Children on the mean streets of Chennai

Unprecedented rains in Chennai over the last few months have destroyed the homes and possessions of hundreds of poor slum and pavement-dwellers. The worst-affected are children

It’s been a gruelling few months for families in the slums and pavements of Chennai, as incessant rain at the end of October severely damaged their homes and meagre belongings.

Perhaps the worst-affected were children, who had little or no food to eat, bearing the brunt of nature’s fury, and poverty.
During the wet spells, the children were forced to live out in the open, close to the speeding traffic. Being small, they were in danger of drowning. At the Greams Road slum, a mother almost lost her son, three-year-old Monesh, to the floods. In some areas, children had to spend the nights sharing space with drunken men and drug addicts, as families crowded into schools and other spaces for shelter.
According to the 2001 Census – which, for the first time in its history, marked a slum demography for the country based on the actual count -- Tamil Nadu has the third largest number of cities and towns with slum populations (63) after Uttar Pradesh (69) and Andhra Pradesh (77). According to the census, 10-20% of the urban population of Tamil Nadu live in slums. That’s 2.9 million people; over 100,000 are children in the 0-6 age-group.

Chennai itself has over 1,000 slums; the government still has to categorise a number of unknown slum settlements. Official estimates indicate that there are over 300,000 children in the city’s slums and on its pavements. “The number of families in slums in Chennai is estimated to be over 100,000 lakh, of which 33,000 families live by the river, including the Cooum and other canals. The rest live along the pavements,” says N Balaganga, chairman, Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board.

People living in slums do not receive the attention they are due, in the government’s agenda. When three-year-old Sarojini got jaundice, her mother took her to the government hospital close by only to be met with rude attendants. “They asked me to take her to the hospital she was born in. People at the hospitals treat us badly. Where do we go, emergency or otherwise,” she asks.

While the city corporation lists the number of hospitals that slum people can access, it does not do anything to ensure that they are attended to. “If the official in the area is proactive, alternatives are found easily,” says Andal Damodaran, honorary general secretary, Tamil Nadu chapter of the Indian Council for Child Welfare.

Then, perhaps, children like 10-year-old Anjali, who lives in the Egmore slum area, would have been more secure during the rainy season. Anjali recalls how children in her slum, who number around 50, slept the night at bus stands, under bridges, in any dry place they could find, during the months it rained. They still do. Worse, they went hungry. “We used to eat three meals every day but after the rains we lost most of what we owned, and there was no money to buy food. Now we eat only two meals a day,” says Anjali. All the houses in her area have been damaged.

In many slums, there were no officials organising medical assistance on a big scale, to cover every family, or even enquiring about the situation the families were in. Doles were promised and given out, but often they did not reach the people at the right time.

According to M B Nirmal of Exnora International, who worked with people in the slums during the rains, the government machinery was not fully geared to meeting the unexpected intensity of the rains. “Our corporation’s priorities are wrong. They spent crores of rupees on creating new parks, when their first priority should have been to clean the storm water drains that have become dysfunctional. Moreover, because of encroachments at the outlets of floodwater canals, the water could not flow away and so entered the slums. The same rains could have been a gift to the poor… instead the children will be psychologically affected by all this,” he says.

Recent dry weather has given these poor people some cause for cheer. As children got re-equipped for school, families were hoping to begin rebuilding their homes -- a time-consuming process that they will have to undertake themselves, brick by brick.

Resettlement is a different ball game altogether. The government has new plans to clear some settlements and provide the slum-dwellers with alternative accommodation in resettlement colonies. Sites have been earmarked but nothing has been finalised. “The Corporation of Chennai, the Slum Clearance Board and the PWD will have to jointly decide on the process. It will take two to three years to materialise. You know how governments work…” says community development officer Zafarullah.

Data on the exact number of slum- and pavement-dwellers affected by the floods is yet to be compiled by the five talukas. According to the Chennai collectorate, 595,151 people -- categorised under low-income families, including slum- and pavement-dwellers with ration cards -- have received the relief announced by the Tamil Nadu government which includes Rs 2,000 in cash, 10 kg of rice, one sari, one dhoti and 1 litre of kerosene, the last through the public distribution system. Around 55,000-60,000 more will receive their dole by mid-January this year, completing the relief work for the entire city.

But two months after the first rains, people are still crowded together on the streets waiting to start rebuilding their homes and get back to a normal routine. What appears to be lacking is not just a sensitive approach towards poverty and deprivation, but a continuing denial of standards for families caught up in the poverty trap. And, as a result, for the children wedged in between.

InfoChange News & Features

The Haji Malang shrine: Whose God is it anyway?

The popular shrine of Haji Abdur Rehman Shah Malang near Mumbai, where Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and other communities have worshipped together for generations, is being contested by fundamentalist Hindus and Muslims

Jagtar Singh is the odd one out in the sea of humanity clambering uphill to the dargahof Haji Abdur Rehman Shah Malang. His deep red turban bobbing above the uncovered heads of pilgrims struggling up the Malang hill, 2,596 feet above sea level, marks him out on this pleasant February morning.

“I am here to thank Baba,” the middle-aged transporter speaks softly above the din. Business has been good this year, and Singh has joined the congregation, cutting across caste and creed, in gratitude.

Hindus and Muslims throng this hilltop shrine, as do Parsis, Christians and Sikhs, every February to celebrate the urs of the Baba.

The 13-km-long drive from Kalyan railway station outside Mumbai is the first indicator of trouble beneath the pastoral calm. Road signs en route have ugly blotches of tar clumsily defacing the word ‘Haji’, betraying the handiwork of Hindutva forces. The overbearing presence of khaki sharing space with the gaudy office of the Shiv Sena at the base of the Malang hill completes the picture of communal strife.

But the hundreds of devotees like Singh who are trudging up the hill do not seem to mind. The long winding path uphill is paved with granite, Cuddapah stone and even white bathroom tiles -- tokens of gratitude now broken down through wear-and-tear.

As I join in the climb, shabbily dressed children -- Hindu and Muslim -- accost me with tiny packets of peanuts. Rs 10 gets me 20 packets for the monkeys that wait to be fed during the 80-minute climb. Local entrepreneurs have put up tiny stalls at every turn to sell freshly crushed sugarcane juice. Sadhus and fakirs alike engage in banter and beg for alms.

Past the two smaller mazaars where devotees of pir saab must stop and pay their obeisance, scores of devout Muslims bow before the Hindu Brahmin priest who oversees worship at the dargah. “I am the 14th generation priest to serve this shrine,” says Kumar Ketkar, a trained lawyer.

Today, the first day of the urs, a palanquin symbolising the spirit of pir saab has just been brought from Ketkar’s ancestral home at the foot of the hill in traditional Hindu style. After the rituals, spread over several hours, Ketkar and the other trustees of the shrine are greeted by scores of devotees. Many of the local Muslims respectfully touch Ketkar’s feet and seek his blessings.

“The celebrations peak on the final day of the urs, the full moon night during the Hindu month of Magh, which is also the 13th day of the month of Chand in the Islamic calendar,” Ketkar explains. Most years, this day falls in the month of February. The celebrations will end with another palanquin procession bearing chadors and sandalwood paste from the dargah in the reverse direction. Seven groups of local fakirs belonging to different jamaats elect a leader from among themselves to complete the rituals.

Before they leave, Hindu and Muslim devotees usually visit the nearby Maruti mandir and a mosque respectively.

The Ketkar family’s association with the Haji Malang dargah goes back to 1780, when the British laid siege to a nearby fort, then in the possession of the Peshwa rulers. The Peshwas held out for six long months, forcing the British to withdraw. “My ancestor Kashinath Pant Ketkar issued a proclamation ascribing the victory to the pir saab,” says Ketkar. Since then, local Hindus and Muslims have worshipped here together.

According to lore, Haji Abdur Rehman Shah was a 13th century mystic from Yemen who settled down here to preach. The local ruler, King Nall, is said to have offered his daughter to the pir as a disciple. The mazaars of the pir and Ma Fatima lie side by side.

This façade of communal harmony, however, is punctured by groups of fundamentalist Hindus and Muslims locked in a fierce contest for control over the shrine. Before his death some years ago in a road accident, local Shiv Sena leader Anand Dighe threatened to take over the dargah by force after claiming it as a Hindu shrine.

“Amar Parvat was the original name of the place because rishis gave diksha to Lord Amarnath here,” says Dinesh Deshmukh who heads the Thane unit of the Hindu Manch, an umbrella body of different Hindutva groups. “What they call the mazaars are basically small mounts that have come up around gifts given by the gurus to their disciples,” he adds.

Haji Malang’s believers contest Deshmukh’s claim. “We don’t subscribe to their ideology or their stories as we have written records and parchments dating back several centuries substantiating our claims,” says Ketkar.

However, a move by some of the shrine’s trustees to hand over the dargah to the Waqf Board threatens to isolate moderates like Ketkar. “Under Section 43 of the Waqf Act, 1993, all dargahs, mosques and kabrasthans automatically come under the Waqf Board,” says Nasir Khan, a trustee of the shrine. With the Maharashtra government deciding to implement the new Waqf Act from 2003, even the Waqf Board is pressing for takeover of the administration of the dargah from the charity commissioner.

According to Dr M A Aziz, chairman, Waqf Board, and member of Maharashtra’s legislative council, little of the rituals at the dargah will change. “We accept Kumar Ketkar as the hereditary trustee. He won’t have any excuse not to work under the Waqf Board,” says Dr Aziz.

