Delhi's 75% young Hindu women practice ghughat; it's 90% in urban Rajasthan and UP: Pennsylvania univ survey

While the Narendra Modi government may want to fight gender inequality by passing the triple talaq bill in the Lok Sahba, a recent study has revealed that Delhi’s 75% of young Hindu women in the group 18-25 practice ghunghat. Based on high profile Social Attitude Research, India (SARI) survey, the study also finds that, in this young age, whopping 98% women in rural Rajasthan, 90% in urban Rajasthan, and 91% in rural Uttar Pradesh, and 90% in urban Uttar Pradesh practice ghughat.
The SARI survey was carried out in 2016 by the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI), University of Pennsylvania. Its results have been published in November 2017 as a paper by the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics (RICE), “Explicit prejudice: Evidence from a new survey”, authored by Diane Coffey, Payal Hathi, Nidhi Khurana and Amit Thorat.
The study claims, it is a “representative” sample of adults in Delhi, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, and SARI “dataset is unique”. Done by “using low-cost phone survey methods”, responses from 753 men and 658 women were sought in Delhi, as against 791 men and 808 women in Uttar Pradesh, and 1611 men and 1749 women in in Rajasthan . Between 18% and and 29% respondents agreed to be interviewed.

Calling ghunghat as one of the three indicators of “prejudice against women”, the study says, the other two SARI captured were on whether respondents think women should not work outside the home, and whether men eat meals first.

The study defines ghunghat as the “practice of women veiling their heads or faces with the end of a sari or a dupatta”, insisting it “reinforcing women’s unequal position in families and in society”, agreeing that ghunghat has “a different social meaning than pardah, the practice of women’s seclusion common in Muslim households.”
However, it underscores, “Hindu women who do not practice ghunghat report having say in more decisions related to their own lives than women who do”, with women who do not practice ghunghat are “12 percentage points more likely” to report having at least some say in household decision making.”
Providing age-wise breakup in Delhi, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, the study says, “Although urban areas show some age gradient in the practice, rural areas show little, and overall the age gradient is less steep than we expected. This may be because ghunghat can be practiced more or less intensely.”

Refusing to identify age-wise intensity of ghunghat according to age, the study says, while a “younger woman might practice ghunghat by covering her whole face, while an older woman covers only her hair, our data do not capture these differences.”
Claiming that the SARI survey results are similar to those of the “nationally representative 2011 India Human Development Survey (IHDS)”, which was carried out in 2011, the study says, “There is also less of a difference in the percent of women who practice ghunghat between rural and urban areas than we expected, though again, we have not measured the intensity of the practice.”
Providing data for other age groups, the study says, 63% of Delhi women in the age group 26-40 and 44% in the age group 41-60 practice ghughat. The respective percentage for rural Rajasthan is 99 and 89; and for urban Rajasthan it is 89 and 84. As for rural Uttar Pradesh, 94% and 93% women in the age groups 26-40 and 41-60 respectively practice ghughat, and in urban Uttar Pradesh, the percentage is 63 and 39 respectively.

Comments

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and the Civil Aviation Minister.

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

Global NGO slams India for media clampdown during conflict, downplays Pakistan

A global civil rights group, Civicus has taken strong exception to how critical commentaries during the “recent conflict” with Pakistan were censored in India, with journalists getting “targeted”. I have no quarrel with the Civicus view, as the facts mentioned in it are all true.

Remembering Vijay Rupani: A quiet BJP leader who listened beyond party lines

Late evening on June 12, a senior sociologist of Indian origin, who lives in Vienna, asked me a pointed question: Of the 241 persons who died as a result of the devastating plane crash in Ahmedabad the other day, did I know anyone? I had no hesitation in telling her: former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, whom I described to her as "one of the more sensible persons in the BJP leadership."

Whither SCOPE? Twelve years on, Gujarat’s official English remains frozen in time

While writing my previous blog on how and why Narendra Modi went out of his way to promote English when he was Gujarat chief minister — despite opposition from people in the Sangh Parivar — I came across an interesting write-up by Aakar Patel, a well-known name among journalists and civil society circles.

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.

Why India’s renewable energy sector struggles under 2,735 compliance hurdles

Recently, during a conversation with an industry representative, I was told how easy it is to set up a startup in Singapore compared to India. This gentleman, who had recently visited Singapore, explained that one of the key reasons Indians living in the Southeast Asian nation prefer establishing startups there is because the government is “extremely supportive” when it comes to obtaining clearances. “They don’t want to shift operations to India due to the large number of bureaucratic hurdles,” he remarked.

Search This Blog