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Meeting Minutes - 15 December 2017 (Ranchi)
Civil Society Consultation
Two Child Norm in Jharkhand Implications for Marginalised Communities
Background
Govt of Jharkhand introduced Two Child Norm as eligibility for Urban Local Government Bodies in a Cabinet decision in last week of October 2017. A section of People Representatives petitioned against it, but it was not heard.
The civil society organizations in Jharkhand got active on this issue, with some small discussion and online conversations in November month. It was to discuss, and carve out a strategy to resist these policies being introduced in the State of Jharkhand, that a Consultation was planned.
Introductory
Moderating the discussions, Praveer welcomed all experts and activists, to deliberate on the topic
The two child norm phenomenon is a reflection of neo-Malthusian mindset, and brings undue pressure on population programmes being implemented.
These population programmes, brings undue pressure and discrimination tactics targeted at women, minorities and adivasi communities.(SC-ST/dalit)
Myths are created around the communities as to how they contribute to population
explosion, and the whole development discussions shifts, with people being brought to a
victim-hood status (as if they have done some crime), for their poor living status, and State
receding away from its duties.
Reading from the background papers circulated he shared the tentative schedule for the discussion,
and the objective to have some ‘way ahead’ strategy on the issue.
Discussions
Dr Abhijit Das, Centre for Health and Social Justice (CHSJ) - In his presentation he dealt with the
myth of population explosion. Over the years how Family Planning program in India has emerged
from ‘control’ towards ‘welfare’ or ‘planning’ in theory but largely is still working with the former
mindset of ‘control’. His presentation related to breaking the myths related to India’s Population and
Development, discussing Critical Demographic Shift in the Last Fifty Years, and more.
While India’s population is not in an ‘explosive’ situation but has stabilized over the years,
population growth continues to be high because….
Large proportion of the population is the reproductive age group (estimated contribution
58%) – leading to momentum effect.
High fertility due to unmet needs for contraception (estimated 20%)
High fertility due to high infant mortality rate
Over 50% girls are married before the age of 18- leading to “too early, too frequent, too
many”. 33% births occur before 24 months
Meeting Minutes - 15 December 2017 (Ranchi)
There is need to focus more on Spacing methods rather than on Sterilisations. People from poor
families have more children because they do not want to take risk of their children dying due to lack
of sufficient and quality health services at all level. Once women have full control over their
reproductive rights (from State, Community and Families) then they themselves restrict the number
of pregnancy. It founds that families control their size of family themselves if governments full their
basic responsibility of quality education, health facilities and employment opportunities without any
discrimination from community level.
In Jharkhand which has a high child marriage rate there is need for working with young people and
those into early marriage, as no one talks about provisioning of family planning services for them.
ASHA workers are trained to talk to couples having two children and thus focus on delayed first child
followed by spacing is very little.
If the population momentum is given a ‘brake’ suddenly, then as witnessed in Haryana, Punjab,
Himachal, the sex selective processes will increase as Indian families still carry the gender bias of a
preference for a male child, rather than a girl child.
Devika Biswas, Healthwatch Forum - She shared how the norm of two children was fought in the
state of Bihar. The Jan Adhikar Manch worked actively with panchayat representatives and media to
build a pressure.
She referred to the 7 districts of Jharkhand where the TFR has been indicated as high, all with high
tribal populations and hence implications on family planning programmes (under Mission Parivaar
Vikas) in these districts as vital. The adivasi families bear more children, but the State has concern to
witness how many of these children remain alive (with a high infant/child mortality rate). The tribal
populations face death due to hunger and poor government provisioning.
Devika also shared about the how poor the conditions of sterilisation operations on women are. The
camp approach is still being followed with high violation of health rights. The sharing of her PIL
litigation and her documentation / fact findings on family planning sterilisation in Bihar, West
Bengal, Jharkhand and Chhatisgarh was also referred to, which gives basis to the call for better
quality standards in health.
Lindsay Barnes, Jan Chetna Manch – She majorly focused on the experiences of women with regard
to pregnancy and access to contraceptives / family planning services based on the study undertaken
amongst 500 women. She shared how the burden of contraceptives shifts majorly to women and
they face problems which men keep them aloof from. Also while women themselves are planning
for less children these days, such a policy will only create difficulties as government health services
are still of very poor quality and hardly accessible.
Suranjeen Prasad, Jan Swasthya Abhiyan – He also shared how in children’s Civic books it has an
absurd reference to the powers of State and Local Bodies, where the State has the power to dissolve
the local bodies as they are illiterate (less knowledgeable) and hence State can take away the local
bodies power ! This was a reflection of how democracy is being educated about, with biasness
towards giving more power to the Centralised State machinery, rather than making more
decentralised democratic structures. With regard to service provisioning he said that while most
people want small educated families but people don’t have the avenues to get what they want, (for
education they don’t have money). Likewise most women already decided to restrict their children,
Meeting Minutes - 15 December 2017 (Ranchi)
but they don’t have access to services. Also as a human right, it is for individuals and couples to
decide how many children they want.
Praveer Peter, Solidarity for Peace / GLRF –. The issue is of importance not just in terms of violation
of health rights but also democratic rights of citizens, hence the need to strategise in terms of
human rights approach. The two child norm is especially going to bring immense pressure and
discrimination on the adivasi and minority (Muslim) populations. With the growing discrimination
against them in the name of food habits, religious practices, such a policy will only give vent to new
forms of myth revivalism (like Muslims and Adivasi populations bear more children which gives rise
to poverty).
