RBI Chair Professor Charan Singh argues for economic empowerment of women in India through safe work places, female battalions in the army, all-women's police stations and gender-neutral festivals
It is a year since the Nirbhaya case - a year of little learning so it would seem. The attack on the woman in an ATM in Bangalore was no less brutal. In your recent articles on this subject, you have stated that crimes against women have grave economic implications. Would you explain?
One aspect of crime against women which has not been dwelt upon in our developing country is the economic implications of such crime. I have been writing on this issue for some time now (The cost of crime against women, The Tribune, Dec 16, 2013; Girls interrupted, Business Line, May 17, 2013; Implications of skewed sex ratio in India, Business Line, May 7, 2013; Economy & crime against women, The Tribune). I have not only been talking about crime against women per se but also on its long-term implications, like an adverse sex ratio.
First, if there is no workplace security for women, then to that extent we have reduced employment opportunities for women. If women are not safe on the streets of India or at their workplaces, then it is very difficult to encourage women to participate in the work force. If a developing country like India which is expecting to be respected among other emerging countries, it is very important that every capable person in the country is contributing towards raising national income.
Look at other rich countries in the world like Switzerland and the US - women's participation in the work force is very high. As far as comparative global statistics are concerned, women's participation in the work force is very low in India even when compared to neighbors like Nepal. In the total active workforce, as well as in the proportion of women to men in workforce, India's performance is dismal on both these yardsticks.
The second issue is the adverse sex ratio. If we are not able to bring up the girl child safely and she does not feel secure, then how does she contribute towards nation building? India has a very poor track record historically when it comes to the sex ratio. Sociological studies, done in other parts of the world, have shown that an adverse sex ratio leads to an increase in crime. When there is a spurt in crime, one can imagine the cost to the country and pressure on law enforcing agencies and judiciary. We need more sociological studies as to why is the spurt taking place - is it due to urbanization, nuclearization of family, or higher unemployment? Or are there other social reasons, influence of media, lack of literacy or general insensitivity to gender equality?
There are a few more aspects that I would like to mention. Crimes against women result in a setback in international ratings of the country. In the international media, stories about India not being a safe country for women proliferate. When one is looking for foreign investment, this is bad for the country's image. MNCs begin to think whether they should be sending women workers to India, even for meetings, leave aside investment. Similarly, tourism suffers severely because the country is not seen safe for women tourists. High end tourists, with high value budgets, certainly tend to avoid India because the image is tarnished with a generalisation that India is not safe and secure place. Questions are raised about the value system of Indians that why women are not safe in the country. Good aspects of a country get neglected and such negative aspects get easily highlighted. Having stayed abroad for many years, I can vouch that such instances give bad publicity for India. This has economic implications because of which potential growth suffers.
Let's consider another important fiscal aspect and that is taxation. If women, the pivot of any family and vital contributors to micro finance and financial inclusion initiatives, are not feeling safe in the country, then what happens to tax compliance within the country? There are studies which have been done in other countries that substantiate the fact that women are more tax compliant than men, but in India, according to some studies, that is not the case. Rather, the studies show that women are less tax compliant than men. Is it not obvious that if women do not feel safe would they morally feel compelled to be tax complaint and would they instil a similar ethical value in their children?
The last point that I want to mention is the direct economic cost. Whenever crime takes place against women, the nation pays a price. The victim, of course, suffers the greatest trauma, but when Parliament is stalled, when there are protests on the roads, when law and order has to swing into action, when judges are called to act, when there is loss to national property, it's the innocent tax payer who is bearing all this cost.
These are the economic implications of not providing a secure workplace for women. Therefore, preventive measures are important.
What, according to you, are these preventive measures?
The inability of the world's largest democracy to guarantee the security of half its population is indeed a moral crisis, but it's also an economic one. When women cannot work in certain places and at certain specific timings, then we are robbing one half of the work-force of opportunities and we are depriving their families of livelihood. Remember, a woman may have the capability to work but because of poor law and order, she is denied an opportunity to work and earn a living.
Talking of ample opportunities for women abroad, there are two aspects. First, yes workforce participation is high but I am very sad to say this but I have seen large numbers of women abroad in lowly paid jobs like stenos, typists and receptionists in front offices, in stores and so on, and relatively very few in senior management.
