on his treatment. I refused to give him money but told him that I will take him to the Kenyatta Hospital and help him with his treatment. His two friends – the young man and the short man – also told him to prioritize his health. They had heard the doctor telling him that if he doesn’t allow treatment, he can vomit himself to death and that if he falls again tomorrow he may not find somebody to bring him to a hospital. I asked the police person to come with me to the Kenyatta Hospital before we go for the inspection of the car and investigation at the site. The two security staff members from my organization left because they said they have official duties to attend to. The police person agreed and also informed that the Kenyatta Hospital is on the way. I took the transfer form from the doctor and we went to the Kenyatta Hospital.

At the registration desk in the Kenyatta Hospital, the man again insisted he was hit. He was registered as such and as he waited for a doctor to examine him, I went with the police person to get the car inspected. When we came back the man was already examined by the doctor and prescribed medicines for ulcer and advised about the kind of food he should eat. He was told that the medicines are strong so he has to follow the advice closely. I wondered why the doctor didn’t give a written advice and only prescribed the names of the medicines in writing. But looking around at a few hundred people waiting to be examined, I understood that writing is a luxury that the doctors working in this hospital cannot afford unless unavoidable. The man was looked better but tired. I bought his medicines on the ways and we got back to the site for investigation. The man accurately described the condition of his health, where he fell, that there was a jam, and where my car was at the time he collapsed but he again mentioned that he was hit. The police person asked him how could he be hit by the side of window and what was he doing near the car so far away from the edge of the road. The man informed that he came to the car window to sell his groundnuts to me and that he doesn’t mean any ill except that he wants some money. He was still hungry though the saline water given at the Aga Khan hospital made him look a bit better. We agreed that the statement recording will take place tomorrow. The short man wanted some money too saying he has spent his time helping this man instead of selling the newspapers. I felt torn. Indeed, the man needs money to buy some food and the friends are too poor to get him anything but I also felt that I would be doing something wrong by giving money. In the end, I gave the short man some money to buy food.

Next day, when we met at the police station the young man didn’t come. The statements were recorded with the man saying he was hit and then describing the rest of situation accurately and the short man saying he didn’t see what happened but he came near my car when he saw a crowd. He described the situation accurately too. The police person said that based on the man’s complaint, they have to give me a note about careless driving and the intention to initiate court proceedings. He explained that this is not to accuse me but to let me know that an accusation has been made and that further investigation will take place. He explained the process. I was frustrated but I signed and accepted the note.

If I looked frustrated, the man looked worried. He didn’t want an investigation. He had come with the notice that his house-owner had sent before throwing him out. I asked him that if he wants my help why he didn’t ask for help directly rather than using a false claim. He informed that nobody helps otherwise. I understood his insistence on the false claim; he is a hungry man with three dependents in the village and needs money, he doesn’t want to rely on goodness. The police person told him that nobody will help him in the future. When he realized that I would not give him any money, he said that he would withdraw his complaint because he doesn’t mean to put me in trouble but only wanted some money. He gave a statement to withdraw the complaint. He promised to take his medicines regularly with a reminder that he has no money to buy food and that he can keep his promise if he has something to eat. Again, I gave some money. It wouldn’t help him pay his overdue rent but may help him buy food for a month or so and he has full dose of medicines.

I am still not clear if I did the right thing or by helping him I played into his game of using his misery to extract money. But I feel all right about the fact that the money will help a person who is forced to sell eatables but cannot afford to put a grain in his stomach. At the same time, I cannot take away the annoyance I feel towards the man for getting me a note from the police.

On the first day of the incident, when I got back to office, a colleague told me that poor people sometimes play this trick on the road to get some money. She informed me about an incident when an impoverished person threw himself in front of a car. I was not surprised. I have seen the worst kind of abject poverty in India but the combination of poverty and segregation of the rich and the poor that I have seen in Nairobi, I hadn’t seen anywhere else before. Kenya is the most unequal country in Eastern Africa compared to neighbouring Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi. In the Kenya, the richest 20% take 61% of rural and 51% of urban incomes. 60% of Nairobians live in slums. The bottom 20% of the country’s rural population get only 3.5% of rural income. The bottom 20% in the country’s urban areas get 5.4% of urban income. These disparities have widened since 1982 and the implementation of IMF structural adjustment programmes in the 1980s. More than 50% of Kenya's poor live on less than 1 dollar a day. The child mortality is high with 1 in 10 children dying before the age of 5 years. It is said that the AIDS patients occupy 50% of all hospital beds. More than 25% population is illiterate. Check the links at the bottom for more details on poverty and inequality in Kenya.

