Badaun: Nirbhaya Redux

It is turning out to be Nirbhaya redux with Bharatiya characteristics. When Nirbhaya happened in Delhi there were some who said rape was a city phenomenon, it had to do with displacement of population, loose morals, short skirts and even Chinese food and rural India was an idyll insulated from such crimes. For them the verdant fields, cow dung plastered houses were repositories of all that was good with Bharatiya sanskriti (culture) and it blinded them from all the atrocities happening there. But the recent grisly footages of two Dalit women hung to a mango tree in a village in Uttar Pradesh's Badaun district comes as a chilling reminder.

Most parts of rural India are no strangers to these kinds of ghastly crimes against women, done more out of sense of entitlement or to show someone their place than to satisfy lust. But the exploiter-exploited caste matrix seems to have changed. Earlier the oppressors used to be Thakurs and other upper castes, but now it is increasingly Yadavs, who figure among OBCs, thanks to the upward mobility and political clout acquired over the years. With it has come a sense of entitlement to oppress those in the lower rungs of caste hierarchy.

The flippant patriarchal mindset among our politicians which was on display during Nirbhaya tragedy is very much intact. In post-Nirbhaya days when laws on eve teasing were being tightened, Sharad Yadav wondered how will youths indulge in 'mohabattein'. Recently Mulayam Singh Yadav said boys make 'mistakes' and should not be hanged for crime like rape.

For Akhilesh Yadav under whom the state's crime graph has docked into an orbit unheard of even by UP standards, this is time for cheap retorts, with no room for remorse or sensitivity. His snide remark to a scribe asking whether she faced any danger was reminiscent of 'painted and dented' remarks by Pranab Mukherjee's son and Sanjay Nirupam's 'thumka' remark against Smriti Irani. But being a Chief Minister and responsible for the state's law and order this remark scores much higher in terms of crassness quotient.

For opposition parties, with next election in their minds, Badaun has now become a new 'rape tourism' destination. Long motorcades of red beacon Ambassadors and high-end SUVs on dusty roads, hurriedly constructed helipads and hordes of TV crew, it is indeed a mela time for all except for the bereaved girls' family.

One positive fallout of this incident is that the issue of toilets and sanitation have come to the fore with an added dimension of women's safety, as open defecation leaves them vulnerable to attacks. The issue had somehow tapered off after former minister Jairam Ramesh had triggered a national debate over it.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

India' Population Conundrum

Right from school days, Civics text books drill into our heads that the country's runaway population is our major problem. And the demographers, in order to show its magnitude, resort to dramatic comparisons - the most popular one being that every year we are adding the population of Australia to our overcrowded land. So whatever little progress is made gets neutralised by it. Forget metros, even small towns are bursting at the seams due to population pressure.

In seventies we had the famous 'hum do hamare do' campaign and while travelling through highways in north India, the water tanks in some nondescript villages had the graffiti 'parivaar bhi seemit, paani bhi seemit' (loosely translated it meant 'small family, less water consumption').

But somehow the country's family planning drive met with only limited success in some parts (that too mainly in urban areas), while in vast swathes (especially the infamous BIMARU hinterland) it did little to arrest the burgeoning population. The reasons ranged from policy loopholes to downright lack of political will and then of course the well entrenched patriarchal mores surrounding girl child. As a negative fallout it encouraged female foeticide and spawned a cottage industry involving doctors and diagnostic labs to carry out sex determination tests. The end result has been an  alarmingly skewed sex ratios in many states.

The coercive sterilisation tactics used during the infamous Emergency made family planning a dirty word and the political class became cagey about promoting it.

Now we have hurtled ourselves within a striking distance to overtake even the most populous nation - China, that has a land mass three times our size. The recent 'population map' of India (albeit with truncated Kashmir), going viral on Twitter, shows the magnitude of problem in a more alarming light. The population of every state seems to be on par with some of the most populous countries in the world.

Thus the country's most populous state Uttar Pradesh has a population higher than Pakistan and is on par with Brazil, which is ranked fifth in world population ranking. By the way Brazil's population is spread over a land mass that is greater than whole of India. As for Uttar Pradesh its land mass shrank a decade ago after Uttarakhand was hived off.

The next most populous state Maharashtra is on par with Mexico, ranked eleventh in world; followed by Bihar which is on par with Philippines, ranked 12 and West Bengal on par with Vietnam, ranked 13. Comrades in Bengal will be happy to know that they have one more thing in common with Vietnam.

Andhra Pradesh has a population equal to Egypt, ranked 15. Madhya Pradesh has a population equivalent to Turkey, ranked 18, while Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan are equal to Thailand, ranked 20.

Next in line comes Gujarat and Karnataka and their population equivalent of that of Italy, ranked 23. This is a comparison that Narendra Modi and his ardent followers may not be happy about.  For Gujarat strongman anything Italian reminds him of his political rivals.

Interestingly Kerala (one of few success stories in population control) has a population equal to Canada, ranked 37 in world, but the North American country has a land mass nearly three times that of India! Good news for Kabutarbaaz (human traffickers) and those moving heaven and earth to get 'kaneda' visas.

Now the population debate has been turned on its head. The term 'population explosion' is passe, now demographic dividend is the new mantra. The policy makers are now trying to make a virtue out of their failure to curb population growth. Recent census data shows that those in the 15-24 age group form more than 60 per cent of the population. They argue that if provided with right skills, they could prove to be a very productive asset. However history has shown that when it comes to planning, execution and political will, our leaders inspire little confidence. Hence there is little to look forward to the so called dividend, it will most probably prove to be a liability.

Image source: Twitter

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Hi-tech Jaagir

Political largesse comes with many strings attached, the most common one being return on investment at the electoral stakes. So when the youthful Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav doled out laptops to intermediate students, it was seen as a high tech offering, clothed in feudal era jaagir culture (giving land as patronage) to keep the electorate (in this case probably the first time voters) in good humour.

To be fair to him he had indeed made such a promise during the run-up to state election. But then hardly anyone noticed as election manifestos in our country carry as much value as paper cones provided by vendors to carry peanuts.

However, it looks like Akhilesh is not only serious about it, but his planners are tech savvy enough to ensure that his image building exercise running into thousands of crores, of course at the cost of public exchequer, does not get wiped away at the mere click of a mouse.

These Hewlett Packard laptops come with a pre-loaded screensavers of Akhilesh and his father! Quite predictably for the current MTV Roadies generation it inspires little fascination. But those who went ahead and tried to replace it with a Sunny Leone or Virat Kohli picture were in for a rude shock.

The moment they tried to replace the pre-loaded wallpaper the system crashed. So for UP students there is no question of  the father-son duo fading out of their laptop screens.

 Also Read: Bangalore Beat