In India, we are a country with a very rich heritage. We are the oldest civilization in the world. We have our written and oral history and we find in the Vedas that women had a very important role in family as well as society. They had equal status to men and their presence was important in any religious ceremony and social interaction. In fact, we have a large number of goddesses which show how much respect women would have commanded in the past. The amount of freedom women enjoyed during the times of Rama and Krishna used to be a matter of respect and discussion at the departments of religious studies, both at Harvard and Stanford, which I noticed during my post-doctoral days at these places and my interaction with Professors Diana Eck and Linda Hess. It seems that situation changed in later years and Guru Nanak had to say, about five hundred years, in his compositions that women have become meek and men have become hunters. In Indian history, unfortunately, for nearly 1100 years, we have had invaders and foreigners ruling over us. When the invading armies come, it's obvious that a defensive mechanism operates. Certain customs, social mores and cultural values were developed in defensive mechanism and some others thrust on us. Had women continued to be treated as they were in Vedic times, India would probably have set examples for the rest of the world in gender equality
If women are given equal opportunities, the progress of India will be faster and higher - just imagine, potential of one-half of the work-force is not being exploited for nation building. And in Indian history there are a number of cases where women have excelled in different professions, including statecraft and defense services. Historically, look at the Rani of Jhansi - she was imaginative and combative. The Azad Hind Fauj of Subhas Chandra Bose had some courageous women too. If women are given opportunities, in all professions, they have the capacity to shine and rise, and India can develop economically.
Preventive measures would have fiscal implications but that would be compensated through higher growth and better tax revenue.
India has been celebrated for its steep growth and rapidly expanding middle class, as well as its position as an exciting market for foreign multinationals. Yet it has achieved these gains with astonishingly low economic participation by women; those who enter the business world often find themselves in chauvinistic and threatening work environments.
I have a different point of view. India, the largest democracy in the world, had a powerful woman prime minister in Mrs. Indira Gandhi. She continues to live in the psyche of every Indian and nobody can forget the Emergency Rule. Even now, you have strong women in Parliament. Women have been in the forefront of Indian politics.
As regards economic growth, I would say if women had been allowed to participate more in the work force, according to their numbers, we would have been steady in our growth. Our growth rate has not been stable. We have had a high growth for a few years and then fluctuated unlike that of China which has had a steady growth for nearly three decades. Incidentally, China has a higher female presence in active workforce. And, the average growth rate in India is not very high. I think this sort of fluctuating growth - though I cannot substantiate it as there is no empirical evidence - is because our women have not been given enough opportunities to participate in the work force, shoulder to shoulder, with men. We are not walking on two feet and that is weakening our growth story.
If our financial inclusion exercise, which initially began with the nationalization of banks way back in 1955, had taken place with help of women's self-help groups (SHGs) or micro finance organisations (MFIs) participating in setting up businesses, then probably India would have achieved much higher and stable economic growth. Given an opportunity, women have excelled in finance, be it commercial banking, central banking or ministry of finance, both in India and abroad. Illustratively, the present MD of IMF was earlier a Finance Minister of France. Because women were neglected both in education, and employment, I think the growth pattern in India has been rather weak. Studies by Angus Deaton show that literacy level of mother has an impact in reducing child mortality rates as well as addressing problems associated with malnourishment. I also have a hypothesis, had women been empowered, given the experience of SHGs and MFIs, India would have lower tax evasion and less of black money. If women had participated in economic growth, then our child sex ratio would not have been so adverse and our population growth would not have been so high. We would have been on a progressive path much before China and other countries like Korea or Malaysia. Actually, we need more research on these issues in India.
In a nutshell, yes, we do have some impressive growth record for a few years in the last decade and a half but I see that growth would have been much higher had women participated in economic endeavors and were educated as equal partners. This is the reason for the gap in India's growth story with other advanced countries and this gap is increasingly visible now.
Studies have shown that India has the world's second-largest workforce, at 478 million people. And yet the proportion of women in the workforce is 24 per cent. What are the solutions?
It is sad that a large part of our young and bright work force - women -is denied opportunities. We need to make work places safe. We need to have more law enforcing agencies helping us with making our streets and cities safe for women.