The incident that I described earlier and the figures given above point out that Kenya cannot be necessarily described as a poverty ridden country. Rather it is an inequality ridden country. This inequality renders majority of its population poor and prevents them from being able to afford basic service needed for a living. The man I encountered, has completed education up to ‘O’ level, is very well aware about the issues in the country and the world but his inequality induced poverty makes it impossible for him to access higher education, health, and housing. In fact, it is pushing him towards what would be termed as a criminal behavior. The short man, as a result of being an ‘inequality refugee’, does not even have political and citizenship rights because he doesn’t have the national identity card. He, therefore, would not be able to vote on the 4th of August 2010, when the country votes in a referendum on the proposed constitution.

Given that the current constitution of Kenya does not even grant equal civil and political rights to women citizens, one can only imagine the plight of poor women in this country. The political growth of the country has not only favoured the rich but has further marginalized the poor in particular women from the political gains. Public policy remains highly influenced by the churches and traditional power structures which were strengthened during the period of colonization. The public policy and practice of patrimonial inheritance of property has also made the entire state machinery patrimonial. It allows progeny of those who made their money historically and established themselves further when Kenya was a colony to inherit the patriarchal booty. Women were never given inheritance rights by the Kenyan society. Women have not been a part of the scheme in which one could gain economic rewards by showing political loyalty so they remain excluded from the economic right, representation and decision-making. Since politics of the country has encouraged loyalty based economic rewards, which in the current times, are not easy to obtain from the public exchequer directly, it is given under-the-table in the form of corrupt payments or the tolerance for money-making at the cost of public good and social services. This detouring of the funds to people who have not earned it also contributes to inequality. It creates and sustains a system in which only those who can make the under-the-table payments can receive benefits or grow further. Those who are already victims of inequality, like, men from marginalized communities and women who are denied equal economic rights, do not have the ability to pay for their way into the system. They have no choice but be victims twice, ie, once a victim of inequality induced poverty, and second, victim of corruption.

Loyalty based politics has been promoting also a system of patronage in which those who are already powerful get favoured over the weak because of their ability to serve the rulers' interests better. Illicit profit-making is another pillar on which the system of patronage rests, ie, in addition to loyalty, patrons also like to receive value for money from the persons they patronize. Poor definitely are not in a position to optimize the profits for a patron even if they were to be patronized. The system of patronage ensures that the weak, including women, are not able to access the opportunities. This is a serious impediment to the exercise of equal opportunities and to the capability to benefit from an apparently well laid out system of governance.

The second pillar of patronage, ie, illicit profit-making, also has negative consequences for the regional development within Kenya. Inequality caused by the system of patrimonial inheritance is more severe in areas which are resource rich because resources like forest and fertile land are concentrated in a few hands. The patrimonial state prefers to invest in regions which are likely to bring greater returns over the regions where investment may benefit the people in terms of their survival but would not contribute to a much faster growth rate. As a result, increasing the inequality among the citizens on the basis of their location. The situation further deteriorated in 1980s when structural adjustment was pushed by the IMF. The country has not given a thought to developing diverse opportunities to address economic inequality rather continues to focus on comparable opportunities. Creation of comparable opportunities in a country with geographical diversity like Kenya is only going to leave the regions which do not have comparable resource base and geo-conditions further behind. This sort of regional disparity cannot be blamed on to nature or geography because it is possible to resolve it with good economic development policy and investment in citizens across the country.

Kenya, like many other countries, which have undergone structural adjustment, needs to revert the trend of inequality by recognizing that basic needs such as education, health, food and nutrition, representation and participation have to be assured to all who live within its geo-political boundary, irrespective of their sex, gender, religion, region, origin, ethnicity, etc. It has to recognize that certain groups of people, based on one or the other ground, have been disadvantaged for centuries. If they are not supported through affirmative action they would not be able to participate effectively in the development processes because generations of disadvantage cannot be wiped off by creating equal opportunities on paper. They would need supportive systems to make them stand for their development.

