Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao - Count Ghar ki Laxmi's integral role
Email: khyati.khush@gmail.com
It is
said, that status of women in a society determines status of development of the
society, and that when you educate a man, you educate an individual, you
educate a woman, you educate an entire family. India has a rich history of
empowered women. However, gradually the status of women degraded to the extent
that female foeticide got widely practised. This resulted in wide gender
disparities in the Indian society. The GII (Gender Inequality Index) for India
in 2013 was 0.563, ranking 127th out of 186 countries. Child Sex Ratio
(0-6years) in India continued to decline from 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001 and
918 in 2011 census.
Women in
India - Kal aur Aaj
India has
been an agricultural country - 'krishi pradhan desh'.
Predominantly, agriculture and allied activities are dependent on
family labour, with women playing an integral role and have been acknowledged
as an economic asset. If you see all festivals in India revolve around the crop
seasons and women hold a key role in each of these festivals, be it Lohri,
Holi, Karwa Chauth, Diwali or Basant Panchmi. Most women, across
regions, religions, castes and classes, are engaged either as female family
workers or agricultural wage earners in agriculture or agricultural processing
or animal husbandry. The socio-cultural factors have been largely responsible
for continued higher level of women labour participation in the economic
activities of the state, however considered disguised.
Nonetheless,
the devaluation of women's labour and cultural disrespect to their contribution
in the process of economic development has degraded their status in the
society. Studies have quoted wage-work gap for women labour. Such as Swarna S
Vepa, in her paper published in 2005, calculated that on an average spend 23.6
hours a week on economic activities, but receives payment for 60 per cent of
their work.
Post independence, since economic stability could not be based on a trade-off
between economic prosperity and social justice, Sovereign India at once
abolished the feudalist zamindari system (Tenancy Reforms). But in regions
around Haryana-Punjab, it re-emerged in the form of landlord dominated peasant
society, wherein most farmers are still landless working for rich agricultural
land-owners/farmers. Ofcourse denoting that most women labourers are tenants
and wage earners, and personal laws and customary practices has retained
widespread landlessness amongst women in the rural society.These poor property
rights to women sustain the devaluation of their contribution to economic activities
and counts their job-roles as ‘inferior’.
 |
| Women - Then and Now (Kal aur Aaj) - Laxmi vs Ghar ki laxmi |
Amongst all the states, Haryana has ever dealt with the infamy of skewed gender
ratios and the case of its missing daughters has oft been highlighted over
the decades; the state has been a gender critical state, where daughters are
rarely given a chance to step out of the womb and gender violence is
rampant. Despite
high contributions made by women in the economic prosperity of the state from
green and white revolution, the prosperity didn’t translate into improving the
human development indices, particularly for women.
Hence, women largely are seen as economic liability, and then social customs such as dowry add-on to this deemed economic liability to the status of women. Eventually, economic liability became social liability, and everybody preferred to have a son over daughter. Ultimately, infanticide and feticide became a practice in the society. The skewed sex ratio in the state has nurtured the practice of ‘attabatta’ – a girl will be married in exchange of another girl for her brother. The deficit of suitable brides has shot up so much so that in almost every village one could find hundreds of young males who are not getting married at the suitable age.
This has led to the practice of buying brides from other states of the country, and poor girls from North Eastern states, Bihar, Odisha etc are being even trafficked to meet the deficit. It has also added many cruel dimensions to the nature of violence and crime against women in the state, making them more vulnerable. The crime and question of safety and security of women has further added to the social liability of girl child, and feticide menace has become a vicious circle.
Hence, women largely are seen as economic liability, and then social customs such as dowry add-on to this deemed economic liability to the status of women. Eventually, economic liability became social liability, and everybody preferred to have a son over daughter. Ultimately, infanticide and feticide became a practice in the society. The skewed sex ratio in the state has nurtured the practice of ‘attabatta’ – a girl will be married in exchange of another girl for her brother. The deficit of suitable brides has shot up so much so that in almost every village one could find hundreds of young males who are not getting married at the suitable age.
