Demystifying the “Pro-Female” Rhetoric of the Modi Government
In 2018, Narendra Modi declared that India was “moving forward from female development to female-led development” and that for the incumbent government, whether in “organisation, government or the framing of programmes, it is women first.” It has been a constant refrain of Modi’s supporters that he has re-energised the effort to empower women across India through the introduction of various schemes targeted at women and by championing the cause of women against the practice of triple-talaq. Indeed, Modi has repeatedly stated that “mahila shakti” (female power) is “important” to his government. Taken at face value these statements, combined with the frenetic pace of activity at the Ministry of Women and Child Development since 2014, seemingly indicate that the Modi government is deeply committed to the empowerment of women.
However, upon a closer inspection there is a profound difference between the actions of the Modi government and its soaring rhetoric. The aim of this article is to demystify the narrative that has been created by Modi and to expose the Janus-faced approach of the government to issues of women’s development and empowerment. It is the author’s opinion that, whilst Modi speaks of a “women first” approach to development, this belies the reality that a number of the schemes aimed at empowering women are not only fundamentally inadequate but also roll back existing protections for women. This article will examine the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) as a case in point. Furthermore, it will be argued that since coming to power in 2014 the Bharatiya Janata Party-led (BJP) National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has adopted a fundamentally selective, patriarchal, and sectarian commitment to women’s rights.
Examining the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY)
The PMMVY was launched in 2016 by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, and provides for a conditional cash transfer of Rs. 5,000 to pregnant women over the age of 19. The scheme, in effect, provides partial compensation for lost wages to be paid to women in three instalments both pre- and post-birth. One of the principal stated aims of the PMMVY is to alleviate the economic difficulties faced by pregnant women who cannot work and therefore often cannot provide for themselves. The importance of such a programme in India cannot be overstated; the National Family Health Survey-4 (India’s largest multi-round survey conducted by the Ministry of Health (NFHS-4)) found that in 2014-15 a third of women of reproductive age in India were malnourished and more than half of all women were anaemic. UNICEF estimates that 20% of all global maternal deaths which could be prevented occur in India and a significant proportion of these deaths are due to malnutrition. It is therefore trite to state that any scheme, including the PMMVY, which aims to improve the economic conditions of pregnant women in India is in the author’s opinion one of pivotal importance.
However, whilst the intention behind the PMMVY is laudable, the scheme is a perfect illustration of the wholly inadequate and retrograde approach of the Modi government to issues concerning women. Although launched with much fanfare in 2016, the PMMVY is in fact merely a rebranding of the maternity benefits scheme launched in 2010 (the Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana) by the then Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. That scheme was revised in 2014 and in accordance with the provisions of the National Food Security Act 2013 (NFSA) provided for the transfer of a conditional cash benefit of Rs. 6,000 to pregnant women. The NFSA was promulgated in part to specifically respond to the crisis of malnutrition amongst women and children in India. A number of states in India have introduced their own maternity cash benefit programmes which provide far greater assistance to pregnant women than the amount mandated by the NFSA—for example, in Tamil Nadu, the Dr. Muthulakshmi Maternity Assistance Scheme provides pregnant mothers with Rs. 14,000 in cash and an additional nutritional kit worth Rs. 4,000. In an environment where many states have prioritised the provision of economic and health-related assistance to women, it is therefore particularly galling that the PMMVY directly undermines the statutory provisions of Chapter 2 of the NFSA by cutting the amount of economic assistance available from the central government to pregnant women.
Secondly, the PMMVY’s ambit is farcically narrow with its application restricted by a series of indefensible conditions. For example, the scheme only applies to women who are giving birth to their first child. On average, Indian census data indicates that around 43% of children born annually are firstborns which means that the mothers of the remaining 57% of children would not be entitled to any economic assistance under the scheme. Moreover, the PMMVY’s benefits are limited to those women who give birth to their firstborn children in hospitals or health centres. According to NFHS-4, more than a fifth of births in India continue to take place outside such institutional environments meaning that those mothers who are either unable or unwilling to travel to hospitals to give birth are also ineligible under the PMMVY. This has a disproportionate impact upon women living in rural India who are statistically far more likely to be unable to access hospitals and health centres.
But perhaps most unsatisfactorily the PMMVY, like its predecessors, only provides assistance to women who become pregnant over the age of 19. The latest Indian census conducted in 2011 revealed that an estimated 30% of women are married before they turn 18 in India, and if these women became pregnant before turning 19, they would also be excluded from the PMMVY. This is particularly problematic as it is arguably these women who, due to their age, require the most economic and health-related support. The cumulative impact of the above is that the PMMVY in fact not only contradicts the provisions of the NFSA but also unconscionably excludes vast swathes of women from its ambit.
Finally, the PMMVY, although a crucial scheme, does little to change the narrative embedded within many parts of Indian society that a woman’s role is largely reproductive. Whilst the government is clearly willing to provide conditional economic subsidies to women when they are pregnant, it has done little to nothing beyond the introduction of equally flawed schemes, such as the Beti Padhao, Beti Bachao scheme, to actively encourage female participation in the labour force and education.
Triple-Talaq and Sabarimala: a selective and sectarian commitment to women’s rights
In the 2017 case of Shayara Bano v. Union of India the Supreme Court declared that the practice of triple-talaq was unconstitutional. The court grappled with the difficult issue of how religious rights (safeguarded by article 25 of the constitution) intersected with other constitutionally protected rights and ultimately concluded, by a 3-2 majority verdict, that the practice was unconstitutional. Triple-talaq refers to a practice whereby Muslim men could legally divorce their wives simply by repeating the word talaq (divorce) three times and without further due process. Following this verdict, the Modi administration made it unambiguously clear that it considered the banning of triple-talaq to be a matter of protecting women’s rights in India, and in July 2019 the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act became law criminalising the practice. Modi took to Twitter to declare that the criminalisation of triple-talaq was a “victory for gender justice” that had helped to right an “historical wrong.”
