As the Draft National Policy for Women – 2016 is unveiled, we are treated to a slew of measures, proposals and mechanisms that point towards a state that is fashioning itself as ‘gender sensitive’ and ‘women-friendly’. The policy is very clear about its mandate and focus, which aims to push for women’s rights and their fulfillment. These rights are envisaged across sectors and policies and encompass a wide variety of issues.
Surprisingly, the policy is an ambitious document that understands the need for gender equality in a changing world. However, having said that, a rights-based approach comes with its own drawbacks. Though the policy aims to involve state, functionaries, civil society, administration, non-governmental organisations and other stakeholders – the reliance on legal redressal to infringement on rights and access becomes the overpowering thematic. It is important to note here that the policy takes into cognizance socio-economic handicaps that mark women’s rights, but connects these more to the varied other rights that the state provides. There is nothing wrong with such an approach except for the larger social disabilities that women face and that continue to mark their unequal participation in social, economic and political life.
The expansive document drafted by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development covers key areas such as health and nutrition, education, economy, governance and decision making, violence against women, enabling environment and environment and climate change. It seeks to resurrect the right to 33% reservation in Parliament for women and appointments in the judiciary that are important steps towards realising a rights-based focus for gender equality in India. The fact that a draft policy identifies patriarchy as a problematic power structure is an important inclusion.
The linkages to women’s daily struggles to patriarchy are explored in a limited fashion, but in its aim to identify the many challenges that women face, the policy is interestingly nuanced. This is an important policy intervention that will orient policy changes at the level of the states and the Centre, which is why the provisions and the recommendations within it are crucial.
Though the policy is alarmed at the increasing ‘feminisation of agriculture’, its recommendations that women have rights to inherit land are couched in rights discourse. More importantly, the policy links this phenomenon covertly to the increasing number of male farmers committing suicide. This is a connection that is not without its value, but seems to bring in the question of entitlement to land and ownership almost like a default, in the absence of men.
Thus, commendably the widow of the farmer gets ‘packaged’ support for her loss and ‘vulnerability’. This does not address the inequitable agrarian practices that lead to the death of the farmer or the fact that the woman farmer may also be susceptible to similar structural violence. In seeking to review laws to make them gender equitable, the questions regarding women’s rights to property, navigated through the controversial inheritance laws, also need to be taken into consideration.
Laws in India continue to traverse the space of gender justice and archaic provisions. While the conversation on a uniform civil code is couched in euphemisms that seem to occupy minimal space in the policy, the policies regarding family planning take on a new form of engagement, hitherto missing. Thus, the policy suggests that family planning will be male-centric rather than completely positioned on the female body. This is indeed welcome.
Health-based policies
Here, assisted reproductive technologies such as in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) are a
new addition to health-based policies regarding women but are interestingly centred on the surrogate and her health. This inclusion is particularly provocative as it suggests that the surrogate who risks her health by undergoing assisted reproduction would be given health coverage during pregnancy and after birth. This is significant considering the kind of documented health risks women undergo when seeking reproduction interventions.
The structural violence that is endemic in India is often identified with patriarchal structures and with intrusive technological interventions. The policy document imaginatively positions its role in tackling gender-based violence by looking at it from a ‘life cycle’ perspective and in a ‘continuum’ from foetus to the workplace. An interesting approach that combines concerns regarding sex-selective abortions, trafficking, domestic violence and workplace harassment.
Concerns regarding the ‘single woman’ become marked by ideas of protectionism. Something women need less of, considering the double bind that ‘protection’ comes with in India – including surveillance and policing of women’s bodies and movements. The policy intervention does acknowledge and recommend an active participation of men and boys in creating awareness regarding women’s right to their bodies, movement and public spaces – but is again limited in scope. This is especially stark considering sexual education for boys should be an important part of the adolescent health programme, which still remains largely women/girl centric in policy discourse.
The intense focus on technology means the recognition of gender-based violence in different spaces such as the mass media and social networking sites. Thus, the policy recommends encouraging ‘empowering images of women’ and a non-discriminatory and sensitive portrayal of women in the media. Anxieties regarding misuse of social media for harassment and fraudulent encounters are duly noted in the document without necessarily outlining the mechanisms for countering them effectively.
By engaging with climate change, work force participation and the need for providing valuation of domestic work and the concurrent rights, this policy does make important interventions. Gender equity is marked in particular ways in the document that leads to the identification of existing and emerging inequalities, but the provisions do not necessarily address them in entirety. For a document that intends to be visionary, especially in recommending judicial reforms and review of existing laws and in identifying that gender equity can be achieved in collaboration with men, the recommendations do not envisage more than surface level interventions. This is problematic considering many important clauses regarding gender rights are relegated to ‘emerging issues’.
(The writer is with Manipal Centre for Philosophy and Humanities, Manipal)
Published 08 June 2016, 18:41 IST