---

Check the following links for further details on poverty and inequality in Kenya: http://allafrica.com/stories/201004210994.html; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10540379; http://www.crise.ox.ac.uk/copy/Kenya%20note%20for%20discussion.pdf;  http://www.tegemeo.org/documents/work/Tegemeo-WP30-Rural-incomes-inequality-poverty-dynamics-Kenya.pdf; http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/52279; http://www.unrisd.org/unrisd/website/projects.nsf/(httpAuxPages)/74EFE206D5C7E1FDC12573D3004D9D2E?OpenDocument&category=Case+Studies.

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Ah la la ho Over Abortion

The ongoing debate on abortion in Kenya ... I wonder when will the 'Holy See' and their side-kicks and cronies will accept that only a few in the world give two hoots to children thrown in the garbage dumps, streets, abused and starved in homes and schools. Instead of caring for the alive but miserable in this world, they are driving the whole world to go ah la la ho over the unborn. This reminds me of a Buddhist श्लोक (verse):

In the great self existing mandal (a concentric structure) of dharmadhatu (spiritual metal)

where all phenomena reside free from cause and conditions.

Everywhere I look for the self called me (in the light of the abortion debate, I read ‘me’ as women),

it is nowhere to be found.

This life force (I take it as the foetus) is but a brief flicker

like a June bug in the night.

Happy is the yogin (the female knowledge-self who practices contemplation) who clasps the jewel of radiant

Bodhicitta (the aware/enlightened self) unbounded and self-perfected

Now, this interpretation of the श्लोक (verse) is far and away from the implied meaning, but this is what most often the interpretations do - they allow to interpret from the vantage point of the person interpreting (and that's how either distortions/retrogressive or progressive understandings emerge over a period)! In the second last sentence of this note, I have given a link to an interesting paper, which is not about morality or legality of abortion, but on a much narrow issue that when pregnant woman needs a treatment that would harm the foetus in her womb, should she be denied the treatment, or the foetus be put under threat that may affect it if born or find ways to abort the foetus safely. The paper goes on to say that the foetuses have legitimate interests, rather than rights, and a sick pregnant woman has the rights over her body and a right to health. So when there are competing interests, the rights of the woman to decide on her medical treatment, to give consent and her health should prevail. When you have opened the link, click on One-Click Download button on the top to download the paper: "Ethical and legal issues in reproductive health: Ethical and legal approaches to ‘the fetal patient’". It is worth a read!

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Press Release: INDIA - GROUNDBREAKING COURT CASES ON MATERNAL MORTALITY

04/06/2010

In a historic decision the Delhi High Court ordered compensation for violation of constitutional and reproductive rights of two impoverished women. The judgment will have immense health policy implications in India, where a maternal death occurs every five minutes.

In the case of Laxmi Mandal vs Deen Dayal Hari Nager Hospital & Ors W.P. 8853/2008 Justice Muralidhar instructed the State of Haryana, to pay compensation of Rs 2.4 lakhs to the family of Shanti Devi who passed away during childbirth on 20 January this year. The Court found the Respondents in violation of Shanti Devi's right to life and health, reiterating that her death was preventable.

In the case of Jaitun v Maternity Home, MCD, Jangpura & Ors W.P. No.10700/2009 High Court directed the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi to pay Rs 50,000  compensation to Fatima for the violation of her fundamental rights by being compelled to give birth to her daughter Alisha under a tree, on account of the denial of basic medical services.

"These petitions are essentially about the protection and enforcement of the basic, fundamental and human right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution. These petitions focus on two inalienable survival rights that form part of the right to life: the right to health (which would include the right to access and receive a minimum standard of treatment and care in public health facilities) and in particular the reproductive rights of the mother. The other right which calls for immediate protection and enforcement in the context of the poor is the right to food".