Let me give you an example. Whenever I fly from airports in India, I see so many para military forces at the domestic airports - entrance, security check, baggage counter, etc. I do not see any reason why rich Indians who can afford to fly at exorbitant prices not be asked to bear a marginally higher cost, consequent to employing private security at the airport. Para military forces when deployed at airports actually subsidise the richer population that can afford to fly. Rather paramilitary forces need to be deployed on the streets in every city to ensure that women feel safe.
Again, look at the para military forces themselves. What is the percentage of women in them? Why should there not be many more women battalions in the army, in the police and in para military forces? Not only would government be creating more job opportunities for women, but government also would be making other women feel safe and comfortable. More importantly, it will embolden more women and encourage others to be stronger - it can be a catalyst in changing the mind set of women from being perceived as meek and weak persons. We also need more all-women police stations in cities, in clusters of villages and towns across the country.
Having said this, I believe the State can do only so much and not more. It cannot police every street, every nook and corner of our country. I think women should be more aggressive and learn self-defense. In India, women have been psyched to believe that they need protection - this is part of our upbringing. This is probably wrong and perpetuates meek behavior. We also need to develop gender neutral festivals - some of our festivals seem to reinforce the stereotype that women are weak and need constant protection. Gender neutral festivals, probably three generations from now, will help build the psyche of the girl child, that she needs no "protector" but can defend herself and others as well!
In India, religion plays an important role in everyday life for all of us. We could seek help from religious institutions in changing social mores. Government can take the help of religious institutions in getting them to reinterpret certain festivals. Our history of invasion is behind us; women need to resume their strong, independent status in society as was the case in Vedic times. Only then we will regain our status of golden sparrow that we were for ages. We are a hardworking, sincere and disciplined work force. We deserve more than what we have achieved so far. And that can only happen if our women join us in nation building as is happening in other countries. Technology should be used to empower women.
Government and academicians have a role to play. Education plays a big role in correcting the adverse sex ratio. Education can transform behavior and bring down crime, especially crime against women. All education for a girl child should be made free. Not just schooling, even her college education and her higher education should be made free because if a girl is educated, she will be far more productive than the cost that was spent in educating her. This has a fiscal cost but would be recoverable in higher tax collection and safer India with a balanced sex-ratio.
Economic empowerment is important. Let me cite the example of Kerala, which is largely a matrilineal society. Crime against women in Kerala is the lowest in India. Instead of looking at quotas for women in Parliament, I would think quota for women in government sector jobs would be more useful. Universities could revisit their gender diversity rules by encouraging women to enroll as students as well as join as faculty.
Sociologists could help by undertaking studies that focus on what influences the psyche of modern males: is it the entertainment industry; media and advertising industry? If it is established that certain factors influence Indian males' behavior, then we must do what the US did to its tobacco industry: made them pay! For a long time, the tobacco industry in the US kept insisting that they had no role to play in the growing cases of lung cancer. But scientific studies established the link between the two, and finally the tobacco industry had to pay.
I also think the time has come to revisit social customs such as dowry, which is held against the girl child. Sociologists, psychologists and religious institutions can help in addressing such social issues. The time has come to address all these issues, and quickly, otherwise we are losing in the race of economic growth. When heinous crime, like the Nirbhaya one, takes place, it devastates the psyche of a girl child.
The 2012 Global Gender Gap Report, which is published by the World Economic Forum, analyses 135 countries on benchmarks such as economic participation and political empowerment, and gives some indication of just how far down the economic ladder India's women find themselves. We are ranked 105th overall, after Belize, Cambodia, and Burkina Faso. Judged on a purely economic basis, India falls to 123, with only 12 nations ranking lower. Is there hope? You talk of India regaining its position as 'golden sparrow of the world' but given these statistics such a position seems illusionary.
I think there is hope. I would like to give the example of Punjab. Punjab had the worst sex ratio in the country (798: 1000 in 2001), but a series of programs launched by the Punjab government and NGOs like 'Nanhi Chaan' showed results. In 2011 Census, the ratio improved dramatically. There is hope as long as the government, the NGOs, academics and the religious authorities swing into action, as has happened in Punjab. It will take time for change to come but measures have to be taken now. We need more women in business, in academics, and in every profession. That will change the psychology and bring in change in mind set. That will help India grow faster and progress steadily.
