EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN IN COMING YEARS
---Leena
Mehendale
I recall that way back in my student days I always considered myself lucky for having been born in free India and in an environment where access to education was not denied. Happily, it never occurred to me then or now to question the luck for being a woman.
Much later did I realize how great it was to be educated and to be treated as equal. Since then I have cherished the Constitution of India wherein the very preamble pledges the Indian citizen for secular democracy and equality to all irrespective of “Religion, Race, Caste, Sex or Place of birth". The term 'secular' as it applies to Indian democracy is not restricted only in the sense of religion but carries the essence of equality to all without any discrimination on the ground of religion, race, sex, caste, place of birth or economic status.
During the 50 years prior to Indian independence we saw a substantial participation of women in the freedom movement, through revolutionary and social activities. We can cite the examples of Capt. Laxmi of the Azad Hind Fauj and Durgabhabhi or Kasturba Gandhi Kamla Nehru and many more who participated in either kind of activities.
It was a result of this meaningful participation of women in the freedom struggle and the social reforms started by great stalwarts like Swami Vivekanand, Dayanand Saraswati, Subramanyam Bharati, Savitribai Fule or Mahatma Gandhi etc. etc. that while drafting the Constitution of India, members of the drafting committee put great emphasis on being both secular and democratic in the governance of the country.
Women's empowerment needs some basic ingredients. They are
fearlessness (implying absence of crimes against women)
freedom from drudgery of laborious domestic chores
Economic earning and productivity
Ability to travel and control speed
Authority to take decision
Sharing power and property with men
A liberalizing education that can prepare grounds for the above.
First let us review the crime situation. The most alarming pointer to the declining status of women in the last 50 years, is the rampant female infanticide. This has now worsened into female foeticide and a pre-selection technique that prevents the very conception of a female fetus. The Census 2001 shows that the female to male sex ratio for the 0-6 age group has declined from 962 in 1981 to 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001. For women, the very right to be born is under jeopardy.
This decline is closely related to atrocities against women, within the family and outside. The cruelty shown to women in their married lives is a matter of grave concern. Annually, on average, the police registers nearly 5000 cases of dowry deaths and 31000 cases of dowry harassment. The number of cases of bigamy, deserted women, and divorce by mutual consent (often agreed to by a woman to escape domestic torture) is going up. It is estimated that more than 5 lac cases of deserted women are pending in various courts for maintenance.
This puts a question mark on the institution of family which is a characteristic and a representative of Indian society. If a woman is unsafe, or under fear and tension in her own house, then empowerment is a far cry.
Safety to woman outside her home is equally important. Annually nearly 12000 cases of rapes, 13000 cases of kidnapping and abduction of women, 26000 cases of molestation and 11000 cases of sexual harassment are registered. These nearly a lac cases represent, as per police’s own estimate, only 10 to 25 percent of the crimes actually perpetrated on women. These are further often affected by inadequate investigation, indifferent presentation in the courts, excruciating delays and insensitivity towards the problems and emotions of women victims. Even when women victims cope up with these inadequacies, the conviction rates that are as low as 15%, de- facto deny befitting justice to women.
Collective and organized crime against women like gang-rapes, mass rapes, sexual exploitations of young girls, flesh trade run by organized gangs in 5-star environment, increasing population in brothel houses, etc. are the common headlines of the newspapers. In latest sex scandals needy girls were lured with small temptation into posing for objectionable photographs and were then black-mailed for further sexual abuse. Through this several women are also being pushed into pornography.
Other variety of collective crime is where one group perpetuates sexual atrocities against the women of another group, in order to teach a lesson to the other group or collectively assault women “to break her spine".
Every stage in deterioration of law and order affects women victims more adversely, yet women have very little say in its management.
If freedom from fear is the first criterion of women’s empowerment, then a speedy justice delivery system needs to be ensured. We need to make our investigative machinery more efficient, the process of justice more sensitive towards women, and the punishment for sexual atrocities more stringent. There has to be a method of public monitoring of inefficiencies and delays. The entire justice delivery system may have to be revamped, going beyond the present monopoly of police and judicial machinery. What concrete steps and plans of action are before us for this? How do we present them for public monitoring?
After safety, comes the question of earning the bread. How does the woman of today earn her bread? By undertaking to work !
What type of work, how does she do it, how is it accounted for and how is she paid for it? We have to analyze four different issues.
Even after half century of independence, 70% of the women in workforce are employed and getting paid only for unskilled jobs. For example, at a construction site, women carrying head-loads of cement, mortar, bricks etc. up and down the stairs several times a day undertaking much more physical exertion are called unskilled labour. But men preparing the mortar once in a while, or laying bricks for the wall or keeping accounts of the material delivered , are regarded as skilled workers and get more wages. Thus , in most of the sectors, all the excruciatingly tiring and monotonous jobs of the women come in the category of unskilled work, and they are paid less wages.
Secondly, Women continuously perform jobs for which they do not get any payment, for example, collection of fire-wood for the house, carrying pales of water from a long distance, cooking and cleaning the house, daily purchases, looking after children, etc. A woman spends nearly six hours on these domestic jobs which are neither counted as work nor are paid for, but do demand labour, create drudgery and monotony, and there is no escape from these for an ordinary woman. Her status or respect that are so essential for empowerment, is not elevated by her capacity to perform these jobs.