This has led to the practice of buying brides from other states of the country, and poor girls from North Eastern states, Bihar, Odisha etc are being even trafficked to meet the deficit. It has also added many cruel dimensions to the nature of violence and crime against women in the state, making them more vulnerable. The crime and question of safety and security of women has further added to the social liability of girl child, and feticide menace has become a vicious circle.
The Vicious Circle
A woman's identity is largely subdued out of stereotyped gender roles, sexuality and femininity. Both Men and Women have been two wheels of the society. Indian culture has revered men and women as Shiva and Shakti, both are complementary elements to one another. However, stereotyped gender roles over millennia have trapped women's identity to secondary status.
The reproductive role of women which was considered as one of most sacred powers of nature, became the only important role for women's existence. Over time femininity was highly stereotyped around this role, and further the sexual objectification subdued status of women to her sexual identity. On economic front, despite her high contribution in agrarian economies, women are seen as immobile labour, which follows wage-gap, low work participation rates amongst women.
On one hand, socially approved femininity revolves around women's sexuality that includes clear/fair skin, body shape, etc and perfection in household chores, which are seen as only women chores. On the other hand, with advent of consumerism, women have been the central focus of all marketing attempts so as to help them in the quest for social acceptance. Coupled with all these issues, women are seen as more of economic liability, and with rising social crimes arising out of her sexual objectification, women are seen as social liability also, and therefore, subjugated, and the vicious circle continues...
Right from basic needs to esteem needs, her existence is outrightly dependent on everything but herself. Challenges of being women trapped into the aforementioned vicious circle, includes feticide, infanticide, poor property rights, inheritance rights, crime against women, sexual objectification, identity dependence, etc leading to existentialism crisis and submissive psychology. This submissive psychology further reverberates through the next generations, because status of women is the reflection of society's health, and the vicious circle continues... Rather, the gender gap gets wider and wider...
Breakthrough
In order
to combat the multi-dimensional damage cause to gender equality in India owing
to the discredited role of women in the society, the state has been undertaking
several initiatives. Starting from Right to life - 'Beti bachao' - calls
protecting the girl child against the feticide menace. The PCPNDT laws if
strictly implemented prohibits selective sex abortions and punishes the
culprits - family, medical practitioner and facilitator - all. Then, there are
several education and skill programmes / schemes especially designed for girl
child functional since planned development started in India. Similarly, there
are focused health and nutrition schemes / programmes to ensure health and education
to women in India. Further, to mitigate the risk of gender crimes, there are
several laws been enacted in India to protect women against domestic violence,
dowry, sexual assault or rape.
A. Identity beyond X, Y Chromosome
So many
laws and schemes but none to cease the gender chaos. The gender violence,
crimes and discrimination has been rampant and increasing each day. All these
laws and schemes are mere supplements to the ailment. The real sanjeevni lies
in recognizing and awarding the integral role of women at home, in each family,
building the society with whatever they grow up with. Keeping view of the
Maslow's Need Hierarchy pyramid, women struggle to ensure existence at each
step throughout their lives owing to their subdued status in society.
Infact,
Maslow himself viewed that there would be 2-types of women - High dominance and
Low dominance - the former struggle less to get through these needs but are not
considered 'feminine' - while, the latter are more acceptable - but hardly get
through these needs and reach self-actualization level. The first breakthrough is in identifying her identity beyond the most revered sexual and reproductive role in the society. The stereotyped gender roles must burst, and both men and women should be seen capable of playing similar roles. There is no household work that a man cant do, or any labour work that a woman cant do.
B. Count her contribution
In agrarian economies like India, women have always been at the core of all economic activities. Women in India have been seen as' Ghar ki Laxmi' since ancient times. Family has been the micro unit in the ancient Indian economics. It is only under western influence that competitive individual role came into picture. The concept of 'Bread winner' kept men at dominating end. Gradually the integral role of women in Indian economy lost dignity of labour.
In order to break the vicious circle of gender gap, counting on her economic contribution is very important. Women have been playing an integral role in the society in traditional economies - as agri-workers, animal rearing, weavers, caretakers, nurses, artisans, etc. Post globalisation, women have been successfully taking up professional roles, and many have been political leaders, business leaders, entrepreneurs, diplomats and sports women. Women are breaking barriers and myths, so as to break the bondage of economic liability added to their status in society. This is a long way to go... The call for Beti Bachao and Beti Padhao plays a significant role in creating an enabling ecosystem for women to break the vicious circle.