The Hindutva bodies are raising the future of the nearby Maruti mandir as a political issue. “Will the Waqf Board also take control of the temple? Isn’t it also part of the complex?” asks Deshmukh.

The Waqf Board has, however, decided to let Hindu organisations take charge of the temple. “The Waqf Board will not manage the temple,” says Dr Aziz.

With the trustees now resorting to personal attacks against one another, devotees of the pir saab are hoping that the Maharashtra government will take direct control of the shrine. “The government should enact a special law like the one for the Shirdi Sai Baba and Ajmer Sharif shrines,” says Ketkar.

InfoChange News & Features, April 2006

Big dams and nuclear energy make a backdoor entry

Piggybacking on the goal of reducing carbon emissions, multilateral banks are aggressively re-orienting their lending priorities. On April 23, the World Bank will discuss a confidential report that advocates big hydro projects and nuclear energy to mitigate the effects of climate change in transition countries like India and China

Far away from the current impasse over the Sardar Sarovar dam project in India, decision-makers at the World Bank (WB) are swiftly pushing for big hydropower projects in Washington. The World Bank is also talking about lending for nuclear power projects.

In the early-1990s, the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) campaign against the WB-funded Sardar Sarovar Project forced the Bank to stop funding the project. Since then, the WB has been reluctant to lend for big projects.

Closer home, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), a regional multilateral development bank based in Manila, Philippines, is also seriously considering lending for high-risk big hydropower projects, and is also talking about lending for nuclear power projects.

The return of multilateral development banks to lending for big dam projects, and their reversal of the principle of not lending for nuclear power projects, piggybacks on the goal of reducing carbon emissions to mitigate climate change.

These banks are aggressively re-orienting their lending priorities to allow them to capture the multi-billion-dollar carbon market as well as increase lending in transition countries like India, China and Brazil. The WB and the ADB are trying hard to stay relevant in big borrower countries like India and China. And, given the enormous energy needs of these fast-growing economies, the energy sector is turning out to be a priority sector for multilateral development banks. The threat of climate change only facilitates this process.

On April 23, in Washington, the Development Committee, a senior decision-making body of the World Bank, will debate a confidential report titled ‘Clean Energy and Development: Towards An Investment Framework'. This comprehensive report strongly advocates multilateral development banks lending for big hydropower projects and nuclear power, to help reduce carbon emissions. It also accepts nuclear energy as a viable clean energy source that needs to be encouraged. The report focuses on transition countries like India and China.

The development committee will debate the report on April 23, at the spring meeting of the World Bank in Washington -- a debate that will lay the ground for the framework to be approved at the WB-IMF annual meeting in September this year.

The report is a comprehensive and radical assertion of lending for big hydropower and nuclear projects, as insurance against climate change. Although it claims that its suggestions are not WB-centric, it does point to the Bank's future lending areas.

The report, which was put together in consultation with officials from India, Brazil, China and South Africa, can be safely said to reflect the governments' priorities in lowering carbon emissions.

It suggests a ‘fast two-track' approach to developing an investment framework for clean energy to reduce carbon emissions. Interestingly, despite the fact that developed countries are the biggest polluters, with the US alone contributing 25% of greenhouse gases, the report prescribes carbon reductions for developing countries. It sees developing countries as the place where most carbon reduction activities will have to take place. This can be interpreted as the World Bank seeking opportunities for lending (after all, developed countries don't borrow from the Bank).

At the summit of the Group of Eight (G8) most industrialised nations, in Gleneagles, Scotland, last July, the World Bank was asked to propose a plan for a global transition to a sustainable energy future that would support energy sector expansion towards the ultimate goals of economic growth and poverty reduction. The G8 gave the World Bank the mandate to “take a leadership role in creating a new framework for clean energy and development”.

The report identifies and emphasises that big hydropower projects and nuclear energy are two ‘feasible and economically viable' options for reducing carbon emissions. It describes nuclear energy as a clean and efficient energy and clubs it with other renewable sources like wind power.

The document adds that financing options should be ‘fast-tracked' and completed by September 2006, which is when the WB-IMF annual meeting will discuss and finalise it.

Charting out an agenda to attain the above objective, it suggests that its own financial strength and that of other international financial institutions (IFIs) should be explored, to start with. And as a strategy to reduce carbon emissions quickly, it prescribes the exploration of new sources like nuclear and big hydropower projects.

The World Bank has historically been the single largest financer of large dams worldwide, providing an average of around $ 1.25 billion a year for big dams over the past 60 years -- five times more than current lending for clean, renewable energy. The report shows that 60% of the Bank's supposed support for renewable energy and energy efficiency (RE and EE) is, in fact, for big hydro projects.

In its annexure, the report details the carbon reduction activities of specific countries. For India, it says that the government is pushing for big hydro projects along with nuclear energy. The report's authors consulted extensively with Indian officials, including the energy ministry and the Planning Commission. India is the fifth largest emitter of carbon related to fossil fuels, after the US, China, Russia and Japan. It contributes 4.2% of the world's total carbon dioxide. Eighty per cent of India's electricity comes from thermal sources, thus making it one of the largest producers of greenhouse gases. The report is very specific in its prescription for India: “…opportunities to reduce the GHG intensity of the power sector is to shift the balance of production towards more diversified and cleaner sources. The latter include a mix of large and small hydro (projects)….”

For India, the World Bank has already made clear its intention to lend for big projects; this confidential report carries this intention forward. The foray back into large dams in India comes close on the heels of the Bank's approval of an Infrastructure Action Plan (IAP) in July 2003. The plan aims to increase Bank support for what it terms “high risk/high reward” infrastructure projects such as large dams, over the next two years. As part of the IAP, the World Bank recently announced a doubling of its lending to India, predominantly for projects in the power, water and transport sectors. On April 25, the Bank's development committee, at the spring meeting in Washington DC, will discuss the implementation of this plan.

The carbon rush

Meanwhile, the ADB is going to review its energy policy adopted in 1995. According to a high-level official at the ADB: “We are not sure whether we will be lending for nuclear power projects, as currently we don't have any request for lending. But definitely this year we will be talking about it.” The ADB is one of the World Bank's key partners in its clean energy development programme. “Nuclear power generation is a proven technology that provides about 20% of the world's electricity production. There is, however, widespread public concern about the safety of nuclear power operations and waste disposal methods,” reads the energy policy. In its 1995 energy policy, the ADB states that based on concerns of transfer of nuclear technology, proliferation risks and environmental and safety aspects, the ADB would not support nuclear power. However, the 2000 review papers of the policy don't mention this.

Sources say that given requests from big borrowers like India and China, the ADB may consider starting a debate on it. Meanwhile, the ADB is now definitely open to lending for big hydropower projects. It has announced a $ 2 billion a year credit line for water-related projects; the World Bank had already done so in 2004. Both pitch for large centralised projects.

Of late, multilateral development banks like the World Bank and the ADB have become the new trustees of climate. Over the last five years, they have seriously pursued the carbon market. The World Bank coordinates all such activities; this latest report is one way of establishing its primacy in this field. The G8 asked the World Bank to prepare this report last December. Over the past five years, banks like the World Bank, the ADB, the African Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Investment Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank have invested over $ 17 billion in projects that directly or indirectly contribute to lowering carbon emissions in developing countries.

Both the World Bank and the ADB now manage carbon funds worth close to $ 5 billion. The former is managing eight carbon funds as trustee, where various countries contribute. The ADB is managing four funds under its Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency and Climate Change (REACH) programme.

The catch is that the International Energy Association estimates that a total capital investment of $ 8.1 trillion, equivalent to an average of $ 300 billion/year, is needed from 2003 to 2030 for developing and transitional economies to meet their energy needs. Of this, electricity comprises roughly 73%, oil 12%, natural gas 12% and coal 3%. Of the total global greenhouse gas emissions, the energy sector contributes 80%. Thus any carbon reduction programme has to focus on the energy sector.

The World Bank report says that to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions it would cost anything between $ 10 billion and $ 200 billion/year. This offers huge opportunities to lend and do business in the name of climate change mitigation. The focus on developing countries stems from the fact that developed countries with carbon emission commitments can't reduce emissions in their own countries. According to the World Bank, in developed countries the cost of reducing one tonne of carbon dioxide could cost between $ 15 and $ 100, while it would be around $ 1 to $ 4 in developing countries.

InfoChange News & Features, April 2006

Challenges in implementing the ban on sex selection

On March 28, the very first doctor in India was sentenced to two years in prison for violating the Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Act. In the 11 years since the Act was enacted, why have lawbreakers got away?

It is more than 11 years since the enactment of the Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act 1994. It is also at least two years since the more comprehensive, amended Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (PNDT) Act, 2003. Yet enforcing the law has proved to be a major challenge.

“Our main anxiety is that existing strategies are not working,” says Dr Puneet Bedi, Delhi-based gynaecologist, who has been part of the anti-sex selection campaign for decades.

Today there are some 350 cases filed under the Act. Of these, 226 are for running a diagnostic clinic without registration, and 26 are for not maintaining accounts. Just 37 are for communicating the sex of the foetus, and 27 for advertising sex selection. The first conviction with a prison term was ordered on March 28, 2006, when a doctor and his assistant were sentenced to two years in prison and a Rs 5,000-fine in Palwal, Haryana. Until this recent conviction, only one case had resulted in successful prosecution, but even that person received an insignificant punishment.