The Court underlined that the cases demonstrated a complete failure of the public health system and a failure in implementation of Government Schemes, including the National Maternity Benefit Scheme (NMBS), Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and Janani Soraksha Yojana (JSY) - a scheme designed to reduce maternal and neo-natal mortality by encouraging institutional delivery for poor pregnant women. The judgment further directed the Respondents to ensure that the payment of Rs 500, eight to twelve weeks prior to delivery to all Below Poverty Line (BPL) pregnant women to ensure their proper nutrition under the NMBS, be ensured as per Supreme Court Order in PUCL v UOI 196/2001, irrespective of age and number of previous births in all states in India.

"Both the cases point to the complete failure of the implementation of the schemes. With the women not receiving attention and care in the critical weeks preceding the expected dates of delivery, they were deprived of accessing minimum health care at either homes or at the public health institutions (.) It points to the failure of the referral system where a poor person who is sent to a private hospital cannot be assured of quality and timely health services."

Drawing on international law Justice Muralidhar underlined that women have the right to control their body and decide when they wish to conceive. The Court also pointed out that women carry the burden of poverty in that they have to prove their BPL status when trying to access health facilities and accordingly ordered that "no pregnant women be denied access to medical treatment regardless of her social economical status".

"There is no assurance of "portability" of the schemes across the states. In the present case, Shanti Devi traveled from Bihar to Haryana and then to Delhi. In Haryana she was clearly unable to access the public health services. At Delhi she had to once again show that she had a BPL card, and on being unable to do so, she was denied access to medical facilities. For the migrant workers this can pose a serious problem. Instructions will have to be issued to ensure that if a person is declared BPL in any state of the country and is

availing of the public health services in any part of the country, such person should be assured of continued availability of such access to public health care services wherever such person moves."

"It may be difficult to quantify the actual loss suffered by either family as a result of the failure by the State Government to deliver the benefits under the schemes to each of these women during their pregnancies. What is clear in Shanti Devi's case is that the maternal mortality was clearly avoidable".

"In the case of Fatema soon after the baby was delivered, she required nutrition and supplements which were denied till the Court's intervention. Even the ICDS benefits were given only after the Court's intervention. It is well possible that but for the Court's intervention, the baby and the mother may have been deprived of the benefits which would have caused irreparable injury and possibly loss of life".

"It was not denied by learned counsel appearing for the Government of Haryana, the GNCTD as well as the Central Government that as of now there is no inbuilt component for reparations under the schemes. Given that the budget outlay of the schemes is in several hundreds of crores, it is indeed surprising that there is no inbuilt component for reparations"

The maternal mortality ratio (number of women dying per 100,000 live births) in India is higher than in 120 countries, including neighboring states of Bangladesh, China, Nepal and Sri Lanka. More than 117,000 women and girls die each year in India from largely preventable pregnancy- related causes.

This is the highest number of maternal deaths in any country world-wide, which accounts for almost 25% of the global maternal death burden.

For Full High Court judgment or further details, contact:

Human Rights Law Network, Reproductive Rights Unit, Mob: 09717701604, kasztelan.marta@gmail.com

DISCUSSION:  Women's right to obstetric care (or pre and post natal care) presupposes a government's responsibility to provide quality reproductive health care and prevent early marriage/early pregnancy. In real terms this would mean putting the public ex-chequer's money where the mouth is. In other words, strengthening policy and its implementation; lending political support to maternal health and ending the practice of early marriage; recognizing women right over their bodies and sexuality and educating girls and boys about their bodies, sexual health and reproductive rights; and integrating a rights based perspective in health service delivery and thereby improving women and girls' right and access to sexual and reproductive health services.

QUESTION: Given the socio-cultural environment in India and the prevalence of non-inclusive and non-participatory planning and implementation of development initiatives/services by the governments, how they as well as the private health service providers, can be pushed to meet the responsibility for reducing maternal

deaths and demonstrating their accountability to women and girls?

