Month: March 2018

Interview: ‘We Have Shifted From an Era of Invisibility of Women to Hypervisibility in Media’

Refashioning India: Gender, Media and a Transformed Public Discourse explains how the Indian media has transformed public discourse around the economy, feminism and politics between 1990-2017.

Refashioning India: Gender, Media and a Transformed Public Discourse explains how the Indian media has transformed public discourse around the economy, feminism and politics between 1990-2017.

Maitrayee Chaudhuri. Credit: By special arrangment

Maitrayee Chaudhuri, professor of sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Centre for the Study of Social Systems, in an interview with The Wire talks about her latest book Refashioning India: Gender, Media and a Transformed Public Discourse, in which she links together politics, economics, the expansion of the media, the hyper visibility of women and a certain institutionalisation of feminism.

Edited excerpts:

To begin with, during this period (1990-2017) India went through massive structural changes in the economy by embracing globalisation and free trade. The media, too, witnessed dramatic changes with the arrival of new media, proliferation of TV networks, rapid growth in newspapers. Could you please elaborate…

You are absolutely right. My effort in this book is to link the politics, economics, the expansion of the media and what I describe as the hypervisibility of women and a certain institutionalisation of feminism together. I have argued that gender is a pervasive presence in contemporary Indian media and popular culture. And there are three grounds on which this visibility rests: one, India’s economic policy; two, the Indian women’s movement; and three the prominence and reach of media and communication.

What made you write this book and how did you reach this argument?

There are two stories here. One, that relates to my early work on the emergence of the women’s question in colonial India. This historical backdrop is reflected in both the treatment of nationalism and of gender. In fact, the first essay flags off the tensions in the nationalist vision.

Many of the conflicts we witness today date back to that essay. The contestations between community and women’s rights emerged in that period and we saw its full play in the 1980s – in the Shah Bano and Sati cases. And yes, more recently in the Padmavati case. We can see that contestation even in the absurd and brutal fall-out of the love jihad case, or for that matter the triple talaq case. The most recent incident that comes to mind is of a chief minister rueing that women have started drinking beer. Recall in this context the Prime Minister’s spontaneous acerbic and deeply misogynist comment on the laughter of a woman MP.

In the old days we had no media. But now it is omnipresent. So we witnessed the visual of the sheer heartfelt delight in the ruling party (Bharatiya Janata Party) members who guffawed like they would in their private spaces right in our homes and in our phones.

The other part of the story is linked to what you asked me before about the economics, culture, politics and media working in tandem in this new context. I began to be interested  in media representation of women in the early 1990s. Everything appeared to change with glossier newspapers, a flood of flashy magazines, abundance of exciting  news about celebrities, Page 3 write-ups. Initially, I concentrated on studying images of women and increasingly also of men. We saw male models, advertisements for male beauty products, men in more caring roles, as in the Raymond adverts. We also saw women portrayed in highly successful roles – as CEOs, entrepreneurs, bankers.

This got me thinking. And revisiting the earlier idea of commodification and objectification of women (the old feminist critique). And here the advertising world told us …they were harbingers of change and gender equality. Men now used Fair and Handsome (a fairness cream). This prompted me to see this barrage of new images, write-ups as a concerted ideological effort to create a new worldview, marking a shift in public discourse.

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Does that mean advertisements or the new focus on successful women have brought gender equality and are the new champions of feminism?

Gender is probably the social resource used most by advertisers. Even in the recent Jaipur Lit Fest, the person from the advertising world spoke of how the pressure cooker advertisements have shifted from a time where the husband was asked to gift his wife one if he loved her, we now have a celebrity couple Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan in an advertisement where Abhishek cooks! Gender, I argue, is something that strikes as the most basic characteristic of the individual and can be conveyed fleetingly in any social situation.

This is the tricky question and this is what the book seeks to engage with. My argument is that we seem to have shifted from an era of invisibility of women (issue that feminists raised in the late 1970s) to hypervisibility as we witness in contemporary mediatised word. Feminism is big as they say. After (Harvey) Weinstein (American film producer against whom there were numerous sexual harassment allegations) and the #MeToo campaign, the point I make about hypervisibility would be obvious. This is very different from the 1970s protests that media does not report on women’s issues!

Does this mean that both media and the women’s question has changed for the better?