In our society, a man is generally not required to participate in these domestic jobs as he is considered the epitome of empowerment. If seen sharing them, he is ridiculed for his “woman like behavior. It is extremely necessary that women get respect for doing these domestic chores, get full participation of the men-folk in the family and get occasional respite from these. Prepare such a mind-set is not within the capacity of government. The social thinkers, writers, voluntary organizations and several persons with sensitivity will have to work towards it. Even the religious organizations cannot escape from their responsibilities of creating such a mind-set without which their talk of an equitable society remains a rhetoric only.
To establish this respect, and enhance opportunities for economic independence, it is necessary to find ways of inter-change between the formal and informal sectors of education and give recognition, evaluation and respect for the typical skills acquired by women. For example, we are often concerned that the eldest daughter in a poor family misses her school education while looking after the younger kids in the house. We can have a policy in which girls having experience of handling smaller children could be given preference for appointment in crèches or for nursing courses just with the addition of some crash course to make up for the lost formal study. In practice, however, such a girl is considered ineligible; only the girls with formal schooling are given these opportunities while others remain trapped in informal sector.
Alika Aryan has aptly described how an ordinary middle class woman may define her concept of empowerment. Happiest is the woman who knows that a meaningful work was available for ensuring her economic independence, but does not have to actually do the work.
The role of proper education cannot be over emphasized. We have heard the old saying that true education must liberate!. On applying this litmus test we find that our education system today needs a complete overhaul in favor of economic productivity. The system has to be more vocational oriented and has to promote skill building. It should be a tool to character building in which the values of truth, honesty, expertise, justice and patriotism are carefully inculcated. It should be more easily accessible and should invoke quest for knowledge and traveling. For women, a revamped system of education is the second critical input after better crime control situation.
Our present system does not adequately provide for imparting vocational skills that alone can ensure a quick beginning of the earning. Presently, no vocational education can be started until 8 years of formal education. Women acquiring skills in traditional ways find no institutional arrangements for expanding or updating the same. Whenever vocational skills are to be converted into actual production and earnings, there arises a need for further training in managerial aspects such as procuring loan, marketing, financial management, quality control, inventory control, pricing, etc. There are no training institutions where such short courses are available at affordable costs as per the training needs of these women.
i)
Singing group songs
ii) March past and saluting the national
flag
iii) Cycling and
iv) Photography
Even from among these four, mastering the skill to ride the cycle and commute on the cycle was most effective in making the training successful. In another example of training to the rural women, a group was given vocational training in masonry work. However, after three months, the women demanded that the training emphasis should be changed. Accordingly they were trained not just as how to work as a mason but further as to how to fill up the tenders for the works in the Gram Panchayat and Taluka panchayat, how to engage construction labour, how to measure the work done, how to inspect quality of work done and accordingly decide the wage payment to the laborers etc. This women’s group has now become a “building contractor”. Third one is the example of many women sarpanchas who were able to achieve spectacular developments in their villages in areas of proper schooling for drop out girls, water-shed management and other rural development works. These examples show the importance of mobility, the decision making authority and economic viability in the issue of empowerment of women.
One powerful medium to spread vocational training facilities at a low cost is the TV network that has grown enormously in the last two decades. It is perhaps a sad commentary that the use of TV for imparting vocational skills to the millions of women residing in the far-flung corners of the country cannot compete with using TV for entertainment pro grammes in order to generate more revenue for the government. The priority should be fixed up immediately in favor of vocational skill building because imparting vocational education through formal schooling is enormously costly.
The discussion of women’s empowerment cannot be complete without discussing the issue of sharing power and property. The first step towards women’s empowerment was taken in the country immediately after independence when every adult woman was given equal constitutional right to vote and to contest the elections. This right has been earned by the Indian women much before it was earned by the women in many advanced countries. The rich contributions of Indian women in our struggle of independence earned them as much respect as to other freedom fighters. Immediately after independence, a large number of women were elected to Assemblies and Parliament.
Later, this number started dwindling. On the other hand, the need to decentralize power upto the village level was also felt. This culminated in the 74th Constitutional Amendment under which a new methodology of gram panchayat was envisaged, giving 33% reservation for women to be elected. This has resulted in a new wave of awareness and empowerment amongst women at the grass-root levels. In the last 12 years, we have seen newly elected first timers among the women Panch and Sarpanch who were very effective in implementing the schemes of female literacy, rural development, water and land conservation and prohibition. It must be said that the women have proved their capability for sharing political power as ably as the men.
Some eyebrows are raised on the issue of reservation for women not only in contesting the elections but also in admission to educational institutions or government services. It is enough to mention that the need for positive discrimination in favor of women was felt and provided for as long back as during the framing of Constitution, but the provision is being implemented only now, and is, therefore, totally justified. In final stages however women’s empowerment can be considered as “complete” only when women, as a collective group, no longer require any positive discrimination or reservation. It is a happy sign that lot of young women have started expressing that they would prefer to come up in life on the basis of merit rather than through reservation. A right kind of “seed” for empowerment is already sown and it will be necessary to nurture this.
The sharing of power acquires a different dimension for the women from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. They suffer for being women as well as for their backwardness. These are the women who after a long day’s work return home with insufficient wages, only to be beaten up for the needs of the alcoholic husband. They have also to suffer the rage of another more developed group in the village. When two tribal communities fight, these are the women who are either themselves the victims of atrocities by other tribe or are rendered widows. These are the women who have to bear maximum brunt of forced evictions either due to natural calamities or due to large scale land acquisition pro grammes of the government.