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Contest

Ripped apart, cut and chewed

A political consequence of her actions

Spit through filthy mouths

She gathers herself

She contests, hesitantly

Examining her position in his world

She knows she must bear through

The problematic dichotomies

And live in the structures of servitude

While speaking to break free



But …

Attempts to contain emotions break down at points

Threatening ceilings of strength

Turmoil of dichotomies replaced by the resurgence of vengeance

Mapping implications of this or that is not a choice

Her politics of dichotomies must go on

She recognizes

The choice is between void and existence

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Volatile

Fire within

Engages in a mute debate

I am glowing

With ash on my body

I am speaking

With deaf chaos around me



Glitter of sugar crystals

Nails my tongue

A glimmer of hope

Pierces my eyes

Fresh air

Leaves me breathless

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Going Through Death to Give Birth

Yet a large number of societies and parents continue the practice of early marriage for several reasons including blind faith in culture or religion, hopes of financial and social gains, relieving their own responsibilities towards the child based on her gender and so on. In my view, the continuation of the practice is rooted in social acceptance of slavery of women. Internalization of servility and acceptance of the correctness of the practice is more likely to be successful if women are tamed early, as early as possible. Girl children and young adult women are easy to terrorize and therefore easier to be kept under control and by the time they could be expected to have developed some courage to protest, they are likely to be pregnant and socially isolated as a result of lacks of education and interaction with their peer groups. They are forced to accept their condition as their destiny. Many states and their governments, despite being signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, continue to turn a blind eye to the practice.

This is a brief introduction of a longer article first published by the Yemen Times: http://www.yementimes.com/defaultdet.aspx?SUB_ID=22147 and re-published at http://bellbajao.org/2010/05/04/going-through-death-to-give-birth/. Please follow either of the links for the full article.

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Ill/Active

At Dubai airport, at Gate 209 waiting for the Flight EK 719. I try to think, my mind is clogged with the feeling that I don’t like this airport. Any thought would be better than this. In front of me, a Kenyan man of Somali origin finishes a conversation in Af Soomaali at the public phone and walks away. I try to think of his Kenyan passport which he was holding in the same hand that held the phone and circumstances that may have brought him to Kenya. Suddenly, a man with Bihari accent is screaming … well, almost,‘who leave money and card here?’. I look around but can’t see the Kenyan passport holder. He disappeared fast. I thought of volunteering the information about the direction that the Kenyan passport holder went in but my attention is caught by the Japanese man sitting next to me who is talking rapidly with his spouse sitting next to him. She nods and nudges him. He says something in Japanese but in a low voice, perhaps informing the man with Bihari  accent about the Kenyan passport holder. The man with Bihari accent can’t understand and asks, ‘your card, your card?’. The Japanese man and his spouse shake heads vigorously and gesture towards the direction that the Kenyan passport holder took. The man with Bihari accent tries to follow their gestures but fails, waits for a while looking around and then picks up the money counts it, more than 40 US dollars; lifts and looks closely at the card, it is a debit card. He is holding the money and the card gingerly at the end of a stretched arm as if bringing the money closer to his body will pollute him … may be he is afraid that he would be beaten up. He walks away holding the money and the debit card like that. A whiff of talcum perfume mixed with body odour hits me. My stomach reels back & I feel nauseated. A couple dressed in heavy clothing of all kinds, the carriers of this smell, occupy the seats next to me. I look back and find the man with Bihari accent entering a room with police sign next to the door. He is still walking with stretched arms with the money and the debit card dangling from his fingers. I can’t bear nausea any more, I run to toilet next to the Gate. All sinks are occupied. I look into two empty toilets, both add to nausea. I look desperately at the Philippina cleaner. She smiles, ask, ‘you want …’ she gestures the Indian type toilet seat with both her hands. ‘Uhhh … no’, I say looking at the sinks which are still occupied and then I take a refill pack of toilet sanitizer, a toilet roll and broom from her large trolley of cleaning supplies and enter one of the toilets. She runs after me but I have locked the door from inside. Nausea has filled me, I can’t speak. I tie my sweater around my face and clear up the mess fast. But I am unable to throw up; my mind doesn’t like that my hands are dirty from holding the broom and cleaning the toilet seat with toilet paper wet with sanitizer. I come out to find the Philippina cleaner standing in the way with anger in her face. She looks inside the toilet and the expression changes to confusion. I walk to one of the sinks, which is empty now and throw up. The Philippina cleaner is staring and others are looking at me with not at all pleasant expressions. I clean up and walk out to look for a place far from the perfumed couple. I find none and decide to walk around. The Philippina cleaner is walking next to me, ‘you ok’, she asks first and then adds, ‘baby?’ My mind is now occupied with dread of another kind - what if the perfumed couple sits next to me in the aircraft. I think she is asking if I have a child. I say, ‘one child … big’ and gesture a height taller than me. She looks confused. I say thank you to her for her concern and walk in another direction and realise that she was wondering if I am pregnant! I frown but it fades away fast. I see a vacant seat near the Gate 210. I take it and start thinking about illness and people’s perception, my own perception.

