Book Review: Lahore (The Partition Trilogy #1)

It is hard to review a book that you have been waiting two years for. A book you had high expectations from both because of the subject matter and the author. A book you pre-ordered because you wanted to grab it as soon as you could. And a book which lived up to expectations, yet left you without words.

There have been many books written about the Partition. There are books that describe the high level political negotiations between the people who made history. And there are books written about the people who bore the brunt of Partition. Manreet Sodhi Someshwar’s ‘Lahore (The Partition Trilogy, #1)’ does both.

In Delhi, Mountbatten, Patel and Nehru lay down their non-negotiables and engage in a game of give and take around it. In Lahore, till the very end, the coolie, Belli Ram, who was brought up by his friend Mehmood’s family refuses to accept Partition till be actually “sees” the line separating India and Pakistan.

In Lahore, the ‘mad woman’, Billo, is thrown out of her home when she predicts a rain of blood, and takes up residence on the branches of a tree. In Delhi, Edwina Mountbatten shivers when she sees the unseasonal blooming of the Laburnums because when death is imminent, trees bloom and set fruit in a last ditch attempt to secure progeny.

The stories of the people and events that make up history, alternate with those of the people who have to bear the consequences of those decisions. Many of those stories end at a climatic point, where you are forced to pause and process what you witnessed before you can move on.

And, of course, at the end, she had both threads meet, however briefly. A reminder that Partition, eventually, was about people. People who survived. People who didn't. Dreams that were crushed. Pieces that were picked up.

This book is particularly significant because it puts many events in their proper context. The British would have left behind two partitioned nations and 565 princely states. Today, people try to assign the blame for Partition on certain leaders, choosing to forget that it was they who stopped the Balkanisation.

You will love ‘Lahore (The Partition Trilogy, #1)’ if you are interested either in the history of the subcontinent or in reading stories rich in human emotions. Take a bow, Manreet, for yet another masterly book.

School Reopening- Part 3

[Third in a three part series on school reopening. Here we look at the challenge that the education system faces and how it could perhaps be converted into an opportunity.]

Minimizing the risk of COVID outbreaks is just one part of the challenge. The greater challenge is to engage the students who are returning to school, address the gap in learning level, and address the psychological needs of the students.

According to a report released by UNICEF (United Nations Children Emergency Fund), less than 10% students in India had access to online education during the pandemic. Other reports put the figure a little higher. Whatever the actual number, the reality is that the vast majority of students found themselves at the wrong side of the digital divide. Families did not have a digital device that could be used for online classes; those that did had to prioritize which of the children would get to use it; students that had a device had to struggle to find reliable internet; and after all those conditions were met, the screen was often too small for an optimal learning experience. It is safe to conclude, that except for a very small minority of students, practically no teaching or learning has occurred since the start of the pandemic.

During the time when there was no school, many of these children went into the informal workforce as child laborers. Though we do not have firm numbers, we know that many adolescent girls fell victim to child marriages. Though some of them might be able to negotiate with their families and re-enroll in school, for them, the opportunity cost of coming to school is high. Unless they feel they are learning something significant in school, they (and their families) may decide it doesn’t make sense to continue with an education and may therefore drop out of the school system permanently.

The vast majority of students have been promoted two grades without attending any classes. They will find it extremely challenging to learn from a grade appropriate curriculum without the benefit of bridge courses, and this might cause them to drop out in frustration. It is, therefore, imperative that teachers change their methodology of teaching to ensure that the students are able to learn, and the experience in school remains a safe and enriching one.

Even before the pandemic, there was a huge ‘learning gap’ between the expected learning level and the actual learning level. According to the Annual Status of Education Report released in 2018 (ASER, 2018), less than 30% students in grade 3 in rural India could read grade 2 level text, and by the time they reached grade 5, only half the surveyed students could read grade 2 level text. Similarly, in mathematics, more than half the students of grade 8 struggled with grade 4 level mathematics. Since literacy and numeracy are the basic skills without which other subjects cannot be taught effectively, this is a clear indication that not much learning was happening in India despite students getting automatically promoted at the end of the year.