Media itself has changed. Indeed this is the story of this book. And women have changed. Anywhere one travels in India, women are outspoken, driven and raring to go. But I have a caveat here. In my book I have dealt extensively with the rise of individuated selves, the backlash to organised women’s movement and the sense that one has arrived on one’s own abilities. There is no sense of a history or past struggles here. The individual is the maker and shaker.

And the tricky thing is that women’s issues in a certain way “sell”. Is that a bad thing? No. But if the issue is sensationalised, it is bad. And here the logic of the new media takes over. Flashy! Instant! Smart! Grab the headlines! Disappear.

And here I link it with the broader neo-liberal focus on the agential entrepreneurial women… Whether it concerns the poor woman who takes a loan from the bank or the model who showcases a certain kind of beauty. It is all about choice and freedom.

The language of choice and freedom has changed. The first time I saw a TV programme showcasing the tricolours for Independence Day with lollipops in tricolour and barfis ….I was taken aback. Since then I am constantly taken aback.

You argue that the “….new ethos of commerce makes its presence felt in media”, blurring the lines between news and advertorials and lifestyle stories. Tell us about you research in this area and some of the main findings.

You will recall how when the new adverts were changing, the media too was changing. I would constantly find researched pieces on renovating kitchens or  crockery – about empowering women, educating children. There were interviews with power couples, how Bollywood actors spent their holidays, conversations with designers. I remember a full debate on a beauty parade, mom-daughter relationship….camaraderies.

You have written about how media have straddled the contradictions between advocating capitalism, globalisation, consumption and also representing strong nationalist, even hyper-nationalist sentiments.

Yes. This book is also centrally about how capitalism changed and nationalism did too. Nationalism too has been reduced to buzzwords. In the first decades after the 1990s I have argued that we had a new projection of ‘feel good nationalism’ that feted our achievements: in our IT sectors; our IIT graduates at the helm of global corporates; where the front page of newspapers carried news of campus recruitment and the unbelievable offers; where Miss Indias, Miss Worlds were received by the President of the country.

The NRIs loved this. The increasing role of the diaspora in public discourse is another spin-off in the book. The narrative has continued in the media. Consider, for instance, the coverage of India at the Davos summit. Sitting at home, we consume these images and vicariously enjoy the sense of power and nationalism.

After 2014 under the new hegemony of the ruling BJP, we now have ‘hate filled nationalism’.  Love of the nation has to be advertised and publicised. And those whom one sees as enemies of the nation should be humiliated and shown their place. And the horror of this – as we have – was recently conveyed to us in a widely circulated video showing a man being killed.

A vendor sells #MeToo badges at a protest march for survivors of sexual assault and their supporters in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California US November 12, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo

You appear to have some problems with the idea that greater communication leads to greater freedom?

I do. I use the term overcommunicative abundance in the current context.

Social media, it is argued, makes it possible for anyone anywhere to raise her  ‘voice’ and it then becomes global news. But I have a small problem here… While the internet is global, its use is not. This is confined to groups, the new communities. WhatsApp groups are the best example of this culture.

My question is – what has become of the idea of a larger public to which we all belong as citizens?

There are many kinds of public. They are like target groups of advertising firms….high-end market, low end – the model that has been appropriated by the ruling dispensation. Aspirational… struggling.. are today’s buzzwords.  The book deals with this culture in some detail.

What is the structure of the book? And why this centrality of gender in it when the book is also about many other things?

Well, gender has always been very central to modern India’s public discourse. Take, for example, the 19th century social reform movement, early women’s writings and women’s organisations, the role of women in social movements, the gender question in the nationalist discourse etc.  

In fact, my first chapter hinges on the First Plan Document of Women published in 1947. The document was called “Role of Women in a Planned Economy”. It is an amazingly rich, complex and radical document that critiques the ‘idea of the sanctity of marriage’; the harm that ‘doctrinal religion’ can do to an individual; of  right to equal opportunities for every man and woman. The language I use here is weighty, informed,  grave and passionate.

The other book end is the 12th chapter on the 2014 Elections and what has happened to India since then.  Gender, I argue here, remains central. Take a quick look at the 2014 general election campaign. Every political party had women’s issues in their manifesto. You will recall that the brutal rape and death of Nirbhaya happened in 2012. We had a Womanifesto 2014, setting out “positions on female economic empowerment, female access to education, sexual violence, policing etc..” The language here is smart. Acronyms become the flavour of the day. The point being made is not that this visibility is unimportant. But yes, it is problematic and we need to examine the strange conjoining between visibility and invisibility.

