A small post about Twitter (more than 140 characters though)

There are some things on Twitter I just don't understand, and today I feel I must list them somewhere systematically.

1. Why do some people respond to every single tweet? Some questions are rhetorical. Some statements are just what they are. Everything doesn't require a  response.

2. Why some people respond to everything as if they were your oldest friends; they are not. Twitter itself is much younger than most of us. Brevity does not make familiarity acceptable.

Related to 1 and 2, please note that unsolicited advice is as annoying and obnoxious on Twitter as it is in the real world. Let people just tweet in peace!

3. Why do people favourite the tweets they do? If I say it's very hot, WHY on earth would someone favourite that?

4. Same question about retweets: Why would people retweet a prosaic greeting or response made to someone else?

5. Related retweet question: What is the point of retweeting a retweeted tweet that one wrote? (Can you even understand that question?)

And no people, I actually don't want answers to these questions. What I would like to know is how many of you have the same questions.

And all advice proffered in response would, in fact, fall under the category: "Unsolicited."

50, and grateful

I want to celebrate today by saying thank you to all the people who have made this moment—me, being here, right now—possible. I do this with the enthusiasm of the primary school student anticipating jail-break and home at the end of the day, chanting, almost singing,

“Thank you, god, for the world so sweet.

Thank you, god, for the food we eat.

Thank you, god, for the birds that sing.

Thank you, god, for EVERYTHING!”

2.

Thank you, Amma and Appa, for the gift of life!

Thank you both, and my great-grandparents, grand-parents, great-aunts and grand-uncles, aunts and uncles—real and adopted—for show me how to live.

I thank my family for the gift of love—with which came confidence, acceptance and courage—and the gift of friendship, of which I first learnt from my cousins.

I thank you for the legacy of conviction, caring and commitment and I thank you for faith—which you each hold dear but live in unique ways.

3.

I thank my guru—you know who you are better than I do.

Thank you to all my teachers—Bala Vihar, school, college, graduate school, music, art, language, yoga, meditation, every class I ever went to.

Thank you to all workshop and training leaders, resource people, facilitators and participants of every workshop I ever attended.

Thank you to every work supervisor and colleague, every editor who has ever engaged with my text and every professional I have ever consulted.

Thank you to all who have entered my life as students, assistants, interns or in search of mentoring—you have taught me much and helped me grow.

Thank you to everyone who has ever interacted with me; I have learnt from you all.

Thank you, life, for being my most patient and persistent teacher.

4.

My cousins first taught me what friendship meant—being together, not being the same; doing some of the same things but being happy others got to do what they wanted; communicating but not talking all the time; sharing, and also holding back what does not need to be shared; feeling each other’s pain and sharing each other’s joys. My cousins have always made other friends a bonus and other people redundant in my universe. Because of them, I have never felt pressure to conform or desperation to belong. Thank you!

My sister and brother-in-law generously ignore my seniority in years and shelter and anchor me as I drift. Thank you!

5.

I thank all my friends for being there.

One of life’s gifts to me has been the ability to connect easily with people (usually), and the stories of many friendships are stories of serendipity or instant connection or being in each other’s lives at critical moments or through critical processes. However I know you, and in whatever ways, thank you for shaping my life.

I always knew that friendship added flavour to life; I know now for sure that without friends, life lacks any real interest. Thank you for being there!

My friends from childhood, from school and college—thank you for still being around and reminding me of other, sometimes lost, selves.

My friends from the US—from my time in Syracuse, Urbana-Champaign, East Lansing and New Haven--thank you, thank you, thank you!

My penfriends and their families that have become mine—thank you for being my evidence that the pen does make a difference.

My friends from extra-curricular activities, French class, workshops, conferences, train-rides and every other nook and cranny of my life—thank you because thinking about all of oyu is making me smile as I write this.

I started my life with three extraordinary, made-to-order friends—three special cousins—and a whole army of other cousins to learn from, share with and count on as siblings and friends.

Friendship has been abundant in my life and for whatever I did to earn that blessing, I am grateful.

Thank you, my friends, for being in my life, and for teaching me so much of what I know.

6.

Thank you to each person who has ever come aboard to help me realise my dreams.

My parents, who raised me in a way that suggested that big dreams were the whole point, and then have gone out of their way to help each of those come true, also gave me the qualities that have helped me help myself—imagination, words, determination, courage, discipline, patience, attention to detail and pretty good people skills!

Teachers, colleagues, funders, volunteers, assistants, vendors, technicians, service providers—it takes an entire ecosystem to make one dream come true. And I have dreamt and realised so many! Thank you to every person and every atom in each of those ecosystems!