This gap, which was already significant before the start of the pandemic would have been exacerbated by two other factors. Studies conducted in India and abroad have shown that there is a significant drop in learnings levels during the summer vacations due to disuse of literacy and numeracy skills. With schools closed for more than 18 months, it is safe to conclude that a vast majority of students would have lost even the limited skills they had acquired. At the same time, students have been automatically promoted, leading to an even wider gap in basic literacy and numeracy.

The single objective of the education system should be to address this learning gap in literacy and numeracy. Even if that is the only thing that is accomplished in the current academic year, it would be sufficient. The most practical solution would be to forego written examinations during the current year, and to use the year to reinforce the fundamentals of literacy and numeracy with the goal of ensuring that the gap is narrowed, if not completely bridged. By the end of the academic year, at least 50% of the students should be at age and grade level in literacy and numeracy, and the gap should have been significantly reduced for the rest. The pedagogy for bridging the learning gap exists, and appropriate workbooks should be printed and distributed to the students. The workbooks should be designed in a manner where they can be used under supervision in the classroom, and for self-study. Since the progress of students will be tracked as they proceed through the workbooks at their own pace, and will give them a sense of accomplishment and motivate them to continue.

Students who have a strong foundation in literacy and numeracy can be encouraged to mentor the other students. This will develop team work and communication skills, both of which are important life skills to learn. Since some of the exercises can be completed through self-study, adopting this model will also reduce the amount of time that students need to spend in school, thereby reducing overcrowding in schools.

Other subjects like science, literature, history and geography can be taught orally, so students with without sufficient literacy skills are not left behind. This can be done using a mixture of lectures, discussions and simple projects. Students with age/ grade appropriate reading and writing skills can be encouraged to dive deeper into the topic covered in the subjects. Grading for all the students can be done based on class participation and/ or project work.

By shifting the focus from completing the curriculum to strengthening fundamental literacy and numeracy skills, the system will ensure that all students are brought upto a basic foundation level. If this can be achieved in the current academic year, it will lead to a paradigm shift in the quality of education imparted to the students.

All of this will require a major shift in the way students are taught and what we want them to learn. The situation the education system finds itself in is unprecedented. If we rise to the occasion, it can be a tremendous opportunity; if not, we would have put our students at risk for questionable returns.

When one door closes another door opens, but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us. — Alexander Graham Bell

Now is the time to seize the opportunity which has presented itself to us.

School Reopening- Part 2

[Second in a three part series on school reopening. This looks at the steps to be taken to minimize the risk of COVID outbreaks.]

Whether we like it or not, over the next few weeks, schools are going to reopen for all students. While some students might continue to have the option to take classes online or offline, the vast majority of them will return to physical schools despite the fact that none of them are vaccinated. The question now is, what next.

The education system will have to deal with two major challenges- putting in place adequate precautions to minimize the risk of COVID outbreaks, and developing appropriate curriculum and pedagogy to ensure optimal learning. Unless both these aspects are addressed, the entire school reopening exercise could end up being an experiment in futility.

Schools have re-opened in several other countries, so we do have a good idea of what works and what does not. It is imperative that we learn from the experience of these countries while framing the guidelines for school reopening. This would be a huge challenge in India given the fact that most schools in the country are overcrowded, and people have not yet internalized COVID appropriate behaviour. While all schools require of mandatory masking, double vaccination of teachers and staff, hand hygiene and periodic disinfection, this alone is not enough.

Each school would need to come up with specific processes, keeping in mind their own special challenges. In the broadest sense, this would fall into three main buckets- Awareness about COVID, adoption of COVID appropriate behaviour and setting up a safe physical environment.

By studying outbreaks across the world, it has been found that all other factors being the same, three situations contribute to the spread of COVID.