(Interviewed by Kavitha Kumar)
RBI Chair Professor Charan Singh argues for economic empowerment of women in India through safe work places, female battalions in the army, all-women's police stations and gender-neutral festivals
It is a year since the Nirbhaya case - a year of little learning so it would seem. The attack on the woman in an ATM in Bangalore was no less brutal. In your recent articles on this subject, you have stated that crimes against women have grave economic implications. Would you explain?
One aspect of crime against women which has not been dwelt upon in our developing country is the economic implications of such crime. I have been writing on this issue for some time now (The cost of crime against women, The Tribune, Dec 16, 2013; Girls interrupted, Business Line, May 17, 2013; Implications of skewed sex ratio in India, Business Line, May 7, 2013; Economy & crime against women, The Tribune). I have not only been talking about crime against women per se but also on its long-term implications, like an adverse sex ratio.
First, if there is no workplace security for women, then to that extent we have reduced employment opportunities for women. If women are not safe on the streets of India or at their workplaces, then it is very difficult to encourage women to participate in the work force. If a developing country like India which is expecting to be respected among other emerging countries, it is very important that every capable person in the country is contributing towards raising national income.
Look at other rich countries in the world like Switzerland and the US - women's participation in the work force is very high. As far as comparative global statistics are concerned, women's participation in the work force is very low in India even when compared to neighbors like Nepal. In the total active workforce, as well as in the proportion of women to men in workforce, India's performance is dismal on both these yardsticks.
The second issue is the adverse sex ratio. If we are not able to bring up the girl child safely and she does not feel secure, then how does she contribute towards nation building? India has a very poor track record historically when it comes to the sex ratio. Sociological studies, done in other parts of the world, have shown that an adverse sex ratio leads to an increase in crime. When there is a spurt in crime, one can imagine the cost to the country and pressure on law enforcing agencies and judiciary. We need more sociological studies as to why is the spurt taking place - is it due to urbanization, nuclearization of family, or higher unemployment? Or are there other social reasons, influence of media, lack of literacy or general insensitivity to gender equality?
There are a few more aspects that I would like to mention. Crimes against women result in a setback in international ratings of the country. In the international media, stories about India not being a safe country for women proliferate. When one is looking for foreign investment, this is bad for the country's image. MNCs begin to think whether they should be sending women workers to India, even for meetings, leave aside investment. Similarly, tourism suffers severely because the country is not seen safe for women tourists. High end tourists, with high value budgets, certainly tend to avoid India because the image is tarnished with a generalisation that India is not safe and secure place. Questions are raised about the value system of Indians that why women are not safe in the country. Good aspects of a country get neglected and such negative aspects get easily highlighted. Having stayed abroad for many years, I can vouch that such instances give bad publicity for India. This has economic implications because of which potential growth suffers.
Let's consider another important fiscal aspect and that is taxation. If women, the pivot of any family and vital contributors to micro finance and financial inclusion initiatives, are not feeling safe in the country, then what happens to tax compliance within the country? There are studies which have been done in other countries that substantiate the fact that women are more tax compliant than men, but in India, according to some studies, that is not the case. Rather, the studies show that women are less tax compliant than men. Is it not obvious that if women do not feel safe would they morally feel compelled to be tax complaint and would they instil a similar ethical value in their children?
The last point that I want to mention is the direct economic cost. Whenever crime takes place against women, the nation pays a price. The victim, of course, suffers the greatest trauma, but when Parliament is stalled, when there are protests on the roads, when law and order has to swing into action, when judges are called to act, when there is loss to national property, it's the innocent tax payer who is bearing all this cost.
These are the economic implications of not providing a secure workplace for women. Therefore, preventive measures are important.
What, according to you, are these preventive measures?
The inability of the world's largest democracy to guarantee the security of half its population is indeed a moral crisis, but it's also an economic one. When women cannot work in certain places and at certain specific timings, then we are robbing one half of the work-force of opportunities and we are depriving their families of livelihood. Remember, a woman may have the capability to work but because of poor law and order, she is denied an opportunity to work and earn a living.
Talking of ample opportunities for women abroad, there are two aspects. First, yes workforce participation is high but I am very sad to say this but I have seen large numbers of women abroad in lowly paid jobs like stenos, typists and receptionists in front offices, in stores and so on, and relatively very few in senior management.