Two and a half weeks back I was hospitalised – my first real stay in a hospital. I had taken myself to the hospital after looking at myself in the mirror several times. I looked fine, no sign of illness. But the sense that ‘I am dipping down’ persisted and convinced me to call the hospital. I asked for an early appointment. The doctor’s assistant gave me an appointment for the next day. I asked to make it earliest possible. She asked me why and if it is so urgent why don’t I go to the emergency. I was in the emergency with a colleague two weeks back to take care of another colleague who was medically evacuated from a neighbouring country. The amount of paper work and the time it took there was scary. So I said I do not wish to go to the emergency. She gave me an appointment four hours later and asked me a few questions about symptoms. I told her. Ten to fifteen minutes later, there was a call from her asking if I can come earlier. I was glad and walked towards the office exit gate. The 5-10 minutes walk which I always enjoyed was painful and the wait for the taxi at the gate frustrating. My body was telling me to let it succumb; somebody will pick it and take it to the hospital. My mind told me not to be a public nuisance and not to trust a crowd to take care of my body. I listened, waited, got a taxi and took myself to the hospital. I was examined and told about a number of tests that need to be done. I was already feeling better. I asked the doctor if all that would be over today. He smiled and said no. ‘I intend to keep you here for a few days’, he said. ‘How many days’, I asked. ‘I can tell you only after I have seen all the test results’, he replied. ‘But I am feeling better’, I protested. ‘When were you admitted last in a hospital’ he asked. ‘When I was born’, I replied and further said, ‘I can come to the hospital on a daily basis’. He told me that my mind is controlling my body so I am feeling better. He asked if I drank water, I didn’t remember but I told him about tea and coffee I had that day. Dehydration is not a good things, I know.

I was admitted and another doctor, a nurse and an attendant tried hard to prick my veins to administer some intravenous fluid and injection. ‘You have thin veins, very difficult to prick’, said the doctor. She was cheerful and kept asking questions. My mind said that she is just trying to keep me talking to distract me as she pricks my veins. I looked carefully at my veins; they collapsed each time one was pricked. A few attempts and they finally manage to get one syringe needle inside my vein. They looked jubilant and the nurse told me that they are going to water me well so the veins can be regenerated. The attendant asked if I didn’t feel the pain. ‘I did but I want to be out of this place fast so I better let you do what you have to do’, I replied. They all laughed. ‘Good attitude, you will get well fast’, the nurse said. They hung three different size bottles to a stand and explained something about IV fluid, the flow regulator extension set and how it regulate the flow of IV fluid from IV infusion set into the IV catheter and what they are going to do next. Nothing registered in my brain and I told myself to calm down and let them do their work unhindered. For a while that was okay but suddenly I found them examining me further and my body cringed. I told myself to relax and I did ease a bit but the male attendant had noticed my unease and moved a little backwards. My body screamed at him, ‘you can’t become invisible just by moving a bit backwards’. I didn’t realise that I have actually said it aloud but to my own relief I said it smilingly and gently. They all laughed again. I was comfortable by then and watched impassively as they attached a few more things to my body. The doctor who examined me first walked in and after greeting me talked to the doctor who was doing things on my body and then to me. It was casual conversation about family and work. But I was not distracted because I found him looking at my body carefully. I didn’t like it at all and I was about to say that I don’t want a male doctor groping me either with his eyes or hands when the mind interjected and quietened me. He checked every insert and attachment and told me that he is going to fix me and asked me to be enduring. He told me about my body’s ailment and that I must have ignored the symptoms for a long time. I protested saying that I never felt any symptom before. He didn’t quiet believe me. He asked if I would prefer a drug to help me sleep. I said no and he said that is all right. He continued his chatter for some more time and then left. The nurse stayed on to hear me muttering, ‘I shall endure, holy man’. She asked if I believe in the God. I asked her what she thinks to which she replied that I look like someone who doesn’t. We laughed and she said that she will pray for me tonight and hopes that I wouldn’t mind. I told her to be a bit more charitable and pray for the God to prevail on the doctor to let me out of this place fast. She winked and said that she will.