These ‘Three Cs’ which should be avoided are-

• Closed Spaces, with poor ventilation
• Crowded Places, with people nearby
• Close Contact settings where adequate distancing is not observed

It may not always be possible to eliminate all three in a school setting, but in order to minimize the danger of a COVID outbreak, each school should take steps to mitigate the risk from each of these should be mitigated to the extent possible. By conducting an audit at the school level, appropriate processes should be drawn up for individual schools and they should be clearly communicated to all staff and students.

All teachers and staff of the schools should be trained on how the virus spreads and steps to be taken to mitigate the spread. They should also receive training on the symptoms of the disease so they can take informed decisions on asking students to quarantine themselves, and should be aware of the myths around the disease so they do not get duped by wrong information. Post- workshop, teachers need to clear a test before they be allowed to take classes.

Prior to reopening schools, both parents and students should be also be made to undergo a session on adopting COVID appropriate behaviour, particularly on proper masking, physical distancing and hand hygiene. Students, particularly older students, should be made to understand how the virus spreads, so they can take adequate precautions. Parents should also be cautioned to not send their children to school if they are feeling unwell, and to inform the school of the same immediately so other students can be asked to quarantine if required.

Both the staff and students should internalize adopting COVID appropriate behaviour, and they should be total compliance. Everybody should be properly masked at all points of time, with the nose and mouth appropriately covered. Sharing objects should be discouraged, and if it is absolutely impossible to avoid it, hands should be sanitized both before and after touching the shared objects. If space permits, teachers can let individual students leave the classroom for short breaks if they start feeling claustrophobic with the masks.

Wherever possible, classes should be staggered so there are fewer students in the school building. This can be done either by operating in two batches, or by reserving a few days for self-study where students do not have to physically come to school.

Schools which can should designate separate entrances and exits and should try to regulate movement in corridors or on stairs in one direction only. This will reduce the possibility of people coming face to face with other people. If possible, some classes can be taken outdoors to increase safety.

The use of common facilities needs to be regulated to ensure reduced crowding. This can be done by staggering break times so the entire school does need to access them at the same time. Since students will not be able to keep their masks on while eating, lunch/ meal breaks should also be staggered to reduce close contact.

Exhaust fans need to be installed in classrooms which have poor ventilation, and schools were classrooms are airconditioned will need to invest in air-filteration systems.

Schools will also have to keep a supply to disposable masks to give out to staff or students in case of an emergency. They will also need to make arrangements for the proper disposal of masks and other bio waste, should it be required.

If all these precautions are taken, the risk of COVID outbreaks can be reduced to some extent.

Despite taking all precautions, there will be situations where staff or students get exposed to potential infection. In such cases, the school should work proactively to trace the people who may have come in contact, and ensure that they self-quarantine.

Most importantly, each school should make arrangements to providing learning support to students who’s family may not be comfortable sending them to school. This should be a no tech or low tech solution, so all students can access them.

Minimizing the risk of COVID outbreaks, however is just one part of the challenge. The greater challenge is to provide an education to students who have been out of school for so long they have probably forgotten most of the things they learnt.

School Reopening- Part 1

 [First in a three part series on school reopening. This examines why reopening may not be a good idea, and how we could have done better last year. ]

“Should schools reopen?”, is no longer a question up for debate. Schools have already reopened partially or fully in many states, and others are in the process of doing so too. Some states have given schools the flexibility to continue with a hybrid model, others have reopened only for high school students, but the reality is that unless there is a sudden spike in number of infections and/ or hospitalizations, by the end of the year every parent with children of school going age will soon have to decide whether or not to send their children to school.

One could question why we are in such a hurry to open up. Unlike this time last year, we now know that children below the age of 17 are also likely to get infected, and the symptoms can be severe enough to require hospitalization. It is no longer just a case of children being carriers of the virus and infecting grandparents and older relatives- we have seen how the capacity of pediatric ICUs have been stretched to the maximum and of how children have died of the virus. What then is the scientific basis for re-opening of schools, especially since none of our school children are vaccinated? There is none.

