27 August 2024 : The Hindu Editorial Analysis

1. The heavy shackles of fear and vigilance

(Source – The Hindu, International Edition – Page No. – 8)

Topic: GS2 – Social Justice

Context

The article addresses the psychological toll on women in India, forced to live in a perpetual state of vigilance due to safety concerns. It highlights the unspoken emotional and mental burdens women face, arguing for a societal shift to recognize the less visible forms of violence and ensure true freedom for women.

The Violent Reality and Oversight of Psychological Impact

• The rape and murder of a woman doctor in Kolkata have sparked renewed discussions on women’s safety in India.
• While physical acts of violence such as sexual harassment, dowry-related deaths, and domestic violence receive attention, the psychological and behavioural consequences are often overlooked.
• Society tends to respond to visible physical harm, but the long-term psychological impact of violence remains largely unacknowledged and unaddressed.

Perpetual State of Vigilance

• Women in India are forced to take personal responsibility for their safety, living in a state of constant alertness.
• This ingrained vigilance becomes a learned behaviour from a young age, and women feel obligated to continuously assess their surroundings for potential threats in public and private spaces.
• The exhaustion caused by this constant vigilance is rarely recognized, as it has become deeply embedded in everyday life.
• Women struggle to express the emotional toll of this heightened awareness, and society fails to acknowledge the psychological burden it entails.

Impact on Women’s Freedom and Opportunities

• The need for constant vigilance severely limits women’s ability to explore and engage freely with the world.
• Women’s personal and professional lives are often constrained by safety concerns, such as declining job opportunities that require late-night travel or hesitating to move to unfamiliar places without a support system.
• Even simple activities like taking a walk in the park are overshadowed by a constant awareness of danger, curtailing their ability to experience life without fear.
• These restrictions on mobility and freedom have a significant impact on women’s psychological, personal, and material growth.

Intergenerational Transmission of Vigilance

• Mothers often pass on this state of vigilance to their daughters, teaching them to be cautious and adjust their behaviour to avoid threats.
• This reinforces the notion that women are responsible for their own safety, rather than expecting society to take collective action to create safer environments.
• The protective measures imposed by families and communities become another form of violence, further limiting women’s freedom.
• The tension between advocating for women’s empowerment and the reality of adapting behaviour for safety is a constant internal struggle.

Intersectionality of Caste, Class, and Religion

• Women from marginalised backgrounds experience heightened vigilance, as threats are often both gendered and rooted in societal hierarchies.
• Women from privileged backgrounds may have access to safer environments, such as gated communities, but are still not immune to harassment and violence.
• Marginalised women, particularly from disadvantaged caste, class, and religious backgrounds, face more pervasive threats with little institutional support.
• These women are often forced to navigate environments rife with exploitation and abuse, a reality often ignored by society.

Societal Consequences of Women’s Restricted Freedom

• The constant prioritisation of safety over exploration robs women of the full human experience, turning the world into a place of fear rather than wonder.
• This limitation not only affects women’s lives but also deprives society of the contributions they could make if freed from the burden of vigilance.
• Women’s emotional and psychological strain is as significant as any physical injury, yet it remains unspoken and unseen.

A Broader Understanding of Violence

• Society’s understanding of violence against women must extend beyond physical harm to include the psychological impact of constant vigilance.
• The state and society often respond to women’s safety concerns by imposing further restrictions on their freedom, which can perpetuate the problem rather than solving it.
• Women should not have to choose between their safety and their freedom. The goal should be to create environments where women can thrive without fear.

Shifting the Perspective:

• The perpetual vigilance imposed on women is not a natural state, but a form of violence itself.
• A fundamental shift in perspective is needed to recognize and address this issue, allowing women to live freely and contribute equally to society.
• Achieving this requires collective action from the state and society to create safer spaces for women, without restricting their mobility and freedom under the guise of safety.

PYQ: Discuss the positive and negative effects of globalisation on women in India. (200 words/12.5m) (UPSC CSE (M) GS-1 2015)

Practice Question:  Discuss the psychological and societal impacts of constant vigilance on women in India due to safety concerns. How does this affect their personal and professional growth?  (150 Words /10 marks)

2. Crime, health-worker safety and a self-examination

Topic: GS2 – Social Justice

(Source – The Hindu, International Edition – Page No. – 8)

Context

The article addresses the rising violence against healthcare workers in India, particularly following the death of a doctor in Kolkata. It critiques the conventional focus on hospital security and calls for deeper reforms to tackle systemic corruption in public healthcare, emphasising the need for transparency, oversight, and accountability.

Background: Protests by Resident Doctors

• In 2017, Maharashtra witnessed protests from resident doctors following multiple attacks on medical personnel.
• The immediate solutions included improving hospital security and strengthening legal mechanisms to punish offenders.
• Despite these efforts, swift justice in such cases has rarely been seen, with incidents continuing even during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Deeper Underlying Problem

• The brutal death of a resident doctor in Kolkata has led the Supreme Court of India to take suo moto cognisance of the matter.
• While the response, such as the creation of a national task force, focuses on improving hospital safety (e.g., better infrastructure, CCTV surveillance, and night transport for medical workers), the measures fail to address the deeper issue: corruption.
• The West Bengal government introduced the ‘Rattierer Saathi’ program to enhance safety for women in night shifts, but this too seems to conflate the issue with general health worker violence.

