[Gandhi has been a member of parliament since 2004 and is now a
step below his mother, the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, who is the president of
the Congress party. But his elevation Saturday marked a significant
generational shift in Indian politics, where the average age of politicians is
over 60.]
Rahul Gandhi: India’s reluctant prince: Widely expected to be India’s future prime minister, Rahul Gandhi is being pressed to take a bigger political role. |
NEW DELHI — A day after being elevated to vice president of India’s ruling
Congress party, Rahul Gandhi on Sunday promised to fix the
prevailing elitism in the nation’s politics, address the impatient anger of its
youth and bring change, but he told his supporters not to expect change too
quickly.
Amid loud cheers from a hall full of party workers in the northern
city of Jaipur, the 42-year-old scion of India’s oldest and most privileged political dynasty outlined
the coming challenges in a country that is rapidly modernizing, that has an
assertive middle class that wants to change the old ways of doing politics, and
in which more than two-thirds of its billion-plus people are younger than 35.
“The voices of a billion Indians are today telling us that they
want a greater say in government, in politics and administration. They are
telling us that the course of their lives cannot be decided by a handful of
people behind closed doors who are not fully accountable to them,” Gandhi said,
speaking about the increasing push among Indians for a more participatory style
of decision-making. “They are telling us that India’s governmental system is
stuck in the past. It has become a system that robs people of their voice.”
Gandhi said that the answer isn’t in running the old system
better, but in “completely transforming” it. He did not say how he planned to
do this, but mentioned the ambitious new program to assign each Indian
a unique biometrics-based identity number. The government hopes to use these
numbers to identify the poor and send them welfare money directly, cutting out
the middlemen.
Gandhi has been a member of parliament since 2004 and is now a
step below his mother, the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, who is the president of
the Congress party. But his elevation Saturday marked a significant
generational shift in Indian politics, where the average age of politicians is
over 60.
Gandhi’s colleagues hope that his promotion will galvanize the
demoralized party at a time when the Congress-led coalition government in New
Delhi has been besieged with public anger over corruption scandals and
inflation.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government is largely viewed by
many as unresponsive and aloof, especially in the face of
massive urban anger and street protests witnessed in the past two years against
rising corruption and violence against women.
Thousands of young protesters poured into the streets last month
and demanded measures to ensure the safety of women, better policing and
tougher laws against rape after the horrific gang rape and killing of a young
woman in New Delhi. But the police beat them back with canes, water cannons and
tear gas shells, and politicians continued to make misogynistic remarks.
“Why is our youth angry? Why are they out on the street? They are
angry because they are alienated, they are excluded from the political class,”
Gandhi said referring to the ivory-tower lifestyles of India’s politicians.
“There is a young and impatient India, and it is demanding a greater voice in
the nation’s future,” he added.
Earlier in the day, the party discussed ways to engage young
voters via social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, which have triggered
some of the protests.
In a party that has been criticized for being completely
controlled by the Nehru-Gandhi family, Gandhi said his goal is to prepare 40 to
50 leaders who are capable of running the country. Some analysts said this
could be a signal that he will not covet power for just his family members.
His mother led the party to an impressive victory at the 2004
national election but appointed the 80-year-old economist Singh as India’s
prime minister in 2004. Some had hailed it as renunciation, but others said
that she wanted Singh to keep the seat warm for her son until he is ready.
On Sunday, Rahul Gandhi said that his mother came to his room and
wept with him because “she understands that the power so many people seek is
actually a poison.”
Kapil Sibal, a minister in the Congress-led coalition government,
called it a “visionary speech” that also “touched the hearts of all Indians.”
Another minister, Jairam Ramesh, called Gandhi’s elevation the
party’s “Obama moment.”
But Gandhi hastened to warn supporters against any unrealistic
expectations of change.
“Change is needed fast, but the change has to be cautious and
considered,” he said. “We have to do things, but not do them in a hurry. The
change has to be sustainable and deep.”
@ The Washington Post
INDIA’SCHILD MAIDS FACE SLAVERY, ABUSE AND SOMETIMES RAPE
[India erupted in outrage at the gang rape last month of a young woman on a moving bus in New Delhi. But in the same city, experts say, a vast network of child trafficking and abuse operates with society’s implicit sanction and official apathy. As India strives to become a modern and developed nation, the problem serves as a reminder of the exclusion of a vast swath of the population from the benefits of a rising economy and the broad indifference of many middle-class Indians to the rights of the poor.]
By Simon Denyer
NEW
DELHI — She was just 14 years old when she was picked up from her poor village
in eastern India and promised good wages as a maid in New Delhi. Instead, she
was forced to work for free as a virtual slave in a wealthy middle-class
household.
