Gender, political participation and health care in India
Gender, political participation and health care in India
India is a highly diverse ethnic society with rapid social, cultural and economic transformations and multiple challenges on social integration. Little is known in the western world on these processes, and this is especially true for the experiences and aims of women as active players in science and society. Two academics, a professor of sociology from Delhi and a political scientist working in a rural area, provide insights into the position of women in science and politics, and highlight topical issues in gender and women's studies.
The interviews are structured as follows: beginning with an introduction of the interviewee, three topics are addressed: the situation of women in science and politics and the establishment of gender studies and equal opportunities in India; developments and novel approaches in the interviewees' research area;international academic networks from the viewpoint of Indian women academics. The interviews underline the need for, and the benefits of, transnational knowledge exchange and academic networks.
Interview with Tulsi Patel
Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, Delhi
Tulsi Patel is a Professor of Sociology and teaches and researches at Delhi School of Economics at the University of Delhi. She has recently been the Chair in India Studies at the University of Heidelberg in Germany for a semester in 2005-2006, and an honorary Research Associate at the Department of Sociology,University of Manchester, UK from 2001 to 2004. She was also the Indian coordinator of the Higher Education Link Programme on Gender, Population and Sustainable Development with Manchester University from 1998 to 2004. She has taken teaching assignments at London School of Economics and Royal Holloway College, University of London (1996-1997). Previously she has taught at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi and Miranda House, University of Delhi.
Her areas of interest include gender, anthropology of fertility and reproduction, medical sociology, sociology of the family, and old age and society. She is the author of Fertility Behaviour: Population and Society in Rajasthan Village, published in 1994, and the second edition with a new introduction published in 2006 with Oxford University Press. She has also edited The Family in India: Structure and Practice, 2005, Sage Publications, New Delhi and Sex Selective Abortion in India: Gender Society and New Reproductive Technologies, 2007, Sage Publications, New Delhi. She has several research papers in national and international journals. She has been the treasurer of Indian Sociological Society and was the convenor of the Research Committee on Age and Social Structure of the Indian Sociological Society for six years until 2006. She has been on the editorial board of Sociological Bulletin in the past and at present, too. Presently she is working on "Rural-urban migration and health" with an interdisciplinary team of medical doctors and epidemiologists. She is the anthropologist/sociologist on this research funded by the Wellcome Trust, UK. Besides this, she is working on the anthropology of culture and childbirth practices in urban and rural India.
Women scientists and gender research in India
There are several indirect measures to encourage educational opportunities to develop possibilities for women to find employment in science. For example, many state governments provide free-ships and scholarships for female students for their study in elementary and higher educational institutions. As is true for all societies, class and cultural capital more than any other ethnic background play a critical role in the relationship between gender and science. Therefore,despite the policies for reservation in educational institutions and employment as well as promotions of employees from socially disadvantaged caste and tribe groups, more women from better-off households take greater advantage of such mainstreaming measures than those from poorer households.
Women in science
Empirical evidence of gender inequality, especially in demographic terms is visible in the social organisation of Indian science. While there are no statistically significant differences in terms of writing books, articles and presenting papers at conferences, the two groups (men and women scientists)differ in terms of academic rank. While there is little apparent discrimination between men and women scientists, gender stratification has a role to play in the differential. Research performance appears to be unrelated to the differential ranking of men and women scientists, though the glass ceiling does exist. There is no difference between men and women scientists in terms of recognition measures, such as awards and membership of professional organisations. The role of gender, as an ascriptive factor, is a reference point from which differentiation does take place within Indian scientific institutions; and there is a strong association between scientific careers for women and the class structure. Social stereotypes infiltrate the workplace;there are latent aspects in the work environment that place women academic scientists at a disadvantage. These disadvantages are a function of a "patrifocal"structure of Indian society, a general "lack of critical mass" of women scientists and a lack of "universalism" in science.
Gender studies in social science and medicine
Gender studies in social sciences are very popular. Gender studies as well as women's studies courses have been taught for over four decades in higher education institutions in India. There are a few women's only universities and there have been women heads of educational institutions. Though highly dominated by women, men also teach and research in the field of gender. Gender studies have been recently introduced also at high school level.
Medicine for a long time has been the second largest profession employing women, the first being teaching. Having said this, the proportion of men teachers and medical doctors (allopaths) is larger than that of women. While female nurses and gynaecologists are more than male nurses and gynaecologists,other medical and para-medical professionals are predominantly men. There is little sensitisation of gender issues in medical schools and medical curricula in India. Similarly, gender and health care, or even gender and illness, is a theme that is less commonly researched. The example of reproduction and childbirth practices is a case in point. Compared to the developed countries of the West, there is not comparable research interest in the area. While there is a sprinkle of women in high positions in health care and policy-making, there is little specific demarcation for women and health care research. Women and health care is more or less a topic of research that might be vetted like any other topic for health research. Nevertheless, there are a few women's exclusive research and welfare bodies which fund research on women and gender relations. Health and women may form a topic to compete for research like any other topic dealing with women. Of course, there are enormous opportunities for research in women and health care in India.