Between the weighty Plan document on women initiated in 1938 (Chapter 2)and the 2014 Elections and after, (Chapter 12) we try to capture the details of advertisements, advertorials, features, media discourse, political debates, women’s movements that slowly and steadily move to our present times of WhatsApp messages and hate-filled trolls on social media.

But my key contention is that the hypervisibility of gender does not necessarily add up to a greater gender-just society. The point I am making is that over the last two decades we have seen a hollowing out of ideological commitments. Buzzwords have taken over and as we know buzzwords and snappy one-liners that emerge from advertising professionals and marketing agencies do not rest on any foundational commitment or understanding of either gender justice or democracy. We have seen and heard the slogan of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao. We have also seen the deeply misogynist attitude evident in not so stray comments of leading members of the ruling dispensation.

BJP’s Strategy of Pitting Hindutva as an Alternative Agenda to Development is Unravelling

Without development, Hindutva nationalism looks like an empty claim. Worse, it looks like a deliberate ploy to divert attention.

Without development, Hindutva nationalism looks like an empty claim. Worse, it looks like a deliberate ploy to divert attention.

Hindutva, ironically, works as a political strategy only when developmental aspirations are high. Credit: Reuters

Conventional analysis has pitted Hindutva as an alternative agenda to development. The Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh combine have a dual strategy of development and Hindutva where failure of one is made good by the other.

In other words, if development does not deliver, then the BJP-RSS combine pushes for Hindutva politics, mobilising communal polarisation while claiming integration through development. Thus, BJP’s strategy has been one of claiming ‘sab ka saath, sab ka vikas’ through development, undermining the old kind of sectional mobilisation based on caste and religious identities, replacing it with integration through large-scale developmental process. How this strategy works on ground and what is claimed is quite different. Thus, the current impasse in BJPs electoral prospects is the result of what BJP claimed through its slogans and programme and how it has worked out on the ground.

It is now time to rethink how this strategy works on the ground. What it does is quite the opposite to conventional wisdom. In other words, there cannot be Hindutva politics without high growth rates and an expanding economy.

Hindutva, ironically, works as a political strategy only when developmental aspirations are high and are in no mood to tolerate any obstruction to its onward march. BJP’s rise to power in 2014 was precisely due to the aspirations set in by the development made possible by the Congress in its rule for ten years.

Modi was seen as an alternative who could take Indian development to a new level by taking more bold policy decisions that are necessitated by market forces, what former prime minister Manmohan Sigh had referred to, borrowing from Adam Smith, as the ‘animal spirits’ that need to be unleashed in order to actualise faster development.

It is in this context that Congress and its modes of functioning became synonymous with ‘policy paralysis’, and unable to push the process that they began with the vigour necessary to take it to the next level. Modi’s image as a leader with the ability to take bold decisions without following the niceties of procedural imperatives went in his favour.

This was actualised partly because of his campaign of the trumped up claims of the ‘Gujarat Model’ that combined high growth with high intensity communal polarisation and marginalisation of Muslims. It was a rare combination marked by the Gujarat riots. It was this combination that made up brand Modi. It was a different issue that Gujarat was an industrialised state and there was anything dramatic that Modi did other than overseeing the Gujarat riots of 2002. But in popular perception Modi delivered a combination of high growth with high intensity communalism – one supporting the other. One was acceptable only in combination with the other.

The current crisis of the BJP and the challenge they will face in 2019 is precisely a breakdown of this combinatory postulation that they had projected. In the earlier moment too, the ‘India Shining’ campaign failed after the Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime because the claims to development did not match the ground realities.

Modi began by claiming the ability to create two crore jobs per annum, and thus began with the slogans of ‘Make in India’ and ‘Stand up India’ as an overarching policy frame with communal polarisation as a sub-set of this developmental model. However, with the dip in the growth rates, jobless growth and sustained agrarian crisis, the developmental claims can no longer sustain and as a result Hindutva too does not work.

National integration through developmental means is considered a better alternative to sectional inclusion based on caste and religious identities. In other words, social groups, for instance Dalits in Uttar Pradesh are willing to look beyond their immediate identities if there is a promise to be included through massive developmental agenda.

