After more than 9 years in power, as the elections approach, the BJP is showing signs of panic because of a resurgent Congress under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi and a united opposition under the INDIA alliance. And so, out of the blue, the BJP has raised the women’s reservation issue. It appears to be wanting to take the heat off serious concerns that have tarred its record on the issue of safety and welfare of women.
The BJP’s record is best captured by a single statistic:
- India stands at the 140th position among 156 countries in the Gender Development Index or GDI. The GDI measures gender inequalities in achievement of three basic dimensions of human development: health, education, and command over economic resources. India’s GDI stands at 0.849, well below the world average of 0.958.
Below is a more detailed summary of the record of the BJP around the issue of safety and welfare of women.
Rising crimes against women
During the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP manifesto stated that under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, crimes against women had reached unacceptable levels, and promised that if voted to power it would be reducing the ‘high rates of crimes against women’. However, during the Modi years, crimes against women have only increased.
As per the National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) records, in 2012, 2.44 lakh crimes against women were reported. This number jumped to around 4.28 lakh in 2021, implying a 43% increase in total crimes reported in the years since the BJP came to power.
Moreover, the rate of crime committed against women, per lakh population, was 41.74 in 2012 and it rose to 56.3 in 2014. In years since then, the crime rate has fluctuated, but as per the latest NCRB report 2021, the rate increased to 64.5 in 2021 (Chart 1)
Chart 1: Rising Crime Rate Against Women (per 1 lakh)
Source: NCRB data
The protest by women wrestlers, not known to be BJP bashers, over serious charges of sexual harassment against a powerful BJP MP, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, put the BJP in the dock. Visuals of their stay at Jantar Mantar and inaction against Singh, the fact that the Supreme Court had to be invoked for as much as the Delhi police taking cognisance and despite that he remains free, the election for a new Wrestling Federation of India management is yet to be held – all these have badly tarred the image of the BJP.
In Haryana, sexual harassment charges against Sandeep Singh, a minister in the BJP cabinet was again a matter that drew outrage. The BJP was unable to drop him for political compulsions best known to them and he remained Minister for Printing and Stationery. This despite the fact that he has sought anticipatory bail. A Chandigarh court granted him anticipatory bail on September 15 in connection with the case registered against him in 2022 on the complaint of a junior woman athletics coach.
After refusing to utter a word for more than 11 weeks on the ongoing Manipur violence, Prime Minister Modi finally uttered a few words a day after the 26-second-long video from Manipur of three women being disrobed and paraded by a crowd went viral. Even then, he refused to comment on Manipur alone – and brought up the names of two Congress-ruled states which have seen no similar scale of violence of late in the very same sentence. This again has badly tarnished the BJP and PM Modi’s image regarding their concern for women.
Missing Girls and Women
An alarming number of girls and women, totaling approximately 13.13 lakh, went missing in India during the three-year period from 2019 to 2021, according to data presented by the Ministry of Home Affairs to the Rajya Sabha on July 26. Of these, 10.62 lakh were women above 18 years and 2.51 lakh were girls below 18 years. [Data excludes the girls and women rescued.]
Madhya Pradesh had the highest number of missing girls and women during the same period, with 1,98,414 reported cases. According to the data compiled by NCRB and tabled in the Parliament, West Bengal accounted for 1,56,905 missing women and 36,606 missing girls. In Maharashtra, the figures stood at 1,78,400 missing women and 13,033 missing girls.
These are shocking figures. Just these figures are enough to trash all the verbose statements made by the Modi Government about its concern for the safety and security of girls and women in the country.
On economic participation of women
India’s FLFPR (Female Labor Force Participation Rate) has remained woefully low for decades, but it has further declined during the last nine years of the Modi government.
As per the World Bank data, female LFPR in 2012 was observed to be at 27% which dropped to 22.9% in 2021. However, in 2022, the FLFPR increased to 23.9%. Research from CEDA, Ashoka University on analysing PLFS data shows that this increase in female labour force can be attributed to an increase in women’s participation in the agricultural sector, and is basically indicative of distress employment, due to the worsening economic crisis and desperate need for any kind of jobs.
India also has one of the largest proportions of female-based informal employment-population amongst the LMDCs (Like Minded Developing Countries) and the lowest levels of women entrepreneurs working in the organised, industrial space.
The pandemic and Modi Government’s callous handling of it has further worsened the condition of women’s unemployment. The Centre for New Economics Studies, in its research, documented the nature of troubling scenarios experienced over the last three years by female domestic workers, daily-wage worker based mazdoor mandis, ASHA workers, Anganwadis, nomadic communities, street vendors, et al. amongst those occupied by the unsecured, unorganised, informal work space.
Post COVID-19 pandemic, women shifted from salaried employment (with a less significant wage gap of 34%), to casual employment (where the wage gap here is 50%) and self-employment (wage gap here is 160%).
Social welfare schemes essential to women
Ujjwala Yojana
A tweet posted on May 30 by Prime Minister Modi listed the accomplishments of the BJP government in the last nine years. One of them was about the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) under which the Union government aimed at distributing LPG connections to women of Below Poverty Line (BPL) families.
As of 2023, the Union government had distributed 96 million cylinders under the PMUY. However, as per a reply given in the Rajya Sabha by the Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, of these beneficiaries, in the financial year 2021-22:
- 92 lakh, that is, nearly 10% of beneficiaries, took no LPG cylinder refills;
- 3.1 crore, that is 32% of the beneficiaries, took 1 or 2 refills.
- The average number of cylinders consumed per PMUY household is just 3.7 cylinders (in 2021-22).
A family of 4-5 persons needs at least 7 to 8 cylinders a year – that means at least 60-70% beneficiaries are back to using wood or coal for most of their cooking needs.
