A call for change!

Anna and his team may have won the first round against corruption, but there are several battles waiting to be fought in India. Anuradha Varma asks some eminent voices to tell us about the change they want to see.


Anna, broaden your battles!
Gurcharan Das, author & management expert

"Anna Hazare has been successful because he has focused single-mindedly on one issue — corruption. The Lokpal is only a beginning. It will catch crooks after the act. What you need is to prevent the disease. To make a real difference, you need to reform the bureaucracy, the police, the judiciary, and the electoral system. These reforms should be next on Anna Hazare's agenda. He should not get distracted by other problems, such as education, health, drinking water. Obviously, there is corruption in the delivery of these services — one in four teachers is absent in a state primary school; two in five doctors are absent in a primary health centre. But the answer is to make civil servants accountable — government teachers and doctors are civil servants, after all. The overhaul of the bureaucracy, for example, will entail reduction in administrative discretion; swiftness and certainty of punishment in disciplinary proceedings; reduction in rent seeking opportunities; penalisation for delays; elimination of the seniority system. These ideas are not new —every administrative reforms commission has recommended them ,but the bureaucracy has sabotaged them. So, we need Annaji to focus on them."

Let Kashmir be heard

Shobhaa De, writer

“The sudden cancellation of the much looked forward to Harud Literature Festival in the Kashmir Valley once again proves how divisive forces win over those advocating a peaceful dialogue via non-political platforms. Pressure groups are overactive these days, and free speech comes with inbuilt reservations about security issues and safety. This is ridiculous and a real threat to the democratic process which guarantees plurality and liberalism in all walks of life. That a handful of protestors could browbeat organisers to cancel what would have been an important exchange of vibrant ideas and voices, is an indication of growing intolerance, not just in Kashmir, but across the board. I am fundamentally against browbeating of any kind... no matter how ‘noble’ the intentions. There is no room for suppressing the freedom of expression through such bullying tactics. The more one gives in to such elements, the weaker we become as a nation.

What about healthcare & education?

Sohaila Kapur, theatreperson

"The country has focused on corruption, but there are several other issues that need to be addressed and speedily. For instance, health and education. A visit to any of the municipal hospitals confirms that. Pregnant women, wounded men, diseased children await attention and rooms. And why just government hospitals? The problem is not much better in private hospitals. You have to make a down payment before a patient is admitted. My father once experienced a heart attack while I was away from the city and our driver rushed him to the very hospital where he was once a senior and respected pediatrician. The receptionist refused to give him a room, even while the poor man was gasping and in great pain, until Rs 2 lakh was deposited there and then. Someone should move the RTI in hospitals. As far as our education is concerned, things have not changed much from our time when we learnt everything by rote. Instead of droning on and on about matter that is already in text books, teachers need to challenge young minds through relevant questions, quizzes, experiments and yes, even theatrical exercises. One could go on and on about what needs to be done, but it's time it all jumped out of the paperwork and worked itself into active agendas."

Stop sexual violence

Vidya Reddy, child rights activist

“The Bill to Protect Children from Child Sexual Abuse has been put up before the parliamentary standing committee, but it hasn’t even been introduced in the Parliament for passing. I recently recommended that the police in Chennai start a training module on handling such cases. We have decided to call it ‘Investigating Sexual violence’ — it needs to be said outright. We must stop using euphemisms when dealing with sexual abuse and stop clubbing them under crimes against children or women and trafficking. Nobody sees it as a standalone problem. When it comes to sexual violence of children, first of all, very few cases get reported. Nearly 88 per cent of the victims don’t talk about it. We lack an effective response mechanism in society or in the system. Forget sensitivity, at least put protocols in place that can be followed. According to a 1996 study, even judges, MPs and the police are uncomfortable around cases of sexual violence. We need a special prosecutor in court to address such cases. Doctors are also not trained in these issues. Recently, a boy who was sodomised was tossed around an entire day in the hospital from departments of neurology to paediatrics and finally psychiatry. Whether it’s men, women, children or the LGBT groups, everyone has to be protected from sexual violence.” 

Fight for the environment
Raaja Bhasin, author & historian

"Every time there is a problem, a Gandhi, a Jai Prakash Narayan and an Anna Hazare cannot be pulled out of the woodwork. Systems must be strengthened — systems of redress and systems of appraisal. Of all the issues that now face our country, the biggest fight is yet to come. This fight is for our environment that will decide how we will live, and if we will live. The interventions that have taken place have been too severe and too irreversible. This will have to stop, if we do not want to create two nations within the same geographical space (as happened in England during the Industrial Revolution), the rich and the poor."