Maternity care in India
Maternity care in India has for a long time remained an exclusively women's domain. Maternity care has been overshadowed by developmental goals and educational extension practices as it were. Two trends may be seen in this regard. First, the public health and hygiene concerns that emanated from allopathic understanding of the "white man's burden". The colonial masters and their wives thought rather poorly of the dirty and unhygienic practices of birthing followed by uneducated women who produced several babies for their husbands. Closely connected with this attitude has been the second trend – that of the anti-natalist population policy followed in India soon after the turn of the past century and officially proclaimed soon after India attained political freedom in 1947. The focus had been on convincing and converting people to have fewer children, and eventually women began to be brought under the scanner when it was realised that as bearers of babies they need to be targeted. For over a couple of decades now, female contraception,especially the very high rate of sterilisation of women and institutional childbirth has been the primary high light of the population policy in India.
It is rather strange that there has not been in India the kind of passion and deep cleavages dividing the society and research initiatives around childbirth and contraception in the West. While the feminists had to struggle for long before getting the right to abort in 1969, it was given to Indians in 1971 to persuade couples to abort undesired foetuses to attain a small family. However,Indian health researchers and feminists have been interested in maternity issues now for over a decade in view of the strikingly declining proportion of girl children in the age group of 0-6 years revealed by the figures of 2001 census in India. This trend has been set off after the introduction of new reproductive technologies.
International academic networks in the area of health care: learning across cultures
Indian feminist and women's groups and researchers are in touch with others from many other countries of the world. However, in the field of gender and health care there has not been any fruitful collaboration that I am aware of. This is one area that is promising indeed. In fact, health care in general and maternity care therein may be explored for international networking and mutual learning across cultures.
While I was at the University of Heidelberg in 2005-2006, I taught with other colleagues on a certificate course on medical anthropology and public health for doctors and public health specialists. The participants found it exhilarating to hear directly from a researcher like me the experiences and meanings behind the practices of medical care. On several occasions, they found ideas and views they had never thought in the way people in other cultures routinely hold and follow in their health care practices. For a medical practitioner to see meaning in the patients' practices in every culture was a mutually rewarding experience of this interdisciplinary interface.
About the authorTulsi Patel can be contacted at: sociology_dse@yahoo.com
Interview with Joseph Vanishree
Senior Research Fellow, Department of Political Science and Development Administration, Gandhigram Rural University, India
Joseph Vanishree is a Research Fellow at the Department of Political Science and Development Administration at Gandhigram Rural University in Gandhigram. The university is well recognised for its contribution to rural education, so much so that the new education policy of the nation reflects the principles evolved here in developing the rural university concept. She describes her motives and interests in gender research as follows: "Gandhigram University proliferates Gandhian ideology through its academic endeavour; it strengthened my academic qualification in gender and governance. As a researcher, the field of gender has given me a lot of insight into the quality-of-life of women, particularly, rural women. The complexity and multi-layered realities of gender in Indian society made me to choose this as my research area. I want to involve myself in the process of deconstructing the gender biased society and also engendering development. This includes multi-prolonged strategies, and through such research activities I can contribute my ideas".
Women in politics and public decision-making in India
The proclamation of equality of sexes as a fundamental right in the Constitution of India has rendered its justice only partially because social and cultural moorings of Indian society has its hold on gender discrimination very strong. The profile of the average woman through the ages has been that of a powerless being. However independent, India for the past five decades has been trying to protect women from violence and discrimination and to strengthen their entitlements in the social and economic fields through scores of schemes,policies and programmes. In the institutional area, independent administrative departments, development corporations and commission for women have spring up at the centre as well as in the states. Also women's movement and their network with the international community often gives forceful expression to women's"upliftment" and issues in legislature, executive and judiciary for reviewing the age old principles of patriarchal society. Yet, the status of women from all the sections of the society is mixed and not substantially altered. In the face of global competition traditional economic occupations of women have withered. In the new economic regime, the withdrawal of the activities of the state leaves the women in cold. Further gender blind legislation and laws are extending its coverage of shadow on women.
One important reason for this state is inadequate representation of women in decision-making bodies. Structural barriers in the Indian society restrict women occupying decision-making positions, particularly, entering into political space. In the National Parliament there are only 8.2 per cent of women. Obviously, these women representatives are inadequate to represent the caste-class division apart from the gender bias. To ensure that women are not isolated in political life, reservation of seats in political space should be given. This was ensured only in local governance through Constitutional Amendment Act, but the reservation of seats for women is in pending for the Parliament and State Legislative Assemblies. Women's organisations are trying to push forward the Bill regarding reservation for women in Parliament and State Legislative Assemblies. Consensus among the political parties, mostly dominated by men, are not yet reached. Every new government on its regime promises to pass the Bill on reservation for women but the promises are yet to be fulfilled.
