kya bhoolon kya yaad karoon: academics

This is the review I wrote for one of our courses titles "Business Government & Society".
Subject was three documentaries made by Deepa Dhanraj an independent filmmaker from Bangalore.Movies were something like a war & legacy of Malthus & naari adalat.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307481/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121468/

Something like a war
This movie addresses various intertwined issues like sexuality and identity of women, nexus of male dominated system outside the home and inside the home to keep women subjugated and exploit them and then it deals with interest of western world in population control in developing countries like India. The message it tries to convey is that population control programme being executed in developing countries like India have gone horribly wrong in their execution as the policy is itself based on flawed premises . It has degenerated into nothing short of a war against women.

Through a simple scene where women are joking about changes related to menstrual cycle – amusement, fear, joy it is depicted that how women can’t express their sexuality in open. Different women have different view about sex or having children but in a society where honor of man folk is associated with sexuality of women( it is traditionally said in India that all fights have taken place because of cattle, women and land), it is thought that one size fits all. So something which is feared to be stolen or impured by outsiders is kept under restrictions. But in this zeal to protect women their identity gets lost somewhere. They can’t take decisions about their sex life anymore. This is very similar to “chastity belt” being used in medieval Europe as idea of female sexuality as honor was taken too far.

Dominant theme of movie is that because Women are the creator so men feel afraid that women may usurp power on this basis and so they make menstrual cycle period as impure just to keep women down. So ironically this very strength of woman makes her vulnerable.
It is interesting to note how power of her becomes her biggest weakness. It becomes a basis as to why she should be kept inside, why she should not interact with outsiders and why without it she has no value whatsoever. Somewhat similar to a property or animal that has something extra so it is valued but at the same time needs to be protected or denied freedom for the same reason and is useless if does not have that characteristic.
A woman is made to believe that her existence derives from her fertility. Now since this task can’t be accomplished by woman alone she has to depend on man and then man can dictate terms.
But now comes the twist – Population explosion. This idea is reinforced in movie again and again through jingoistic ads made to promote family control linking poverty with more no of children. USA or western world had interest in keeping our population in check as inequalities of world can’t be sustained for long if numbers are overwhelmingly large on other side. Since they can’t create a world of equal opportunity or don’t want to do so what is next best solution – decrease no of claimants.
But In India Sanjay Gandhi made a blunder by forced vasectomy of men. As a result focus shifted to women. One health official from Maharashtra in 1976 terms situation as warlike and asks not to get perturbed if there are some deaths also!
There is a verse in Sanskrit which says “not horse, not elephant, not lion but only goat is used for sacrifice because even Gods harm only weak”

In nutshell, a woman is used as a means of production in this whole economy and is given conflicting signals from different quarters but what she has come to believe as her own is also being snatched from. Even her husband will not like to squander the opportunity to earn something out of their women and will be willing to trade her sterilization with government officials for some monetary favor.

• So a poor woman has to pay double price first for being woman and then poor. Indian women have become “guinea pig” for the big business of contraceptives in various ways.
o New contraceptives are tested on patient without patient’s knowledge
o Poor women - lack of awareness , monetary allurement result in experiments on their body
o Doctors take shield in fact that patients don’t ask about it
• India was the first country in world to have official family planning programme in 1952. In one of the scenes women are being operated upon by a doctor in a fast and cheap method but women are treated as animals in these camps and individuality is lost. Basic emphasis is on hiding the private parts as honor of men is associated with that. In short women have been reduced to just a means of production.
• In one very powerful scene when a woman goes inside to get operated and a doctor removes her sari unceremoniously and then this sari is shown lying in a corner unattended and neglected. Similar treatment is meted out to women in the whole process. First they are robed of their sexual identity because it infringes on honor of men and once they surrender it they are treated like dirt to fulfill desires of men be it more children, boy child or no children. So we find in ancient scriptures like Rig-Veda verse which says “the place where women are honored becomes abode of gods” but by 15th century Tulsidas writes “cattle, untouchable, fool and women need to be controlled by force”. Clearly economic forces are at play in reducing women to this situation

• Second dominant theme of movie is that why population control efforts are inherently biased against poorer sections of society. This is done by first addressing the issue as to why poor has more children –

o As it is their only asset
o Poor health care – not many children remain alive so t more children as hedge
o Nonexistent social security cove so people invariably look towards their children for the same
o Children in poor family contribute to household from early age

The idea is carried forward in next movie where Deepa builds on this argument.

