Gender Bender in Bihar: Why women voted against Narendra Modi

by Guest Wed Nov 18, 2015 10:16 am

These newly-educated women in the public space were alarmed by the implications of the BJP’s national annual budget presented 8 month ago.

The Modi government had phased out shelter homes for single women, one stop crisis centres, hostels for working women, cut the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya boarding school budget by 9.5 percent, reduced allocations to the ICDS and Midday Meal Schemes and to the gender budget for school education by 8.3 percent. To add insult to injury he spent Rs 100 crore on an international branding exercise called Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Abhiyan with no money spent on actually educating the girl child. These were the very schemes that helped them out of destitution and deprivation.

The budgetary allocations in absolute terms has decreased by almost 49.3 percent to the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

In addition the increase in indirect taxes led to a sharp price increase in their daily consumables like daal creating more difficulty for working women. One of the most popular slogans doing the rounds in the last two phases was Har Har Modi se Arhar Modi (Arhar is a daal, which is a staple diet for all Biharis with rice).

The last straw on the camel’s bank for poor, marginalised mothers was when they heard that the BJP Cabinet had approved a Bill to legalise child labour and his National Commission for Women wanted to legalise pimping and brothel keeping.
They wondered how they would protect their children from those who wanted to exploit them and how would they educate their daughters if schools shut down, mid-day meals were not available. They were relieved to see that that state of Bihar kept the mid-day meals, boarding, schools, cycles, uniforms and reservations going against all odds.

They, therefore, refused to be drawn into the BJP’s attempts to fuel religious and caste hatred over beef, cow-dung, pork, toilets, tantriks, and urine. They voted for harmony and peace, and for economic and social incentives for the poor and marginalised. The overall turnout of women voters in this Assembly elections was 60.57 per cent, whereas that for men was 53.41 per cent.

Women understood that a government that allocates big money to weaponry, smart cities, superhighways, international public relations contracts but peanuts to increasing literacy and lowering infant mortality values them less as citizens.

Tax money is being spent on Modi’s international tours, fancy suits, grandiose meetings with Facebook and Google, while government aided schools are being closed, child labour is being legalised to address shortage of wages, pimping and brothel keeping are being legitimised to address the lack of sustainable and dignified work for women, formerly self-sufficient groups are being pushed out by land acquisition for mines, factories, multi-national agro-businesses and a non-cash economy for women’s productive or reproductive work is becoming justified in the name of “Hindu” values.

Bihar has shown that women are not buying it.

http://www.outlookindia.com/article/gender-bender-in-bihar/295887