Why India Needs Modi’s #SelfieWithDaughter Campaign

First there was #SelfieWithModi, a campaign to promote the Indian Prime Minister ahead of state elections in Delhi, now Narendra Modi wants Indians to take a #SelfieWithDaughter to champion girls in a country where far fewer daughters are born each year than sons.

Mr. Modi borrowed the idea from the head of a village where the number of girls to boys is particularly skewed in favor of males.

In his monthly radio broadcast on Sunday, Mr. Modi asked listeners to tweet photos of themselves and their daughters. His encouragement set #SelfieWithDaughter trending worldwide on Sunday, according to some local media reports.

Mr. Modi, who usually uses the selfie for its original self-promotional purpose – like this one he took with Chinese premier Li Keqiang or this one with Tony Abbot, his Australian counterpart adopted the photo campaign from a small, north Indian state – Haryana – where a village politician is seeking to improve the state’s reputation as the most unequal in terms of gender balance.

Haryana, with just 834 girls for every 1,000 boys under the age of six years old,  stood last in a list ranking states according to their child sex ratio in the 2011 nationwide census.

India’s child sex ratio has deteriorated sharply over the past 20 years, dropping to 918 in 2011 from 945 in 1991.

The states with the worst sex ratios have redressed the balance somewhat thanks to the focus of advocacy groups on female feticide issues.

Haryana has made improvements in recent years: The ratio of girls to boys in the state climbed to 834 in 2011 from 819 in 2001.

Punjab, another northern state where the numbers have been consistently tipped in favor of males, saw even greater improvements: From 798 girls for 1,000 boys born in 2001, to 846 girls in 2011.

But a United Nations study in July said that despite laws that seek to block the use of pre-natal tests to determine the sex of an unborn child, parents in India prefer sons for a variety of reasons, including anxiety surrounding the safety and security of women.

There have been few prosecutions under laws preventing pre-natal sex determination testing.

And U.N. researchers said things look like they are getting more unbalanced.  Even states like Meghalaya and Nagaland, which have had a more balanced sex ratio in the past, have experienced a declining proportion of girls to boys in recent decades.

Corrections: A previous version of this post incorrectly stated that daughters inherit in preference to sons in Nagaland. In fact, this is only the case in Meghalaya.

Bihar Legislative Assembly election 2015

In the hour of Narendra Modi's electoral triumph last year, he could not have imagined that only a year-and-a-half later, he would face a situation where he and his party would have to devote all their energies to maintain their prime position in the political field.

Unless Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are able to overcome the cballenge of their opponents in the Bihar assembly elections this coming winter, their grip on the throne in Delhi will become shaky.

The first sign that all was not well for Modi in Bihar was available last August when the Janata Dal-United (JD-U), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress overcame the setbacks they had suffered in the general elections a few months earlier to win six of the 10 assembly by-elections in the state.

The BJP's tally of four pointed to a waning of the Modi wave that had enabled the party to win 22 of the 40 parliamentary seats in Bihar in May, 2014. With the BJP's allies, the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) winning six and the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) three, the BJP-plus group's total went up to 31.

To the BJP's satisfaction, the worst show was by its former ally, Nitish Kumar's JD-U, which could win only two seats while the latter's one-time arch-enemy and now an ally, Lalu Prasad's RJD won seven, showing that its victory by over 136,000 votes over the JD-U in the Maharajganj by-election in June, 2013, was not a fluke.

Clearly, Nitish Kumar's contention that Lalu Prasad had presided over a "jungle raj" in Bihar when the RJD was in power between 1990 and 2005 had not significantly eroded the latter's base of support.

But, now, political exigencies have compelled Nitish Kumar to push Lalu Prasad to the background. The JD-U chief is now the chief ministerial candidate of the Janata "parivar" led by Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party (SP).

The BJP, however, is unlikely to be too perturbed by these developments. For one, the "parivar" has been saved in the nick of time because only a few weeks ago, it was being said by the SP leaders that the group would not be formed before the Bihar elections. Even now, its "unity" is apparently confined only to Bihar.

For another, Lalu Prasad's observation that he was ready to consume poison - accept humiliation for the sake of fighting the "cobra of communalism" - has been seen to reflect his unhappiness over Nitish Kumar's elevation.

The RJD chief's distress is understandable because his conviction in the fodder scam has undone his gradual political gains as was evident from his party winning of seven parliamentary seats and three assembly by-election seats in Bihar in 2014.

Although the Manmohan Singh government tried to save him with Sonia Gandhi's blessings by enacting an ordinance seeking to overturn the judicial diktat disqualifying convicted legislators, the document was torn up in front of television cameras by Rahul Gandhi. It was this act that has now led to the anointment of Nitish Kumar at Lalu Prasad's expense.

But, the fraught relations between the two OBC leaders could not have been eased by the outward show of bonhomie if only because the RJD leader, as a Yadav chieftain, can claim to have the support of the largest group of the backward castes in Bihar since the Yadavs comprise 16 per cent of the population.

Lalu Prasad, therefore, undoubtedly saw himself as the obvious chief ministerial candidate of the Janata parivar till he was unceremoniously dumped in favour of Nitish Kumar, who is a Kurmi, a backward caste which makes up a mere 3.7 per cent of the state's population.