Yet in sharp contrast to the concerted action taken by Modi in response to the Shayara Bano verdict, it is interesting to note how Modi responded to a similar matter relating to the admission of women to the Sabarimala temple. Following a Kerala High Court decision in 1991, women of menstruating age had been legally barred from entering the Sabarimala temple out of “respect” for the celibate nature of the deity worshipped within. However, in September 2018 the Supreme Court unsurprisingly held that all pilgrims, regardless of gender, ought to be able to enter the temple and worship. Once more, the Court grappled with the complex interplay between religious rights and the personal rights of women and found that the practice of banning women from entering the temple clearly violated the Indian Constitution. Given the response of the Modi administration to the Shayara Bano case, one would be forgiven for assuming that the Modi government would have welcomed the verdict as a victory for gender justice and set about implementing it. However instead, Modi’s Hindu nationalist party called for a series of hartals (strikes) and protests across Kerala that resulted in sporadic violence and led to the eventual arrests of over 3,000 individuals. Not content with remaining silent whilst other members of his party called for such disruptive actions, Modi raked up the issue of the entry of women to Sabarimala repeatedly whilst on campaign for the 2019 elections. Modi stated that the row over the entry of women to Sabarimala was a matter of “respecting tradition” and not “gender justice.” He stridently criticised the left-wing ruling party of Kerala for “disrespecting Indian culture” because of its stance on implementing the Supreme Court’s verdict to allow women into the temple.
The disquieting reality that emerges from examining Modi’s response to the two Supreme Court cases outlined above is that Modi and the BJP by extension have, at best, a selective commitment to advancing women’s rights. Far from a “women-first”-led approach, Modi was only too willing to jettison his support for women’s rights in order to try to gain seats in Kerala by whipping up a religious furore against left-wing parties. Through his conduct on the campaign trail for the 2019 elections, Modi exposed his own selective and deeply sectarian support for women’s rights which extends only as far as it is popular with his Hindu nationalist supporters at the polls.
Modi’s Patriarchal Rhetoric
Not only has the Modi government’s commitment to women’s rights been selective and sectarian, but it has also presided over a subtle but significant shift in the language used to discuss women in India. Successful female politicians in India have long suffered being portrayed by the media through a traditional lens that confines them to the roles of either a sister or a mother. For example, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, is nicknamed Didi (elder sister) and the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa, was nicknamed Amma (mother). Instead of dismantling these dismissive and damaging narratives, the rhetoric of the Modi’s government has re-entrenched these stereotypes and has been infused with a new and distinctly religious overtone.
The slogan used by the PMMVY since its inception has been “Matru Shakti, Rashtra Shakti” (Mother’s Power, Nation’s Power), which is a thinly veiled reference to right-wing Hindu stereotypes of Bharat Mataa (India deified and personified as a mother). On the eve of Diwali this year, Modi encouraged Indians to share stories about successful women in their lives by invoking the Hindu goddess Lakshmi. It is becoming increasingly apparent that in Modi’s India discussions on the empowerment and development of women are to be conducted, not only through the traditional lens of women as mothers, but also through the invocation of traditional Hindu goddesses. Such narratives push a debilitating and narrow view of women as mothers and equate femininity solely with motherhood.
Unmasking “women-first” development: the Women’s Reservation Bill
The 2019 election saw the election of a record 78 female members of the Lok Sabha which meant that 14% of the Lok Sabha were female. Although this represents a record for India, the lack of female politicians in the lower house of parliament continues to be a matter of grave concern. Whilst it has been pointed out by supporters of the Modi government that a plurality (41) of the 78 female politicians currently sitting in the Lok Sabha are BJP lawmakers, it is also true that the number of female cabinet ministers picked by Modi almost halved from 10 in 2014 to 6 in 2019. Moreover, the Modi government has never announced nor indicated that it plans to bring the Women’s Reservation Bill to a vote in the Lok Sabha. This Bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha in 2010 and aims to amend the Indian Constitution to reserve 33% of the Lok Sabha’s seats for women, but it has languished for almost a decade in legislative limbo. It is clear that the Modi government had the requisite majority in 2014 and again in 2019 to pass the Bill into law had they wished to, but as a matter of policy decided against doing so.
Conclusion
It ought to be evident from the above that, far from being a champion of women’s rights and development issues, Modi has in fact pursued an approach to women’s rights that can at best be described as uncommitted. At worst, he and his government have contributed to the preponderance of noxious and patriarchal narratives about women and have created schemes such as the PMMVY which are deeply flawed and retrograde. Behind the mask of “women first” development, very little has been done to advance the status or economic empowerment of women in Indian society.
Behind the mask of “women first” development, very little has been done to advance the status or economic empowerment of women in Indian society. Image source: Quartz India
The PMMVY, although a crucial scheme, does little to change the narrative embedded within many parts of Indian society that a woman’s role is largely reproductive. Image source: pmujjwalayojana.com
The PMMVY scheme is a perfect illustration of the wholly inadequate and retrograde approach of the Modi government to issues concerning women. Image source: Wikipedia
Modi demonstrates a selective and sectarian commitment to women’s rights, alternating between the prioritisation of “gender justice” in some situations and a desire to respect “tradition” in others. Image source: tulipwordpresscom
The language used to discuss women in India is often imbued with maternal and religious references. For example, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, is nicknamed Didi (elder sister). Image Source: Dailyhunt
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