Books
by Marina R. Pinto. Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2000.Metropolitan City Governance in India
Given the nature of development taking place in our country, it seems inevitable that the process of massive urbanisation will continue unabated into the foreseeable future. The urban population is expected to double in the next 20 years and existing cities will expand beyond limits imaginable today. This will place even greater pressure on already overburdened municipal resources and infrastructures, and make a mockery of master plans formulated for the orderly development of cities. It will be the responsibility of the ‘third tier of government’ – municipal authorities – to cope with this distressing scenario. Are they equipped to confront the challenge?
Not according to Marina Pinto. In Metropolitan City Governance in India, she examines the administrative structure of the country’s four metropolitan cities – Calcutta, Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai – and, not surprisingly, concludes that ‘looking back over the last 50 years...has shown that the structures of municipal governance in our cities are archaic and have not been able to ensure either self-governance or efficient delivery of goods and services. While in rural India there has been a degree of experimentation through democratic decentralisation, better known as panchayati raj, nothing of that order or magnitude has been seen in the urban areas.’ Hence, the prognosis for India’s urban future appears bleak.
This is an all too familiar story: post-colonial rigor mortis setting in on once healthy institutions, administrative culture and political imagination. Municipal governments once spawned national and state leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Subhash Chandra Bose and Pherozeshah Mehta. But, ‘Today’s decaying and deteriorating local government structures exemplify the conflict between the dynamics of change and the statistics of a vested interest in maintaining the institutional status quo.’ There are no easy answers, but one can begin, as Pinto does, by trying to understand the system of municipal governance.
The municipal government, she points out, is ‘a peculiar combination of government organisation which must also exhibit a business sense as it must run the system on sound business principles even if it does not subscribe to the profit motive... its special feature is that it represents government at the door-steps of the people who are voters, clients, consumers, assessees, tax-payees and licensees all rolled into one.’ Few of us would recognise such an organisational ideal in the inefficient, arrogant and corrupt municipal governments we deal with and, consequently, it is not surprising that the quality of urban life in India is deeply unsatisfactory. The system often requires a crisis like Surat’s plague epidemic to jolt both the government and the citizens out of their apathy and make the ‘third tier of government’ work.
Pinto has supplemented her study with primary research in the form of ‘questionnaires, field trips, discussions and spot interviews with notables, to understand the working of the municipal system in a holistic fashion.’ In addition, there is a chapter on ‘Theoretical Perspectives’, which begins with the views of Aristotle and goes on to discuss the contributions of European and American thinkers on the subject. A chapter on ‘Institutional Designs’ discusses developments in U.S.A, U.K. and India. Together the two chapters place Pinto’s study in a wider context. She deals with each city separately and provides an account of the evolution and present structure of their municipal governments. While her objectives are not prescriptive, she does conclude by advocating a participatory model of governance, particularly in the light of the enactment of the 74th constitutional amendment. Since the book does not attempt to throw light on how this can be achieved, it remains an academic study of what exists.
What exists are two forms of metropolitan government in India – the ‘Commissioner’ type, first established by the British in Chennai in 1888, and still the predominant form of municipal governance all over the country, and the ‘Mayor-in-Council’ type, introduced in Calcutta in 1980. While the former system is predicated on the need for administrative efficiency, the latter recognises that in a functioning democratic system, no single ruling elite controls the political and government system. Democracy operates via a process of negotiation and mutual accommodation, with all the virtues and weaknesses that such a process entails. Chennai has attempted to reform its system by instituting a powerful Mayor as a counterpoint to an equally powerful Commissioner. In Delhi, too, there is a move to have a stronger Mayor, but not the Mayor-in-Council as in Calcutta. Pinto surveys administrative developments in each city, delineating its unique set of problems. ‘Over-governance’, as Minister of Urban Development, Jagmohan, would be pleased to note, figures prominently in Pinto’s list!
While the author explains the system of governance in each city adequately, one misses a wider engagement with ground realities of the Indian urban scene. Social values and economic policies are changing the world over. This is resulting in innovative shifts in administrative structure and the strategies employed for resource management by municipal governments in the West. These changes have generated sufficient theoretical consideration, according to the author, to be labeled ‘new localism’, wherein local communities have a heightened awareness of their enhanced roles. Not so in India, however, where the structure of governance continues to favour the model of centralisation established by the colonial government.