Legacy of Malthus
• In this thought-provoking film, Deepa Dhanraj takes on the international population establishment, challenging the entrenched view that overpopulation is responsible for poverty and environmental degradation. In India, peasant farmers are being evicted from their land and then accused of being feckless, poor, irresponsible and unable to feed their families. Dhanraj argues that it's the same process that took place in 19th century Scotland during the Highland clearances.
• By skillfully intercutting reconstructed scenes from the Napier Commission of enquiry into the Highland clearances, interviews with contemporary Rajasthani village women today, archival US news footage and current day propaganda films warning of the dire consequences of global population increase. Deepa argues that nothing has changed.
• Rev. Malthus postulated in 19th century that means are limited and so geometrically increasing population needs to be controlled. This point is reinforced through fruit fly experiment or bacteria in a jar by a BBC programme not paying attention to the fact that Malthus ignored factor productivity and his model is proved wrong by the events of last century.
• One very sinister implication of whole theory was that people don’t understand their own good and so needs to be told what to do but we should keep in mind that Malthus wrote in the days of industrial revolution .Industrialists were earning profits but did not want to share the burden of providing basic necessities for workers. Government was also in collusion with them so such theory proved to be very handy in castigating a poor person responsible for his own poverty.
• In its Indian variant our politicians can’t solve the problem of poverty or unemployment as they are able neither to grow pie nor to redistribute it so the next best solution is to decrease the no of mouths biting on it. But poverty is here to stay as basic issue is land or access to land. Government can’t give them land or is not willing to give so basic cause remains even after one treats outward symptoms.

• For example in Scotland all productive land was enclosed for sheep rearing. Crofters were give unproductive patches or too little land and were then blamed for their own poverty as they were producing more children. This situation was created so that industries and colonies could get cheap labor. Similar pattern is repeated in Indian village where rich people will not let poor own land and will snatch anything which they have by coercion, debt trap or taking advantage of their ignorance. When everything fails industrialization is argued to be best medicine for poverty and those who are first to be sacrificed at its altar are poor. Recent land acquisition efforts in Nandi gram, Singur or past events of Narmada Bachao Andolan signify the same thing where poor who are happily living in their poverty are not allowed to do so as rich suddenly decide one day what is best for poor. Alternate means of employment are offered as bait but either people were not equipped for the same or it was so divorced from their traditional way of living that they could not hold on their own. In Scotland Farmers took to fishing resulting in monetizing of economy but once again their surplus was perishable so they are poor despite having more money

• Same story is repeated in Indian villages. Average holdings of poor are very small & thus uneconomical .They can’t deepen their wells nor do they have electric pumps. It’s not a level playing field. So even though on paper they have land, its effects are nil. So just to have means for all is not enough but everyone should have enough opportunity to access those means.

• Money economy has also resulted in poor becoming weak. In a barter system they could get everything except salt from their village but advent of money introduced distortions which favored people with small surplus throughout the year rather than those with large surplus once a year. Surplus should also last and be handy when it is needed.

• Most bizarre is the propaganda advertising family planning as a means of women emancipation by making them controller of their lives or by invoking dangers of repeated pregnancies.

• In India Green revolution just exacerbated the differences as only farmers with basic capital needed to take benefit of government schemes reaped the benefit while others were left behind. ( Old testament also says “ one who hath shall be given” )
o Issue of biodiversity – use of fertilizers has further weakened land and once again poor are hit disproportionately.
o The grains which poor consume like millet are out of PDS so they don’t get government support. Thus on the one hand government is paying huge burden of subsidy but its benefits don’t reach to the intended target group.

• One interesting aspect of Scotland Highland inquiry is the rules are made and broken by elites of the society. When they want taxes from poor they don’t allow serfs to leave land. When they can get their grain from colonies and find sheep rearing more profitable, farmers are summarily dismissed from land by widespread enclosures. They are given land which is small and unproductive.
When these serfs become labor in towns , industrialists don’t want to pay for basic amenities ,so argument of Malthus limits is discovered .When need for surplus labor reduces and automation arrives poor are taught virtues of small family. This is in stark contrast with what is happening in Russia today – President Putin is exhorting people to produce more children
Even church was helping in this game. Church opposed family planning when labor was required but Protestant supported it when it became difficult to deal with needs and demands of poor
• Interest of developed world in helping developing world in population control is threefold
o First reducing poor requires less money than reducing poverty
o Second they don’t want opposition from developing world when they are plundering earth’s resources e.g. USA is responsible for 30% GHG emission but wants China and India to commit to emission targets.
o To blame undevelopment on population is a convenient scapegoat as it masks failure of their policies , insufficiency or uselessness of whatever aid they have given

Naari Adalat
They say the law is an ass. If this is true, the Indian legal system must be one with an exceptionally long life. Indian courts are infamous for the delay in delivering justice due to various reasons prominent being huge backlog of cases, shoddy investigation and archaic laws.
Justice delayed is justice denied more so when the oppressed is lower caste, rural & women.