Conventional Solutions Fall Short

• The conventional responses, such as improved hospital security and new legislation, have failed to address the root causes of violence against health workers.
• The real problem lies in corruption, particularly in underfunded public health systems.
• Organised corruption may have contributed to the Kolkata incident and other similar cases, with disastrous consequences for both health workers and patients.

WHO Estimates on Corruption in Healthcare

• The WHO estimates that corruption costs around $455 billion annually worldwide, a figure greater than what is required for universal health coverage.
• In developing countries, corruption, rather than a mere lack of funds, is a major factor contributing to healthcare crises and poor outcomes.
• While discussions about medical corruption in India often focus on private losses, its criminal aspects, particularly in public healthcare, have been largely ignored.
• Corruption in the public healthcare system, including issues like sextortion, thrives in an environment of underfunding and poor oversight.

Limitations of Current Safety Measures

• Improving security for health workers and modernising hospital infrastructure, while important, will not be sufficient to tackle the problem of corruption.
• The Kolkata case highlights how medical corruption can lead to the deaths of healthcare workers as well as patients, underscoring the urgent need for reforms in the public health system.

Need for Broader Reforms

• The national task force’s role should extend beyond safety measures; it must develop a roadmap to prevent and tackle medical corruption, particularly in the public sector.
• This effort requires input from multiple fields, including public health and legal experts, as well as broader participation from governance and administration.

Key Reforms Needed

• Reforms must include enhancing transparency, accountability, and oversight in healthcare administration.
• Effective whistle-blower protection mechanisms, along with the digitisation of public management systems, are essential.
• Instruments like ombudsmanship and measures to reduce political interference are also crucial.
• Cues can be taken from countries like Brazil for inspiration in battling political corruption in medicine.

Modernising Public Hospitals

• India’s public hospitals, which often operate on outdated management models, need modernisation.
• Beyond efficiency, the moral and regulatory reasons for modernisation are now critical and cannot be ignored.

Conclusion

• While strengthening hospital security is necessary, it is insufficient to address the root cause of violence against healthcare workers.
• Comprehensive reforms targeting systemic corruption, transparency, and accountability in public healthcare are crucial to ensure the safety of medical personnel and improve overall health outcomes in India.

Practice Question:  Examine the role of corruption in undermining public healthcare in India, with a focus on recent incidents of violence against healthcare workers. Suggest comprehensive reforms to address this issue. (150 Words /10 marks)

3. The way we plan, design, build and use our cities needs to change

(Source – The Hindu, International Edition – Page No. – 9)

Topic: GS1 – Society – Urbanization, their problems and their remedies.

Context

The article critiques the failure of current urban planning and legal reforms to adequately address crimes against women. It argues that cities are designed with men’s needs in mind, neglecting women’s safety and infrastructure needs, and calls for comprehensive, gender-inclusive urban planning and policy reforms to ensure women’s full participation and security.

Crimes Against Women in Urban Spaces

• The recent rape and murder of a resident doctor in Kolkata highlights the continuing issue of crimes against women in workplaces, homes, and public spaces.
• Despite legal changes after the 2012 Delhi gang rape, including the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, the impact of such protections remains limited.
• Initiatives like the Nirbhaya Fund have largely been used for CCTV installations and increased police presence, failing to address the broader issue of women’s safety.

Urban Planning Fails to Support Women

• Indian cities have been traditionally designed with men in mind, often prioritising car parking over facilities like toilets and feeding rooms for women.
• The female labour force participation rate in urban areas is extremely low at 25.2%, and the lack of supportive urban infrastructure plays a significant role in restricting women’s access to the formal job market.
• Women often rely on walking and public transport for commuting, but cities prioritise wider roads and flyovers over safer streets and sidewalks, disregarding women’s needs.

Challenges in Housing and Care Infrastructure

• Women, especially those living independently, face difficulties in finding affordable and safe housing, limiting their economic opportunities.
• The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban has had a minimal impact on providing shelter for women.
• The absence of care infrastructure, such as facilities for childcare and elderly care, adds to women’s burdens, limiting their participation in urban life.

Need for Gender-Inclusive Urban Planning

• Urban planning must be restructured to meet women’s needs, making cities efficient, safe, and equitable for them.
• Policy frameworks should focus on urban inclusion, not just women’s welfare, and support women-dominated informal work by creating jobs close to home.
• Investment in care infrastructure and formalisation of informal work is essential for enabling women’s full participation in cities.

Resource Allocation and Gender Budgeting

• Resource allocation for cities designed to meet women’s needs remains insufficient.
• Gender budgeting mechanisms should be promoted and reviewed to ensure resources are directed toward women-centric urban development, such as improving women’s livelihoods, housing, and safety.

Reimagining Cities for Women

• Women must actively participate in urban planning and decision-making processes to create cities that work for them.
• A national scheme focused on gender inclusion in urban areas could help mainstream women’s needs and rights in city planning.
• Reclaiming cities for women is necessary for them to live, work, and thrive without fear, beyond mere protests or token safety measures.

PYQ: Discuss various social problems which originated out of the speedy process of urbanisation in India. (200 words/10m) (UPSC CSE (M) GS-1 2013)

Practice Question:  Discuss how urban planning and infrastructure in Indian cities impact women’s safety and participation. Propose comprehensive measures to make urban environments more inclusive and supportive of women’s needs. (250 Words /15 marks)