This system was instituted, ironically, out of consideration for ‘administrative efficiency’ instead of ‘local democracy’. What remains of the imperial legacy is neither efficiency nor democracy. As Pinto points out, the problem has been compounded by the fact that ‘the Indian polity though democratic, is feudal in characterÉthe higher levels of government function in an authoritarian manner rather than in a spirit of partnership and brotherhood, while relating to the lower levels of the government.’ This attitudinal inertia prevails despite the passage of the 74th constitutional amendment devolving more power over local issues to the local communities. One needs to examine why such enlightened legislation does not get translated into practice in the field. For answers one will have to look beyond Marina Pinto’s book.
The failure of municipal governments is only part of the story. These structures were established to serve colonial imperatives and they continue to do so even today – except, now, the colonisers are a different set of people. One need only listen to the complaints of slum dwellers and street vendors to appreciate this tragic truth. A more democratic and representative form of governance like the Mayor-in-Council form can mitigate the excesses, but cannot, by itself, produce better cities: Calcutta and Chennai are no better for having a more participatory form of governance, and Mumbai and Delhi no worse with an authoritarian structure.
Basically, there is a failure of the collective imagination regarding the condition of cities – on the part of political leadership, administrators, urban planners, and most importantly, the public. The only models of cities that appeal to us are those of the capital-intensive, technology-dependent cities of the West where a high degree of social and cultural consensus ensures structural order and continuity. The circumstances in India are virtually opposite; yet all of us – politicians, administrators, urban planners and the public – try to put a square peg in a round hole when it comes to dealing with the urban environment. To carry that metaphor over to the book, I think it has explained quite competently the squareness of the peg – municipal governance – without really addressing the roundness of the hole – the urban reality in India.
Urban governance in India is like the tail that wags the dog: one wonders who is in control. The forces that determine the development of the city appear to possess a will of their own, independent of what governments intend, urban planners visualise and the citizens expect. The unfortunate fact is that urban change of the sort we are experiencing is beyond the understanding of the authorities that are expected to govern and guide its development and ensure its proper maintenance. From this perspective this book has covered only a part of the problem, albeit a potentially significant aspect.
A.G. Krishna Menon
AGAINST CHILD LABOUR: Indian and International Dimensions and Strategies edited by Klaus Voll. Mosaic Books, New Delhi, 1999.
STREET CHILDREN by Rashmi Agrawal. Shipra Publications, New Delhi, 1999.
The two books under review are similar, yet different. Both are about children and their rights, or lack of them. While Against Child Labour deals specifically with working children, Street Children dwells on the condition of the growing number of children who live and work on the streets of urban India.
Against Child Labour is divided into four parts. The articles are a combination of papers written by authors/contributors and interviews conducted by the editor. Part I, on the international and structural dimensions, begins with an overview of the situation in South and South East Asia and primarily deals with the ongoing debate on the ‘social clause’; each contributor has a distinct position on this issue. It contains written contributions by Daniel Haas (two papers), Christopher Stuckelberger and E.A.Ramaswamy, and interviews with Swami Agnivesh, D. Thankappan, Kailash Satyarthi and Maneka Gandhi.
Daniel Haas attempts to explain the demand for new global instruments of socio-political regulation in the context of globalisation and presents some ideas about opportunities and risks and argues for ‘sensibly shaped’ social clauses. In another paper in the same section he discusses the Indian position in the general discussions about social clauses. Christoph Stuckelberger in his short piece argues for social clauses, while Swami Agnivesh in his interview clearly states that the real motive behind them is protectionism and the developed countries’ push for mobility of capital. He also attacks the Rugmark Foundation set up to ensure that only child labour free carpets are exported. Even Kailash Satyarthi, one of the key promoters of the Rugmark Foundation and an erstwhile colleague of Swami Agnivesh, has not been spared from a scathing attack. Ramaswamy takes a rather pessimistic view that there is no hope of eliminating ‘root and branch of a practice’ (child labour), in which increasing sections of society are developing a stake. He suggests that, ‘what working children need is what all working people need, incremental improvements by way of hours of work, wages and conditions of employment.’ He sees a role for the trade unions in ensuring these.