Ask government officials responsible for the programme why this happens and you’ll hear the same stories: the authorities are under-staffed and over-worked and they have no money to pursue legal action. And the powerful doctors’ lobby renders their actions null and void. Clinics that have been sealed for breaking the law have been re-opened for practice within a few days. Lawbreakers have got away after paying fines of just Rs 1,000.

At recent regional and national consultations and in informal discussions, government and non-government representatives and activist groups have talked about the difficulties faced in enforcing the PNDT Act.

Activists such as Sabu George, who has been doggedly pursuing the issue for years, note that it is easy to find out who is conducting sex selection in any given district. Then why are these doctors getting away scot-free?

As always in any such effort, much of the battle consists of ensuring that the necessary trained personnel are in place, they have the resources, and – most important -- they do what they are supposed to do to implement the law. And clearly, this is not being done.

There are other difficulties as well. First, the crime takes place behind closed doors, and with the involvement of both parties (the doctor motivated by money, and the woman coerced by family and social pressure). Evidence for a legal case is difficult to put together and there may be limitations to the use of circumstantial evidence and decoys to pin a case on a doctor. Second, the sex selection industry is run by a guild of medical professionals who have, so far, shown little inclination in putting their house in order – and the authorities are apparently not taking them on. Third, there is a need to tread carefully to ensure that opposing sex selection does not undermine women’s right to abortion. Finally, there is also the question of what to do as new diagnostic tests on the distant horizon take foetal sex detection outside the scope of the regulatory system.

Details of the law
The Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 2003, covers pre-conceptual techniques and all prenatal diagnostic techniques.

The following people can be charged under the Act: everyone running the diagnostic unit for sex selection, those who perform the sex selection test itself, anyone who advertises sex selection, mediators who refer pregnant women to the test, and relatives of the pregnant woman. The pregnant woman is considered innocent under the Act, “unless proved guilty”.

All diagnostic centres must be registered with the authorities. They are required to maintain detailed records of all pregnant women undergoing scans there. These records must include the referring doctor, medical and other details of the woman, reason for doing the scan, and signatures of the doctors. These records must be submitted to the authorities periodically.

Penalties under the Act are imprisonment for up to three years and a fine of up to Rs 10,000. This is increased to five years and Rs 100,000 for subsequent offences. Doctors will be reported to the state medical council which can take the necessary action including suspension.

For implementing the Act, “appropriate authorities” are appointed at the state level and work with the director of health services, a member of a women’s organisation and an officer of the law. At the district level, the appropriate authority is the casualty medical officer or civil surgeon. Appropriate authorities are assisted by advisory committees consisting of doctors, social workers and people with legal training. Supervisory boards at the state and central levels look at the implementation of the Act. The appropriate authority may cancel the diagnostic centre’s registration, make independent investigations, take complaints to court, and take appropriate legal action. It may demand documentation, search premises, and seal and seize material. Courts may respond only to complaints from the appropriate authority.

Arvind Kumar, the collector of Hyderabad district, has illustrated what can be done through systematic work, and dedication. He actually tracked down all 389 diagnostic clinics in the city, issued notices to those which had not registered, took action against those providing incomplete information, seized machines that were not registered, and prosecuted equipment suppliers for supplying machines to clinics with no registration licences. But Kumar is an exception to the rule.

Problems in implementing the law
Dr Ratan Chand, in charge of the PNDT cell at the union ministry of health and family welfare, reported on the quality of enforcement after touring the country as part of the National Inspection and Monitoring Committee.

The committee visited selected districts in Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat and West Bengal. It found that appropriate authorities did a poor job of monitoring registered clinics, even going through their documentation for accuracy. Many clinics had poorly maintained records, with missing information, incomplete forms, blank signed forms, forms not signed by the doctor, etc. The authorities did not follow up court cases properly, or monitor the use of portable ultrasound machines which are likely to be used for sex selection.

The state authorities say there is not enough staff. Another problem is that the appropriate authorities don’t know their functions and responsibilities. And when they’re trained in their work, they get transferred. For example, in Rajasthan, an NGO which trained over 125 appropriate government authorities found a year later, when reviewing their work, that all but 35 of them had been transferred.

“The lack of resources is an excuse by the PNDT authorities,” says Dr Bedi. “What is the point of making doctors keep records if they are not audited?”

Cases under the PNDT Act must rely heavily on such documentation. Malini Bhattacharya, member of the National Women’s Commission, points out that a careful reading of all the centre’s documents will provide circumstantial evidence if something wrong is being done. Centres doing sex selection are likely to slip up on maintaining the required records. An examination of clinic records found that many clinics reported doing just one or two scans a day which is financially unviable for a scan centre. Obviously, they were not recording most of the sonographies that they conducted. Many forms did not contain all the required information. Some were unsigned; some clinics had blank, signed forms.

Sting operations
Still, some have argued that circumstantial evidence is less than ideal in proving a case. Ultimately, the best proof can come from a pregnant woman who visits a doctor, asks for a sex detection test and then testifies against the doctor. But this poses its own problems. There is the risk that pregnant women could face subtle coercion, however slight, to participate in this process. They may have to remain involved with the case after the sting operation. Also, it is not possible to sustain such efforts in the long term. On the other hand, there does not seem to be any alternative to the use of decoys. There are limits to the quality of evidence from clinic records alone.

“Auditing will provide enough evidence for legal action,” says Dr Bedi, arguing that sting operations are not necessary. “If data is missing, it is presumed that it covers an illegal act. The basis of the law is auditing the records – and this is not being done, and this is deliberate.”

The medical profession
The sex selection industry is run by medical professionals who have, so far, shown little inclination in putting their house in order. This was evident at a meeting in Kolkata where senior doctors shrugged their shoulders on the matter of getting their associations to do something about the illegal practice. No associations of medical professionals have taken a strong stand curbing the unethical use of diagnostic procedures. They have fought only as lobbies to control their commercial interests. The fact is that providers have benefited from promoting the technology for decades. Doctors have even gone to court against the law.

Against sex selection, not against women’s right to abortion
Opponents of sex selection must face both conceptual and practical tensions. They must ensure women’s right to abortion while opposing sex selection. This balance is sometimes difficult to maintain. For example, there have been suggestions that abortion clinics be monitored and the sex ratio of female foetuses be tracked. Such monitoring could threaten the tenuous access to abortion that women have today.

The supply versus demand problem
There have also been efforts to shift the focus from the medical profession’s unethical practices to addressing the social demand for sex selection. One of these is rewarding panchayats whose sex ratios improve. The problem, as noted by participants at one recent meeting, is that this can encourage the manufacture of data. Second, there are not enough births within a panchayat to monitor for changes in sex ratios – you need a sample of at least 28,000 births to be able to detect changes in the sex ratio, says Dr Bedi.

Beyond regulation?
Finally, there is the question of what to do as technology advances to take foetal sex detection beyond regulation. Foetal sex selection using ultrasound has, so far, been doing the damage. But all this may change in the next few years. When the PNDT Act was drafted, ultrasound could not be used for sex selection until very late in the pregnancy. That is no longer true, and this is the technique that is most prevalent today. But the most frightening development, reported by Dr Puneet Bedi at a recent consultation, is a blood test isolating foetal cells from maternal blood, enabling foetal sex detection. This could throw the entire campaign into chaos. “The technology is at a very crude level today,” says Dr Bedi. “And even if it becomes accurate, it will be very expensive initially. But in any case, that is a different fight. Today we have to fight the fightable fight.” If we don’t win this battle, we won’t win that one either.

InfoChange News & Features

Turning mill land to mall land

The Supreme Court’s recent verdict on the sale of mill lands in Mumbai has implications for the future development of all cities in India, and the redevelopment of derelict industrial lands in other cities

Why should a Supreme Court verdict removing the legal stay on the sale of land belonging to cotton mills in Mumbai be at all relevant to other cities? Mumbai is unique in that there have never been such a large number of workers -- 250,000 at the peak, in the 1970s -- in one industry in a single city. It is for this reason that Mumbai was called (along with Ahmedabad) the Manchester of the East.

As it happens, the court verdict is important because it redefines many important facets of the environment, which will set a precedent in cases elsewhere. This concerns not only the potential redevelopment of derelict industrial land in other cities -- like the Binny’s factory in Bangalore and Ahmedabad’s cotton mills -- but the entire concept of what constitutes environmental concerns itself. These industrial graveyards occupy prime real estate in city centres, and their development is crucial to future urban growth.

The court genuflects before Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution regarding the fundamental right to life and to a ‘decent’ environment. However, it then elaborates the scope of a public interest litigation in the case of mill land. It asserts that it had to ascertain whether public interest was being served and had to strike a balance between several competing interests. These were “consideration of ecology,” the rights of workers, the claims of public sector institutions, including banks, owners’ rights, rehabilitation of sick industries and schemes approved by the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) and, finally, “advancement of public interest in general and not only a particular aspect of public interest”.

It goes on to state: “Public interest litigations, thus, have been entertained more frequently where a question of violation of the provisions of the statutes governing the environment or ecology of the country has been brought to its notice in the matter of depletion of forest areas and/ or when the executive while exercising its administrative functions or making subordinate legislations has interfered with the ecological balance with impunity. The High Court of Bombay, therefore, cannot be faulted for entertaining the writ petition as a public interest litigation.”

