'Zero discrimination' should be everyone's agenda!

'Discrimination' is one of the worst crimes we all are subjected to at one stage or the other in our personal and professional life. It is as old as Gods and as worst as Demons and there seems to be no end in sight. As Amnesty International rightly pointed out, discrimination strikes at the very heart of being human. It is harming people's rights and causing a lot of mental agony. Though we all have the right to be treated equally, regardless of our race, ethnicity, nationality, class, caste, religion, belief, sex, gender, age, language, sexual orientation, health, and knowledge levels, discrimination is indiscriminately widespread in our society. Though we have loads of laws at national level to ensure social harmony by promote camaraderie among citizens and treaties at international level to protect human rights, discrimination is omnipresent and the cruel practice is taking various worst forms in the modern world too.The wild behaviour of the people belonging to certain nations and religions during the COVID-19 crisis made it abundantly clear that we, as human beings, are not equipped to deal with the issue of 'discrimination.' Worst of all, the malicious discriminative practices on the digital world is quite appalling. In the absence of sincere efforts to instill and promote inclusiveness and compassion in the citizenry, human beings are turning into inhuman beasts.

The United Nations and other international organisations celebrate March 1 (today) as "Zero Discrimination Day" every year to help countries to create a global movement of solidarity to end all forms of discrimination. Though this year's theme ("Save lives: Decriminalise") meant to highlight how the decriminalisation of key populations and people living with HIV saves lives and helps advance the end of the AIDS pandemic, I wish to deal with the central theme (discrimination) to discuss three types of worst discrimination we are facing in our lives: sexism, casteism and bossism.

Sexism: The biggest concern

Discrimination kills the sense of participation and pushes the victims out of nation building process. Our governments talk big about making India a super power but sex-based discriminative practices internally are a cause for grave concern. Suppression of girls and women in every sphere of our lives would reflect in every national and international survey every year. India is ranked 135 in gender parity out of 146 countries in the 'Global Gender Gap Report 2022' released by the World Economic Forum. Amid the din and dust of high impactful media campaigns, we don't get a chance to know that our country is the worst performer in world in an index, namely "health and survival." Our rank is 146 out of the same number of countries and we stand at 143 when it comes to 'economic participation and opportunity' for women. We are doing somewhat better in political empowerment (48), though we fare very poorly in another key index, 'education attainment' (107). When the first gender gap report was released in 2006, India stood at 98 among 115 countries and the situation is deteriorating with every passing year. India has shown some improvement in gender diversity on Boards (from 6 percent in 2013 to 18 percent in 2022) but still lags behind advanced countries such as the US, the UK, France and Sweden. How many of them would become chairpersons, is a big question. It was projected that doubling the percentage of women in the workforce would raise India's GDP to US$700 billion by 2025 and increase the growth rate from 7.5% to 9%. The patriarchal Indian society is unable to get rid of the deep-rooted gender discrimination and sadly crime against girls and women is increasing at depressing levels. Gruesome murder cases and rape cases are on the rise. As per the data released by the National Crime Record Bureau, crime against women rose by 15.3 percent in 2021 from the previous year. A majority of these cases (31.8 percent) fall in the category of 'cruelty by husband or his relatives' giving a clear indication that women are subjected to physical abuse after being discriminated and tortured.About a quarter of Indians (23%) said there is "a lot of discrimination" against women in India, according to Pew Research Survey. In the Southern states of Telangana and Tamil Nadu, more than a third of adults said there is a lot of discrimination against women (44% and 39% respectively). Come March 8, we celebrate the international women's day with pomp in every corner but our womenfolk are subjected to discrimination all through.

Casteism: The worst evil

Another discrimination that is troubling the soul of India is based on caste considerations. Our society may be caste-based but caste politics is aiding and abetting this regressive evil. Irrespective of their ideologies, almost all political parties are going by caste equations in selecting their candidates and luring voters.

(The author, a Ph.D. in Communication and Journalism, is a senior journalist, journalism educator, and communication consultant)