Gender is not the only determinant of the way half of Uttar Pradesh’s population will vote, says Dr Shweta Singh
The euphemism of ‘cow belt’ was indicative of the lower gender equity norms, with women reporting lower rates than men across development indicators. This symbolic stigmatising draws from the BIMARU configuration — a disparaging acronym generated for the World Bank by some bureaucrat in the 1970s-80s. It might have appeared funny then as it was the time of the rule of the elitist mindset; the ‘othering’ and stereotyping rampant in framing global policy. The acronym translated to ‘sick’ and comprised four northern states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Each state carries the tags of lower literacy, lower formal employment rate, lower rates of industrialisation, and consequently lower per capita income, and lower indices of women’s autonomy. As the state gears for elections in 2022, post the global pandemic COVID, it is definitely time to talk of women as a constituency of interest and its needs; especially as the NDA government at the centre has treated and built on women as an important and separate electorate.
Food remains at the centre of survival for a large population of women, children, and men. The biggest saving grace of the COVID-19 disaster in Uttar Pradesh was the access to food for really poor segments of the population. While migrant labour had no social security nets to provide them basic food and shelter in rich cities of Maharashtra and Delhi and was left waiting for the escape bus and train to come back home to UP and Bihar. UP was able to feed its people for almost four months of the pandemic. In low-income group families, this remains the single most important issue. With Integrated Child Development Scheme and other nutrition and health being prioritised in conventional health, data on nutrition continued to look robust in Uttar Pradesh. The continuity of this benefit would be essential to the strata most affected by poverty and in non-salaried employment. The ability to access food is a statement of the administration’s efficiency and its enhanced accountability to people. The oxygen, bed, and medicine crisis were an outcome of a system in need of an overhaul, a large population, and an unprecedented crisis. Maternal and child survival and family existence are contingent on access to food, shelter, and health services. For women migrating from villages to cities like Lucknow, and for women staying back, the need is still the same. And the fulfillment of this need is a function of resources and accountability in resource distribution. Women assess who has a higher probability of delivering the basic needs to them and their families.
With 57 per cent of women who work in India still employed in agriculture — and with only 24 per cent in salaried work, 17 per cent in the industry — working women remains a broad category with working conditions unpredictable even in formal sectors. Nevertheless, the commonality is the aspirational identity of a large and increasing section of women in 2021. Women from the middle class have traditionally left the state for higher education and employment since the 90s with the advent of liberalisation, while earlier it was more an upper-class phenomenon. While women from rural and semi-urban lower classes migrated as labour to bigger cities. The investment in standardised professional colleges, expanding the scope of skill-based work, an actual increase in industry and education work opportunities would be key considerations for women setting priorities in elections in Uttar Pradesh. Education and work are no longer seen as population control tools of fertility studies but have meaning for women across socio-economic classes. With UP still ranked 31 with Rs 70,000 as per capita income, and intense disparity, 75 years later, finally the policy space seems to be rife with movement on economics and women’s position in it. If the sheer number of migrant labour escaping Mumbai and Delhi in 2020 is any indication, the need for industrial-economic development in these four states cannot be overstated.
Unlike what a plethora of media stories carrying NCRB data would like to identify, women across classes (high, medium and low) don’t really prioritise violence over other issues. This is because as research tells us, the risk and perception of risk vary in women as far as being subjected to violence is concerned. Also, domestic violence — despite the enormous amount of work undertaken at the global and national levels and highlighting the significance of it — remains a private issue instead of a public issue in most parts of India. Even though violence against women in West Bengal, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh, remains a critical and prevalent issue, its relevance has not been at the level of Delhi and Nirbhaya due to the heterogeneity of affected populations of women.
Religion and caste do not appear to be important markers for women as a voting constituency. Women with political affiliations and ambitions are few and more likely to engage around religious and caste affiliations. These are also more likely to be women from political families. A reason why women find themselves unattached to caste and religious identities is that, for women, these have been systems of control in public space. In private space, their religious practises are a source of strength as they continue across classes to be embedded in roles and relationships in collectivist mindsets. Similarly, caste has been a source of kinship identities and essential to a sense of belonging to a community with their own sense of practises around social systems like marriage. Even the latest data on values show that women reject NRI grooms if they appear too distant from the Indian values norms. Essentially, it remains a personal issue.
(The author is a policy analyst, author and coach.)