In 1991, the Maharashtra government introduced the Development Control Rules (DCR), under which a mill owner was permitted to sell or redevelop his land, provided one-third was surrendered to the municipal corporation for public amenities and another third to the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) for low-cost housing. The remaining third was the owner’s. Ten years later, it surreptitiously amended this clause to make it apply only to vacant land -- as distinct from the entire footprint of the mill. Since mills, characteristically, occupy a huge footprint -- each worker has about 32 sq metres of space in a shed -- the amendment fraudulently deprived Mumbai of several hundred acres of space at one stroke.

As the apex court notes: “DCR 58 was made to revive and resurrect neighbourhoods, foster development, regenerate lands which had become sterile, encourage the shifting of textile mills (thereby reducing the attendant strain that industrial activity places on civil amenities) and pay off chronic arrears and dues of workers, banks, institutions, statutory dues, etc. In its operation and implementation new DCR 58 would also unlock large real estate and make it available to residents.”

The public interest implicit in this amendment is apparent: it begins with the need to revive neighbourhoods. The entire Girangaon, or mill district, comprising 600 valuable acres or 280 hectares in mid-town Mumbai, is in decline with the closure of the mills since the late-1970s. The final blow was the 18-month-long strike in 1982-83, led by Dr Datta Samant, which was the world’s longest strike involving the largest number of workers. Dr Samant himself was murdered over another union dispute, the following decade. Many workers, rendered jobless, have sold their chawls and migrated to the northern suburbs where they eke out a livelihood as casual labourers.

While questioning whether the 2001 amendment substantially reduces the amount of land available to the public, the court has taken a very restricted view of what constitutes the “environment” in this case. By its own calculation, under the 1991 rules, Matulya Mill (owned by the Mafatlals), which was the first to adopt the original formula, would have surrendered 5,641 sq m for open space and 4,616 sq m to MHADA. Under the revised rules, the court shows that these areas would be 474 sq m and 388 sq m respectively. In the case of Modern Mills, the corresponding figures are 8,626 versus 1,163 sq m as open space, and 7,058 sq m versus nothing for housing.

The court has resorted to some sleight of hand of its own in lumping what it terms “private greens” with what is to be surrendered to the public, and thus deciding that the total open area remains a third of the total land available. As it says: “From what has thus been noticed hereinbefore, it is difficult to agree with the contentions of the writ petitioners that there had been substantial reduction in green area… It is contended on behalf of the Appellants that out of the total area of 2,430,000 sq m, the lands which would be available to MCGM as public green is 11.53% and the private greens works out to be 20.87%, thus, totalling 32.43%.” How this private space within office and residential complexes can be lumped together with public space defeats logic. By their very nature, these private areas are not open to the public.

It is worth recalling a precedent of a kind in Mumbai. When the first mall, Crossroads, opened several years ago at Mahalaxmi, there was a huge rush due to the sheer novelty of the concept. However, as Indians are characteristically astute shoppers and are more conscious -- for the most part! -- of price rather than brands, they visited the gleaming new attraction but did not buy very much. The owners wanted to deter crowds from visiting the complex and tried to restrict entry to those who owned a credit card or a mobile phone. In other words, it wanted to create two kinds of citizens: ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. As might be expected, there was a furore and the plan had to be shelved. However, not many are aware that the huge atrium within the complex is actually public space (when the building plans were passed) and by no stretch of the imagination could it be appropriated in this manner.

In the mill case, the court was not swayed by public interest when it concluded: “From what has been noticed hereinbefore, it is evident that the purported reduction in green area compared to the pre-1991 situation would not create much difference so far as maintenance of the ecological balance is concerned by giving effect to 2001 regulations vis-à-vis the 1991 regulations.” It is this extremely narrow and legalistic definition of the term “environment” that causes concern for future cases and could set a precedent.

I attended public hearings on the mill proposals that the central Ministry of Environment and Forests imposed last year -- thanks only to the scrutiny these cases came under after the Bombay Environmental Action Group filed a writ petition on the mill land and obtained a stay on development in the high court. The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board, which conducted the hearings, also took an excessively restrictive view of the environment, and the developers referred glowingly to how they were planting trees and grass within their complexes, recycling water, and taking other largely cosmetic measures. The environment can never be treated purely in such aesthetic terms; crucially, it involves the rights of the public to access resources at every stage.

The apex court argued: “We do not furthermore agree with the approach of the high court in interpreting the aforementioned provisions having regard to certain other factors, namely, deluge in Bombay in the year 2005 as also the requirements of the entire population of Bombay from environmental aspect.” Is the deluge of July 26 last year so irrelevant to the mill land case? The 280 hectares that mills occupy in central Mumbai are already seeing a massive makeover: malls, high-rises and the like. The National Textile Corporation, which owned 25 of Mumbai’s 54 mills, is already thinking of building an international convention centre at its 12-acre seaside property known as India United Mills No 6 (once the property of the famous Sassoon family).

This is not, as may be imagined, out of some overwhelming desire to make Mumbai catch up with Shanghai or other cities of its ilk; such complexes have a floor space index (FSI, the ratio of buildable area to footprint) of 2.7, twice the prevailing ratio. The NTC argues quite unabashedly that this will enable it to put up a 75-storey tower there. What’s more, if it loads FSI from its other mills on to this more valuable site, the sky is the limit -- permitting a staggering 120 floors!

But what about the supporting infrastructure? The mill is located on Cadell Road, which is the main north-south transport axis. Any addition of cars will bring traffic to a grinding halt. Girangaon lacks any infrastructure worth the name -- whether by way of roads, pedestrian connections to railway stations, drainage, or open spaces. There is an important factor also to be borne in mind: the island city of Mumbai will shortly connect to the mainland by a trans-harbour sea link starting from Sewri, cheek-by-jowl with the mills. And there are 1,800 acres of adjoining land belonging to the Mumbai Port Trust which are also derelict and also open for redevelopment.

Unless the authorities take a holistic view and plan for the entire mill and port area, Mumbai is in for a disaster that could make 26/7 look like a picnic. The island city does not afford any easy escapes because of the prevailing north-south traffic. If there are floods or riots in this area bristling with skyscrapers, there will be no escape for thousands of people. The city’s growth cannot be dictated, as it now is, by builders.

While Greater Mumbai already has 14 million inhabitants, if one takes the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, which is 10 times larger, we are talking about nearly 29 million by 2020 -- the second biggest urban agglomeration in the world. This is why what happens in Mumbai is of significance not only to the rest of India but to all developing countries. One must therefore take strong exception to the Supreme Court’s edict that “the requirements of the entire population of Bombay from environmental aspect” was of no consequence when it decided on the future of the mill lands.

There are two other aspects of the case that have been brought to light by Shailesh Gandhi, a right to information activist. It was he who, exactly a year ago, caused a stir by citing evidence, culled by resorting to the RTI law, that the leases of several mills had expired; the documents of some in fact were not even traceable. In any case, there has been a change in land use from running mills to running malls and other modern amenities. The owners were given land at subsidised rates towards the middle of the 19th century, and early in the 20th, to create jobs in Mumbai. How has the municipal corporation permitted this change in use? Gandhi has also pointed out how mill owners (as well as owners of other old industrial sites) pay pitiably small lease rents a year -- amounting to a few paise per sq m per year, on average. For a state that is around Rs 110,000 crore in the red, such munificence is strange to say the least.

Gandhi has now drawn attention to another lacuna. As the Supreme Court verdict itself repeatedly emphasises, the DRC only permits sale or redevelopment of mill land if, under the BIFR’s sanction, the proceeds are used to rehabilitate a mill. The NTC is at least observing the letter of this law, if not the spirit. The private mills have done nothing of the sort; they have been made over irretrievably. This charade is relevant to other derelict industrial sites elsewhere in the country, which will be up for development. The verdict has not taken all these considerations into account, which impact urban growth and concern natural justice.

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Child abuse in Mumbai: A tourist’s report

Young, sick infants are carted around in polystyrene boxes and produced to extract money from sympathetic tourists. This South Mumbai scam is perpetrated right under the noses of the local police

Having just returned from my third visit to India in 28 years, I continue to be outraged at the failure of the Mumbai authorities to address the abuse of children as instruments of begging, in the Gateway of India tourist area.

Whilst the organised gangs of mutilated children are well documented and still prevalent in the area, preying on the pity of tourists, the ‘mother-and-sick-infant’ scam is out of control and needs immediate attention by the local authorities. The frequent grabbing of tourists by mothers with infants through taxi windows is an accepted and daunting experience throughout India and, in many cases, is a genuine plea for help.

Having returned from a business trip to Dubai, I was approached by a young girl (approximately 15-16 years old) with a small infant less than two months old on her arm. I had seen the same girl two weeks earlier carrying a different and slightly older child. She claimed the sickly two-month-old was her sister and that her mother was currently in hospital suffering from diabetes and too ill to breastfeed her daughter. She pleaded for canned powdered milk for her sister and a small bag of rice for her other brothers and sisters.

Aware that this was almost certainly a deception, I refused, although the sight of the sick infant, barely the size of my hand, was distressing and weighed heavily on my conscience.

The girl followed me around for four hours, waiting outside shops until I reappeared, clearly assessing that, in the end, perseverance would lead to a successful outcome. I relented and offered her money, feeling that if the child received just a small portion of the contribution, at least some good would have been achieved. The girl refused my offering and said she only wanted milk and rice that could be bought from any one of a number of shops on the streets behind the Taj Mahal hotel.