In India, we are a country with a very rich heritage. We are the oldest civilization in the world. We have our written and oral history and we find in the Vedas that women had a very important role in family as well as society. They had equal status to men and their presence was important in any religious ceremony and social interaction. In fact, we have a large number of goddesses which show how much respect women would have commanded in the past. The amount of freedom women enjoyed during the times of Rama and Krishna used to be a matter of respect and discussion at the departments of religious studies, both at Harvard and Stanford, which I noticed during my post-doctoral days at these places and my interaction with Professors Diana Eck and Linda Hess. It seems that situation changed in later years and Guru Nanak had to say, about five hundred years, in his compositions that women have become meek and men have become hunters. In Indian history, unfortunately, for nearly 1100 years, we have had invaders and foreigners ruling over us. When the invading armies come, it's obvious that a defensive mechanism operates. Certain customs, social mores and cultural values were developed in defensive mechanism and some others thrust on us. Had women continued to be treated as they were in Vedic times, India would probably have set examples for the rest of the world in gender equality
If women are given equal opportunities, the progress of India will be faster and higher - just imagine, potential of one-half of the work-force is not being exploited for nation building. And in Indian history there are a number of cases where women have excelled in different professions, including statecraft and defense services. Historically, look at the Rani of Jhansi - she was imaginative and combative. The Azad Hind Fauj of Subhas Chandra Bose had some courageous women too. If women are given opportunities, in all professions, they have the capacity to shine and rise, and India can develop economically.
Preventive measures would have fiscal implications but that would be compensated through higher growth and better tax revenue.
India has been celebrated for its steep growth and rapidly expanding middle class, as well as its position as an exciting market for foreign multinationals. Yet it has achieved these gains with astonishingly low economic participation by women; those who enter the business world often find themselves in chauvinistic and threatening work environments.
I have a different point of view. India, the largest democracy in the world, had a powerful woman prime minister in Mrs. Indira Gandhi. She continues to live in the psyche of every Indian and nobody can forget the Emergency Rule. Even now, you have strong women in Parliament. Women have been in the forefront of Indian politics.
As regards economic growth, I would say if women had been allowed to participate more in the work force, according to their numbers, we would have been steady in our growth. Our growth rate has not been stable. We have had a high growth for a few years and then fluctuated unlike that of China which has had a steady growth for nearly three decades. Incidentally, China has a higher female presence in active workforce. And, the average growth rate in India is not very high. I think this sort of fluctuating growth - though I cannot substantiate it as there is no empirical evidence - is because our women have not been given enough opportunities to participate in the work force, shoulder to shoulder, with men. We are not walking on two feet and that is weakening our growth story.
If our financial inclusion exercise, which initially began with the nationalization of banks way back in 1955, had taken place with help of women's self-help groups (SHGs) or micro finance organisations (MFIs) participating in setting up businesses, then probably India would have achieved much higher and stable economic growth. Given an opportunity, women have excelled in finance, be it commercial banking, central banking or ministry of finance, both in India and abroad. Illustratively, the present MD of IMF was earlier a Finance Minister of France. Because women were neglected both in education, and employment, I think the growth pattern in India has been rather weak. Studies by Angus Deaton show that literacy level of mother has an impact in reducing child mortality rates as well as addressing problems associated with malnourishment. I also have a hypothesis, had women been empowered, given the experience of SHGs and MFIs, India would have lower tax evasion and less of black money. If women had participated in economic growth, then our child sex ratio would not have been so adverse and our population growth would not have been so high. We would have been on a progressive path much before China and other countries like Korea or Malaysia. Actually, we need more research on these issues in India.
In a nutshell, yes, we do have some impressive growth record for a few years in the last decade and a half but I see that growth would have been much higher had women participated in economic endeavors and were educated as equal partners. This is the reason for the gap in India's growth story with other advanced countries and this gap is increasingly visible now.
Studies have shown that India has the world's second-largest workforce, at 478 million people. And yet the proportion of women in the workforce is 24 per cent. What are the solutions?
It is sad that a large part of our young and bright work force - women -is denied opportunities. We need to make work places safe. We need to have more law enforcing agencies helping us with making our streets and cities safe for women.