I thank the Universe for the dreams, the courage, the means, the options, the challenges and the solutions. I pray that the Universe never allows me to be limited by my understanding of the practical and the possible.

7.

Thank you, life—

for every experience of love, of every kind;

for every experience of joy, of every hue;

for every moment of pleasure, for any reason;

for all the good things and good times.

Thank you very much

for pain, for failure for resentment, for bitterness,

for disappointment, for frustration, for anxiety,

for hurt, for grief, for sadness,

for struggle, for suffering, for challenges without easy solutions,

for ethical dilemmas and conflicting pulls,

for loneliness, for alienation and for isolation—

thank you, beyond words, for these—

what they have taught me, I am proudest to have learned

--compassion, empathy, courage, patience, discipline and tenacity.

8.

Thank you, to all my children—

nieces, nephews—you are all my own.

Thank you for reminding me that life is simple.

Thank you for the laughter and stories and songs.

Thank you for showing me the “present moment” time and again.

Thank you for the joy.

Thank you for being my most effective teachers.

9.

Thank you to everyone who ever forgave me anything

--a deed, a word, a mood, a gesture,

a mistake, an oversight, a slight, a wound,

anything I did, anything I did not do,

someone I was to you, someone I could not be—

thank you for the precious gift of your forgiveness.

Forgive me, too, if I have forgotten to thank you for something.

10.

I thank this body of mine for carrying me in this life, largely without complaint, heedless of my abuse and neglect, never expecting anything from me in return.

Adapted on March 14, 2014

from the version written on March 9, 2014

for March 9, 2014. 

Feminist Filters for the 2014 Elections

This was published as "2014 elections: Parties that ignore women's rights aren't worth your vote" on February 13, 2014.

Exasperated with simplistic solutions for achieving gender inclusivity, feminists critique approaches to development and social change that just “add women and stir.” In India, we have had enough women in positions of power to know that their presence offers a powerful role model and an impressive point of departure, but that is all. In most cases, just having women in positions of power does not equal a transformed society. For that, women need to be active and represented at all levels and in all spheres of the political process. And even more important, “women’s issues” should be everybody’s issues—especially in an election year.

For those of us who talk about women’s participation and about gender sensitivity in policy-making, one challenge is that women are automatically associated with care-related or domestic concerns. Thus, those forming a Cabinet will appoint women to Women and Child Development, Health, even Education and Social Welfare, and maybe at a stretch to Information and Broadcasting, but rarely to Defence, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Home or even Industry. Gender stereotyping continues at this level. But even more lasting damage is done when those addressing women do not talk to them of these issues. A candidate campaigning door-to-door expects to find only women at home and to talk to them about gas cylinder prices and not peace talks with our neighbour. It is not as if all men hold strategic studies or MBA degrees or five years of corporate or army experience; it is an unfounded assumption about women’s interests and abilities that determines the agenda. Women internalise this and feel that without additional training, the portfolios of care-giving and domesticity are their natural domain.

The other challenge is that women in politics are not necessarily sensitized to think about gender issues. Political activity is structured around the way that most men live in patriarchal societies, with someone else taking care of their families and life-maintenance work. This option is usually not available to women and while balancing these responsibilities is a challenge in most careers, it is particularly so in politics. Women have to enter, survive and make their way up the ladder in this very inhospitable environment. Moreover, it is a system that does not reward specialists, male or female. Survival requires that women neither advocate nor antagonize, and being women’s rights advocates would marginalize them in those early stages. Political parties in India do not encourage issue expertise, and they do not encourage independent issue-based advocacy or coalition across party lines. Therefore, we can and do have women in legislatures who are not necessarily gender-sensitive and women in power for whom women’s rights are not necessarily a priority.

Women’s participation in politics and better representation at every level is intrinsically important. However, it must be accompanied by an integration of gender concerns in the thinking and rhetoric of the political class. This, we would look for in party manifestos but perhaps more meaningfully, in the track record and speeches of political candidates and leaders. Setting aside our habitual cynicism, were we to seriously evaluate political parties and candidates on their gender rights credentials, what would we want to see? For me, the two most important issues would be sexual and gender-based violence and women’s participation. I also consider women’s economic rights and livelihood issues important, and I would like to see political parties take cognizance of militarization as a problem but for today, these two issues are enough to serve as a gender sensitivity filter.

