#Me too movement in India

Here's the third question:
What does the recent surge of the #Me too movement in India tell you about resistance,gender justice and social change ?

 #Me too was a social movement to share individual sexcual harashment issues on internet. It was initially started in western countries and slowly found its place in India. The movement led to resign of a Union minister and some other eminent people from various organisations. Like any other movement, it was subsidised quite quickly.  It is limited to elite society of India as it requires access to internet and knowledge in web use. It is pertinent to ask to what extent the movement was successful to stop sexual harassment in general and bring the justice to the victims who came forward in particular. 

In hindu religion and mythology, woman is super power and highly respected. However, in contemporary India, many girls and women are exposed to various sexual harassment and exploitation without any justice. Despite high economic growth, women security is abysmal. #Me too is one of various movements and struggles to address such issues. Among various issues, workplace sexual harassment is the main issue taken up by the #Me too movement. The movement laid a platform for the victims to share their story and support each other. 

                                          Source: The Hindu

Sharing a personal story of victim required a support from family members and friends. However, Indian society, like any other developing society,  is quite different. Sexually exploited or harassed victim is generally treated as shame on the victim. It is very difficult for the victim to lead a normal life once she opens up her story. Further, the victim would face many difficulties at work place. It can lead to loss of job opportunities as it happened to some people in cinema industry. In these circumstances the movement had limited role but increased the TRP ratings for  a few days. 

The movement is limited to elite, financially independent and upper class society. But a large number of women in unorganised sector and low income category exposed to such voilence, harassment and sexcual offence. The movement hardly changed their fate and brought change to the large section of the society. 

Even government has not taken steps to form a legal cell to look into such complaints. Political parties least participated in the movement and hardly shown any support to the victims as they themselves have many skeletons to hide. Politically, it is a missed opportunity for India to bring change and awareness.

Further, it is usually difficult to provide proofs of the past incidents which may not withstand Indian judicial system.  The accused  exploited the the opportunity and filed defamation cases against the victims who came forward to share their story. Defamation suite is one of the hinderence in India to share a genuine story as the victims are left in endless legal battle. 

Therefore, the #Me too movement had little impact in India. Gender justice is only possible by increasing participation of women at various levels of day to day life. For instance, women in Norway are secured and have freedom as they are equally represented in all the fields. Financial independence of women is another way to halt sexuall voilence against  them. 

Growth or development?

Here's the second question: If You are a policy maker for a developing economy which dimension should interest you more growth or development.

Growth of an economy is generally measured in terms of gross domestic product (GDP). It is assumed that growth leads development of the economy. On the other hand, development of a nation depends on many socio-economic parameters such as education, health, employment, women empowerment, financial inclusion and income inequality besides economic growth. Growth is necessary but not sufficient to develop a country, mainly a developing country.  A policy maker needs to understand the developmental requirements of the country and then frame a policy to achieve the necessary growth to obtain the desired developmental goals.

Throughout the world, the country's progress is measured in its economic growth, GDP. The growth oriented policies are easy to frame  and monitor. It is assumed that economic growth percolates from top to bottom and policies are framed mainly to increase the overall income of the nation.

 For instance, very high GDP growth rate of 7 - 9 % for 30 years from 1980 in China helped the country to reduce people below poverty line by 500 million. Similarly, in India also the high GDP growth lead to rapid decrease of people below poverty line since 1991.  Due to high growth, many employment opportunities were created in China and India. 

China's growth was by  rapid industrialization which created millions of jobs and deceasing its dependence on agriculture.  However, India's growth was led mainly by IT, software and service sector that created employment for few but generated huge revenue in the form of taxes. The income from service sector helped to support the agriculture, education and health. When service sector stagnated, employment has become a major problem in India as it does not have strong industrial base to support ever increasing  workforce due to its demographic dynamics. 

The problem is partly due to growth oriented policies to drive the country. As it is evident from India, the growth benefits the country initially but its further growth do not translate to overall development of the country. For example, recent unofficial employment survey shows that the present unemployment is highest in the last 45 years despite high GDP growth in the last 15 years. It only resulted income inequality in the society.