When
she plucked up the courage to complain to the “placement agent” who had found
her the job, “he beat me and then he raped me,” the girl, now 17, said in an
interview in this capital city. “He said if I ever tried to run away from home,
he would kill off my family and burn down my house.”
Every
year, hundreds of thousands of girls are trafficked from rural India to work as
domestic servants in middle-class homes in India’s fast-growing urban areas.
They are expected to work at least 15 hours a day for food, lodging and
salaries well below the legal minimum monthly wage of about $125. Many end up
cut off from their families, abused and treated like slaves. Some are sexually
assaulted.
India
erupted in outrage at the gang rape last month of a young woman on a moving bus
in New Delhi. But in the same city, experts say, a vast network of child
trafficking and abuse operates with society’s implicit sanction and official
apathy. As India strives to become a modern and developed nation, the problem
serves as a reminder of the exclusion of a vast swath of the population from
the benefits of a rising economy and the broad indifference of many
middle-class Indians to the rights of the poor.
“The
trafficking of young children, especially girls, under the garb of placement
agencies is the biggest organized crime in India today. And the worst part is,
it is right there in the open, in our homes, and yet invisible,” said Bhuwan
Ribhu of the child rights groupBachpan Bachao Andolan.
One
of the six suspects in the gang-rape case, a purported 17-year-old, was himself
trafficked at age 11 from a poor village in northern India to a life of child
labor in the capital, where he worked in a roadside restaurant and as a bus
driver’s assistant, police have said. He soon lost touch with his parents.
Law widely flouted
Many
middle-class Indians believe they are helping poor families by giving their
children work. But according to municipal law in New Delhi, which has enacted
some of India’s strictest child labor laws, they should be jailed. Employing
people younger than 18 in a hazardous job, as domestic service is defined, has
been a non-bailable offense since 2009.
But
the law is widely flouted, said Ribhu, who added that on rare occasions police
carry out “rescue operations” of underage servants after complaints from
parents or activists.
“Almost
all of the domestic maids are either minors, or started work as maids before
they were 18,” Ribhu said.
There
has never been a systematic attempt to determine the scale of the problem. The
government says 5 million children are employed in India, but activists say the
real number could be 10 times that. A senior official at India’s Home Affairs
Ministry, which oversees the police, estimated that as many as 4 million
children work in domestic service nationwide and that up to 4,000 placement
agencies operate in New Delhi and its suburbs alone.
But
the official, who insisted on anonymity to speak candidly, said it was often
hard to get his fellow bureaucrats to take the issue seriously because so many
of them employ children at home.
A tool of control
Sometimes,
placement agencies demand a one-time fee for supplying servants, a sum often
docked from the girls’ wages by their employers. Other times, the employer pays
the wages directly to the placement agency, which might give a portion of that
money, or none at all, to the girl.
One
18-year-old interviewed, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid
retribution from former employers, said she received no money for four years of
work as a maid for doctors and businesspeople. Another, whose statement forms
part of a court case filed by activists in an attempt to force New Delhi
authorities to regulate the industry, said in her testimony that she was paid $45
a month but was essentially imprisoned for years and never allowed to telephone
her family.
When
she complained to the placement agent, she said, he raped her. Ribhu said
traffickers often use rape — which can ruin a young woman’s marriage prospects
by robbing her of her “honor” — as a tool of control.
“I
could not bear the pain and fell unconscious,” she said. “When I awoke, I found
myself in a pool of blood. When I came out crying, he told me he would sell me
off and never send me home if I didn’t keep quiet.”
The
Washington Post generally does not name rape victims.
Activists
have made progress only by taking such cases to Indian courts. New Delhi’s high
court has led the way by ordering authorities to raise the minimum age for
domestic service and requiring placement agencies to be registered. But the
fine for failing to register ranges from just 50 cents to $5, and monitoring of
registered agencies is nonexistent, activists say.
After
two years of unpaid work, and after being raped on two occasions by her
placement agent, the 17-year-old girl from eastern India was rescued by a
Bachpan Bachao Andolan activist who was working undercover at New Delhi’s
railway station.
The
girl was at the station because the trafficker had promised to take her home to
her village but had secretly bought tickets to the teeming commercial capital,
Mumbai, where he apparently intended to sell her off into a life of further
slavery or prostitution.
A
year later, the girl is still in New Delhi, hiding from the trafficker. Small
and shy, with her hair tied back in a bun and covered in a patterned scarf, she
has an unassuming manner that masks a determination to see her tormentor put
behind bars.
“The
first thing I want is that man should be punished for what he did to me,” she said.
“Then I want to see the money I am owed in my hand. The third thing is to go
back home safe and sound.”
@ The Washington Post
@ The Washington Post