Today, in India, violence is the first issue that comes to people’s minds when “women” or “gender” are mentioned. Indeed, discussion on women’s status begins and ends at violence, although there is much more to women’s lives than this ever-present threat. Having said that, in 2014, a political party whose manifesto and main campaigners do not seriously talk about sexual and gender-based violence is probably not worth considering seriously.

First on my checklist would be to see if the party has nominated or given tickets to politicians charged or convicted for sexual or gender-based violence. It’s a very straightforward criterion. Second, I would reject a party that continues to back members who have expressed views that are sexist and misogynistic. Is sexism a part of their style—jokes about women peppering their speech, for instance? If members of a party have gone un-reprimanded for saying women invite rape, I would not want to vote for them.

Third, I would look at the track record of politicians from a given party on laws relating to gender-based violence. How have they voted? Did they even bother to attend Parliament on the days when recent laws were passed? If I heard that a particular party or politician had sought the opportunity to consult with women from their constituency or with women’s groups, I would be inclined to vote for them. It would signal to me that they were sincere in their commitment to ending violence.

Finally, what is the track record of a particular party in the states where it has been in power? One way to measure this is by looking at National Crime Records Bureau numbers. But even without the statistics, we can now search newspaper archives online or ask around for a pretty clear idea of how women in that state feel. For instance, when groups that support moral policing surface, how does the state respond? What is an administration’s response to a particular incident or piece of information on gender-based violence?

To me, enabling women’s participation is an important issue. Where has a particular party stood on the question of the Women’s Representation Bill? Most parties and politicians oppose the Bill for various reasons, and so that is in itself a quick filter. A second measure might be to see whether the Panchayat reservations for women have yielded a new cadre of young women leaders from the grassroots. If it has, the party is doing something right. If it hasn’t, then it is nominating ‘token’ women and it is not tapping into the talent that has now come into the public sphere. I would not vote for a party that is not eager to draw talented and experienced women to its fold and encourage them. Related to both of these, I would like to see the track record of various political parties with regard to appointments in states (and at the Centre) when they were in power. How many women did they appoint to various official positions and how many women served as Ministers in their Cabinets, at what ranks and holding which portfolios? Having a woman Chief Minister does not exempt a political party from this test.

Beyond this, given what we have learned recently about how many women remain unregistered as voters, for me, a party that goes out of its way to check the electoral rolls and facilitate registration for women voters would get bonus points. This, of course, cannot be an election season party, but perhaps right after elections, they could undertake such a drive. NGOs are doing this, but do our political parties care enough?

It is perfectly possible that not a single party will meet these criteria in 2014. This presents an opportunity to those who would work for change. Using our disappointment in 2014 as a baseline, feminists and others who care about inclusive democracy could strategize how to use the upcoming five years to bring about a change.

How will I vote if no party meets these criteria? I do not know; but vote, I will. Inadvertently then, this time I will give people a chance who have no commitment to gender equality or justice. That unpleasant prospect will motivate me (and you?) to work very hard in the five years to come. We must; who else will?

Swarna Rajagopalan is a political scientist and the founder of Prajnya. Gender-based violence and women's participation are central to both her work and Prajnya's.

Women on the 2014 Ballot

This was published as "Why more women must participate in the 2014 elections" on February 5, 2014.

In the run-up to the last round of Assembly elections in 2013, a Gender Manifesto was released by women’s organizations setting out a series of priorities across demographic groups and economic sectors. It is safe to assume that no political party or candidate engaged with this list and made it a part of their campaign. The only gender issue that featured was safety in Delhi, with the incumbents on the defensive. But there is more to a feminist agenda than safety, and women’s participation is high on that agenda.

That the participation of women was desirable was axiomatic for many streams of the anti-colonial struggle. Gandhian marches and prayer-meetings drew thousands of women, who would finish their daily chores and walk miles just to be in his presence. Women worked in the Seva Dal, marched to both Dandi and Vedaranyam, learnt Hindi and spun and wore khadi. The Indian National Army also had a women’s regiment, led by Captain Laxmi. At meetings, we hear that women donated their jewellery to support both the Gandhian movement and the INA. Major armed attacks against the British Empire also involved women revolutionary activists. And in the first years of Independence, stalwart women were appointed to important positions, with no hint that these were token appointments.

The Indian constitution recognizes gender equality as a fundamental right and places no barriers to women’s citizenship, including eligibility for the highest offices. The 73^rd Amendment to the Indian Constitution expanded Panchayati Raj institutions, introducing reservations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and for women (one-third) both within those quotas and in the general category of seats. Leadership at the local level was also to rotate so that it was sometimes held by women and others. Moreover, women candidates would face direct election, so that the reservation meant that many women had to contest election too. The 33% quota has been increased to 50% in many places. The 108^th Amendment Bill, also known as the Women’s Reservation Bill, which introduces reserved seats in Parliament and in the state assemblies, only managed to get through the Rajya Sabha and that after many years of being introduced.