Hussain Fatmi, Forum to Engage Men – There is need for civil society representatives to understand
the issue further and especially those related to population myths versus facts. Once the civil society
actors get convinced with more facts in their hand, the engagement will be stronger. Men have be
more active players in family planning, how this can be done, needs to be strategised.
Moving Ahead
This being the first initial meet, in which the consensus of the participating organisations was
received to move forward, take the issue further, the next steps should be to strategise.
Strategies identified were long term and short term. Long term related to engaging men in family
planning, education process on demography etc. Short term related to the exact objective in hand –
of mobilising people’s representatives on this issue, putting it on the media, advocating with the
legislature etc.
The objective of the Campaign – Public Education and Advocacy on how two child norm is
one major way through which demography can be used (with or without intention) to play
with the rights of the marginalised sections and hence calling for a roll-back of unfair two
child norm policy.
For moving forward a small coordination group was formed. This comprises of Praveer
(Solidarity Centre/ GLRF), Fatmi (FEM Jharkhand), Devika (Healthwatch Forum), Kalyani
(Prerana Bharati), Mahendra (CHSJ Jharkhand), Abhiruchi (Jagori)
Dr Abhijit (CHSJ) will extend his support to the campaign in Jharkhand through information
bulletins and presentations which can be shared widely. These will be useful as lot of effort
has to go into educating and myth shattering amongst the public (including people
representatives, media, intellectuals and activists). Devika will help in all kind of Hindi
translations while Praveer will review info materials for Jharkhand contextual analysis and
marginality / community inclusion.
The status of the TCN notification and its implementation will have to be monitored.
Groups working on different thematic fronts need to be in brought into the campaign for
its comprehensiveness. Thus groups or individuals working with media, panchayat raj, food
rights, adivasi issues, dalit, youth or human rights need to be contacted.
Media will be one of the stakeholders who need to be worked with, to build an opinion.
Some of the activists with Journalism background can be helpful in alternative media (like
Video Volunteers), but still mainstream print media will have to be oriented, as their
readership is high.
Meeting Minutes - 15 December 2017 (Ranchi)
Some organisations will start building contact in their urban and rural constituencies to
reach people representatives of panchayat/ wards. Deoghar, Chatra, Dumka, Bokaro, Gumla,
Lohardaga, Palamau, Ranchi, Pakur, and more districts will be reached.
The Campaign Collective will be presently not give a formal name or structure, as inclusive
approach needs to be maintained. Once the campaign strategy gets more detailed a
structure will evolve, over a time. The interest of the organisation / individual on the subject
of demography, family planning programming and human cum democratic rights need to be
the basis.
Communication will be maintained between members by Praveer and Coordination Group.
Some social networking strategy can also be used to take the issue forward.
The next meeting of the Two Child Norm Campaign will be in end January of 2018, for
further planning.
Meeting Minutes - 15 December 2017 (Ranchi)
Meeting Minutes - 15 December 2017 (Ranchi)
Participants
Sl.No.
Name Organisation Contact Details
1 Kalyani K Meena Prerana Bharati [email protected]
2 Emami Murmu Pragatisheel Mahila Sabha
3 Devika Biswas Jharkhand Healthwatch Forum [email protected]
4 Priyasheela Besra Saheli Adhyayan Kendra [email protected]
5 Lukman Ansari Dastak Manch
6 Tilakdhari Ravani Jharkhand Gramin Vikas Trust
7 Tapan Kr Addi Sahyogini [email protected]
8 Manohar Kumar Jan Sarokar [email protected]
9 Arjun Kumar Jan Sarokar
10 Rahul Mehta Bhavishya Kiran [email protected]
11 Chandan Singh Pratigya [email protected]
12 Awdhesh Kumar Sahbhagi Vikas [email protected]
13 Rajiv Ranjan Sinha Srijan Foundation [email protected]
14 Ravi Kumar Mahila Mukti Sanstha/FEM-JH
15 Dilip Kumar Samadhan
16 Shankar Lal Rana Samarpan [email protected]
17 Amita Khalkho Breakthrough [email protected]
18 Aprajita Mishra Maitri [email protected]
19 Smita Dasgupta Maitri [email protected]
20 Pawan Maitri
21 Binod Kachhap Maitri
22 Suranjeen Prasad JSA/ JHPIEGO [email protected]
23 Lindsay Barnes Jan Chetna Manch [email protected]
24 Asha Kumari Mahila Housing Trust
25 Jyotsna Sinha Mahila Housing Trust
26 Jayanto Choudhury NEEDS [email protected]
27 Deepak Bara Video Volunteers [email protected]
28 Warlus Surin Video Volunteers
29 C.A. Kumar Rupayani [email protected]
30 Sabita Banerjee Gramodaya Chetna Kendra
31 Ranjan Ghosh Jan Chetna Manch [email protected]
32 Abhiruchi Chatterjee Jagori [email protected]
33 Praveer Peter Solidarity Centre / GLRF [email protected]
34 H.I. Fatmi FEM Jharkhand [email protected]
35 Abhijit Das CHSJ [email protected]
36 Mahendra Kumar CHSJ [email protected]