C. Justice Delivery
Last and not the least, swift and speedy delivery of justice in cases of crime against women is important to reinstate fear of law amongst the criminals and check the rise of sick mentality towards status of women.
Strict implementation of laws and rules enacted to protect women from violence, such as PCPNDT Act to check female feticide, Dowry Act, Sexual Harassment at workplace Act, offences under IPC for sexual abuse, rape, molestation, acid attack, etc must be emphasized. So many rules and no strict enforcement is no law and order.
Severity, certainty, and swiftness in administration of justice must be ensured to strengthen the perception that the wrong doers would be caught and punished. Minimizing the huge time lag between commission of the offence and final delivery of sentence is another factor that dilutes the deterrent impact.
Strict implementation of laws and rules enacted to protect women from violence, such as PCPNDT Act to check female feticide, Dowry Act, Sexual Harassment at workplace Act, offences under IPC for sexual abuse, rape, molestation, acid attack, etc must be emphasized. So many rules and no strict enforcement is no law and order.
Severity, certainty, and swiftness in administration of justice must be ensured to strengthen the perception that the wrong doers would be caught and punished. Minimizing the huge time lag between commission of the offence and final delivery of sentence is another factor that dilutes the deterrent impact.
Way forward
In the end, women's role in emancipating their status towards building a healthy society must be taken on high priority. Since, women - seen as 'Shakti' in India - are gifted with powers to nurture and create, the onus of reviving the ancient Indian values to build a just society largely depends on their commitment to fight back and their level of awareness to pass on just values to the coming generations. Women is the first teacher of a man, so all men in the patriarchal system are not solely to be blamed for the gender disparity.
Women need to let go their submissive psychology and simultaneously dismiss the notion of inferiority. They need to take up roles they have been denied quoting their feminine inferiority, and preach their sons gender equality - in practice. Women must take up the responsibility of busting myths on gender roles, stratified rules and nonetheless, stop playing victim card, where sometimes, some women have been misusing protecting laws.
In addition to these, women need to be loud enough to protest against sexual objectification of women in consumer market or otherwise at public places or in social circles. It cannot be denied that women have been playing a centrifugal role in escalating social acceptance standards. Social acceptance is something that goes around, comes around. The society needs to stop seeing women as fancy objects, and only women can bring this to fore.
Women need to let go their submissive psychology and simultaneously dismiss the notion of inferiority. They need to take up roles they have been denied quoting their feminine inferiority, and preach their sons gender equality - in practice. Women must take up the responsibility of busting myths on gender roles, stratified rules and nonetheless, stop playing victim card, where sometimes, some women have been misusing protecting laws.
In addition to these, women need to be loud enough to protest against sexual objectification of women in consumer market or otherwise at public places or in social circles. It cannot be denied that women have been playing a centrifugal role in escalating social acceptance standards. Social acceptance is something that goes around, comes around. The society needs to stop seeing women as fancy objects, and only women can bring this to fore.
1.
http://unicef.in/PressReleases/227/Female-foeticide-in-India (Accessed
on 08-8-2017)
3.
Press Releases, Govt of Haryana. April 2017.
4.
Chowdhry, P. ‘High Participation and Low Evaluation – Women and Work
in Rural Haryana’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.28, No.52, December
15, 1993.p.135-148.
5.
Swarna S Vepa, ‘Feminisation of Agriculture and Marginalisation of
their Economic Stake’, Economic and Political Weekly, 2005.
6.
Chowdhry, P. ‘The Veiled women – Shifting Gender Equations in
Rural Haryana’, Oxford University Press, 2004.
7.
Sen, P. ‘Customary Laws over land & land rights of women in
Haryana’, IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science, ISSN:
2279-0845, Volume 20, Issue 12, Ver. II (Dec. 2015) PP 10-24.
8.
Refer
https://maslowonwomen.wordpress.com/maslow/theory-of-needs-and-self-actualisation/
Comments
Post a Comment