Symbol & substance

Many have pondered over the self without creating much of a stir. But pondering about a selfie — that self-inflicted and self-produced self-portrait taken with a smart phone — is something else. Especially so if the person pondering is a certain Mr Narendra Modi.

This week, during Mann Ki Baat, his radio talk show, Prime Minister Modi gave a shout-out to Indian parents, especially fathers, to post selfies with their daughters on social media. In a country notorious for its preference for sons over daughters and with several states with a disturbingly skewed child sex ratio (number of females per thousand males in the 0-6 year age group), a gesture aimed at rewriting the country’s gender-skewed script ought to be welcome. The idea of “Selfie with Daughter” was originally floated by a sarpanch in Haryana, among the states with the most imbalanced child sex ratios. Mr Modi cottoned on to the power of the symbol, linked it to his flagship “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” initiative, and full-throatedly promoted it in his radio address.

It caught the imagination of thousands of netizens and was soon trending on social media. Some saw it as an imaginative, powerful move. One radio jockey exhorted a listener to change the lyrics of Salman Khan’s latest hit song Beta selfie le le (Bajrangi Bhaijaan) to “Beti”. Quite predictably, others dismissed the move as tokenism. The matter should have ended there. Unsurprisingly, it did not.

It is a sign of the times that subjects on which there really should be no two opinions trigger a vitriolic, polarising discourse if there is the slightest hint of a connection with Prime Minister Modi. Modi-bhakts and Modi-haters and their army of trolls in cyberspace were soon at one another’s throats. Yet another hash-tag slugfest was under way. Somewhere the most important point has got lost. Symbols matter. They persuade. Let us not trash them. There is nothing wrong with the Prime Minister’s decision to spotlight “Selfie with Daughter”, a campaign that kicked off in a Haryana village with the aim of persuading parents to cherish, celebrate their daughters.

But symbols alone cannot change the ground realities. Nor should symbols and slogans be conflated with substance. This applies as much to “Selfie with Daughter” as to International Yoga Day or Swachch Bharat. “Selfie with Daughter” taps into a sense of pride and honour, very important in traditional India. Individuals and communities celebrating the girl child make for powerful imagery and can help trigger change in a highly patriarchal society.

So, as the economists put it, it is a necessary but not a sufficient condition. In places where the situation is actually changing, symbols have been accompanied by other initiatives. One example comes from a pilot project in six districts of Jaipur and Jodhpur to galvanise gram panchayats. Rajasthan is among those states where the decline in child sex ratio has been alarming — Census 2011 data showed that there were only 888 girls per 1,000 boys in the 0-6 age group down from 909 girls per 1,000 boys in 2001. Rural Rajasthan is seen to be contributing significantly to this decline.

The project involving the Centre for Advocacy and Research (CFAR), an NGO, and the JRD Tata Trust, launched in 2012, used an interesting mix of approaches. In villages where traditionally the birth of a male child was heralded differently from that of a female child, badhai patras (congratulatory letters) were given to parents of new-born girls. The lead was taken by Keshavan panchayat in Rajasthan’s Jalore district in 2013 and later adopted by other district administrations. Till date, over 2,050 such letters have been distributed. Village sarpanches and other members of the community gather to celebrate the birth of a daughter and honour the family. That sends out an incredibly powerful signal.

But many more things had to be done alongside — birth registration camps, encouraging training and sensitising decision-makers and grassroots functionaries about the law banning female foeticide, sensitising village-level community workers, and so on. The result is that less than four years after the project started, there are promising signs. Between April 2014 and March 2015, the child sex ratio improved. There were 1,620 girls compared with 1,460 boys across 30 gram panchayats.

The need is for a combination of symbol and substance. Take the hoopla around International Yoga Day. Mr Modi performing yoga at Rajpath along with almost 40,000 people did create a buzz. As a promotional event, it was incredibly successful. Responding to the Prime Minister’s call, the United Nations has now adopted June 21 as International Yoga Day by a resolution, co-sponsored by 177 countries, including 44 Islamic countries. As Forbes pointed out, just the photographs from Delhi and other international cities holding yoga events themselves were a more potent PR tool than any number of images of leaders shaking hands or press releases trumpeting trade deals. This probably means a bonanza for India’s yoga instructors.

Yoga confers many health benefits, but a yoga day by itself will not lead to a healthier India, leave alone a healthier world. Yoga and other physical activities certainly help diabetics, those with cardiovascular disease and everyone wanting to keep fit. But yoga is not a one-stop shop for all diseases. Many other changes are needed as well — enough health workers, functioning health centres and hospitals, affordable medicines and timely treatment, safe drinking water, nutrition, clean air, healthy food and so on. Those form the substance without which the symbol is useless.

The same goes for the much talked about Swachch Bharat. A massive campaign to make people aware of the need for a cleaner India was necessary. More toilets in schools, public places and homes are vital. But a slogan and even the structure are only the first baby steps. Toilets have to be maintained, there should be water, streets have to be cleaned and, finally, people have to be persuaded to buy into the message.

Symbols stir; photographs have punch. And who can fault Mr Modi, the master communicator, for tapping into the growing international popularity of yoga or tuning into the craze for selfies. But the real story is what happens after that. The real challenges and opportunity follow the photo-ops.

The writer focuses on development issues in India and emerging economies.
She can be reached at patralekha.chatterjee@gmail.com