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India advances, but many women still trapped in dark ages
India advances, but many women still trapped in dark ages | Reuters
NEW DELHI, June 13 (TrustLaw) - The birth of a girl, so goes a popular Hindu saying, is akin to the arrival of Lakshmi - the four-armed goddess of wealth, often depicted holding lotus flowers and an overflowing pot of gold.
That should assure pride of place for women in Indian society, especially now the country is growing both in global influence and affluence.
In reality, India's women are discriminated against, abused and even killed on a scale unparalleled in the top 19 economies of the world, according to a new poll by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The survey, polling 370 gender specialists, found Canada to be the best place to be a woman amongst G20 nations, excluding the European Union economic grouping. Saudi Arabia was the second worst, after India.
"It's a miracle a woman survives in India. Even before she is born, she is at risk of being aborted due to our obsession for sons," said Shemeer Padinzjharedil, who runs Maps4aid.com, a website which maps and documents crimes against women.
"As a child, she faces abuse, rape and early marriage and even when she marries, she is killed for dowry. If she survives all of this, as a widow she is discriminated against and given no rights over inheritance or property."
Many of the crimes against women are in India's heavily populated northern plains, where, in parts, there is a deep-rooted mindset that women are inferior and must be restricted to being homemakers and childbearers.
In addition, age-old customs such as payment of hefty dowries at the time of marriage and beliefs linking a female's sexual behavior to family honor have made girls seem a burden.
The poll results - based on parameters such as quality of health services, threat of physical and sexual violence, level of political voice, and access to property and land rights - jars with the modern-day image of India.
India had a female prime minister, or head of government, as long ago as 1966. Well-dressed women in Western attire driving scooters or cars to work is now an everyday sight in cities. Women doctors, lawyers, police officers and bureaucrats are common.
MILLIONS ABORTED
But scratch under the surface and the threats in India are manifold - from female foeticide, child marriage, dowry and honor killings to discrimination in health and education and crimes such as rape, domestic violence and human trafficking.
Indeed, a girl's fight for survival begins in the womb due to an overwhelming desire for sons and fear of dowry, which has resulted in 12 million girls being aborted over the last three decades, according to a 2011 study by The Lancet.
This has led to a decline in the number of women in proportion to men in many areas, resulting in a rise in rapes, human trafficking and, in certain cases, practices such as "wife-sharing" amongst brothers.
In fact, the curse of dowry continues even after marriage.
One bride was murdered every hour over dowry demands in 2010, says the National Crime Records Bureau. Some are "stove burnings" where in-laws pour kerosene, the commonly-used cooking fuel of poorer homes, over women and set them alight, making it appear accidental.
"The courts are flooded with cases of gender-related crimes," said retired Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju. He said honor and dowry murders should be punished with death.
"These are not normal crimes. These are social crimes because they disrupt the entire social fabric of the community. When you commit crimes against women, it has a lasting impact."
Experts say child marriage remains among the biggest hurdles to women's development in India and has a domino effect. Almost 45 percent of Indian girls are married before they turn 18, says the International Center for Research on Women.
A child bride will drop out of school and is more likely to have complications during child birth. One in five Indian women, many child mothers, die during pregnancy or child birth, the United Nations says.
Their babies, if they survive, are more likely to be underweight and suffer stunting due to poor nourishment. Many will be lucky to survive beyond the age of five.
In the narrow, crowded alleyways of Sapara slum on the outskirts of Delhi, 15-year-old newly married Aarti has never been to school and says she was married off because her father has tuberculosis and couldn't work or afford to look after her.
"I said no, but my mother said my father was sick, so I had no choice," Aarti said, wearing the traditional bright red bangles of new Hindu brides.
"I spent my time doing domestic chores. I like to play with dolls ... but my grandmother has taken them away now. She says I don't need them anymore."
TWO INDIAS
Indian authorities have also struggled to combat rising crimes against women, including domestic violence, molestation, trafficking and rape.
Reports of women being snatched from the streets and gang-raped in moving cars are frequent in Delhi and its neighborhood. Newspaper reports are full of stories of trafficking and sexual exploitation.
In many cases, violence against women has a level of social acceptability. A government survey found 51 percent of Indian men and 54 percent of women justified wife beating.
India has robust gender laws, but they are hardly enforced, partly because a feudal mindset is as prevalent among bureaucrats, magistrates and the police as it is elsewhere. Politicians are also unwilling to crack down on customary biases against women for fear of losing conservative votes.
"The inheritance law was reformed in 2005, bringing women's legal equality in agricultural land. In reality, however, less than 10 percent women own some kind of land," said Govind Kelkar from land rights group, Landesa India.
"This is more stark as 84 percent of rural women are engaged in agricultural production. There is policy silence on the implementation of laws for women's rights."
