THE LEAFLET BULLETIN

Behind the high suicide rate among daily wage labourers

Why the data on suicides is currently in the news?

INDIA’S?stunning?13.5 per cent Gross Domestic Product (‘GDP’) growth rate?could have been a cause for much celebration had it not coincided with the release of the?National Crime Records Bureau (‘NCRB’) data?for 2021. ‘Crime in India’, the annual report of the NCRB for crime-related statistics,?reported?that the registration of violent crimes such as rape, kidnapping, atrocities against children, robberies and murders increased to levels set before the pandemic. Still, the overall crime rate (per one lakh people) decreased from 487.8 in 2020 to 445.9 in 2021.

The most eye-catching data set however came from the ‘Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India’ report, which showed that the number of suicide-related deaths in India reached an all-time high.

For the second consecutive year, the maximum number of suicide victims were?daily wage workers, increasing from 37,666 in 2020 to 42,004 last year. The data also revealed that the maximum increase in the rate of suicide was observed amongst “self-employed persons”, with an increase of 16.73 per cent: from 17,332 in 2020 to 20,231 in 2021.

Overcoming hiring bias: Towards substantive equality in employment for Muslim women

IN?Part I, I focused on the criminal justice system’s workings in the Bilkis Bano case. In?Part II, we covered the world of digital crimes and how Muslim women are targeted. In the next two parts, I turn away from crimes towards indicators of development, that is, employment and education.

In this part, I question how equal are the spaces of employment and education for Muslim women.

Declining female labour force

Female labour force in India has declined from 26.7 per cent in 2005 to 20.3 per cent in 2021, according to the?World Bank. This rate has exacerbated during COVID-19, with Reserve Bank of India deputy governor,?Dr. M.D. Patra, stating that the?“female workforce participation in India is among the lowest in the world and continues to fall”. Within this,?National Sample Survey Organisation data?shows that Muslim women have the?lowest?Labour Force Participation Rate.

The falling women’s labour force and specifically the representation of Muslim women in labour force has negative effects on the country’s economy. Business and economics research think-tank McKinsey Global Institute?suggests?that India is losing out on USD 770 billion in its Gross Domestic Product by not advancing women’s equality.

We require Indianisation to enrich Indian Constitutionalism

THE?article by Dr. M.P. Raju, published on?The Leaflet?on January 15, entitled,?Call for Indianisation is a fallacy, if not a fraud on the Constitution, is indeed a well written piece, but it is difficult to agree with the whole of it.

Dr. Raju suspects that there is a hidden agenda behind that call; it is a false pretext to constitutionalise India’s legal system by ‘Indianisation’. He apprehends that it is, in fact, to reverse the efforts of ‘de-Indianisation’ that helped us to adopt a partial contribution of the colonial psyche and establish the ‘individual’ as the basic unit of India’s Constitution, through which the promotion of fraternity, unity and integrity of the nation as its unique character was made possible; and that too by replacing the corrupt ‘village republics’.

He also apprehends that the present call for Indianisation is to bring back the ‘Dharmasastric?heritage’ that had been rejected in the Constituent Assembly. Besides, there is nothing in our past that has any traits of democracy, which can be adopted by Indianisation. And finally, he thinks that the process of Indianisation, as it is being promoted in the circumstances he refers to in his article, is not going to advance constitutionalism in any manner; rather, it will definitely be a retrogressive step.

Freedom to criticise

It?is never ever too late

For any belly to find its fire

Many however show spark

Only after they safely retire

With nothing much to do

And no worthwhile mission

Any milord considered “safe”

Usually heads a Commission

Milords most in demand are

Acknowledged fence-sitters

Loved by all the money-bags

And preferred by solicitors

They would seldom decide

Kept giving date after date

No surprise that such milords

Are usually chosen to arbitrate!