This also works because it helps in economic integration and mobility and also allows groups such as the Dalits to overcome the mis-recognition and stigma attached with sectional mobilisation. Dalits then can also claim to be citizens rather than ‘merely’ Dalits. However, if the developmental agenda does not allow for such integration then these groups have no option or qualms in going back to heightened sectional identities.

BJP made similar claims with regard to Muslims in Gujarat that they were better placed in comparison with Muslims elsewhere, inspite of the criticism that the Modi regime was patently anti-minority. In such a context any talk of separate Muslim interests looks anti-national because it betrays the universal benefits that development sets in.

Thus, claims against Congress for appeasing Muslims looked more credible and also as hampering development and weakening the nation. Therefore the success of the Hindutva strategy depended on the ability of development providing more universal-national- opportunities for everyone irrespective of their specific cultural identities. Thus, communal polarisation was also a response to the way it obstructs development and therefore a resurgent nation. It is only as part of this strategy that BJP can sustain an anti-Muslim or for that matter anti-Dalit rhetoric.

Without development, Hindutva nationalism looks like an empty claim. Worse, it looks like a deliberate ploy to divert attention. Suddenly, BJP’s strategy today can be projected as a diversionary strategy rather than as a legitimate nationalist assertion.

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The problem with the current political regime under Narendra Modi is that it failed to make sense of this connection. It became a victim of its own claims. It too understood development and Hindutva as two-pronged strategy where one needs to be used in lieu of the other failing to understand one is dependent on the other.

The reason even the demand for building the Ram Mandir does not seem to hold a similar appeal is because the Ram Mandir is symbolic of a resurgent India, which means both a robust economic power and a culturally unified Hindu nation. A Hindu nation with a faltering economy, in fact, reminds Hindus of the cultural inferiority they are often reminded of by the RSS. Claims to a pure and a glorious past can work only in tandem with high end corporate growth, fast paced urbanisation, expanding infrastructure, global capital flows and increasing employment opportunities.

Since the current regime missed the link, they are faced with a political dead-end. The failure of the Modi regime to understand that the economy needs a different set of policy frame from that of cultural assertion. Modi seems to have applied his experience in raising high-pitched cultural mobilisation to that of the economy. Demonetisation is a clear stand out example of this bravado.

Arun Shourie recently rightly observed that BJPs leadership does not have the required patience or gestation that is necessary to deal with economic issues. BJP has also has much less experience in governance than street politics. Governance cannot be managed purely through electoral considerations. It needs a different set of parameters. Sometimes it requires policy decisions that need to be considered independently.

For instance, the kind of debate that went under the UPA between the Congress and the CPI(M) with regard to nuclear energy that almost brought down the government with the latter’s withdrawal of support. Modi and his team does not seem to understand much less appreciate such policy conflicts as it by the very nature of its politics did not take institutional functioning seriously. Institutions in a democracy are a more refracted way of expressing public issues, though not in a direct manner as in street mobilisation.

It is the sheer complexity of liberal democracy that institutions look to be in conflict with the democratic aspirations, while issues such as separation of powers, federalism, independence of media and judiciary, autonomy of universities are precisely modes of dealing with competitive claims in democracy that have no easy resolution.

Easy resolution is sought to be replaced with moderate accommodation of interests, and here the institutional arrangement seeks to play an important role. So the conflict between environmental concerns and livelihood needs plays out as a conflict between legislature and judiciary; or between global corporate capital and agrarian interests plays out as a conflict between Centre and the states; dissent is a way of making sense of the inherent diversity of interests and competitive claims. The current regime consistently worked against all of this in order to project a more robust and a decisive leadership to contrast itself from the previous Congress regime.

The wheel has turned a full circle. The same methods lead to a faltering economy, which in turn has made the cultural agenda and street mobilisation look more vacuous. It is perhaps too late or even next to impossible for the current regime to rework either its strategy or its image.

Ajay Gudavarthy is associate professor, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Curbing Pensions of UK University Staff Hits Students Hardest

With teachers on strike since February 22, the row centres around pension changes that universities across the UK want to impose on members of the Universities Superannuation Scheme.

With teachers on strike since February 22, the row centres around pension changes that universities across the UK want to impose on members of the Universities Superannuation Scheme.

A banner supporting lecturer strikes is displayed outside the University College of London, Britain February 22, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Peter Summers

The teaching staff of universities in the United Kingdom (UK) have gone on strike since February 22. The row centres around pension changes that universities across the UK want to impose on members of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS). If the changes come in, a typical lecturer would be at a minimum, 10,000 pounds a year worse off in retirement than under the current set-up. Understandably, the staff are unhappy at the proposal and in the recent strike ballot, University and College Union (UCU) members overwhelmingly backed industrial action.

