Jairam Ramesh in The Hindu-
Transformational leaders will be judged not merely by the style of their speeches but more by the substance of their actions
The Prime Minister’s maiden Independence Day speech from
the ramparts of Red Fort has drawn wide encomiums. While invoking our
founding fathers, he was decidedly partisan in not mentioning Jawaharlal
Nehru, a key architect of the modern Indian nation state with its
profound commitment to parliamentary democracy, secularism, science and
technology, and economic development. Other than this glaring and
undoubtedly deliberate lapse, the speech brought into sharp public focus
a couple of social evils that continue to be a scourge on our society.
Low child sex ratio
First,
the Prime Minister’s concern over female foeticide and infanticide,
reflected most vividly in low child sex ratios (0-6 years), was very
timely and urgently needed. Such a ratio at around 950 (that is, 950
girls per 1,000 boys in the 0-6 years age group) would be considered
acceptable. But in India, it has fallen from 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2011
and further to 914 in 2011. All our previous Prime Ministers too had
expressed anguish at these numbers. Over the past two decades,
determined social and political action have improved the situation
somewhat in Punjab and Haryana — two States with notoriously low child
sex ratios. The 2011 census revealed that the child sex ratio in Punjab
was 846 as compared to 798 in 2001, while in Haryana it was 830 in 2011
as compared to 819 in 2001. These are still unacceptably low but the
trend is encouraging.
But Delhi continues to be a
cause for worry, showing a fall from 868 in 2001 to 866 in 2011. And
what about Gujarat that is often held out to be a “model” of development
for the entire nation to emulate? Gujarat’s sex ratio in 2011 was 886
(as compared to 883 in 2001) — a marginal increase no doubt, but
significantly worse than the ratios in the southern States (959 in
Kerala and 946 in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka). Maharashtra, Madhya
Pradesh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir showed
sharp declines in child sex ratios between 2001 and 2011. Incidentally,
while overall sex ratios (number of females per 1,000 males) have shown
an increase across the country in 2011 over 2001, they have shown a
decline in three States: Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir and the Prime
Minister’s showcase, Gujarat, where the overall sex ratio in 2011 was
919, as compared to 1,084 in Kerala and 996 in Tamil Nadu.
Second,
the Prime Minister’s pain regarding the unconscionably high levels of
open defecation in India should be shared by all unreservedly. Open
defecation is an assault on the dignity, privacy and security of women.
Less appreciated is that poor sanitation practices in our country are
leading to a condition that public health experts call “environmental
enteric dysfunction.” This condition contributes significantly to the
persistently high levels of child malnutrition seen most visibly in
stunting levels and tragically, perhaps, in loss of cognitive abilities
as well. Clearly, chronic malnutrition cannot be combated only through
ensuring food security. It must involve a fundamental transformation in
sanitation and hygiene as well.
The Prime Minister
stressed the provision of toilets in all schools, particularly for
girls. That is certainly needed. But actions across many other fronts
are also called for. The Indian Railways that carries over 20 million
passengers daily is the world’s largest open sewer. More than
extraordinarily expensive bullet trains that will cost upward of Rs. 100
crore a kilometre, what the country desperately needs are trains with
bio-toilets. At present, over 60,000 coaches in use need to be
retrofitted with this Defence Research and Development
Organisation-developed technology and, of course, the 4,000 coaches that
are manufactured annually must already have this installed when they
are pressed into service. These bio-toilets are as essential for India
as missiles and other technologies developed by the DRDO.
Thanks
to the decisions taken by the United Progressive Alliance government as
part of the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA), some 28 per cent of all
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) works
in 2013-14 related to the construction of toilets. The unit cost of the
toilets now being built was increased from Rs. 3,500 to Rs. 10,000. This
has made a difference. For the first time, the NBA had provisions for
dealing with liquid and solid waste management. The Prime Minister has
spoken about involving the corporate sector as well. The UPA government
had already made sanitation an important part of the guidelines for
corporate social responsibility (CSR) stipulated in the Companies Act,
2013.
The Prime Minister’s priority to sanitation
cannot but get support from across the political spectrum. States like
Sikkim, Kerala and Himachal Pradesh are almost open defecation-free.
Kolhapur is about to become Maharashtra’s first open defecation-free
district and Churu and Burhanpur are on the way towards this distinction
in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh respectively. Tiruchirappalli has
become India’s first open defecation-free municipal corporation. Women’s
self-help groups that have been a remarkable success story in State
after State must mainstream sanitation into their activities. But toilet
construction is only one part of the story — much more important is a
gigantic shift in mindsets and behavioural patterns. Nothing short of a
social or cultural revolution will do. The nation needs to be shocked
into it — that was the spirit of my “toilets before temples”, “women
have more mobiles in India than toilets” and “no toilets, no brides”
remarks that created a furore when they were first made two years back
and got the Prime Minister’s ideological brotherhood all agitated.
Manual scavenging
Given
the time he devoted to sanitation in his speech, it would have only
been appropriate that the Prime Minister spoke feelingly about the
persistent prevalence of manual scavenging across the country, even
though affidavits are filed by States in courts stating that this
dehumanising practice sanctioned by our caste system has been abolished.
The 2011 Census revealed that there are still 26 lakh dry latrines in
the country and there could still be 3 lakh families engaged in this
appalling and degrading occupation. In September 2013, the UPA
government had got Parliament to pass a tough new law, The Prohibition
of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013.
This “right to dignity” was very much part of the rights-based approach
of the UPA that was launched with the passage of the Right to
Information Act in September 2005. The Prime Minister and his colleagues
have often criticised this approach but surely the ruthless
implementation of this new legislation on manual scavenging is deserving
of his special attention.
Transformational leaders
will be judged not merely by the style of their speeches but more by the
substance of their actions. The nation awaits a Prime Minister who,
even if he disdains Nehru, governs at least in the Vajpayee mould: in a
large-hearted spirit of give and take; one who takes people of different
political backgrounds along amicably in the pursuit of pressing
national endeavours.
(Jairam Ramesh is a Rajya Sabha MP and former Union Minister.)