The growth of India in recent years mainly due to increase in efficiency of the industry and service sector because of  exploitation of IT and software, and artificial intelligence. Further, top-down approach do not work in developing country when it is facing with huge unemployment a bottom level.  If the policies are framed to address unemployment by supporting medium and small scale industries, and self employment, the result could have been different. 

Further, major problems of the developing countries are lack of quality education and health. India is producing thousands of unqualified college students. Not only higher education but basic education required strong policy frame work to improve quality of workforce. Quality education is not possible without health and nutrition food for children. This demands minimum income for the poor families to sustain above poverty line and lead a respect living. 

Such a complex requirement of the society can not be addressed by GDP growth alone. Policies are required to attain quality education at school and university level, not just enrollment. Poor spend nearly 50 per cent of their income on health related problems. With increased privatization of health, the poor denied their basic right to health. Insurance policies may help partially but not a long-term solution. 

In developing countries like India, agriculture supports nearly 50 % of its population though its contribution to GDP is less than 25 %. There is a need to increase productivity of the agricultural land to increase farm income as well as provide food at affordable prices. 


Therefore, what is evident from the above discussion is that growth only helps to certain extent in short-term. To achieve overall long-term and sustained development of a country, the policy makers need to address requirement of universal health care for all, quality education, minimum income for the poor. Without strong industrialization, service sector alone cannot run the engine of the economy. Policies also need to address to environmental issue of the economic growth. Without development objectives, growth is meaningless.

O god!

 'O Men, created by Gods!
 O Gods, moulded by Men! —who are you?'

Source:The Short Story in Telugu Literature on JSTOR

Do you think it is important to study the past?

A faculty member at one of the engineering institutes in AP asked me three questions. Here is one of them:
Do you think it is important to study the past? 


'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it'  - George Santayana


Though it is intuitive to think that knowledge of history or past helps us, but it is not clear in what way it helps us. It is even more difficult when particulars of the history are disputable and arguable. Therefore, it is important to draw a line to what we have to know from the past and what can be fairly ignored.

India is not only one of the oldest  but also surviving civilization. It is survived not just because of its fertile land or varied environment. History of India tells us that this land is most tolerant to various cultural and religious practices. It is the land of one of the ancient, liberal and scientific religion which allowed group of people to practice the customs and religion that suits them. India incorporated or adopted other religions and cultures and created new cultures. Differences and constructive debates gave birth to new religions or practices like Jainism, Buddhism and Sikh. Poetic language Urdu was a result of amalgamation of Indian languages including Sanskrit and Arabic languages.

Similarly, confluence of various cultures and knowledge resulted in new music, arts and science. Therefore, what we learn from the history of languages, cultures, religions, arts and science of the past of India is that tolerance and mutual respect is the way forward in the present world which witnessed many religious wars and conflicts. Ignoring the practice of multiculturalism can result in unfortunate events such as 1984 Sikh and 2002 Gujarat riots.

India invented zero and contributed immensely to science, astronomy and mathematics. Knowledge of historic inventions and  discoveries is the pride of the present society. It gives confidence to the present society that they can solve most difficult and impossible problems of the present. For instance progress in modern mathematics and physics could have been impossible without invention of zero in ancient India. Similarly, present day satellites and rockets are developed based the knowledge of missiles developed in medieval India. These facts motivates the present generation to pursue science and compete with others at world stage.

However, mythology should not be mixed with genuine science developed during the past. For instance, it is unfair to claim that ancient people used airplanes and  that they know modern day plastic surgery in ancient times without any scientific evidence. It is huge challenge to the present society to correctly understand the ancient literature. For example, incorrect interpretation of Quran resulted in terrorism that claimed many thousands of lives.


About 80 countries have got Independence along with India in 1940s. But only very few countries survived; India is one of them and also largest democracy in the world. Such achievement should not have been possible without our knowledge of the past. Hence, knowledge of history or past is as important as science to understand the present day issues and provide solutions to the most complex problems.