This caught me off-guard and made me think: maybe, just maybe, the case was genuine. The girl suggested I accompany her to the store and purchase the produce with her, indicating that the items could be opened in my presence. I agreed and bought the items from the storekeeper, saying that opening the goods in front of me was unnecessary. I parted with just under Rs 500 (a fairly insignificant contribution, but more than my original monetary offering), a sense of goodwill and expressions of gratitude from the girl.

When I returned and recounted my experiences to a local friend, he quickly outlined the scam for me and the fact that these girls make an estimated
US$ 300 every month. What’s more, the storekeepers play a major part in the scam, providing over 50% of the produce value in rupees to the girl upon return of the goods.

I hate deception and, more importantly, the fact that very little, if any, of the money will be used to feed the sick infant.

I returned to the area later that day and, surprisingly, observed the same sickly child in the arms of another girl sitting on the dirty sidewalk. She was slightly younger than the girl who had so successfully applied her trade. I approached this girl and expressed my anger at her using the child in the scam. I told her the child needed medical treatment. To my shock and horror, a second child, a twin, was produced from one of two sealed polystyrene boxes on the pavement, looking just as sickly as the first. When the box was opened, dozens of flies descended upon the listless child. On closer inspection, I saw that the boxes had four minute keyhole punctures for ventilation -- totally inadequate, especially on a day when the temperature was above 30 degrees C.

Meanwhile, my emotive discussions had attracted quite a crowd that confirmed that this truly was the mother and that she was an innocent party to the ploy. They said that the ‘first’ girl had intimidated the mother for use of her child, although, most probably, she had received some benefit for the ‘transaction’. The husband arrived and on hearing about the incident set off angrily to find the girl who was known to frequent the area around the Gateway of India. Within five minutes she appeared, displaying a more petulant attitude to the one I had witnessed earlier that day. When I confronted her the girl suddenly appeared mortified and indicated to her accomplice, another girl I had seen carrying a child in the streets, to return my money. I refused and said that the money belonged to the child and that I wanted her to give it to the mother. She threw the money on the road and departed. I gave it to the ‘father’ in the vague hope that the twins would see some benefit. An hour later, I observed the girl accomplice with a different child begging from two newly-arrived tourists at a hotel in the main shopping area.

I hope I’m not sounding too self-righteous. And I do appreciate that each person must derive a means to survive in this harsh and tough city. However, the use of frighteningly young infants is a crime that the authorities must address. I have been told that it was not my place to be involved. But I did confront the three storekeepers who, I was informed, were major players in the scam. All of them denied their involvement, even the man who sold us the milk and rice.

Upon my return to Australia I was informed by an Indian friend who had visited India two months earlier that she had been deceived by the same milk-and-rice child scam!

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Urmil's story

What constitutes a dowry death? Various amendments have been made to the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961 to make the law more effective. The Pawan Kumar vs State of Haryana judgment on the dowry death of Urmil is significant in this regard

In May 1985, Urmil married Pawan Kumar and went to stay in Sonepat, Haryana. Within a few days, she returned home complaining of demands being made for dowry of a refrigerator and scooter. The demands continued and, on account of their non-fulfilment, Urmil was tortured and harassed.

In April 1987, Urmil’s maternal uncle died and she visited Delhi with her husband to offer her condolences. Pawan Kumar later returned to Sonepat and Urmil stayed on at her sister’s place in Delhi. On May 17, 1987, Pawan Kumar visited his wife, a quarrel ensued, and Urmil expressed her unwillingness to return with him. However, she did finally go back to Sonepat. The very next day, on May 18, 1987, Urmil was found dead with burn injuries, in a room full of smoke. Her parents arrived and a post-mortem was conducted. The cause of death was found to be shock and asphyxia as a result of severe burns, which were sufficient to cause death.

The trial court convicted Urmil’s husband, father-in-law and mother-in-law for dowry death under Section 304-B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), abetment to suicide under Section 306 of the IPC and cruelty by the husband or his relatives under Section 498-A of the IPC. The high court maintained the conviction and Urmil’s husband, father-in-law and mother-in-law were sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for dowry death and abetment to suicide, and two years for cruelty. Under appeal, the case reached the Supreme Court; the judgment is reported as Pawan Kumar versus State of Haryana (1998) 3 SCC 309.

It was contended on behalf of the husband and in-laws that there was no evidence that just before her death, Urmil was subjected to cruelty or harassment for or in connection with a demand for dowry. It was submitted that there was neither any demand for dowry nor any agreement at the time of marriage. It was argued that unless there was an agreement for dowry at the time of marriage, or in connection with marriage, it would not fall within the definition of ‘dowry’ under the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961. According to the submission, merely asking for a fridge or a scooter and having a grouse due to non-fulfilment of the demand in the absence of any agreement would not constitute dowry. Therefore, the offence of dowry death under Section 304-B cannot be said to have been committed. In addition, the contention advanced was that suspicion, conjecture and surmise could not be the basis of a conviction, and that guilt had to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt on the basis of concrete evidence.

The court examined relevant provisions of the law to determine the ingredients necessary to constitute the offence of dowry death. It noted that two conditions had to be satisfied before the death of a woman could be termed a dowry death. The death of a woman due to burns or bodily injury, or in a manner other than under normal circumstances, should have occurred within seven years of marriage. The second requirement is that just prior to her death the woman was subjected to cruelty or harassment by her husband or his relatives in connection with dowry.

Applying the analysis to the case, the court observed that it was not in dispute that Urmil had died of burn injuries, that is, she did not die under normal circumstances, and that the death occurred within seven years of marriage. The court noted that Urmil’s mother had deposed that within four days of marriage her daughter had returned and told her that she was being subjected to taunts for not bringing a scooter and a refrigerator as dowry at the time of marriage. That her mother pacified her and sent her back. That Urmil came to her again, after two months, and told her that she was being continuously taunted, mistreated and called ugly for not bringing the articles as dowry. After the birth of her son, Urmil again complained of maltreatment. Her father said that he had been unable to meet his daughter’s demands and had pacified and sent her back. Urmil’s sister and brother-in-law made similar depositions.

The court examined the Dowry Prohibition Act in the context of the definition of dowry. It noted that the Act had been brought in to provide an effective check to dowry deaths, which were continuing despite the prevailing laws. The objective was to prohibit the giving and taking of dowry. At the time the Act was brought in, in 1961, dowry was defined as property given, or agreed to be given, as “consideration for the marriage,” “before or at the time of marriage”. As both dowry and dowry deaths continued despite the enactment, drastic amendments were brought in to make the law more effective.

Because it was proving difficult to prove that, in many cases, property given was “consideration for the marriage”, in 1984 the words “in connection with the marriage” were included in the definition. Similarly, in 1986, the definition of dowry was extended to include not only property at or before marriage but also that given “after the marriage”. The 1986 amendment introduced Section 304-B to the IPC, making dowry death a distinct and separate offence. The explanation to the provision specifies that dowry shall have the same meaning as in the Dowry Prohibition Act. For similar reasons, Section 498-A, making cruelty by the husband or his relatives punishable, was introduced in the IPC through an amendment in 1983.

The court then dealt with the argument that an agreement was necessary for the demand to fall within the definition of dowry. It observed that while interpreting the definition of dowry, one had to keep in mind the defect or mischief due to which the amendment had been brought in to enlarge the definition of dowry. It held that the interpretation given should further the objective for which the amendment had been made in the provision.

Section 304-B makes “demand for dowry” punishable. The court observed that a demand neither conceives nor would conceive of any agreement. If, to convict an offender, an agreement is to be proved, then hardly any offenders would fall within the provision. The deceased Urmil was tortured, mistreated and harassed within days of marriage for not bringing in the articles mentioned. Hence, the demand is in connection with the marriage.

The court noted that the demanding of dowry, directly or indirectly, from the bride’s parents, relatives or guardian had been made punishable through amendments made in 1984. The agreement referred to in the definition of dowry had to be interpreted in the context of the mandate and objective of the Act as well as the other provisions. Section 3 of the Dowry Prohibition Act makes the giving or taking of dowry punishable. Section 4 makes the demand for dowry itself punishable. Repeated demands for articles like TVs and scooters from the bride or her parents made after marriage would fall within the category of ‘in connection with marriage’ and constitute dowry for the purpose of dowry death under Section 304-B of the IPC.

Applying it to the case, the judgment notes that there had been demands for a scooter and a fridge within a few days of Urmil’s marriage. Non-fulfilment of this demand had led to repetitive taunts and mistreatment. Observing that it was not always necessary that there exist an agreement for dowry, these demands were held to be ‘in connection with’ the marriage. The court concluded that, clearly, there was a demand for dowry falling within the definition of dowry under the Dowry Prohibition Act, and for the purpose of dowry death under Section 304-B of the IPC.

As regards the second ingredient in the offence of dowry death, the court examined whether Urmil had been subjected to cruelty or harassment by her husband or his relatives “soon before her death”. The submission made on behalf of the accused was that there were no signs of any physical injury, nor was there any evidence from neighbours or other independent persons of cruelty towards Urmil. The court observed that mental torture in a given case could also be construed as cruelty and harassment for the purpose of dowry death under Section 304-B, and cruelty by the husband or relatives under Section 498-A. Explanation (a) of Section 498-A refers to both mental and physical cruelty. The requirement under the provision is that there should have been wilful conduct by the accused persons.