For a woman who is seeking redress against social oppression this becomes crueler because of variety of reasons such as
o Often she has to come to a court very far off
o Economically she is not independent
o Judiciary and police is dominated by males who are not sympathetic to her grievances
o Law process rests on hard proofs which are easy to come in civil suits or criminal suits but in family disputes one may not actually want to bring bad name to family – e.g. Lady does not mention that Jitu used to rape his sister in front of him near river.
o One crucial stumbling block is love of children. A woman will continue in an abusive relationship just for the sake of children. But here this is not the case
o Another factor is family honor. Illicit relations involved her sister and sister in law but she did not hesitate in bringing this thing to public. Maybe she comes from lower caste which helped this process. As in upper caste this would not have been possible
o Village elite is not interested in lives of lower castes .Even if they are they insist on following caste customs and as prefer status quo and fear that if this case is settled based on fair principles of justice and then in future cases pitting them against lower castes can also go to courts

Naari adalat seems to operate through peer pressure. Many times crime which everyone knows is not punished simply because of some technality in legal parlance. Naari Adalat appears to have overcome this problem. It is a constructive way of channeling anger with system else something which happened in Nagpur a few years back when a listed goon who was out on bail and terrorizing women in a slum was killed by women in court premises.

One pertinent issue is enforceability of the decisions and on this count Nari Adalat seems to be lacking .In fact regular administrative orders are not implemented in rural areas if village elite so desires so thinking of implementing decision through peer pressure sounds a bit farfetched. But there is a glimmer of hope because if such Adalat succeeds in getting support from other sections of society then through “social control” or “clan control “ decisions can be reinforced.

One interesting theme in movie is Jitu’s family’s insistence on caste rules to be followed. This insistence no doubt emerged from desire of giving Ganga a raw deal as customs are biased against women but we should not lose focus of the fact as to why such unequal rules came in place? Poor and marginalized sections did not have any control on their land or other means of production and either on religious pretexts as in Ancient India or legislative action as in Scotland highland case or by forced industrialization ; they were continuously made to surrender whatever little they had for the elites so then only thing they had control over i.e. their women were used to satisfy male ego and they centered community honor around them in process making laws which appear unjust today.

Thus dominat theme running across three movies is land & woman i.e. means of production and associated conflict. Irony is that in the process the very thing which is being fought over does not has any say. So women are the hardest hit , more so the poor women . In the end when Sita has to give Agni Pariksha or even Draupadi does not get justice form elders in Hastinapur assembly , women devise their own ways of dealing with issues and Naari Adalat is one of them.

Epilogue
The idea upon which Deepa builds upon first two movies i.e. how our system and society has failed poor and women comes to its logical conclusion in third movie when poor women decide to make their own system. We find glimpse of it in second movie when village women capture the common grazing land while opposing upper caste males of village but Naari Adalat is the last nail in coffin when woman gives up efforts at reconciliation with system and create their own new system.
If viewed differently these three movies are like touching an elephant at different parts of his body – trunk, leg, ear etc. But the elephant is old and same – elephant of injustice, elephant of selfishness and elephant of self proclaimed righteousness.
All the struggles in past have ultimately harmed women be it Mughal invasion of India, Gambling match in Mahabharata, Sita in Ramayana or mass rape of women during India’s partition. For example in Ramayana a woman was made means to humble Ravana, the evil. Similarly in Mahabharata it was Draupadi who was tormented in power struggle between Pandav and Kauravs. Even in modern times during Indo- Pak partition women on both sides were the worst sufferer.
So more things change, more they remain same. So a simple thing like population control has turned itself into nothing else but a war against women’s identity.

But selfishness is not limited to male-female relationships in nature. It manifests in its most bizarre forms when rich deal with poor and Legacy of Malthus builds on this idea. Whether it is slavery in Rome, caste system of India, Serfdom in Europe or later industrial revolution, colonialism; the rules of game have been set by dominat group in the society.
As Marx says “History repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as a farce “. Deepa conveys this point very subtly by drawing analogies between Scottish Highland evictions and an Indian village where just like land another means of production women becomes the conflict point. Referee i.e. state or religion is on victor’s side, rules are set, changed at distorted by victors at their own will ; so what is the recourse? Revolt as in case of Scotland crofters or Nandigram peasants does not provide any hope as brute power of force is with victors.

Here comes the Naari Adalat with its innovative way of dealing with conflict outside the system from the side of oppressed .Though we don’t know the outcome but it certainly raises hope to see a determined Ganga standing confidently against her husband Jitu , in laws and village elite. The rules of game have changed now and for better perhaps …

kya bhoolon kya yaad karoon

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