Shelter land rights of poor
Usha Ramanathan, legal expert

"The vexed question of land is seeing a churning around the country. It is now at least 25 years since coercive acquisition, forced evictions and mass displacement reached national attention. It is local resistance, in multiple locations around the country, which has forced the state to rethink its strategy of how it will use its power to take over land. There is a draft Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation Bill 2011 currently up for debate. It reveals a remarkable lack of understanding of why there are all these mutinies all around us, and that a new law will have to limit the powers of the state to acquire, not expand it like this Bill will do. In the meantime, the urban poor are having their shelters demolished ruthlessly, and the state is acting as if the poor are responsible for their poverty and must pay the price for being poor! The persistence of 'extraordinary' laws is a scandal. Chhattisgarh, Kashmir, the North-East see them in their rawness, to which the unmarked graves bear testimony. Irom Sharmila has become a symbol of a state that does not care either for its people or for the rule of law. These laws have to be systematically, and urgently, weeded out."

Parenting on pause

A teen who mows down people in his luxury car, an infant whose parent changes her sex… Is it time such parents lost custody? Anuradha Varma reports

A child who is sexually or physically abused at home, infant girls who are surgically transformed into boys at their parents’ behest, a child who has access to a chauffeur-driven car and iPod but is sent to school without a bath or breakfast… Is it time for parents to be held accountable and have their parenting rights questioned?

In the West, social workers from Child Protection Services investigate cases of neglect and abuse and retain custody of children found living in an hostile environment. In India, while the Child Welfare Committee is vested with similar authority, it treads carefully. Says Raj Mangal Prasad, chairperson, CWC, “In India, parents treat children as their property. We have to do a balancing act. There are kids who complain that their parents are not providing them an Internet connection or being late with their school fees. Any child above the age of seven can have his say in the courts.”

The Salaam Balak Trust, which looks after runaway children, dealt with 450 runaways last year alone. Says AK Tiwari, “Most were victims of physical abuse. They may have been sexually abused as well. We try and rehabilitate them with their families, but in many cases, we realise they have to stay away.”

Explains Ajay Sinha, Policy Advocacy, CRY, “The Juvenile Justice Act has a concept of ‘fit institution’. Even a family can be classified as ‘not a fit institution’ for the child by the concerned CWC. If sex change operations have indeed been conducted on children, the CWC of that area can and should take suo-moto cognisance of the cases. Children have a right to identity, derived from the right to life. But a note of caution here: the alternatives - i.e. the Children’s Homes are in bad shape and are not conducive for children's development and wellbeing.”

On foster homes, Pinki Virani, the author of Bitter Chocolate: Child Sexual Abuse in India says, “We don’t have a system as yet. And it’s not a utopian solution. But we certainly need to start laying the groundwork for foster care since it will be required once the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Bill, 2011 becomes law. It is now in the Rajya Sabha, after deliberation — and what one sincerely hopes will be several corrections — will go the Lok Sabha. Meanwhile, let us understand that this is about what is best for the broken child. There might be the other parent (the mother/father) who has not actively colluded or blood relatives who can step in. The child cannot be yanked out, brutally, to a completely strange environment when the system is not in place to really let him, or her, feel safe thereafter.”

Adds Virani, “Aren’t we reading reports of severe physical and sexual abuse in government-run child-care homes? And thanks to the watchfulness of the media we also increasingly read — even though attempts are made by those organisations to cover-up because it would affect their funding — of paedophiles working in NGOs. So, at all times, as adults whose bounden duty is to protect our vulnerable children, we should watch out for not only the very first ‘bad touch’ but thereafter for the secondary victimisation which can sometimes prove to be even more damaging to the child’s psyche.”

Comments Vidya Reddy, Tulir Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse (CPHCSA), “Parenting happens by default and if there was a test, not many would pass. Often, children of sex workers are taken away from their custody. They are not necessarily bad parents. What about rich children who kill people on the road in their Mercedes? Shouldn’t such parents be held responsible too? There are many cases of neglect in affluent society too.”

The law needs to look at things in a holistic way. Vidya adds, “In a recent case, the father was accused of incest, but the mother was arrested too as an accomplice. Now, the child may turn hostile in court, knowing her mother is at risk too.” What if a rapist father returns home after serving his sentence? “Nobody can do anything if the family takes him back,” remarks Vidya. Time for the social agencies to step in?