THE RESPONSE TO BANERJEE IS TELLING

Iknow it’s a provocative question but I believe it’s one that needs to be asked: Are we a gauche and graceless people? Do we have no idea of what should be spoken and what should be suppressed and never expressed? In the foolish belief we have a right to say what we want we often blurt out the silliest things.

Believe it or not, this is how two senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) greeted the arrival of Abhijit Banerjee to India. He came within days of winning the Nobel Prize for Economics, but leading ministers and senior officials of the BJP were not just unimpressed but critical and often, downright rude.

Am I exaggerating? Have I used hyperbolic language where, perhaps, gentler phrasing would be more suitable? Or am I more or less spot on? Judge for yourself. First, at a press conference, the minister for commerce and industry, Piyush Goyal, was not just dismissive but judgmental of Banerjee’s association with Congress’s Nyuntam Aay Yojana (Nyay) scheme. In case you’ve forgotten, it was a promise to give ~6,000 per month to the poorest 20% of the population. “Abhijit Banerjee won the Nobel Prize. I congratulate him.” Goyal began. “But you all know what his understanding is. His thinking is totally Leftleaning. He had praised the Nyay scheme effusively but the people of India totally rejected his thinking.”

Apart from the fact that this may not be true — not least because the logic of the PM Kisan Scheme is not dissimilar to Nyay — it’s also a silly thing to say. Citizens did not vote to endorse Banerjee’s thinking. Actually, if they are made familiar with his thinking, they would in all probability warmly embrace it.

This was just a gauche and graceless statement. It certainly doesn’t befit a minister. In fact, it reveals more of Goyal than Banerjee. I would add, it diminishes Goyal. However, Goyal’s remark was swiftly exceeded by the sheer crudity of his party’s national secretary Rahul Sinha’s comment: “Those people whose second wives are foreigners are mostly getting the Nobel Prize. I don’t know whether it is a degree for getting the Nobel.” I haven’t met a single person who thinks this is an intelligent or morally justified thing to say. Everyone I read it to simply squirmed. Many are BJP supporters. They cringed like everyone else.

Goyal may have embarrassed his government, but Sinha certainly brought shame to his party. Yet what I found particularly surprising is that neither did what politicians so often do — claim they were misinterpreted or quoted out of context and use that as a cover for their lapse. If the prime minister had not stepped into the breach, the situation would have been truly distressing.

On Banerjee’s last day in Delhi, Narendra Modi met him and tweeted his pleasure in doing so. “Excellent meeting with Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee,” Modi tweeted. “His passion towards human empowerment is clearly visible … India is proud of his accomplishments.” That would have comforted Banerjee who had by then said the BJP’S personal criticism was upsetting. But it doesn’t exonerate Goyal and Sinha.

So, now, can you see why I began the way I did? Are we a gauche and graceless people who simply don’t know what to say and when to leave such thoughts unexpressed? Or are the majority of us appalled by what I’ve just recounted? If we are, we need to make unambiguously clear that these are not our values, and this is not acceptable behaviour.

Yet, it wasn’t always so. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was PM when Amartya Sen, one of his sharp and outspoken critics, won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998.

The PM immediately conferred the Bharat Ratna and gifted Sen a free pass to travel first class on Air India for the rest of his life. It’s sad that Vajpayee’s admirable example has been forgotten by men who consider themselves his political heirs. I wonder what he would think of their behaviour?

The recent Bihar floods and flood alert warnings in Kerala are just the latest in a long line of natural disasters that periodically strike in India, leaving behind a trail of devastation. The focus afterwards is on assessing the loss of lives and economic cost and, of course, rehabilitation. But though it is well known, the gender dimension of such disasters is not emphasised enough.

Studies show that natural disasters tend to lower life expectancy more in women than in men. This has to do with their lack of physical ability to get to safety, their sacrificing their safety for their children and elders, and their cumbersome clothing. Apart from this, in the aftermath of a disaster, women are much more vulnerable to trafficking, rape, and violence. After the Nepal earthquake, there were reports of women and children being preyed upon by traffickers. Given the inadequate socio-economic resources available to them, women also find it more difficult to rebuild their lives after disasters. They have limited livelihood avenues, little access to loans, and little knowledge of relief and rehabilitation available to them.

The psychological stress they face from witnessing devastation and seeing their families in danger or being killed is rarely addressed. In fact, in India, trauma counselling after natural disasters is not seen as a priority nor is trained personnel easily available. In such situations, her access to economic and educational resources gets even more restricted. Then, there are the problems that women face in camps away from their homes after disasters. Here, they are not only faced with danger in the form of predators but also suffer from hygiene problems. After the Kerala floods last year, despite the efforts of the state government, women suffered due lack of privacy and compromised reproductive health.

Our disaster management does not take into account practical ways to help women overcome some or all of these issues. The first is to engage with the woman on her needs. From this will flow support on rehabilitation, access to finance, sanitation and legal help. She will also need psychological support. The task of rebuilding their lives in unfamiliar surroundings is overwhelming for many women who have not had any exposure to the outside world or the educational and social tools to deal with this.

There are services available for women in post-disaster situations, but the problem is that in many cases they neither know about these, and, if they do, they have no means to access them. In disaster rehabilitation and response efforts, a lot of programmes by different organisations are being directed to benefit women. But there remains a wide gap between the availability of services provided to women and women’s ability to access these services. When and if she is able to get hold of governmental assistance, she is vulnerable to being exploited by touts or even members of her own family who can either trick or coerce her into parting with it.

In the case of the elderly women, all these factors are magnified. But unfortunately, after each disaster, women are at best subjected to ad hoc measures. They are not involved in relief efforts and hence left out of all decisionmaking. This was so even in literate and progressive Kerala.

Let us be clear, natural disasters are likely to increase thanks to climate change. Undoubtedly, our response mechanisms have improved. But it is still to become more holistic and look at the specific needs of women. I wonder what has happen to the women displaced in the Kedarnath landslide, the Kerala floods, the Bihar floods. Where are they now and how have they rebuilt their broken lives?

A documentation of this would be a good place to begin addressing this issue more seriously.

This is with reference to Ramachandra Guha’s ‘Lucky is the country without a glorious history’ (October 20). I stayed in Toronto for several years, and I agree with Guha’s analysis. Canada is truly a haven for migrants. In particular, Toronto, is a great city: Good food, good public transport and beautiful public spaces.