D. Thankappan suggests that the only way to eliminate child labour is through improving the wage conditions of adults, decent educational support to children and development of a culture where the citizens are educated to make sure children are supported, protected and encouraged. Kailash Satyarthi speaks about the Global March and social clause based on the experience of Rugmark, and the need for an international instrument to make sure that things change without impositions or sanctions. Maneka Gandhi takes a pessimistic tack and talks about why child labour will carry on, given the national and international scenario.
In Part II, entitled Focus India, Klaus Voll and Manju Gupta present a case study on India. Why they choose to call it ‘an exemplary case study’ is not quite clear. Their broad overview discusses the reasons, socio-economic background, legal provisions and sectors in which children are employed. It also reflects on street children in bondage and girls forced into prostitution. The authors have documented efforts made by NGOs to address the problem and presented their favoured recommendations. However, even while they argue that ‘children in schools will mean no children available for work’ they, in the very next line, state that ‘compulsory education does not necessarily eliminate child labour.’ They cite the experience of the National Child Labour Policy wherein children withdrawn from work and sent to school, with a stipend, continued to work at night, putting excessive pressure on them. The solution they feel lies in literacy along with skill training – ‘earn while you learn’ schemes, food subsidies and educating parents of the importance of education for their children.
Part III, ‘Reflections and Practical Steps Against Child Labour’, presents still another interview with Swami Agnivesh. Manju Gupta, Dietrch Kebschull and Marc Beckmen examine the carpet industry and the philosophy, achievements and limitations of a strategy like Rugmark, based on a process of monitoring and labelling. Chapters 16 to 24 document experiences and strategies for eliminating child labour. They include interviews with Shamshad Khan, Neera Burra and Kailash Satyarthi. The plight of the child workers in the T-shirt factories of Tirupur (Hildegard Scheu), the child domestic workers (Bharti Pflug and Raynah Passanha) and street children based on an interview with Rita Panickar and the work of her organisation, Butterflies. Shamshad is critical of strategies involving labelling and instead favours community organisation and education as the only solutions; so does Neera Burra. Kailash Satyarthi highlights the role of the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude (SACCS), while analysing different forms of networking and the role of international donors. Christa Durr and Beate Scherrer present their database KIDAT while Meera Dewan shares her experiences while filming ‘Whose Children?’, a film on the child workers of Firozabad.
The final section contains appendices put together by Manju Gupta and Kavita Sivaramakrishnan, listing the various government departments involved in combating the issue, an account of the evolution of the child labour policy, and a chronology of acts relating to child labour.
While the book is exhaustive and covers a range of national and international issues, there is no clear binding ideological perspective. The choice of articles/ interviews seems too eclectic and unplanned. Despite an obvious focus on social clause, labelling and monitoring through Rugmark and the carpet industry, that does not seem to be the purpose of the book. If, however, the purpose is to demonstrate that the movement suffers from a lack of cooperation resulting in a fragmentation of the forces struggling against child labour, then the editor has certainly proved his point!
Though, Street Children by Rashmi Agrawal is no pioneering piece of research, it is still welcome. It is reasonably focused (although somewhere in the middle, even after the author herself makes it a point to distinguish between child labour and street children, she goes off into great detail on child labour) and makes for easy reading. The case studies and anecdotes based on the author’s interaction with the children put the child back into the picture and lend a certain poignancy to the numbers and tables.
The author stresses that street children and child labour represent conceptually different categories. Not all child workers are street children and vice-versa. Street children include non-working children who are beggars, gamblers and so on. Child workers on the other hand are children who live with their parents and go out to work. Nevertheless, the area of overlap between the two is considerable. This is amply exemplified in both the books. While describing the Indian scene, Agrawal has concentrated largely on statistics on child labour just as the previous book on child labour devoted a chapter to street children when examining sectors and strategies.