Some gains are being made, primarily by instituting gender-sensitive laws and social schemes as well as boosting the number of girls in primary schools, the workforce and village politics, experts say.
More than two decades of economic liberalization has also helped empower women, and as India has opened up, Western ideas of equality have permeated towns and cities.
The country's top political positions are held by women, including the head of the main ruling party, Sonia Gandhi, and the country's outgoing president, Pratibha Patil.
"There are two Indias: one where we can see more equality and prosperity for women, but another where the vast majority of women are living with no choice, voice or rights," said Sushma Kapoor, South Asia deputy director for U.N. Women.
Gender experts say the challenges are immense, given India's vast population of 1.2 billion, its diversity, and geographical spread. But they add they are not insurmountable.
Tiny pockets show positive change by giving women opportunities such as access to higher education, vocational training [ID:nL3E8CG1HO] and finance - tools that should transform the perception of women as burdens to assets.
A new Oprah Winfrey-style television talk show called "Satyamev Jayate" (Truth alone prevails), hosted by popular Bollywood actor Aamir Khan, has in recent weeks focused on issues such as foeticide, and dowry and honor killings.
The shows have won wide acclaim and stirred debate in the media, but experts say the efforts to increase awareness in Indian society as a whole need to be sustained.
"Laws alone can only play 20 percent of the role in empowering women in this country," said judge Katju.
"Eighty percent of the role will be played by education, by changing the mindset, the mentality of men who are still to a large extent feudal-minded which means they regard women as inferior."
..........................................................................................................Why is Indian culture so anti-female?
Why is Indian culture so anti-female? - Rediff.com India News
It has been precisely one year since Sowmya was murdered in a particularly horrific manner. Her family's sole bread-winner, she was working in a 'Homestyle' store in Cochin, Kerala [ Images ]. She was commuting by train to her home near Shoranur on February 1, 2011 when she was assaulted, raped, and left to die.
A one-armed vagrant named Charly aka Govindachami boarded a women's compartment where Sowmya was the lone traveller. Apparently he terrorised poor Sowmya and chased her around the coach, smashing her head against the walls. Finally he pushed her out of the moving train on to the tracks.
The thug jumped out after her, raped the injured girl brutally on the tracks, and then bashed her head in with a rock. He left her to bleed to death. She lay in a coma for several days, and died on February 6, 2011.
On November 11, 2011, Charly aka Govindachami was sentenced to death by hanging by a fast-track court. This is obviously a case in which capital punishment is imperative; Judge K N Raveendra Babu also added a life sentence and rigorous imprisonment for seven years -- presumably he felt that the death sentence may not be carried out.
The one-armed beggar's defence -- he did not deny the accusations of rape and murder, and the sentencing judge noted that he was also named in eight previous cases -- was that he was a handicapped person, and therefore deserved compassion!
The viciousness of this act is shocking, especially in Kerala where women generally have had economic freedom and a large presence in the workforce for many years. I am sure many other women have begun to re-evaluate their personal safety when they commute to and from work by public transport.
The absolute cruelty of this act is only matched by the incredible story of Aruna Shanbhag, who has been in a coma for 38 years. When she was a 25-year-old nurse in Mumbai [ Images ], she was choked with a dog chain and sodomised in the hospital basement by a sweeper. The asphyxiation cut off the blood supply to her brain, leaving her a vegetable, in which state she has remained.
Startlingly, it appears that her attacker, Sohanlal Walmiki, was only tried for robbery and attempted murder -- and not for rape or sexual molestation or sodomy. He apparently served two concurrent seven-year sentences for the robbery and attempted murder, that's it. No wonder Judge Raveendra Babu felt in Sowmya's case that it was necessary to impose the additional punishments.
Then there is the remarkable case of Sister Abhaya. This 19-year-old was found dead in 1992 in the well of a Catholic convent in Kottayam, Kerala. The initial report suggested suicide and death by drowning, but on further investigation -- thanks to the unceasing efforts of community activist Jomon Puthenpurackal -- it is almost certain that it was a case of homicide: the actual cause of death appears to be head injuries caused by a blunt instrument.
Certain influential elements are rumored to have conspired to sweep this case under the carpet (the initial investigating officer Augustine committed suicide). There were attempts at character assassination against Sister Abhaya. After several investigations, which appeared to have been thwarted and sabotaged at every stage, the CBI finally arrested two Catholic priests, Kottur and Puthrakkayil, and a nun, Seffi, in 2008, sixteen years after Abhaya's death.
Under narco-analysis, the trio, according to CBI reports, confessed as follows: Abhaya went to the kitchen early in the morning of her death to get a drink of water from the refrigerator. It appears Abhaya happened upon the nun and the two priests in 'suspicious circumstances' in the kitchen. Worried about being exposed, Seffi hit Abhaya on the back of her head with the blunt end of an axe. Then, fearing she was dead, the trio dumped Abhaya's body in the well. The CBI accused the trio of murder, destruction of evidence, and defamation.