The court observed that a girl looks forward with hope and aspiration on entering a marriage, and if, from the very next day, the husband starts taunting her for not bringing in dowry and calling her ugly, then it would clearly amount to mental torture, cruelty and harassment of the bride. Just a day before her death, Urmil had quarrelled with her husband. These would all constitute wilful conduct on the part of the husband. Urmil was staying with her sister and brother-in-law who had both deposed that she told them that her husband was mistreating her in connection with the demand for dowry. She was reluctant to go back with her husband, and her parting words, on May 17, 1987, were that they may not see her face in the future. The next day she died of her burns.

The court rejected the submission that Urmil’s quarrel with her husband, the day before she died, was not connected with dowry. It noted that, under Section 8-A of the Dowry Prohibition Act, the burden of proving that the demand for dowry had not been made was on the accused person. That, under Section 113-B of the Evidence Act, if it is shown that a person had treated a woman with cruelty and harassment just prior to her death then it shall be presumed that the said person has caused the dowry death.

The husband, in Urmil’s case, had produced no evidence to dispel the presumption under the law of demanding dowry and causing the dowry death. The court held that the quarrel the day before Urmil’s death and the direct evidence of her parents, sister and brother-in-law cumulatively amounted to cruelty and harassment just before death, fulfilling the requirements of Section 304-B and 498-A of the IPC. The court also held that the quarrel amounted to abetment of suicide, under Section 307 of the IPC.

The court held that there was no convincing evidence that the father-in-law or mother-in-law had subjected Urmil to cruelty. The evidence of cruelty and harassment just before death was also confined to the husband. Both the mother-in-law and father-in-law were given the benefit of the doubt and acquitted. The husband Pawan Kumar was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for dowry death under Section 304-B of the IPC, four years’ imprisonment for abetment to suicide under Section 306 of the IPC and two years’ imprisonment for cruelty under Section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code.

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Convert and remarry?

If a non-Muslim converts to Islam without any real change in belief, merely to avoid an earlier marriage and enter into a second one, should the second marriage be considered void and the person prosecuted for bigamy?

Sushmita Ghosh married G C Ghosh in May 1984, in accordance with Hindu rites, and they were living together. In May 1992, Ghosh advised his wife to agree to a divorce by mutual consent in her own interest, as he had converted to Islam in order to remarry. He had already fixed up his marriage to someone called Vanita Gupta. Ghosh showed her a certificate issued by the office of Maulana Qari Mohammed Idris, Shahi Qazi, dated June 1992, certifying that he had embraced Islam.

All efforts to get Ghosh to change his mind failed; he said that if Sushmita did not agree to a divorce she would have to put up with a second wife.

Sushmita Ghosh petitioned the courts saying that her husband G C Ghosh alias Mohammed Karim Ghazi had converted to Islam solely for the purpose for remarriage, and that he had no real faith in Islam. He neither practised the prescribed Muslim rites nor changed his name or religion on other official documents, she claimed. Ghosh asserted her fundamental right not to be discriminated against on grounds of sex or religion.

The petition also submitted that in the past several years it had become common for Hindu males who could not get a divorce from their wives to convert to Islam solely for the purpose of remarriage. And that, after the second marriage, they re-converted to Hinduism in order to retain their rights over property. They then went about their business in their old name and religion.

Ghosh asked the courts to declare polygamous marriages by Hindus and non-Hindus after conversion to Islam, illegal. And to make suitable amendments to the Hindu Marriage Act to curtail and forbid the practice of polygamy. If a non-Muslim male converted to the Muslim faith without any change of belief, merely to avoid an earlier marriage and enter into a second one, then any marriage entered into after the so-called conversion should be considered void. Ghosh also prayed for an order restraining G C Ghosh from marrying Vanita Gupta or any other woman during the time he was married to her.

Meena Mathur got married to Jitender Mathur in 1978 and had three children by him. In 1988, she learnt that her husband had married Sunita Narula, alias Fathima. The marriage had been solemnised after Jitender and Sunita converted to Islam. Meena contended that her husband’s conversion was done solely for the purpose of marrying Sunita, and to circumvent the provisions of Section 494 of the IPC (Indian Penal Code), which punishes bigamy.

Sunita, alias Fathima, filed a petition submitting that she and Jitender Mathur had embraced Islam, got married and had a son. After marrying her, Jitender, under the influence of Meena Mathur, reverted to Hinduism and agreed to maintain his first wife and their three children. Sunita (Fathima), who is still a Muslim, pleaded that she receives no maintenance from husband and has no protection under either of the two laws.

Geeta Rani was married to Pradeep Kumar according to Hindu rites, in 1988. Her husband mistreated and beat her. In 1991, he converted to Islam and married Deepa. Kalyani, a women’s organisation, filed a petition to check the growing number of desertions of wives married under Hindu law, and husbands resorting to conversion in order to rid themselves of their wives.

These petitions were heard together and a judgment delivered in 1995 in the Sarla Mudgal versus Union of India case.

A review of the 1995 judgment was sought and was heard along with a public interest petition by Lily Thomas. A judgment was delivered in 2000.

The central issue in all these petitions where a non-Muslim has converted to Islam without any real change in belief, merely to avoid an earlier marriage and enter into a second one, is whether the marriage after conversion should be considered void and the person liable for bigamy.

The court examined the provisions of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (HMA) and Section 494 of the IPC that makes bigamy an offence. According to Section 5 of the Act, one of the conditions for marriage between two Hindus is that neither party should have a living spouse at the time of marriage. If either party does indeed have a spouse living at the time of marriage, that marriage can be declared null and void under Section 11 of the Act. Section 17 further declares that a marriage between two Hindus is void if either has a husband or wife living and that the provisions of Section 494 of the IPC punishing bigamy would be applicable.

Section 494 of the IPC punishes bigamy and lays down that a person who marries whilst having a husband or wife living (and the marriage is void by reason of having taken place during the life of such husband or wife), is punishable with seven years’ imprisonment and a fine. Complaints of bigamy can only be made by the aggrieved person, ie, by the spouse. In the wife’s case, the complaint can be made by her father, mother or brother.

The court declared that if a Hindu wife complained that her husband had converted and remarried, the offence of bigamy would have to be investigated and tried in accordance with the provisions of the Hindu Marriage Act. According to the Act, conversion of one of the spouses does not automatically dissolve a marriage solemnised under Hindu law. The persons continue to be ‘husband and wife’, despite the conversion of one of them. Conversion is only grounds for divorce or judicial separation.

Therefore, unless a decree of divorce is obtained the ‘marital bond’ persists. A second marriage, even after conversion, would be void under Section 11 of the Hindu Marriage Act. The marriage would also be void under Section 17 of the Act, which makes bigamy punishable by making Section 494 of the IPC applicable. The court declared that as long as the first marriage subsists, according to the Hindu Marriage Act, a second marriage is not permissible even under another personal law. Even after conversion to Islam, if a second marriage is performed during the subsistence of the first one, the person is held liable for prosecution for bigamy under Section 494 of the IPC. Prosecution under Section 494 of the IPC with respect to a second marriage under Muslim law can be avoided only if the first marriage too was under Muslim law.

The argument that there should be no prosecution for bigamy of persons who had solemnised their second marriage before the passing of the judgment, as this would violate Article 20 (1) of the Constitution, was rejected. Article 20 (1) declares that a person cannot be convicted for an offence that was not a violation of law in force at the time of the commission of the act. The court declared that the judgment had not made second marriage by a person converted to Islam an offence, but had merely interpreted the existing law that was in force and so was not violative of Article 20 (1).

The contention that prosecuting a person contracting a second marriage after conversion was a violation of the right to freely profess and practise religion was also rejected. The court observed that freedom to practise religion guaranteed under Article 25 is a freedom that does not encroach upon the freedom and rights of another. The argument that making a Hindu who converts to Islam and solemnises a second marriage liable for bigamy is against Islam was also dismissed. The court observed that it would be doing an injustice to Islamic law to urge that a convert be entitled to practise bigamy notwithstanding the continuance of his marriage under the law to which he belonged prior to conversion.

The Jaat-e-Ulema Hind and the Muslim Personal Law Board argued that the interpretation given by the court would render the status of the second wife to that of a concubine, and children born out of that marriage as illegitimate. The court took the view that the issue before it was ascertaining the criminal liability of a person who undergoes a second marriage after conversion under Section 17 of the Hindi Marriage Act, read with Section 494 of the IPC. It observed that the legitimacy of the second wife and children was not an issue that had arisen in the case, and hence no ruling was necessary on the matter. The court also clarified that the judges had merely expressed their views in the 1995 Sarla Mudgal case, and that no directions had been issued for codification of a common civil code.

The judgment reported as Lily Thomas versus Union of India, 2000 (6) SCC 224 unequivocally declares that if the first marriage was under any personal law where there is a prohibition on contracting a second marriage during the lifetime of the spouse, as in Hindu or Christian law, then a second marriage performed under Muslim law would make the person liable for prosecution for bigamy.

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The violence against women campaign: Where have we failed?