Chapter 1 defines street children and discusses some qualitative aspects of their activities. Chapter 2 examines the reasons for children being on the streets – poverty, parental and societal apathy, failure of the educational system, conflict in the society and homes, war and natural calamities.
The rights of children under international conventions, the Indian Constitution, laws and policies are dealt with in Chapter 3. The international conventions such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the constitutional guarantees and legal rights are meant to provide protection to the children. The author argues that in the absence of the necessary statistics, even if these laws were implemented with the best intentions, they would still touch only a very small part of the problem.
The examination of ‘who’ the street children are and what motivates them or brings them to the streets, leads the author to focus largely on socio psychological dimensions: their emotions, habits, behavioural patterns, sufferings, dreams, and intelligence levels. She dwells, in chapters 4 to 8, in great detail on various theories and theoretical models. Chapter 6 records her interaction with children in the course of her research. It is not clear why the author refers to her respondents as clients. One wonders whether this is a deliberate choice of words because she has conducted psychological tests, or simply an oversight.
Subsequently, the author reviews the existing rehabilitation policies and programmes of the government and NGOs aimed at ameliorating the conditions of children at work, both those living with parents and those living and working on the streets. Once again SAACS and Butterflies, whose programmes have been discussed in the earlier book, find mention.
The final chapter, ‘We all can Help’, calls upon society to rethink its role and offers suggestions on how a combination of strategies, beginning with better parenting, educational reforms, dealing with gender bias, involvement of industries and the corporate sector, is needed. It is heartening that one of the recommendations made by Agrawal is the same as suggested by this reviewer to the Delhi government way back in the mid-90s. While working in one of the children’s homes in Delhi and seeing their need for love and caring, the reviewer had suggested that children’s homes be linked to old age homes so that the young and the old could ‘find’ each other. Rashmi Agrawal too feels that contact programmes between the two groups would provide much-needed emotional support to both groups.
Clearly, the book is not designed to be a mere academic exercise. The purpose is to arrive at a range of strategies and possible interventions to change the lives of these children.
Enakshi Ganguly Thukral
Child Labour in India by Lakshmidhar Mishra. Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2000.
Lakshmidhar Mishra’s dedication to commitment and involvement with the issue of child labour is well known. When I mentioned to a friend that I was reviewing his book, that person remarked, ‘You mean the man who fights against child labour although he is in the government?’ Surely no further proof is needed of his commitment to the rights of child labour.
In this volume Mishra has documented the state of child labour throughout the country, in a variety of industries. Mishra looks at child labour in the beedi industry in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, glass and bangle factories in Ferozabad, U.P., matches and fireworks outfits in Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu, carpet weaving in Kashmir and U.P., as also the leather, gem or diamond polishing and textiles in other states.
Everyone, including the law, concentrates on these areas. Mishra, in addition, looks at children in agriculture, whether as wage labour or in family units. The book begins with a profile of child labour – family size, occupation, gender division, caste. The book is a mine of data. To give just one example: there are 100 million children out of school today in India. This is the magnitude of the problem we face.
A chapter each is devoted to definitional and conceptual issues; the magnitude of the problem; causes and contributory factors; a general profile of children in India; a profile of children in India; and education.
In the Introduction, Mishra indicates his awareness of the legal position on child labour. Few people are as aware as he is that children are pledged in violation of a specific law to the contrary; The Pledging of Children’s Act 1933, is still on the statute books.
After taking us on a tour of child labour in India, Mishra, in the third part of the book, once again turns to the macro-constitutional provisions, legal provisions, international instruments, national policy, international initiatives, the role of NGOs, public interest litigation and judicial activism, the role of trade unionism, the media, and even the central employers’ organisations. While there is no separate chapter devoted to parental perceptions or the views expressed by child labourers, the author does give them adequate space.
Overall, the book provides a panoramic view of the subject, not overlooking any aspect of this knotty, festering problem. It is well structured; the author’s understanding of the subject is mature and has grown over the years.