In a remarkable coincidence, soon after this, the Supreme Court held that the results of narco-analysis (also known as truth-serum-based analysis) could not be admitted as evidence. Thus, for all practical purposes, the Sister Abhaya case is in abeyance at best and is nullified at worst. Poor Abhaya, twenty years later, has not received justice, and probably never will.
Now comes the story of a 2-year old, severely abused girl-child named Falak who is fighting for her life at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Although the details are murky, she was injured by a 15-year-old girl (herself sexually abused) accused of battering Falak and inflicting severe brain and chest injuries.
On top of this comes a UN report on the status of the girl-child which states baldly that India is the worst place in the world for a girl child, based primarily on the number of deaths of girls below five as compared to that of boys. China -- widely known for its 'missing women' -- is the other big culprit.
Why is Indian culture so anti-female? The statistics and the explanations about the malign neglect of girls make for grim reading; these are attributed to dowry and caste as though these were absolute truths. But most people do not realise that the current, offensive dowry system is a colonial-era construct, according to a landmark study by Veena Talwar Oldenburg of Baruch College, New York.
In her path-breaking 2002 book, Dowry Murder: The imperial origins of a cultural crime, Professor Oldenburg observes that the dowry system, which had been managed by women in pre-colonial times, was perverted by British colonial practices so that 'an invaluable safety net was turned into a deadly noose.' Here is an excerpt from the description of the book:
...Veena Oldenburg argues that these killings are neither about dowry nor reflective of an Indian culture or caste system that encourages violence against women. Rather, such killings can be traced directly to the influences of the British colonial era. In the precolonial period, dowry was an institution managed by women, for women, to enable them to establish their status and have recourse in an emergency. As a consequence of the massive economic and societal upheaval brought on by British rule, women's entitlements to the precious resources obtained from land were erased and their control of the system diminished, ultimately resulting in a devaluing of their very lives. Taking us on a journey into the colonial Punjab [ Images ], Veena Oldenburg skillfully follows the paper trail left by British bureaucrats to indict them for interpreting these crimes against women as the inherent defects of Hindu caste culture...
Thus, as in many other things, it could be postulated that the devaluation of women was a consequence of imported British practices, imbued with patriarchal Christian ideas. Much the same can be said of the practice of child-marriage and purdah, which were imposed as a result of Muslim invasions.
This stands to reason, because traditional Indian culture places a premium on the female -- note, for example that India is a motherland, not a fatherland. Strikingly, it is only in Indian religious thought that females are not subservient: observe the powerful figure of Kali [ Images ], representing the female principle, depicted as dancing on the prone body of her consort. Or the benign mother-and-child image of Baby Krishna and Yasoda, a much-loved icon and metaphor. Or the figures of Gargi and Maitreyi, respected sages from Vedic and Upanishadic times.
In fact, India may well be an exception to the hypothesis that plough-based agrarian societies value male upper-body strength, as opposed to hoe-based agrarian societies, where women play an equal role in production (see the Economist article 'The plough and now' from May 2011 referring to a paper from N Nunn of Harvard and P Guiliano of UCLA, On the Origins of Gender Roles: Women and the Plough). Their hypothesis suggests that long-lived prejudices about the (lack of) value of women arise in plough-based societies.
In contrast, Kerala, with its strong agricultural tradition based on paddy cultivation -- and thus the plough -- is matrilinear and matriarchal among its Hindus, which has almost certainly led to its excellent (girl) child-mortality rates and high life expectancy for women (76 years, roughly the same as for white women in the US).
The experience of women in the Northeast is similar, and there also there are pockets of matriliny. The participation of women in the workplace is high in both these areas -- women on average have greater economic independence; and fertility has come down as men seek to marry employed women, and are loath to lose their income should they get pregnant frequently.
The conclusion then is that there is nothing inherently anti-female in India, but that there are certain entrenched, perverted social attitudes. That is small consolation for Sowmya, Aruna and Abhaya, true, but individuals in every society do suffer. For instance, despite the accusations of widespread dowry deaths, it turns out that, as a percentage, more women in the US are killed by husbands and boyfriends than those killed in dowry disputes in India.
That is the good news -- there is nothing inherent in Indian culture that makes it inhospitable to women; but there is the hangover from colonial practices, which should disappear with greater educational freedom for women, and also, ironically, because of the looming woman shortage due to selective foeticide. There is no room for complacency, though.
Societal change does not come on its own. For instance, the anti-tobacco effort really did not take off until the problem of second-hand smoke was publicised heavily, and non-smokers understood the dangers to themselves from inhaling smoke. Similarly, it is necessary to introduce public awareness campaigns on the value of the girl-child; the fact that often your daughter is more willing than your daughter-in-law to tend to you in your old age may well be the clincher.