The USS is one of the largest principal private pension schemes for universities & other higher education institutions in the UK. The UCU members see the strike action as a last resort, to put forth their demands, which are as follows:

  • The employers want to end the guaranteed pension benefits, which they are opposing.
  • They are opposing the proposal that pension should depend on how ‘investments’ perform and not on the employees’ contributions.
  • This proposes huge risk to the future of USS scheme members.

The 6.5 billion pound ‘deficit’ in the pension fund that Universities UK (UUK) claims is pushing them to get rid of defined benefits for its academic employers. UCU is arguing that there is no deficit in the pension fund but rather this figure is being created due to marketisation of education and problematic future projections where pensions are directly linked to the market.

However, UK campuses have never seen a strike action of this scale, but the anger and frustration amongst university staff is palpable. With this industrial action, all the classes on strike days have been cancelled in most of the UK universities. Few teachers who have decided not to participate in the strike are holding classes, but for the students it is a dilemma to cross the human pickets created by their professors and students’ unions. Moreover, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) staff has decided to abstain from the strikes and participation from Oxbridge has been low. Nonetheless, overall participation in the strike has been overwhelming with more than 60 universities taking part.

Protestors hold banners outside the University of London on February 22. Credit: Reuters/Peter Summers

The annoyance amongst international students is high, as most of the students here are either self-funded or on loans. It will cost them approximately 35-40 classes altogether – a huge loss in terms of the education received at the culmination of their degrees. The strike action finds students in a precarious situation, where they seem to understand the position of their teachers and support them, but the strike is also penalising them by missing out on major part of their education.

The UK education system is anyway in question over the number of contact hours and one-year masters degrees, which seems to suit the financial structures more than the cause of education. Most of the students here are on loan and the fees that are increasing every year is the major concern for them. The fact that classes lost will not be compensated for is a huge set back for the students’ community.

Moreover, the fee disparity between the EU and non-EU students is more than double, where non-EU students end up paying more for the same degree. Even for the EU students the industrial action, which kicks off on February 22, will mean cancelled lectures, tutorials and seminars, which could have a significant impact on students who pay 9,000 pounds annual tuition fees and build up debts of up to £50,000 after going to university.

One of the local UK students studying in School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), who has returned to a university after 12 years said, “It has taken a lot for me to return to a classroom after so many years. I have come here to complete my education and make a good life for myself, but these strikes have left me in limbo, as I will never get the same experience that I signed up for.”

Protesters hold banners outside the University of London on February 22. Credit: Reuters/Peter Summers

On the other hand, the top pay in the universities is rising, but the teaching and non-teaching staff don’t seem to benefit from this. An Indian student raised similar concerns, “Studying is expensive, and studying in London is very expensive. I came to SOAS for its education having taken a loan, which I will be paying back for a few years to come. I came here for the professors and I am appalled that they are being stripped of a dignified retirement with USS pension cuts.”

This whole debate has raised many questions and brought out the fault lines in the UK education system, where the teaching faculty’s battle is just and based on the right of social security in education. But this struggle is also affecting the students who will end up with large debts and incomplete education in the end. Just like one cannot use capitalism/money/advertising to dismantle consumerism/globalisation/mental pollution, the struggle for social security cannot be based in the selective struggles against the marketisation of education.

As Dr Navtej Purewal, Deputy Director of the South Asia Institute and member of faculty in the department of Development Studies at SOAS commented, “Despite the disruption to teaching, students seem largely to be understanding of the pensions dispute. Solidarity between students and faculty in standing up to the neoliberal turn within higher education shows that we are all in this together. Students are paying higher prices for education delivered by faculty who are being undermined by being made less secure.”

The limited interference of government in the provision of education services has further increased the inequality. The need to regulate the education system and axing of profit-making and client satisfaction at the expense of offering knowledge has to be ensured. It is essential that teachers and students fight against this commercialisation of education, where the future of next generation students and teachers is at stake.

Rutuja Deshmukh Wakankar is a former journalist with Indian Express. She has taught Cinema Studies at Allahabad University. And is currently pursuing Masters in South Asian Area Studies at SOAS London and is President of SOAS India Society.