But then Mishra enjoys a special advantage as an author. As he says (p. 4), during the 1980s and l990s, he had the unique opportunity to hold a variety of posts, all of which helped him to understand the scope as well the different facets of the basic problem. These included the Labour Ministry, the National Literacy Mission, and the Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology. These postings allowed him to travel widely and see things for himself. Most important, through this exposure he developed an approach and an attitude to the problem. Mishra has evidently internalised all that he saw and related seemingly unconnected pieces to build a whole to arrive at conclusions about the best way to deal with child labour. One can safely say that he has a near holistic understanding of the problem of child labour and its relationship with universal elementary education.
At the same time, Mishra is able to take a bird’s eye view of the subject. He discusses the variety of positions on child labour and even concedes that they all have some merit. Nevertheless, his own position is clear and uncompromising. Thus, Mishra accedes to the existence of socio-economic realities but adds that in that case they have to be addressed. He also points out that though no one department or ministry can deal with the problem because of its complexity, is no excuse for pushing the problem out of the realm of the possible or for ignoring it. Instead, his diagnosis calls for action on all fronts.
Simultaneously, Mishra focuses on children who are truly invisible – neither in school nor noted as wage labour. Most of them are girls engaged in a variety of trades such as rag picking in urban areas, fuel and fodder collection and fetching of water in the countryside, and ‘mindless domestic chores’ throughout the country. He points out that none of our laws provide any protection to these children numbering between 74-98 million. Mishra quotes D.P. Chowdhary who has called them the ‘nowhere children’, an expression that is both graphic and poignant.
Surprisingly Mishra does not talk of child prostitution and child beggary, surely two most horrendous areas of child exploitation. A one-way street if ever there was one. They are truly ‘nowhere children’.
There are at the moment several books on child labour in the market. Equally, several conferences or workshops on child labour have just concluded or which are in the pipeline. Many of the books are excellent, replete with statistics and provide strong arguments for taking immediate steps for eradication of child labour and its replacement with universal education.
And yet there are other books and conferences that promote the cause of continuation of child labour. They involve two categories of people. Some see child labour as a positive good. They glorify the work culture and the independent robustness it promotes – of course, in the children of others. These champions of child labour go on untiringly about the necessity and even advantages of child labour. One is told not only that parents need the child’s labour or wages, but also that the children want to work, that education is not relevant to their lifestyles (as though repetitive, boring work is). There are also the bleeding hearts, a term applied wrongly and unfairly to child labour eradicationists. They are the status quoists. They may not be positive champions of child labour, but see it as an unavoidable evil. Notwithstanding the statistics quoted by Mishra and others who point out that only 17% of child workers come from female-headed households, they continue to foreground the widowed, ailing mothers, arguing that they will die if their ill-clad, undernourished boy does not toil from morning to night. Still others point out that we are being impractical, that there is no money for so many schools.
In other words, it is clear that a number of people in positions of power, decision-making and financial control, do not see the eradication of child labour as either urgent or beneficial to the health of the polity. Nothing that authors like Mishra say makes any difference to them. Let us not forget that the Child Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act was prepared by a so-called child workers NGO in 1986.
The latest strategy is to couch the arguments in the language of human rights discourse, of the child’s right to autonomy. From this vantage point it is argued that a child has a right to choose to work so long, of course, as it is someone else’s child. It does not matter whether the child exercises her/his autonomy to choose to be an indentured labourer or a prostitute.
There are huge sums at stake in the continuation of child labour, and perhaps even more money involved in inducting them in prostitution, that all arguments to the contrary fall on deaf ears. It is not that those who matter do not know. Indeed they do. It is just that they do not want to listen and, therefore, to change.
It simply is no longer enough to write as Mishra does. A worthy book, preaching to the converted, but probably unable to open the ears of the wilfully deaf. We are no longer speaking to the uninitiated. On the contrary, we address people who listen to us only to use our own words to defeat us. It is time to take the battle out there, to become pugnacious and say in no uncertain terms that child labour has to go, that we draw the line at concepts of autonomy and child’s innate wisdom, if evoked, to ‘permit’ the child the ‘liberty’ to ‘choose’, to pawn its future to virtual slavery. Arguments that use such language are essentially specious and evil because they are not intended to be universal in their application.
That then is the basic problem with books like the one being reviewed. They will not set the agenda for the foreseeable future. And that is the need of the day.