The reason for this is obviously the high price of cooking gas cylinders. The price of refills was Rs 410 in 2014 and has risen to Rs 1,100 in 2023. Despite this price increase, the government has drastically reduced its subsidy allocation under this scheme. There are two types of subsidies; in this year’s budget outlay, both have brought down to very low amounts: Direct Benefit Transfer (it was high during Covid, when govt gave 3 free cylinders to each household) has fallen to just Rs 180 crore, while LPG connection to poor households has been allocated a nominal Rs 1 lakh (Table 1). The latter implies that it was being wound up this year. Yet, the advertisements have continued!
However, after its rout in Karnataka elections, the BJP panicked and has recently lowered the price of the domestic gas cylinder by Rs 200. But that is a small fraction of the price increase since 2014.
This only goes to show that PM Modi is totally heartless towards women; his sole interest in women-oriented schemes is publicity.
Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY)
This programme was mandated by the National Food Security Act, and was approved by the Parliament just before the 2014 elections. Under this, an allowance of Rs 6,000 is to be given to all pregnant and lactating mothers, to partially compensate them for wage-loss so that the woman can take adequate rest before and after delivery.
But after coming to power in 2014, the BJP delayed implementation of this programme for 3 years. Intense pressure from activists finally forced the FM to announce the implementation of this scheme in his 2017 budget speech. It is a very insensitive and anti-women government that is in power. The FM attached several conditionalities for women to access this allowance, which have resulted in exclusion of more than 50% of the country’s women from this scheme. This enabled the FM to allocate only Rs 2,700 for this scheme in the 2017-18 BE, whereas a genuine allocation for this scheme would require an allocation by the Centre of at least Rs 9,700 crore per year (assuming Centre–State sharing to be in the ratio of 60:40).
The actual spending done was even lower, just two-thirds of this, Rs 2,050 crore. It further declined to just Rs 1,112 crore in 2020-21 Actuals. And so, the FM engaged in a smoke-and-mirrors routine, and in the 2021-22 budget, merged this scheme together with some other women-oriented schemes, which too had tiny budgets, into an umbrella scheme that she named Samarthya. So, since 2021-22. we don’t know what is the budget allocation for PMMVY.
But the budget allocation for Samarthya too is declining! This year’s allocation for Samarthya is Rs 2,582 crore. Assuming that entire Samarthya budget for this year is for PMMVY, even then, over the past 6 years since this scheme has been operationalised, the allocation for this has fallen in real terms – when the original allocation itself was only one-fourth of the required budget (Table 2)!
In the case of other essential social welfare schemes too, where women are disproportionately higher – from nutrition to MGNREGA to health related allocations – this Union Government has spent much less than, perhaps, any other government in the past.
Beti Bachao Beti Padhao
This is one of Modi Government’s most hyped schemes that is supposed to target the girl child. The declared aim of the scheme is to end discrimination against the girl child and educate her. The Prime Minister himself launched the scheme in January 2015. The total amounts allocated and spent under the scheme under the 8 Modi budgets till 2021-22 are given in Table 3. The actual spending is just around half (54%) of the budget estimate, and is a lowly Rs 740 crore – an average of less than Rs 100 crore per year. That too has been falling since its peak reached in 2018-19 of Rs 245 crore – and came down to a lowly Rs 57 crore in 2021-22. And so from 2021-22, the Modi government has clubbed the budget for the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme with some other schemes into SAMBAL (Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, One Stop Centre, Nari Adalat, Mahila Police Volunteer, Women’s Helpline, etc.).
But what is even more shocking, is the admission by the Modi Government that of the total amount spent under this scheme in the first eight Modi budgets, 54% (Rs 401 crore) had been spent on advertisements! So much for its concern for the girl child!
Women’s health
The National Family Health Survey NFHS-5 (2019-21) data found that about one-fifth (18.7%) of women in their reproductive age in India are undernourished, with a body mass index (BMI) of less than 18.5 kg/m. Analysts say an undernourished mother inevitably gives birth to an undernourished baby, perpetuating an intergenerational cycle of undernutrition.
As compared to NFHS-4 (2015-16), the NFHS-5 (2019-21) recorded a rise in anaemia incidence among women (up to age 49 years): the rise was from 53% in 2015-16 to 57% at the later date. What is particularly disturbing is that the incidence of moderate to severe anaemia rose from 28.4% to 31.4%.
In a bizarre development, that speaks volumes about the overall approach of the government towards the people and the country, the government has ‘suspended’ the director of the International Institute of Population Sciences, Mumbai which is under the ministry of health and family welfare. The institute is responsible for carrying out the periodic National Family Health Survey.
Women’s digital rights
India is supposed to be the second largest amongst the active mobile subscriptions followed by the African continent. But the recent report put out by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) reveals a stark digital divide among Indian men and women. Only 26% of women have access to the internet compared with 42% of men.
[Neeraj Jain is the convenor of Lokayat, an activist group based in Pune, and has written several books and booklets. He is the ‘Associate Editor of Janata Weekly’.We have taken help of 3 articles for preparing this article: “The Women Question Has Been Plaguing Modi and the BJP for a Series of Reasons”, by the Wire Staff in The Wire; “Big Talk, Small Action: Modi Govt’s Work on Women’s Empowerment in the Last 9 Years”, by Deepanshu Mohan and Shreeya Bhayana, also published in The Wire; and “Over 13 Lakh Girls and Women Went Missing in 3 Years, Govt Data Shows”, published in the Newsclick. The remaining data is from our forthcoming article to be published in ‘Janata Weekly’ on “Budget 2023-24: What Is in it for the People: Women, Health and Nutrition”.]