By now, it was already late in the evening and my food arrived. I was hungry, very hungry. The food looked good. But I could feel the coolness of fluid in my veins better than the taste of the food. My mind kept going back to poking and peering into my body. I tried not to think about it but the aftertaste of poking and peering was worse than the time I was being poked and peered at. I felt resentment about being alone, angry with my body for not giving me any symptoms that would have saved me from poking, peering and inserts. ‘I do not like to be examined by a man’, my body kept shouting. It’s my body’s view which is not just hidden-from-public-knowledge but also rejected by my mind, ‘what difference does it make who examines the body, it’s just a piece of meat and bones for the doctor’, it retorted. An intimate exchange between the body’s account of bad feeling about being touched by a strange man and the mind’s rationale about the idiocy of such thinking went on. In between, a colleague had visited, the hospital pantry staff had removed the food tray and a nurse changed the fluid connections. All this while, the exchange between the body and the mind continued uninterrupted. Except for a short while, in between, when I remembered that my younger brother told me that some of his wedding rituals would begin today. I called up my would-be sister-in-law and spoke with her. My would-be sister-in-law was getting ready to receive the baaraat when I called her so when my brother didn’t pick up his phone I thought he must be in the middle of baaraati band-baazaa so he can’t hear me. For a while my thoughts lingered on our growing up years till the body and the mind exchange took over again. Around the middle of the night, a nurse came and asked if I would like to have a sleeping pill. She informed that the doctor has prescribed it but asked her to give it to me only if I want it. She informed me apologetically that she would have to come in several times in the nights to change fluids and so on and it would be good if I take the pill and allow my body to rest. I told her that I am fine and feel rested. I was really not feeling tired.

Towards the morning, the exchange between the body and mind had taken an interesting new direction. My mind had convinced the body that I must have resisted and ignored symptoms and allowed the illness to build the blocks to take over the body so in a way my body has not fallen ill but is actually a creator of the illness. My mind screamed at the body, ‘you are responsible for being volatile and have put yourself in this unpredictable condition’. My body was not happy so it digressed and moved away from the mind. It was still resentful but it could not annoy the mind. After all, the mind is needed to watch over the body. Now both the body and the mind were weaving together incidents and events of the last few years in my life, examining them critically, raw analysis and depiction of life from a perspective that told me how I have wasted myself – how I have allowed the material matters to take over ideal spaces in life; how I chose to feel content when I haven’t been content and how the denial of discontent has constrained the space in which I configure my life and my ideals.

With the body and mind now acting as one, I condemned myself for choosing to lead an ambiguous life where I have learnt to ignore things that bother me. Their thinking disrupted the sense of stability that I thought I had. I was now looking at the onset of factors that may have been stronger than the symptoms of illness and so blocking them out. I was into a diagnosis and discursive exploration of my recent life and I was naming and taking-on responsibility for many things that I chose to ignore or tried to live with. ‘What a hypocrite, accepting things you wouldn’t accept earlier, living with things you wouldn’t tolerate in the past or in the public’, I yelled at myself. Thankfully, my youngest sister or the elder sister-in-law called up to give me an update of the wedding. It was a much needed break from the involuntary mental work. But not for long. I would have liked some more distraction.

I preferred the exchange between the body and the mind than this leapfrogging forwards and backwards in my life. At least, it kept the attention away from myself, albeit, in a strange way. The body and the mind are part of my self but when they were exchanging arguments, I could hear them detached, as if I were another being hearing conversation between two other people. This pact between the body and the mind continued to corner me as I went through various examinations and talking to the colleagues who visited me the following day. May be it showed on my face because when the nurse came in to change the fluid connections, the previous day’s insert came off and I started bleeding but I didn’t notice anything. The nurse nudged and asked me to give my thoughts a little break and keep the vein pressed while she fetches a new syringe to prick me. I put my finger on the vein and continued with my thoughts. Pricking was not working and the nurse remarked that even my veins have a mind of their own. She called a doctor who finally managed to get one right prick and I was back on the drip of one or another kind. The IV insert kept coming off each day and each day I would be pricked a few times with some remarks, all interesting. Each time, a vein was pricked I could see it receding. May be the nurse was right that the veins have a mind of their own. The pricking process became an amusing interruption to my self-engrossed thinking process.