Vasudha Dhagamwar
Mandate for Political Transition: Reemergence of Vajpayee by Yogesh Atal. Rawat Publications, Jaipur, 2000.
Indian politics has been on a roller coaster, as it were, for nearly a decade. The speed as well as the highs and lows of political drama being enacted in the country has compelled social scientists to work overtime to provide updated analysis. If it has been hazardous to either conceptualize or provide a definitive characterization of Indian politics, indicating future trends has been even more so.
In fact, if we characterize the first two decades following Independence as the period (and politics) of stabilization, the period since then can be characterized as the period of transition. For, despite the visible stability in terms of the overwhelming presence of the Indian National Congress on the national scene, its comfortable majority in the Lok Sabha in 1971, 1980 and 1984, a definite transition is visible in Indian politics since 1967.
It is not surprising that the transition was put on a fast track, as it were, in the next two decades. Naturally, the final decade of the 20th century not only witnessed eventual humbling of the Congress, but also the emergence of hitherto unimaginable alliances. Despite a comfortable majority gained by the National Democratic Alliance led by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 13th general elections, the period of transition is far from over.
Indeed, politics thrives not on stagnation, but on flux and change. Hence, any talk of transition in politics raises the question ‘transition for what’. In the Indian context, ever since the transition from colonialism to democratic polity, the entire political structure – political leadership, party system, social base of power and so on – has been in a state of flux. The period of transition is not yet over. Naturally, studies of Indian politics have focused on changes taking place from time to time.
The book under review attempts to capture this transition at a crucial juncture of Indian history. Yogesh Atal, thus, aptly titles the book as Mandate for Political Transition. Three distinct transitions are clearly visible. First, there is a change in national leadership. From Rajiv Gandhi to Atal Behari Vajpayee, through V.P. Singh, Chandrashekhar, P.V. Narasimha Rao, H.D. Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral, the leadership of the nation is under transition in more ways than one. Second, there is a change in the party system. The Congress system of the yore has clearly breathed its last. The emerging party system, rather party systems, still lack a clear pattern. The NDA is a grand effort in coalition making, akin to the Congress’ effort to create a social coalition, yet it is inchoate and incohesive. Finally, the political sociology of the power structure is under transition. It is determining, and will determine in the future, the nature and shape of social and political coalitions in the country.
Therefore, this ‘narrative of the 1999 elections’ ‘written to document the entire process as it unfolded’ is a timely micro study. Yogesh Atal is meticulous in his narrative. From the defeat of the Vajpayee government by one vote on 15 April 1999 to the victory of the NDA in the 13th general elections, Atal has painstakingly captured the details of what he calls ‘mandate for political transition’. Indeed, this book will be useful for researchers looking for a chronology of the political drama in the year 1999 that convincingly established Atal Behari Vajpayee as the leader of the BJP, the NDA and the nation.
Howsoever useful a meticulously documented chronology of political events may be as a treasure trove of information, it can claim status as an academic study only if it provides an objective analysis with proper perspective and conceptual clarity. Though Atal explicitly claims ‘objectivity of a social science exercise’, his gentle tilt is evident from cover to cover. For example, while narrating the events leading to the fall of the Vajpayee government, not once does he question either the merit of an alliance with Jayalalitha despite corruption charges against her, or her ‘appeasement’ by Vajpayee. He does not hold either the government or Vajpayee responsible for actions by her nominee in the council of ministers to protect her for acts that were politically, administratively and ethically wrong. Similarly, his repeated characterization of all opposition politics as ‘machinations’, each as a reaction to good acts by the government, also betrays a clear bias.
His ‘tilt’, to put it mildly, would have been neutralised had Atal attempted a rigorous analysis of his painstakingly collected data. He had his opportunities in chapter 5, when he ‘compares’ party manifestoes, in chapter 6 titled ‘Contentious Contexts’ and in chapter 7 on ‘Poll Predictions: opinion and exit polls’. He could also have attempted it in chapters 8 and 9 – ‘Election Results: a clear mandate’ and ‘Back in the Saddle: the road ahead’. However, he seems to have evaded analysis altogether, for whatever reasons. In the absence of a perspective and analysis, there is no conceptualization of a major event in India’s contemporary political history. Sadly, the book fails to present a perspective on any of the three crucial political transitions – in political leadership, in the party system and in the power structure.