The preponderance of the caste factor may seem odd and even laughable to people outside the Bihar-Uttar Pradesh "cow belt". But, it is a matter which is at the heart of electoral calculations in the region.

Although Modi regretted the continued dominance of casteism in Bihar during a recent visit to the state, it is precisely these caste-based animosities that the BJP will try to exploit during the poll campaign.

What is more, to show that it is not lagging behind in playing the caste card itself, the party has claimed that the Mauryan emperors, Chandragupta (324-300 BC) and Ashoka (272-232 BC), who ruled from Patalipura, the ancient name of Patna, were of backward caste origin - Kushwaha or Koeri.

What may be considered unfortunate, however, is why the BJP should have fallen back on these regressive tactics when its USP is supposed to be the prime minister's development mantra. It was this agenda which won the BJP its famous victory in the general election.

If it is now resorting to the familiar divisive means of the Hindi heartland to edge ahead of its opponents, the reason probably is the party's realization that it hasn't been able to push the economic reforms vigorously enough to fulfil its last year's promises.

Given this failure, the most which the BJP can expect is a narrow victory, which will be nearly as much damaging to its reputation as a defeat.

#ModiInBangladesh

Prime Minister Narendra Modi may be carrying the "gift" of a ratified Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) for the Sheikh Hasina-led Bangladesh government during his two-day Dhaka visit beginning Saturday. But a lot remains to be done by New Delhi for the greater good of not just the two neighbours who share a 4,096km long boundary but also the region.

PM Modi in making his first visit to India's next door neighbour will be hoping to reinforce his government's foreign policy focus on "Neighbourhood First" as well as its "Act East" approach.

The delivery of the LBA pact will bring some satisfaction to the Sheikh Hasina government that has stuck its neck out in its outreach to New Delhi, in the process drawing strident criticism from opposition parties such as the Khaleda Zia-led Bangladesh National Party (BNP) known for its anti-India stance.

Incidentally, Modi will be meeting both former PM Begum Zia as well as the Leader of the Opposition, Jatiya Party leader Begum Raushan Ershad during his two-day visit.

With the Modi government delivering the LBA - it had strongly opposed the proposed pact while in opposition though - it has come as some sort of vindication for the Awami League government led by Sheikh Hasina that's waited long for India do its bit on the boundary pact.

Foreign secretary S Jaishankar said on the eve of the PM's visit to Dhaka that the "centrepiece" of the visit will be the conclusion of the LBA with Bangladesh with whom India shares the longest land boundary. The PM himself has said that the LBA's ratification "marks a watershed moment in our bilateral ties with Bangladesh".

Significantly, Jaishankar also drew attention to the fact that with the LBA as well as the maritime boundary arbitration between the two neighbours, India has "completely settled its boundary with Bangladesh".

Once the LBA comes into force, New Delhi is hopeful that it will help in the management of the India-Bangladesh border in terms of both stability and security, in the process benefitting both countries.

Describing it as a "confidence dividend", Jaishankar further said that once the border was secure, the two sides will be able to do much more in terms of connectivity which in turn will help in the movement of both goods and services.

Having delivered on the LBA, India is hoping that this will provide a greater momentum to bilateral ties. Said Jaishankar, "We see this having an impact across the board on the relationship and we hope the visit will consolidate and deepen our relationship."

An important member who will be part of the PM's delegation to Dhaka will be West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. The Trinamool Congress leader had pulled out of then PM Manmohan Singh's delegation headed for Dhaka at the last minute in September 2011 owing to her opposition to the Teesta pact which was to be inked during the visit.

Her nth hour decision had caused considerable embarrassment to the UPA government, more so as her party was an alliance member.

With the LBA done, the Sheikh Hasina government will now eagerly await the conclusion of the Teesta pact. The Teesta water sharing agreement, if and when it is signed, will mark yet another watershed in bilateral ties.

However, while Mamata may have dropped her opposition to the LBA, it's unlikely that she'll have a change of heart on the sharing of the Teesta waters so easily or swiftly. Not at least until Assembly elections have been held in West Bengal next year for she would not like to be seen compromising on a sensitive issue like water or giving away her state's "rights" on the Teesta waters.

During a meeting of the India-Bangladesh Joint Commission in September last year, New Delhi had told Dhaka that it was aware of the fact that the Teesta pact is "a matter of priority for Bangladesh". During the meeting, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj had also told her Bangladeshi counterpart that the Indian government needs a "political consensus" and that the "process is under way".

Yet another bilateral matter that continues to bother Dhaka and which the Modi government will need to address more rigorously is that of trade imbalance which is in India's favour. Jaishankar voiced the hope Friday that the PM's visit "will see some improvement in the investment climate between the two countries".

Bangladesh is India's largest trading partner in South Asia and bilateral trade was an estimated 6.5 billion US dollars. As part of its endeavour to address the issue of trade imbalance, India wants to have Special Economic Zones in Bangladesh where Indian businessmen can invest. There are indications that an MoU allowing the setting up of such SEZs may be signed during the Modi visit.

With the Indian government having finally delivered the LBA, expectations now from Bangladesh are high. It's for the Modi government to press ahead and forge stronger ties with Dhaka.