Unfortunately, it is not science that is driving the decision to reopen schools; the haste is entirely on account of sociological, developmental and economic factors. School closure and shifting to the online model has effectively blocked off access to education for millions of children of school going age. Studies have revealed that there has been a drop in learning levels among children on the wrong side of the digital divide. Most of these children have been pressed into child labour, and many have fallen victim to child marriage. There is a real danger of losing an entire generation of learners, which is why many are pushing the government for a reopening of schools. Medical doctors, who should be giving advice from a scientific/ medical perspective have, unfortunately, fallen for the rhetoric; they cite “our students cannot afford to lose another academic year” as the reason to reopen schools.

While there is certainly merit in the argument that students have already lost too much learning, and that further delays could potentially be irreversible, what most people are ignoring is the fact that reopening schools without putting proper procedures in place will only put millions of children (and unvaccinated members of their family) at risk.

Ideally, the issue of loss of learning should have been taken up and addressed last year. When India went into Lockdown, the service sector immediately moved to the online mode, and a few weeks later, private schools followed suit. While there were a few examples of the TV being used to reach out to students enrolled in government schools, for the most part, any teaching that was done was done online, using the Internet. Very few families had digital devices suitable for online classes, fewer still had reliable internet, and even those families which had both needed to prioritise which of their children would have access to the device.

Knowing that the vast majority of students would fall on the wrong side of the digital divide, an attempt should have been made to use other means of reaching out to students. Radio or TV have much better penetration than mobile phones, and either could have been used to reach out a much larger number of students.

More importantly, instead of merely reducing the curriculum, the Boards should have taken the decision to focus on reinforcing verbal and numerical skills. Given the fact that a majority of students do not have age/ grade specific verbal and numerical skills, this learning gap could have been bridged using a combination of self-study workbooks and on-on-one assistance from community level volunteers. Subject specific concepts could have been taught using either TV or radio. Students with age appropriate learning levels could have been taught concepts using a combination of self-study and TV or radio programs. Had this strategy been adopted, the pandemic would have proved a blessing by enabling India to address and bridge the challenge of the steadily increasing learning gap.

Unfortunately, all we did during the previous academic year was to shift what would have been taught in the physical classroom to a digital classroom. And today, we are left with a generation of students who have been promoted two grades, without attending a single class in over 18 months. The learning gap, which already existed, has now become wider, and it remains to be seen if and how teachers and students will be able to bridge it.

This, probably will be the greatest challenge to the education system.

The Women Who Disobeyed Civily

[When the men were behind bars, women came to the forefront. Where are they now?]

It was the Civil Disobedience Movement of 1930. The leaders of the freedom movement were in prison, along with tens of thousands of freedom fighters. The British thought they had been able to stamp out the movement, but then, something unexpected happened. In the words of Jawaharlal Nehru (as quoted in Discovery of India)- 

Most of us menfolk were in prison. And then a remarkable thing happened. Our women came to the front and took charge of the struggle. Women had always been there of course, but now there was an avalanche of the, which took not only the British Government but their own menfolk by surprise. Here were these women, women of the upper or middle classes, leading sheltered lives in their homes- peasant women, working- class women, rich women- pouring out in their tens of thousands in defiance of government order and police lathi. It was not only that display of courage and daring but what was even more surprising was the organizational power they showed.

That was the decisive moment when the British Government realized they could not hold India much longer. If women, who till a few years back were in purdah and were still not allowed to take part in public life, could come to the forefront to demand freedom, sooner or later they would have to leave the country.

But who were these women?

In the early days, it was only the wives, daughters and sisters of the leaders of the freedom movement who participated in the freedom movement. Since there were no women-only political organisations, it was difficult for common women to negotiate a place in the struggle, and the only women who could were women from elite families.