For 25 years women’s rights advocates have been campaigning against violence against women. They have succeeded in changing the law, changing the stand of the judiciary. But have they succeeded in changing social attitudes, asks Flavia Agnes, lawyer and noted activist

On November 25, 2005, a news article appeared in The Times of India about a minor girl allegedly raped by her father withdrawing her allegations. The High Court of Himachal Pradesh had earlier acquitted this man saying that there were loopholes in the story and it was not plausible. However, the Supreme Court in November 2005 had overturned the High Court judgment and awarded the father a life term. And then the daughter said in a sworn statement that her father was innocent, and that she had framed him at the instigation of her mother. What happens to the punishment given by SC now that its very basis has gone?

For 25 years, the autonomous women’s movement in India has grappled with the issue of violence against women, and more particularly sexual violence -- rape and domestic violence. At the end of it, and in the middle of this international fortnight raising awareness about violence against women, we are confronted with this news item.
For 25 years we’ve tried to call attention to the fact that women are raped. After all this, when the Supreme Court sees rape as a human rights violation, they are confronted with this girl withdrawing her statement, and saying that she was instigated by her mother to file the complaint against her father. We’re back to where we started: women are liars; half the rapes reported don’t really happen.

Where has the movement gone wrong? Is there a need to say something different, something new, something more complex?

There was another story in the same edition of the newspaper. It was about a girl, just a few days short of her wedding. The boyfriend met her. Without the knowledge of the family, she went somewhere else, near a cemetery. And he says: prove your love for me. She says: I’m willing to die for you. He says: Lie down on the road. And he drives over her three times. This is the other side of the coin. This is where half our girls are – educated, stylish and modern, yet wanting to prove their love to the boys they are getting married to, and getting ready to do anything at all. He thought she had died. She is in the hospital. Maybe when she is better, she will want to marry the same boy.

These are educated, economically sound families. Our concepts about violence against women must change. How do we confront this message that women are liars? Most women don’t talk, but those who talk are liars. Or something is wrong with her, she has a boyfriend, something must have happened, that’s why men behave that way, that’s why he hit her. Some justifications will be added in with the story.

We thought we were making big changes -- changing the judges, changing the law, changing the court, changing everything, changing social attitudes. And 25 years later, we see the next generation saying the same things and this brings me to the question: where did we fail? How do we consolidate the campaign against violence today?

A feminist framework for rape and sexual abuse
Let’s go back to 1980, to the Mathura rape case. A young tribal girl, a maid working in somebody’s house, an orphan, was said to have eloped with her boyfriend. But an orphan, illiterate tribal girl working as a maidservant does not have the agency or social space to elope. She was induced into an elopement by the nephew of the mistress of the house she was working in. She was raped by two police constables at the police station.

But how she came to be at the police station is to me, important. Her brother brought her in. Patriarchy doesn’t operate only at the father’s level. Patriarchy operates at the next level and operates much more viciously and crudely at that level (where for instance the brother says -- she’s coming home late, she’s talking to the boys; everybody at college is talking about her). She had no parents, so her brother went and complained. Then the Nagpur sessions court said Mathura is a liar, Mathura made up this whole story. She wants to sound virtuous in front of her boyfriend and brother so she said she was raped. So the policemen were acquitted. It goes on appeal, and the High Court says no, acquired acquiescence is not consent, and they punish the guilty policemen. The case goes to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court reverses it. It changes the conviction into acquittal -- we uphold what the sessions court says, that Mathura is a liar.

Why did the court think she had made up the story? There were no injuries on her body. According to the Supreme Court, if she was virtuous, she would have guarded her virginity and chastity more than her life. They said that virginity is the most precious thing for an Indian woman. Hindu women will not easily lose their virginity. Does this mean that other women will? Hindu women won’t, Indian women won’t, but foreign women will? Upper-class women will not, but for tribal women rape is part of their culture? So we have already marked out which group, class and community find virginity and chastity most important.

This is the understanding of rape that we have today: that rape is worse than death. And since there were no injuries on her body, she does not consider her virginity more important than her death. And if you have lost your virginity at a pre-marital stage, then how can you be worthy of justice? Because you have to come to court with clean hands…you have to come to court worthy of justice and you should be a woman whose rights need to be protected. Mathura wasn’t one. A tribal girl, whose virginity had been lost, is available for rape to all and sundry. This is the situation we started with in 1980, with how the Supreme Court reasoned, how the Supreme Court thinks of bodily autonomy, the bodily integrity of women. That when there are no injuries, there is no rape.

When I come here today to give this lecture, and for this campaign, and see this one judgment in the newspaper about the girl who has withdrawn her statements against her father, I feel our entire campaign has collapsed. We know the number of rapes that occur. Out of that the number of rapes that get actually reported, out of that how many get charge-sheeted, and how many get to the sessions courts. It has taken us 25 years to change the framework of rape from rape to sexual abuse. And to get it acknowledged that sexual abuse is not something that happens outside: brothers can abuse sisters, and uncles can abuse their nieces, fathers can rape their daughters.

Post-1995, we had come to this situation of looking at rape in a much more complex manner as sexual abuse. Sexual abuse of minors, non-penetrative sex, insertion of objects, oral sex…a whole gamut of sexual abuse has been brought under this new law that has been formulated. The whole confines of the earlier law which according to me was extremely patriarchal, said that only penetration is rape, and there’s nothing else. Now we have come to a point where we say that a whole lot of sexual violations of a woman’s bodily integrity constitute offence.

Stricter punitive measures aren’t enough
When we started, we did not have the confidence to have a feminist framework for rape. The framework continued to be patriarchal, where there had to be some penetration. What we wanted was more stringent punishment. What did we ask the State? Increase punishment: seven years minimum punishment, ten years for aggravated. And we got it.
We didn’t even get the Evidence Act changed: Section 155 clause 4, where past sexual history cannot be brought into a rape trial. It got amended in 2003. This law was used to humiliate women and girls who are ready to file a complaint and whose case goes up for trial: who’s your boyfriend? What kind of mother? Is she divorced? There were a whole lot of things you could humiliate the girl with on the basis of her sexual behaviour, not only with the man in question, but with anybody. That became a defense for the accused, but still we didn’t get it. What we did get was an increase in punishment. Is that enough?

Take the issue of dowry and dowry deaths. All of us who campaign against violence against women, campaign against these two issues -- rape and dowry death. We believe that death happens in the homes of women in the case of dowry death. The death is related to dowry. All our laws were based on this premise -- 304B on dowry death, 498A related to cruelty to the wife, where one of the major causes is dowry harassment. Dowry is the culprit, we said. The slogan was, ‘Don’t give dowry, don’t take dowry’. But we didn’t question that if this girl doesn’t get dowry, what does she actually get when the patriarchal biases of the family still operate so strongly? So first the girl was to be married off with dowry, now she is to be married off without dowry. Don’t give gifts. Don’t give dowry. Don’t give anything to the girl. Don’t come back. Stay there till you die, and if you die, we will make a case to get the dowry back.

But is violence against women always related to dowry? All the cases of boys throwing acid at women who have thwarted them are not related to dowry. In every case the mother-in-law need not harass the daughter-in-law for dowry, but it took us 20 years to say that violence is not just about dowry. Domestic violence is not always linked to dowry.

First and foremost, why do we need to marry off the daughter? She can have a good job, she can be a social worker, but she’s not complete if she’s not married. Why is rape a state worse than death? Because now, the Supreme Court said, she can’t get married, because her virginity is lost. Parents would put a rape as well as an incident of consensual sex on the same level, because in both cases they cannot marry off the daughter to somebody else. These are the issues we really need to think about. Even if girls are allowed to study, generally it is up to a certain level. Even if they are well-educated, they are not allowed to work. Or they can work under restrictions. Why? So that their chances of marriage are not marred. If you’ve studied more, then where will you get suitable boys? In our society, the boy should have studied more than the girl.

In the end it comes back to the fact that the girl’s parents are responsible for getting her married, and for not allowing her to come back, for making her stay in the marital home. The patriarchal mode continues to operate in her home as much as or more than in her husband’s home. How are we going to change these social attitudes?

We had a case in Pune, the Manjushree Sarda case, of a husband murdering his wife. The husband was having an affair and the woman was depressed, so she wrote letters to her mother saying she was very depressed. The husband worked in a chemical factory. The poison he administered to her is not available over the counter, but it is available in the factory where he worked. He administered the poison to her. All her letters were read in court. They said that she was depressed, and wanted to die. The man was acquitted. Not only was he acquitted, but while the trial was going on, somebody else gave their daughter to this man. While this campaign was going on. So do you think all these stricter punitive measures will help us? Something much deeper is wrong here, and the campaign against violence against women needs to address that. We need to find a way to bring about fundamental changes in mindset and attitudes.

Right to Shelter and domestic violence
It took us 25 years to realise what domestic violence is, and that the Domestic Violence Act, which punishes the husband and keeps him under lock and key, is not the answer for her survival, because if he is behind bars, what will she eat? Only if he works, can she eat. And, if it’s a civil imprisonment, she has to pay to keep him there. Today, for the first time we recognise that the woman who suffers violence needs shelter. Denying that shelter is violence against women. You don’t have to beat them, this is a form of violence, too. A lot of women suffer not because of dowry. Their salary is taken away. Their husbands are having affairs. The threat of being thrown out is constantly given. We need to look into the concerns of modern women. We still go under the law of maintenance. Half the women don’t need maintenance, as they are working, and anyway a lot of them are not entitled to it. What they need is the right to shelter -- a roof over their heads. In the new Domestic Violence Act, for the first time we recognise that a woman needs a roof over her head. This remedy could have been used even earlier by innovative lawyers to get an injunction saying that this woman cannot be thrown out of her home. It’s not stricter punitive measures that we need – it’s innovative and activist lawyers who will fight for women’s rights.

