1. On any given day, women in the world's largest democracy must refrain from stepping out to share an alcoholic beverage or in some cases even a chat with associates that belong to the opposite sex. If sighted, she is socially doomed for life as such 'fast' women destroy the moral fabric of a free state whose foundation was based on an exemplary struggle by and for the emancipation of men and women equally. Yet, in the world's largest democracy, it is a woman who is head of state and it is a woman who essentially controls its politics. This large democracy then must also be a land of hypocrites. "A woman is a mother, she is a wife, she is a sister", is an oft-quoted remark in this land. Is a woman just that? Is she not a human being? The minute she has an identity not associated with being some one's mother, some one's wife and somebody else's sister, this land of liberty, equality, fraternity erupts and goes in to a neurotic tailspin. The land of the free is also a land of the insecure.
2. There is a 52.2% chance that a woman in this country of GDP growth at 9% is not literate. The average amount a woman earns is one-fifth of what the men do. Yet each year, women outperform men in school-leaving exams across the country. Women in the poorest of villages are the reason why a healthy micro-credit industry thrives in this country.
3. The gargantuan democracy is obsessed with discussing the grandiose idea of India. Yet it misses, overlooks and sometimes suppresses the gross injustices meted out to the economically immobile and more tragically to its women, which ever income group they may belong to. If for the poor woman her daily bread and her physical security are major concerns, for the more fortunate it is the constant struggle to be able to make her own choices.
4. A woman here is not then just a mother, wife and sister. She is the one who must bear the scars of the trials and tribulations that a society calling it self democratic, fails to be so in practice.
5. A change in the condition must begin somewhere. We can hope and act such that tongue in cheek efforts such as these , combined with real emancipatory programs will one day allow women at every strata experience not just the idea, but a truly democratic India
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This state of affairs is intolerable, agreed. Yet it is intolerable not because India is the world's largest democracy and booming economically but rather because the Indian state purports to uphold more than just democracy. It purports to recognize and protect the rights of its citizens, to stand for liberal values in the Enlightenment-era sense.
ReplyDeleteA mere democracy, or theocracy or autocracy for that matter, regardless of its economic growth rate, has no obligation to allow women or any other group an equal status. A democracy is rule of the people, whether they believe in enlightened liberal ideals or more feudal notions. Democracy and the process it entails can do nothing more than channel latent popular values and have often done much less than this in India's history.
This state of affairs is intolerable because we are liberal-thinking people who believe that individuals ought to have certain basic rights, independent of notions of women as "mother, wife and sister" or any other social construct. While a painful reminder of how badly half the population has it, incidents such as those in Mangalore in my view do not lessen the need for a grandiose idea of India. Mangalore was a clash of two different experiences of India, of two Indias in a sense. A grandiose and broadly-held idea of India is needed, and the question is whether it will be a liberal one that admits certain inalienable rights to all, women and the economically immobile included.
The grandiosity is there but the wide acceptance is lacking. The result is negotiation of the differences the streets and the losers are the women in Mangalore, women who are denied any education, competitive intolerance on the part of those representing "communities" ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/south_asia/7883612.stm ), and other problems. It's not just a change in the condition but a re-imagining of the idea of India that needs to begin somewhere.
-Raj Malhotra
I think the author is making the point that in a democracy all persons are equal. This should lead to equal treatment for each woman in the country. A democracy doesn't talk of "women" as a group or of different groups having "equal status". It merely but fully guarantees every person, individually, his or her rights.
ReplyDeleteRaj, the article you linked is enlightening. Our penal code itself allows people to express their "outraged religious feelings". Where did we lose track of freedom of speech? Can no-one express their opinion anymore without the fear of outraging some random soul and going to prison for that? I know this diverts from the topic of equality for all, another supposedly inalienable right that Tissera is speaking of.
ReplyDeleteThank you for some great comments.
ReplyDeleteRaj, while I agree that being a democracy does not automatically imply that we are a liberal society where men and women are equal, yet this idea of an equal society was central to the founding of our democracy. Hence the idea of India at the time of independence was of a country where there would be no discrimination on the basis of gender.
However, I do agree that the nation in sixty years has not been able to change its attitude towards women and the marginalized in general. For such a change, the establishment and sustenance of a democracy was the first and founding step. Since then efforts have been made to uplift women, yet they have been insufficient. As a society and civilization, we need to learn to look at fellow citizens of a different gender, race, religion, caste or class with a single eye. Holding up different moral standards for any citizen of the country must become unacceptable.
The hope is that tongue-in-cheek campaigns such as the ones cropping up against the Sri Ram Senas will make these right-wing vigilante groups seem ridiculous.
While a larger debate is required on the morality of such incidents, it is worth thinking about how one at a national scale may occur.
Sitaram Yechury for all his other shortcomings has said something similar in the HT : http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=ViewsEditorialSectionPage&id=02d7fb87-001b-4cb6-b45b-1a9773e4fdef&&Headline=Bharat+philharmonic
ReplyDeleteIf someone wishes to read a really well-written piece on the debate at hand,
ReplyDeletePratap Bhanu Mehta in the Express:
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/when-we-are-anxious/418438/
Sagarika Ghose in HT has written on very similar lines, and I'd say, even more directly.
ReplyDelete