Ajay K. Mehra
STATE OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN 1999. Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Lahore, 2000.
What is it about the absence of democracy that makes for gripping human rights reportage and deeper analysis? Surely not just the fact that adversity brings out the best in us. Whatever the reasons, it is undeniable that of all the South Asian countries, Pakistan, which has experienced the greatest difficulty in its efforts at institutionalising a modern democratic state marked by civic freedoms and a rule of law, has produced the most formidable commentary on the state of human rights in the country.
The very fact that the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has survived and published its 10th report, despite four changes of regimes and stints of martial rule, is some cause for cheer. Closer home, notwithstanding a plethora of human rights organisations and a history which can be traced to the setting up of the Civil Liberties Union in 1937, we have never managed anything comparable. There are the occasional outstanding efforts – the PUCL-PUDR report on the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, the courageous work by Nandita Haksar and her colleagues in documenting army excesses in Mizoram, or the more recent Srikrishna Commission report on the Bombay riots of 1992 – but no cohesive assessment of the state of play in the country. As such, for overall assessments we are forced to rely on monographs emanating from Amnesty International, Asia Watch, or even the relatively discredited State Department Annual Reports on Human Rights presented to the US Congress. If Pakistan is fortunate in having a national assessment of the health of its polity, it has much to be grateful to the late Justice Dorab Patel, the feisty sisters Asma Jehangir and Hina Jilani, and the HRCP Director, I.A. Rahman.
The HRCP reports are valuable not only for their extensive documentation, but for the perspective they provide for a study of human rights. Unlike most western human rights organisations whose frameworks are not just excessively legalistic and focused on the presence or otherwise of civil liberties, HRCP reports are marked by a political understanding of the struggle for rights. As much as rule of law or its enforcement and the effective exercise of fundamental freedoms – of movement, thought conscience and religion, expression, assembly, and association – HRCP analysts discuss the state of social and economic rights, in particular of the disadvantaged – women, children, labour – in an overall framework of democratic development. In doing so they document the activities of both the state and civil society organisations – modern and traditional.
Not unexpectedly, the narrative is bleak, given ‘the blows struck at the nation’s faith in its ability to govern itself.’ The report documents the failure of successive governments – from Zia-ul-Haq to Nawaz Sharif via Benazir Bhutto – to perform, and worse, the ‘efforts to set up false symbols, wasteful monuments, and ersatz imitations of institutions.’ ‘For governance we had despotism; for justice, parallel Shariah courts, military trial courts and special anti-terrorist courts; for laws, hudood, qisas and diyat; separate electorate and anti-Ahmadi and anti-"blasphemy" provisions; for economic development, the likes of a motorway; and for a foreign policy, nuclear tests, ballistic missiles and a Kargil.’
The report also points out that in the foreseeable future Pakistani democracy will inevitably be painted in military colours. While castigating the growth of poverty, the lack of social development, the growth of ethnic and sectarian strife and religious militancy, the targeting of liberalism and so on, in the HRCP assessment – the media, the women’s movement and the NGOs – despite battering have emerged stronger. It is in these developments that it sees hope.
An unusual feature of this report is a full listing of HRCP activities through the year, in particular the stands that the organisation took on specific issues. Of particular interest is its consistent opposition to nuclearization; to the painting of the military takeover in positive terms, despite having faced serious harassment from the Nawaz Sharif regime; and to efforts at reducing the Kashmir question to one of a deal between India and Pakistan.
If such stands, which question an ostensible national consensus, can be publicly articulated in the difficult environs of Pakistan, hopefully our fledgling human rights community too will gain courage. That would be a worthwhile example of Indo-Pak People-to-People initiative that bodies like HRCP espouse.
Seminarist
DOWN AND OUT: Labouring Under Global Capitalism by Jan Bremen and Arvind N. Das, photographs by Ravi Agarwal. Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2000.
