1st August 2019 The Hindu Editorials Notes for UPSC CSE IAS Exam

1^st August 2019 The Hindu Editorials Mains Sure Shot

GS-1 & 4 Mains

 

Question – The horrific act of sexual misconduct has become so regular that it has it has escaped our conscience. Discuss. (250 words)

 

Context – the rising instances of sexual violence in the country.

 

• Conscience – means a moral sense of right or wrong that guides a person’s behavior. 
• We as Indians can boast about the success of the success in our space endeavors, increase in tiger population, being the highest receiver of remittances and so on. But some things still remain despite all our achievements that make us rethink about where we stand and our future.
• One such thing is the rising act of sexual misconduct against against women.
• There are some who argue that this sharp rise in statistics of violence against women and children in India is on the account of better reporting and accounting of crimes, as well as more legislation.
• The passing of the POCSO Amendment Bill, 2019, in the Rajya Sabha, creating 123 fast track courts for women is a step in the right direction but we need to think in more depth to understand the underlying causes.

Why is it happening? Is there a connection between the present economic and socio-political landscape in India and the rising violence against women?

• If we look at the present scenario the answers become more clear.

1. There is a disproportionate sex ratio, poverty, unemployment, confusing sociocultural signals and the other side of social media all leading to a frustrated and pathologically vulnerable brain.
2. We tend to categorise the people who commit such acts of violence and sexual misconduct against women as psychopaths but there is a need to see what creates such psychopaths. Apart from the above stated reasons there are other factors which need mention.
3. The Indian society’s attitude towards the treatment of women. In India women are mostly treated as liabilities and identified socially only as someone’s daughter, wife, mother, sister. So we can understand how the dependencies are spelt out in the identification itself. They barely have an identity of their own. Their identity is defined by their roles in the families.
4. There is also the narrative that with more women showing up in public sphere there is a clash of ‘traditional culture’ with modern values. But Secretary of All India Progressive Women’s Association, Kavita Krishnan, in the International Journal of Human Rights, argues that it is a misplaced narrative. It is the insidious caste, capitalistic and political environment, that pivots itself in the name of India’s texts and scriptures to excoriate women, that leads to their subjugation, for their selfish gain.
5. There is a ‘cycle of violence’ that begins even before the birth of a girl child- India has one of the highest incidences of female foeticide. Then as a young child, a girl is part of an inconvertible landscape where there has been a 336 per cent rise in sexual crime against children in the last decade. As a young woman she is in the most unsafe country in the world, according to a recent Thomson Reuters Foundation survey, which recorded around 40,000 rapes a year. Then as an adult she is subjected to honor killing and trafficking. As a widow or a single mother, she is ostracised in a patriarchal society.
6. This is combined with the insensitivity, reluctance, and hostility of police, legal medical fraternity, coupled with the fact that most sexual violence happen in the private sphere and the assaulters are known to the victim, creating an increasingly intimidating environment in she has to think and rethink before moving forward with justice.
7. The courts in the country are severely back-logged.
8. The worst reason is what psychologists call ‘emotional contagion’ for a rapist, where he sees others committing the crime and gets inured (accustomed) to it, thus, himself taking committing the crime.
9. As a nation on a whole, so often we encounter the horrific act of sexual misconduct in our consciousness that it has escaped our conscience.

Way forward-

1. Healthy sex education in schools so that small children are not exploited
2. Providing means by which socially and emotionally marginalised men are given the opportunity to be identified and rehabilitate themselves. This is very important before it leads to further tragedy.

 

Question 2.- In context of the India-Africa relations what are the necessary prerequisites that India should keep in mind before engaging with Africa.

Context – the visit of President and Defence Minister to Africa.

 

Note- We have already covered India-Africa relations and their bilateral trade opportunities and advantages earlier. Just add these additional points.

• India has substantive economic engagement with Africa. Its trade with Africa totalled $63.3 billion in 2018-19. 
• India was ranked the third largest trading partner of Africa having edged past the United States during the year. 
• The figures for Indians’ investments (estimated at $50 billion) and Indian diaspora (approximately three million) are a bit imprecise but are also substantive when put in the continental perspective. 
• But there seems to be a disconnect between the development assistance that India gives to Africa and India’s economic engagement with Africa. Any cost-benefit analysis would show this disparity. 
• This is also coupled with the fact that despite India’s developmental assistance to Africa the response has not been as desired. From the demand to remove the statues of Mahatma Gandhi in Ghana to the travails of Indian investors in Africa, from occasional demonisation of the long-standing Indian community to the non-recognition of Indian academic degrees, India’s large developmental footprint in Africa does not produce commensurate empathy. 
• India’s aid being unconditional, the recipients often take it as an entitlement. 
• There are certain things that need to be understood that India is not a rich country. It is still a developing nation and has its own challenges like poverty, infrastructure deficit and underdevelopment.
• So India’s funds committed and seats in our prestigious academic institutions offered to Africa are at the expense of the tax-paying Indians.
•  India’s aid to Africa should be reciprocated by acknowledgement and goodwill, and institutional preference. India cannot simply be a cash cow for Africa, particularly when its own economy is slowing down.

Way forward:

1. We need to take direct control of our development programme instead of handing our funds to intermediaries such as the African Union, the African Development Bank Group and the Techno-Economic Approach for Africa-India Movement (TEAM 9), whose priorities are often different from India’s.
2. India’s development assistance should prefer the countries with its substantial interests, both existing and potential. For instance, Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Ghana, Angola and Algeria are India’s top six trading partners in Africa, accounting for nearly two-thirds of its trade and half its exports to the continent.
3. India’s own needs for raw materials, commodities and markets should be reflected in its aid.
4. We should prefer aiding countries which are willing to help us — from access to their natural resources to using our generics.
5. The aided project selected should be compatible with local requirements. They should be cost-effective, scalable, future ready and commercially replicable.
6. For greater transparency in how its aids are being utilised, India should prefer its public sector to implement the aid projects.
7. The Indian Head of Mission in the recipient African state must be an integral part of the aid stream including project selection, coordination and implementation.
8. Finally, the aforementioned should not distract us from our duty to provide the needed humanitarian assistance to Africa.