Let me give you an example. Whenever I fly from airports in India, I see so many para military forces at the domestic airports - entrance, security check, baggage counter, etc. I do not see any reason why rich Indians who can afford to fly at exorbitant prices not be asked to bear a marginally higher cost, consequent to employing private security at the airport. Para military forces when deployed at airports actually subsidise the richer population that can afford to fly. Rather paramilitary forces need to be deployed on the streets in every city to ensure that women feel safe.
Again, look at the para military forces themselves. What is the percentage of women in them? Why should there not be many more women battalions in the army, in the police and in para military forces? Not only would government be creating more job opportunities for women, but government also would be making other women feel safe and comfortable. More importantly, it will embolden more women and encourage others to be stronger - it can be a catalyst in changing the mind set of women from being perceived as meek and weak persons. We also need more all-women police stations in cities, in clusters of villages and towns across the country.
Having said this, I believe the State can do only so much and not more. It cannot police every street, every nook and corner of our country. I think women should be more aggressive and learn self-defense. In India, women have been psyched to believe that they need protection - this is part of our upbringing. This is probably wrong and perpetuates meek behavior. We also need to develop gender neutral festivals - some of our festivals seem to reinforce the stereotype that women are weak and need constant protection. Gender neutral festivals, probably three generations from now, will help build the psyche of the girl child, that she needs no "protector" but can defend herself and others as well!
In India, religion plays an important role in everyday life for all of us. We could seek help from religious institutions in changing social mores. Government can take the help of religious institutions in getting them to reinterpret certain festivals. Our history of invasion is behind us; women need to resume their strong, independent status in society as was the case in Vedic times. Only then we will regain our status of golden sparrow that we were for ages. We are a hardworking, sincere and disciplined work force. We deserve more than what we have achieved so far. And that can only happen if our women join us in nation building as is happening in other countries. Technology should be used to empower women.
Government and academicians have a role to play. Education plays a big role in correcting the adverse sex ratio. Education can transform behavior and bring down crime, especially crime against women. All education for a girl child should be made free. Not just schooling, even her college education and her higher education should be made free because if a girl is educated, she will be far more productive than the cost that was spent in educating her. This has a fiscal cost but would be recoverable in higher tax collection and safer India with a balanced sex-ratio.
Economic empowerment is important. Let me cite the example of Kerala, which is largely a matrilineal society. Crime against women in Kerala is the lowest in India. Instead of looking at quotas for women in Parliament, I would think quota for women in government sector jobs would be more useful. Universities could revisit their gender diversity rules by encouraging women to enroll as students as well as join as faculty.
Sociologists could help by undertaking studies that focus on what influences the psyche of modern males: is it the entertainment industry; media and advertising industry? If it is established that certain factors influence Indian males' behavior, then we must do what the US did to its tobacco industry: made them pay! For a long time, the tobacco industry in the US kept insisting that they had no role to play in the growing cases of lung cancer. But scientific studies established the link between the two, and finally the tobacco industry had to pay.
I also think the time has come to revisit social customs such as dowry, which is held against the girl child. Sociologists, psychologists and religious institutions can help in addressing such social issues. The time has come to address all these issues, and quickly, otherwise we are losing in the race of economic growth. When heinous crime, like the Nirbhaya one, takes place, it devastates the psyche of a girl child.
The 2012 Global Gender Gap Report, which is published by the World Economic Forum, analyses 135 countries on benchmarks such as economic participation and political empowerment, and gives some indication of just how far down the economic ladder India's women find themselves. We are ranked 105th overall, after Belize, Cambodia, and Burkina Faso. Judged on a purely economic basis, India falls to 123, with only 12 nations ranking lower. Is there hope? You talk of India regaining its position as 'golden sparrow of the world' but given these statistics such a position seems illusionary.
I think there is hope. I would like to give the example of Punjab. Punjab had the worst sex ratio in the country (798: 1000 in 2001), but a series of programs launched by the Punjab government and NGOs like 'Nanhi Chaan' showed results. In 2011 Census, the ratio improved dramatically. There is hope as long as the government, the NGOs, academics and the religious authorities swing into action, as has happened in Punjab. It will take time for change to come but measures have to be taken now. We need more women in business, in academics, and in every profession. That will change the psychology and bring in change in mind set. That will help India grow faster and progress steadily.
(Interviewed by Kavitha Kumar)