Though women were initially not allowed to participate in the Dandi March, two women, Sarojini Naidu and Mithuben Petit, stood behind Gandhiji when he violated the Salt Law. However, once the salt Satyagraha began, women from middle class families started pouring out onto the street. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay led a huge contingent of women in Bombay who not only made salt at Chowpathy Beach, they even sold it in the city. The popular story goes that when Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay was arrested and produced before the magistrate, she held up a packet of salt and asked if he would like to buy the 'salt of freedom'!

Women, who started coming out in response to Gandhiji's call for the Salt Satyagraha, began coming out in droves once the men started being arrested. They were led by the wives and sisters of the leaders, prominent among whom were Kasturba Gandhi, Kamala Nehru and Nehru's sister, Vijaylakshmi Pandit, but many women also rose to leadership despite not being from political families.

Sucheta Kriplani, Aruna Asaf Ali, and Durgabai Deshmukh, among many others joined the Freedom Struggle during the Civil Disobedience Movement. They all married freedom fighters from different communities (even religion), and continued to serve the nation even after Independence. Sucheta Kriplani became the first female Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. Aruna Asaf Ali was the first lady mayor of Delhi and did a lot of work in education. Durgabai Deshmukh was a lawyer who served as a member of the Constitute Assembly and later of the Planning Commission.

Initially, the police used only moderate violence against women, but when they kept coming out, women too were lathi charged and imprisoned for long terms. None of this, deterred the women, and despite having to manage the home in the absence of their menfolk, they continued being a part of the freedom struggle.

Some of them paid a very heavy price for their rebellion. Rani Gaidinliu, for instance, was arrested when she was seeking to drive the British out of Manipur and Nagaland when she was only 16 years old, and spent 14 years in prison before she was released after Independence.

There were other women who lost their lives in the Struggle. Matangini Hazra, the poor peasant woman who was also known as Gandhi Buri was shot dead by the police during the Quit India Movement when she was leading a procession of over six thousand people. Eighteen year old Kanaklata Barua was shot down while participating in the Quit India Movement.

Despite these setbacks, women were equal participants in the Freedom Struggle. They protested unjust laws, they sang patriotic songs, they hoisted the national flag, they ran radio stations and printing presses, and they provided shelter to freedom fighters fleeing the police. If India was able to gain Independence a lot of the credit should go to these women.

What after Independence?

Unfortunately, after Independence, women were not able to capitalize on these gains. Unlike in other countries, women were given Universal Adult Franchise right after Independence. Women also occupied positions of power, though in small numbers. There were fifteen women in the Constituent Assembly who helped draft the Constitution, there was one women in the first Union Cabinet of Independent India, and a woman headed the Indian delegation to the United Nations and was the first ever woman to be elected the President of the United National General Assembly.

Despite the early head start, even today, the representation of women in public life remains disproportionately low, which results in the framing of policies that do not adequately empower women. India attained her Freedom seventy four years ago, but we will be able to consider ourselves to be truly free only when we are adequately represented in positions of policy making.

Book Review- Landscapes of Loss

 I picked up Kavitha Iyer's 'Landscapes of Loss: The Story of an Indian drought' because someone I trust described it as "Superb reporting. Terrific writing". She was absolutely right. It is a brilliant book. One I wish everyone would read.

Kavitha concludes the book with ".... to introduce readers to real people, their very real everyday struggles, their occasional triumphs and their unremitting agitations requesting justice. The countryside has spoken. I hope urban India finds it in its heart to listen."

And doing so, she sets 'Landscapes of Loss', her detailed chronicle of ongoing struggles in drought prone Marathwada within the much larger context of the ongoing Farmers' Agitation in the country.

Marathwada is one of the most drought prone regions in the country, and most of us hear of it when there is a spate of farmer suicides which make it to the headlines. The book goes much beyond that.

It takes us through how the drought affects entire communities, how relief measures fall short of expectations. It breaks down caste dynamics, and looks at how women are affected even worse than men.

Importantly, the book looks at the reasons for the water crisis, and analyses how the proposed measures might only delay the crisis by a few years. She shows us how what is needed is not annual relief measures, but a systematic change in how we view water as a resource.