Rakhmabai as an icon for the women’s movement

There is a need for the women’s movement to take stock of our history to find inspiring icons who personify the credibility of our resistance.

Rakhmabai was a very important icon of the women’s movement. She was from the carpenter caste. She was married when she was 13 years old. In the case of child marriage, the girl was not sent to the husband’s house until she grew up. Then there is a second ceremony. When Rakhmabai became an adult, her husband asked for her. She refused to go. There was a case for restitution of conjugal rights, in 1884, where the first judge said that there is a difference between restitution of conjugal rights and institution of conjugality. Only if conjugality has been instituted and then the girl has left, can we restitute conjugality. But we cannot put the girl there for him to have sex with her: that is not what the law says. Everybody against child marriage supported her and the others supported the husband. That’s how the case was fought. And in appeal, the two judges said, no, she must go back. But Rakhmabai still stood her ground. She stood there and said, send me to prison, but I will not go back to my husband.

After 25 years of our campaign against violence, why don’t we adopt Rakhmabai as our symbol of strength? Why do we look for international symbols? Unless we understand our own history, how will we fight this battle?

In 2005, we’re still talking about women having to uphold family pressure, family honour, family this and that. Why don’t we carry the tradition of Rakhmabai?

(This article is based on a public lecture by Flavia Agnes, lawyer and women’s rights activist, in Pune on November 26, 2005. The talk was part of a fortnight-long campaign against violence against women, coordinated by the Centre for Communication and Development Studies and its outreach programme, Open Space.)

InfoChange News & Features

How to measure a country's HIV burden

The figure for HIV prevalence in India for 2004 looks encouraging -- an increase of only 28,000. But how has this figure been arrived at? And how accurate is it?

Every year the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) releases figures on India 's HIV burden. These figures are based on data from annual sentinel surveillance -- blood samples are taken from designated ‘sentinel' groups in every state and union territory in the country. The sentinel groups are pregnant women at government hospitals, clients visiting sexually transmitted diseases (STD) clinics, and groups with high risk behaviour such as female sex workers, men having sex with men, and injecting drug users. Most surveillance sites are in urban areas although a certain number of rural sentinel sites are also sampled to get an idea of HIV prevalence in rural areas. A specified number of samples is collected from each sentinel site (400 from the sites of pregnant women and 250 from others) and tested for HIV. Incidentally, India has the largest HIV sentinel surveillance programme in the world. In 2004, it was carried out at more than 650 sites throughout the country.

Sentinel surveillance is used along with other measures to look at trends in HIV prevalence. Information from various sources is triangulated -- surveillance data, number of AIDS cases reported, number of AIDS deaths reported, age-specific mortality, blood bank data, and size of population of groups with high risk behaviour. The behavioural surveillance survey is an excellent way of monitoring risk behaviour. The first national behavioural surveillance survey was conducted in 2001. A second round is being planned.

Sentinel surveillance is a good tool for noting trends in HIV prevalence, and changes over the years. It is a costly and labour-intensive exercise (over Rs 2-3 crore is spent every year), is well carried out and generally well supervised. External quality assurance in the testing of samples is also done.

The problem arises when sentinel surveillance data is used to estimate a country's HIV burden. Sentinel surveillance is not designed for this.

Estimating the HIV burden in a low prevalence area

For one, HIV is not very prevalent among the general population. The chances that a sample survey will be accurate depend partly on the prevalence of the condition. The lower the prevalence, the higher the minimum sample needed. Also, sampling biases are worsened when the condition has a low prevalence.

And there are various biases in the existing sampling process. For example, practically all sentinel sites are in government hospitals, whereas the majority of people use private services. We don't know the HIV prevalence among those who attend private hospitals. Estimates of the overall HIV burden are mainly based on prevalence among pregnant women attending government hospitals. This excludes those who go to private hospitals for antenatal care -- and those who don't receive any healthcare at all.

Further, the samples are of pregnant women and various groups with risk behaviour. They offer no direct information on other women or on men outside these groups. Finally, samples taken from STD clinics are intrinsically biased -- they are taken from people with symptoms of a sexually transmitted disease who attend government STD clinics for treatment.

In addition, if the condition is unevenly distributed in the population any sample taken will not be representative of this population. Representative samples are necessary in order to make projections or estimates, or else the results will be unreliable. To illustrate, each state provides 400 samples each for the annual surveillance, from several antenatal clinics. Just two or three positive samples among them could skew the overall results. In Uttar Pradesh, in 2003, at least eight of the 17 antenatal clinics did not have a single positive sample.

By contrast, in South Africa , the antenatal prevalence in 2003 was 28%. If they had used the same system as ours they would have had 112 positive samples out of 400 samples at a single site.

The only way to get an accurate picture of the HIV burden is through a ‘head count', which obviously is not possible. So one has to be satisfied with the limitations of using sentinel surveillance data.

Assumptions behind the NACO algorithm

When NACO mentions an increase of 28,000 in the last year, it is referring to an estimated number based on a calculation. When such estimates are made, the policy is to look at trends over time rather than the value in a particular year, in assessing the rate of growth of the epidemic. This is because since these figures are projected estimates based on sample surveys, sampling errors affect the final estimate.


If one looks at the rate of increase of HIV burden, in 2002 there was an increase of 6.1 lakh over 2001. In 2003 there was an increase of 5.26 lakh over 2002. In 2004 there is an increase of only 28,000. It is quite possible this represents a true slowing of the epidemic due to certain preventive efforts paying off. But one can be really certain only if a similar slowing is seen in subsequent years as well. We don't have to wait very long to find out. The preliminary results of this year's surveillance round should be available by the end of November.

NACO uses an algorithm to calculate the HIV burden using sentinel surveillance data. The algorithm uses the following information: HIV prevalence among pregnant women, prevalence among STD clinic attendees, percentage of men and women, between the ages of 15 and 49, in urban and rural areas, ratio of HIV prevalence among men and women, ratio of HIV prevalence in the urban population to that of the rural population, etc. This requires using certain assumptions that could result in large margins of error in the final result. From time to time NACO also makes changes in the algorithm taking new evidence into account to help make a better estimate.

These official calculations by NACO are made by a select team of experts including people from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNAIDS.

Only NACO does surveillance in India on a national level. All the other estimates being discussed by various individuals and organisations today are projections based on NACO's sentinel surveillance data. Using different assumptions and algorithms result in different estimates.

Actually it matters little if we have more HIV cases than South Africa . Comparisons should be based on proportions -- per capita or a fraction of the population -- not absolute numbers. South Africa has an adult HIV prevalence of about 21.5% and an estimated HIV burden of 53 lakh. In India , 0.91% of adults have HIV, which is a relatively low figure; our estimated burden is 51.3 lakh. India 's huge population means that even an increase of 0.1% in prevalence will add 5 lakh more infected people. So this controversy over whether or not we have overtaken South Africa , which has an HIV burden of 53 lakh, is pointless.

In India , which has an overall low HIV prevalence and a non-uniform spread, when we make projections with only 400 samples from each site there are bound to be uncertainties in the final estimate. No one can be sure about the margin of error. But since 1998, when sentinel surveillance was first done on a national level, a number of states have registered only marginal increases in HIV prevalence. Many large states such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar , etc, have only 0%-0.25% prevalence levels. This indicates that HIV is not spreading as rapidly as we once thought it would in our country.

In any case, why be sensitive about HIV estimates? A large estimate does not necessarily mean that the AIDS control programme is failing.

The picture today

I was able to take a look at a considerable portion of the surveillance data for 2004. There is surprisingly little increase in prevalence. Many states have remained at the same levels for years. Among the high prevalence states, Andhra Pradesh has worsened. Karnataka and Maharashtra also have major problems. Tamil Nadu, which has been hovering at a prevalence level of 0.7% among pregnant women for the last three years, should no longer be considered a high prevalence state.

How do we reconcile this with the opinions of civil society organisations that claim that the country's HIV burden is much higher than that claimed by NACO?

Civil society organisations generally see only a small part of the whole picture. They tend to see people who are symptomatic or have AIDS. The number of symptomatic people and people with AIDS is certainly increasing, since those infected years ago are now developing symptoms/AIDS. There is no doubt that doctors and civil society organisations are seeing more people who need care. But a spate of AIDS cases does not mean an absolute increase in the number of people infected. All it means is that the epidemic is becoming more visible now since the proportion of symptomatic patients has increased.

There is another factor as well. AIDS is now a big industry. Civil society organisations (and states too) become uncomfortable when surveillance and other data show that the HIV epidemic is not increasing as rapidly as was expected. This means that expected levels of funding will not materialise. So it is in their best interests to propagate a high HIV level myth.

The quality of surveillance is improving every year. Also, the algorithm for making estimates has slowly been modified based on improved information. The algorithm used for 2003 was better than the one used in 1998. Both are available on NACO's website.

With an effective anti-retroviral therapy (ART) programme the number of people living with HIV will increase. Therefore the burden will go up instead of coming down. But it would be inaccurate to say that the ART programme has resulted in reducing HIV prevalence. The ART programme was started only on April 1, 2004 , while the annual sentinel surveillance got over by September 30, 2004 . By this time only a few hundred people in the country had received ART and so the programme cannot be said to have had any effect on the HIV burden as estimated for 2004.

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