On the second evening, the doctor decided that I must have the sleeping pill after asking me for some information about the allergies. I took the pill and felt terrible pain in my chest and upper back and had difficulty gulping down water. Half an hour later the pain was gone but I was wide awake. The nurse was not happy that I didn’t call her when I felt the pain saying the pain must be a reaction to the drug and remarked that I have willed myself out of sleep. I informed her that I had taken sleeping pills in the past and it never worked on me but when she persisted to find out which drug which I didn’t remember but she wouldn’t believe I asked her if patients think of death when they are hospitalised. She told me that most do even when they are admitted for small little things. She assured me that I am fine and I told her that I must make a will to ensure my daughter is taken care if I am gone and to ensure that whatever I have goes towards things I would like to contribute to. The illness was redefining and reshaping my thinking about my recent life materially and discursively.

The body and the mind’s joint analysis continued the following day and the days after. I thought of my life and creation of my identity as a one-word-name-woman and laughed at the bewilderment that I come across whenever somebody of an urban background hears that I have one word name. I thought of the tiny frame that makes my body and tried to trace factors that have made this frame jump with joy or wince with repulsion and revolt. On the third evening the doctor prescribed an injection to help me go to sleep. I refused when the nurse came with the injection. I told her that I do not wish to be injected and said it so forcefully that she agreed immediately that it is not a good idea to have the injection. We agreed that I would tell the doctor the next morning that he must stop this business of trying to ‘put me to sleep’ and then we laughed about the term ‘put to sleep’. But I noticed that she took extra care to draw the curtains neatly, switched of all the lights, put a cover on the glass in the door from where the light from the passage filtered inside and tip-toed more deliberately each time she walked in and out of the room. I wasn’t feeling tired even now.

By now results of various tests were out and the medical actions based on the results were being taken. By now I was also comfortable with my self-dialogue about how I have engaged and negotiated my emotional, physical and social environment and its boundaries. Finally, on the fourth evening, I informed my youngest sister that I am hospitalised and when she and others called up late in the night, I told them to relax and let me go to sleep. I slept as soundly as I could with a nurse walking in and out. The nurse was pleased and the doctor visibly relieved. The body and the mind offensive about the need to rethink my well-being and remake my life didn’t feel as harsh anymore and was gradually beginning to follow the day and night cycle.

It is rather strange that it took a hospital to instigate the process of naming, redefining, and reconfiguring and bring out the need of reconnecting and remaking my social relations. The ambiguities, the losses, frustrations and resistance stand better understood and attempts at sense-making more real even though I fail to understand how the body and the mind felt so separate from my self.

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Regulation of Disabled Women’s Sexuality

Regulation of Disabled Women’s Sexuality

In general, women’s voices for their specific rights in the disability rights movement in India are hardly present. Voices of disabled women is almost absent in the mainstream women’s rights movement.

The politics of ‘normal’ or ‘able’ bodies and minds is further complicates disabled women’s identity. Societal norms with regard to the ‘ideal’ womanhood and the ‘ideal body’ render physically disabled and mentally challenged women invisible. They become objects to be hidden, never to be seen, heard or felt.

Since feminism is a politics of the oppressed against being pushed to the margins, disability, in my view, is a feminist issue. As an oppressed group, disabled women and men face challenges related to educational and training opportunity, inclusion, occupational attainment, economic status, and social outlets. But disabled women face particular issues of reproductive rights; control over their bodies; physical, sexual and emotional violence; and sexual rights and representations, which are considered taboo topics by the disability movement.

It is important, therefore, that feminisms in India change towards inclusiveness and support the disabled women in rejecting the traditional subservient and invisible role. There is a need for a new emancipatory politics for the disabled women, which is led by the disabled women from the centre of the Indian women’s movement.

The full article is posted at: http://bellbajao.org/legal-take/regulation-of-disabled-women%e2%80%99s-sexuality/

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