Above all, the book introduces us to the people of Marathwada- their distress, their successes, their hopes and their reality. Though their stories, she inspires us to do more. 'Landscapes of Loss' is a MUST read.

The Objectivisation of Women in Sport

 [This article has been published in Women’s Web under the title “2021 Olympics, When Women Athletes Refused To Play By Objectifying Rules Made By Men”]

Think gymnastics, and the first image that comes to mind is of a young woman clad in rhinestone studded leotards performing gravity defying moves. Her make-up is prefect, her hair neatly coiffured, and her leotards cut suggestively to make her look sexually attractive. Think specifically of the male gymnast, and he is either in a full body suit or shorts. When routines are rated entirely on the complexity of the move, and the skill in performing them, why is the female gymnast expected to look pretty and smile, while her male counterpart can get away with just executing the routine.

The rules of the International Gymnastics Federation clearly specify that female gymnasts can wear full body leotards which cover the legs, yet sexy leotards are so normalized that regardless of what they wear while training, every gymnast picks one for competitions. You could argue that she is “choosing to wear” leotards with a racy cut, but the reality is that most people find it hard to go against what has been deemed acceptable traditionally. Recently, the German gymnastics team made headlines when they chose to wear full body suits in competition to unitedly take a stand against the overt sexualisation of the sport. Had only one gymnast attempted to do so, she would have certainly faced a lot of pushback.

Beach handball and beach volleyball, unlike gymnastics, do not even attempt to hide the fact that the female athlete is sexualized. The rules clearly specify that while the can compete in shorts, women are only permitted to do so in bikinis. When the Norwegian beach handball team chose to swap their bikini bottoms for thigh length shorts, they were fined and threatened with expulsion. This despite the fact that many women who play the sport have said that wearing shorts instead of bikinis will permit them to concentrate on the game without worrying about the uniform slipping.

The official stance by the authorities is that the uniform specifications have been framed in order to ensure that the athletes have the full range of motion. But when men can play in loose fitting knee length shorts and tank tops, why can’t the women? Clearly the guidelines on competition wear have been framed presuming that spectators are more interested in watching beautiful women in bikinis than in watching competition level sportswomen in action.

In case we think that beach volleyball and beach handball are the only sports that blatantly sexualize and commodify the bodies of women athletes to boost viewership, think again. In 2011, when professional badminton saw a decline in interest and viewership, the regulators came up with the perfect solution to bring back spectators- show more skin. The Badminton World Federation passed a decree that ‘to create a more ‘attractive presentation,’ women must wear skirts or dresses to play at the elite level.’ This was revoked after major push back from female athletes, especially Muslim athletes who compete in professional badminton in large numbers.

Tennis has similar rules. Many tournaments specify that women should wear skirts or dresses, even though most women tennis players train in shorts. A top ranked player, Eugenie Bouchard, was asked to twirl and describe her outfit after she demolished her opponent in less than an hour; is a male tennis player similarly asked to flex his muscles?

This sexualisation is not only at the elite level. It permeates all the way down. A couple of years back, when I went to the showroom of a popular sports brand to buy running shorts, I was asked to choose between itsy-bitsy ‘barely there’ shorts, and skin tight cycling shorts. The male section had the loose fitting shorts I wanted, and I have stopped even stepping into the ladies section now. Yes, there are women runners who genuinely like the racy shorts and tank tops and believe that they aid their performance, but shouldn’t the women who are not comfortable wearing those clothes be offered a choice without having to sneak clothes out of the men’s section?

The overt sexualization of sportswear is symptomatic of a larger issue. Instead of respecting the talent, hard-work and dedication of the sportsperson, the worth of a woman is reduced to the viewership she can draw on the basis of her physical appearance and her on and off court personality. There has to be a change in how the media portrays womens’ sports- the focus has to shift from overt sexualisation to sporting prowess.

Also, all sports should offer a broader variety of uniforms to choose from, so all sports persons can choose the one they are most comfortable with. This would empower women to choose how they present themselves to the audience.