Critics say Narendra Modi’s decade-long rule has been one of jobless growth. Factories produced more, companies earned more, owners profited more, the government earned more; but fewer hands were hired, or those who were hired got work for fewer days. Putting the last two together, economists said the Indian economy generated fewer ‘man-days’.
Man-day is a term coined a century ago to denote the unit of one day’s work done by one person—what we call “all in a day’s work”. Thus, 100 man-days could be the amount of work done by one man in 100 days, 100 men in one day, 10 men in 10 days or 20 men in five days. Modi is now trying to get rid of this odium of jobless growth. In the first three months of Modi 3.0, the government launched nine mega building projects costing Rs2.5 lakh crore—a mammoth port at Vadhavan, two metro corridors, eight high-speed roads, 12 industrial smart cities, a rail line from Manmad to Indore, and more.
Now the million-job question: how many million man-days would these yield? Nil, says Ashwini Vaishnaw; not even a single man-day! Each project, the gender-fair minister said at a charts-and-graphs cabinet briefing early this month, would yield several million human-days. He even said sorry for a clerk-made ‘man-day’ mistake in a chart. Thank God, he left the Manmad-Indore line alone; no gauge conversion to Humanmad-Indore.
Imaging: Deni Lal
The government is seeking to be gender-neutral; Vaishnaw, who had loco-piloted the personal data protection bill a few months ago, where he replaced every ‘he’ with ‘she’, is one of its fiercest champions. Want to use a pronoun? Call ‘her’ rather than ‘him’. Section 2(y) of the act makes it clear that “unless the context otherwise requires,… ‘she’ in relation to an individual includes the reference to such individual irrespective of gender...”
Looks like India is going to be a no-man’s land. As women and child minister last November, Smriti Irani had launched a guide on gender-neutral communication compiled by the civil services academy, Mussoorie. It offered some 60 words and phrases such as ‘toughen up’ for ‘man up’, ‘owner’ for ‘landlord or landlady’, ‘humankind’ for ‘mankind’, and so on.
No quarrel. Society should progress towards gender justice and fairness, but let not the progress trample over the charm of the language. Take any word from the dictionary and you will find it had a different meaning once. Manufacture meant make by hand, but we use it for making with machines, and no one has thought of replacing it with machinofacture. Vernacular is no longer the tongue of the slave as the British meant it; we use it freely with no Malayali and Bengali taking offence. No male midwife would answer if he is called an accoucheur; he may hit you if you call him a midhusband or midspouse.
So ladies and gentlemen! Please be less rigid on these things. Several words may seem or sound gender-specific, but just leave them alone. Every word in a language has its etymology, a history and even its own little poetry. Everyone knows that a man-day doesn’t mean a man’s day, that hired hands don’t work with hands only, that stuff can be called man-made even if made by women, a man-eater doesn’t spare women, and that a manhole is best left without gender-mandering. Too much political correctness and gender rigidity would kill the poetry in our talk, and the beauty in our minds. Not convinced? Think of Neil Armstrong saying, “...one small step for a human being, one giant leap for humankind.”
Pedestrian! By my left foot!
prasannan@theweek.in