Perhaps the lessons of the Panchayat experiment are actually intimidating to male politicians. Although a large number of women who initially entered the Panchayats were “proxy” candidates, over time, this has changed in two ways. First, political experience has encouraged even the “proxy” women to speak up, act independently and show initiative. They do not remain “proxy” forever. Second, their example has brought other women into the political sphere. In rural India, the entry of large numbers of women is beginning to alter not just the political but also the social sphere. It is reported that women are less inclined to put up with violence and injustice in their homes after the experience of autonomy and agency in the public sphere.

The good news is that legislative and constitutional quotas are not the only way to get women into Parliament. Political party quotas may actually be the best way, because they are voluntary, and they signal a shift in attitudes that we should be calling for more vigorously. Political parties would commit to and deliver on including a certain percentage or number of women in their list of candidates. To illustrate, if a certain party is going to contest in 30 constituencies, they might commit to fielding at least 10 or 15 or another specific number of women candidates. Just as important, the party commits to seriously backing and supporting the women candidates, and not just fielding them in “lost causes” constituencies. Similarly where there is a list of candidates, women should not lumped together at the bottom, fated to lose in a run-off situation.

While technically women make up about half the population (without taking into account declining sex ratios, for instance), quotas tend to range between 30 percent and 50 percent. A 50 percent quota serves both men and women in a gender neutral way, but it creates a ceiling for women. Committing to a critical mass of say, 40%, assures a large number of women of entry, without limiting access to them alone.

The experience of post-conflict states like Nepal and Rwanda shows that quotas can make a huge difference very quickly to increasing the number of women in public life. But Nepal’s experience, closer home in every way, suggests that just getting women into the Assembly is not enough. Women members of the Nepal Constituent Assembly talk about not being taken seriously by their senior male colleagues. Social barriers don’t come down as fast as institutional and political barriers might.

Another long-standing challenge for women remains what Mrinal Gore once described to me as “money power and muscle power.” It is hard for most women to raise money and to gather around them the army of volunteers (forget the thugs and political violence for now!) that election work takes. Without the 300% percent visible and vocal backing of the party’s most important leaders, even support from party colleagues is likely to be half-hearted. This is not a problem unique to India. In the US, women have found a way to start changing this. Emily’s List was founded in 1985 by Ellen Malcolm and other women to help women who held a particular set of views get elected to office. They find suitable women and train them; they raise funds for them and help them campaign; they get women to show up and vote and they also work to hold others accountable in election season.

Thus, beyond quotas, there are two areas in which civil society organizations—women’s organizations in particular—must work. The first is the long-term work of changing attitudes at every level—from schools to neighbourhoods to the workplace and beyond—about women’s leadership. It is our responsibility to create a hospitable climate for the quotas we advocate. The second is the short-term task of answering the question the political elite like to ask, “But even if we wanted to nominate them, where are the women?” and to help their campaigns, even if only as a way to create an incentive for political parties. Enough complaining from the outside, can we get the women who want to be in politics on to the political radar and help them stay there?

It is in the intermediate term, though, that the most important work lies. This is the work of giving women confidence to enter, inhabit and work in the public sphere. While it is unfair that questions about competence and suitability never appear to limit men’s opportunities, the hidden advantage here for women is that all the effort that goes into building their capacity also builds their confidence. Women meet and interact with others with similar ideas and aspirations, they connect and make friends, they learn from each other, and the content of the programmes also probably gives them better skills than their male counterparts possess.

Just a week ago, we learned that “women’s empowerment” was literally the answer to every question. Especially if that is so, in 2014, the question should be: are political parties going to commit to nominating an equal number or a substantial number of women candidates for Lok Sabha and other seats? Which is going to be the first party to declare this and walk the talk by delivering a gender-equitable list, with large numbers of women candidates, solidly backed by the leadership? Forget the short, intermediate and long-term, my friends, creating pressure for this is the task at hand now. And political parties, please note, there is a vote in my undecided hand waiting to go to the party with the most unequivocal, tangible commitment to inclusivity and gender justice. Does this vote belong to you?

Swarna Rajagopalan is a political scientist by training and the founder of Prajnya. Documenting women's work in the public sphere is central to Prajnya's vision.