In an era dominated by discussions of global capital flows, foreign direct investment, forex reserves, mergers and acquisitions, fiscal deficit and downsizing – all central concerns for those bothered about the Sensex – a book on labour is hardly likely to excite attention. If anything, in our frenzy to be recognized as a global (or at least regional) economic power, talk about workers is met with derisive unconcern. ‘Another last ditch effort by erstwhile leftists to discredit the liberalization programme.’ ‘A bleeding heart effort to generate sympathy for the under-class.’
Given the flawed imageries conjured up by most labourist discourse and the widespread antipathy to what are seen as the ‘blackmailing’ antics of organised labour, this should come as no surprise. But like most ephemeral excitements, such a dismissive attitude would be tragic. For anyone interested in a realistic and rooted appreciation of our growth path, ignoring labour is akin to reading Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.
For close to 40 years, Jan Breman, a Dutch social anthropologist, has been among the most perceptive observers of the changing situation of workers. From Patronage and Exploitation to Footloose Labour, Breman has provided us some of the most detailed and gripping accounts of how our labouring strata has lived, fought and survived the changing times, more often as respondent but episodically as an active agent. Equally noteworthy has been his contribution in attracting other scholars to the field. And though his prime field area remains South Gujarat, readers may recall his evocative essay on Calcutta.
Arvind N. Das too is no unknown entity. Historian, journalist, documentary-maker, Arvind is best remembered not only for his work on Bihar but his feisty commentary on the peccadilloes of our times. Along with Ravi Agarwal, photographer and environmental activist, the two present to us a book that we can ill-afford to miss. And, despite its coffee table format, it would be foolish to put it aside as a superficial text. The three take the reader on a fascinating journey through the life and times of workers – men, women and children – in activities as disparate as textiles, gems and jewellery, cane fields, brick works, construction and petty trade. The journey progresses from the village to the small town and cities to the metropolis and back.
Among the first myths that Down and Out explodes is about the immobility of labour. One, in fact, would be staggered by the extent of migration – the numbers, distances travelled – and the fact that not all or even most of it is one way. We also learn that there is little that is informal or unorganised about this lower end of the labour market, despite the popularity of terms like the informal sector. The ease of entry and exit is at best relative and involves sophisticated calculation on the part of participants. Third, that our workers are not poor because they are lazy or shirkers. Rather, the focus should be on their exploitation. ‘The down and out produce wealth from which they however remain excluded as beneficiaries. Most of them are the working poor who continue to live in a state of misery and oppression because of the low wages paid for long hours of work.’
Is this inevitable or merely a result of ‘our state of development’. That any attempt to ensure to the workers their just dues would only result in these enterprises becoming non-competitive, and thus shut, creating joblessness. This book argues that our manifest poverty is a reflection of our ‘development’ not ‘backwardness and stagnation’. The Breman-Das-Agarwal workers are on the move; they are active agents who scramble to survive, resist oppression where possible and make deals where feasible. Their suffering is more a result of our actions than theirs.
The most memorable section of the book are extracts from a letter that Jan Breman’s mother wrote to him in response to his early descriptions of the Dublas of Gujarat in the ’60s. She recalled her own life in the Netherlands of the ’30s and how the post-War economic boom finally elevated her from a barge-puller and peat digger to a comfortable, though working class, existence. She, like our early planners, reflected the optimism of progress.
The Breman-Das text is no narrative of unrelenting misery and immiserisation. Progress has taken place, even for the Dublas of Gujarat. And yet as the economy has transformed from local to global resulting in a clear separation of producer and consumer, new forces have started governing life chances. In many ways this makes the struggles of such workers even more difficult, because in their various trades and occupations they never face the actual decision-makers. This is why we need both policies and struggles that seek to organise the working poor both as workers and citizens. Equally, there is need for more rather than less state intervention. Otherwise we are in for an era of predatory capitalism.
Finally, this book, and Ravi Agarwal’s photos are an immense help, permits us to move from policy abstractions to ‘flesh and blood’ humans. Hopefully next time we cheer a slum demolition or the removal of a street market, we will be forced to pause by what we have read and seen in this book.
Seminarist