The 73rd Amendment Act to the Constitution of India which was passed in 1992 has created a structure at the grassroots for governance in the rural areas. The Act has reserved 33.3 per cent of seats for women. These women at the grassroots have to deal with everyday survival and livelihood issues from their own perspective and with the most ingenious solutions as they have a knowledge base which is local in character.
Grassroots governance in rural areas and gender equality
My research focuses on gender and grassroots governance. For women who remain marginalised from the mainstream social and political scenario, grassroots institutions are the most proximate and accessible institutions of governance. Hence grassroots governance has a serious responsibility to integrate gender equality and equity in women development approaches, policies and programmes. Further, the reservation in local governance in India creates the situation that women must be allowed to enter into politics.
Now the interaction between the women and governance draws the attention that how this political institution at grassroots is going to affect women. The capability of women to play an influential role in local politics and decision-making in-put is under scrutiny. This aroused my interest to probe into this area for research. The research chiefly focused on two main issues. First,the sexual hierarchical society, placing man at the apex, would not allow women to exercise her political power. So the power given to them will be challenged in most of the occasions. When the power is reserved for women in the male-dominated society, it becomes imperative to analyse the freedom enjoyed by those women in the form of rights, opportunities and entitlements which enhances their capabilities. A second problem lies in the perception of women, who have been subordinated and suppressed from their birth through the process of socialisation. It is important to know that those who occupy the seats are aware of the problems that women face and are interested in creating change within the community.
Women's participation in political decision-making: number alone does not count
Analysis on these issues shows that increasing the number of women's position in politics open doors for women in terms of presence and visibility. The critical mass of women has the potential to transform the gender relations and issues affecting women. However, it does not guarantee it unless otherwise they have freedom in the form of political freedom, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees and protective security. This shows that numbers alone – for instance, increasing the number of women in politics– do not indicate that the situation for women has improved. The most important being is that certain norms, values and social practices should change. If women have to take action for the benefit of other women certain changes in legislation, educational or training programmes that promote gender consciousness should take place, so that women's agency can be proved effective. It is no doubt that women will being a different approach to governance; women will play an important role in pushing the women's issues forward for public discussion and decision-making; women ensure more participation of the people in the process of development and governance; women have different set of skills and they enhance the leadership qualities of others. The research findings also amply support these statements.
Yet the social climate which has the tradition of treating women as subordinate continues to dominate them in various forms such as domination of traditional leaders at grassroots, information blockade, restricted physical mobility, caste discrimination and social cleavage, corrupt system, lacunae in laws relating to grassroots governance, influence of male members in the decision-making process and double burden of work – as patriarchy stresses the importance of women's household chores.
The gap between governance and reality and the chances of grassroots governance
Women's freedom is curtailed in most of the situation. Their rights are denied by the patriarchal society even the machinery of the state allows them to enter into the political space. Another crucial thing to be noted is that most of the women from the scheduled caste, who are placed at the lowest stratum society, are not even allowed to sit in the Chair at their office. States measure on the one hand and the caste-based society's response on the other places these women at logger heads. The voices of women are not fully represented in the political arena even after one million women have researched different levels within the local government system in India.
There is a visible gap between the perception of governance and reality. Women have come to power with a lot of dreams, expectations and aspirations. They perceive the space as development space. But, in practice, it is full of barriers and obstacles. The obstacles and barriers are created by different sections of the society which continue to enjoy power. Constraints on women within the family and society have a direct impact on their capability for public engagements. Suitable measures should be taken to eradicate these constraints. Political system has opened up the avenue for women but still much more steps should be taken beyond reservation by making the system more gender sensitive and several other social actors should realise their responsibility. If women succeed at grassroots governance, moving up in the ladder of political stratum will not be a difficult task.
International academic networks: local problems and global learning
International academic networking in the area of women studies is indeed the need of the hour. Cutting across the countries women face problem everywhere,but the causes are more indigenous depending upon the nature of the society and its culture. Networking will help to understand the problem pertaining to each country better. Knowledge and information can be shared in such a forum and collective voices can be raised for the fellow women. Networks can together look at the issues of women and their development from the research perspectives. The 73rd Amendment to the Constitution of India has created a structure at the grassroots for governance in the rural areas which is called as village panchayat. This grassroots institution has reserved 33.3 per cent of seats for women. Seminars and workshop can be held on the research findings and through this policy advocacy can be done at the national and international level.
About the authorJoseph Vanishree can be contacted at: vanijoseph@yahoo.com
