Let the Indian woman rise and assert

[Guest guest]

Let the Indian woman rise and assert

 

 

The Rg Veda invokes in worship the power of the female. She is the

heat in the fire, power in the wind, coolness in water. There is a

sloka in the beginning of the Rg Veda, when Shakti challenges Agni

Dev to burn a dry grass without her assistance and Vayu Dev to blow

it, if he can without her help. They both lose the challenge. It is

then that she is revealed as the all-powerful.

 

In fact, in Sanskrit, the root (dhatu) of the word Dev is div, which

is a feminine gender. The word `God' originates from the female. Such

is the position accorded to the woman, the female, the Shakti in our

religion, culture and tradition. And yet, today, women in India are

physically, mentally, intellectually and culturally exploited,

tortured and abused. The society remains a mute spectator, if not a

silent participant.

 

Cutting across religions, castes and social and economic strata,

women in India suffer atrocities which are too gory to discuss. Even

the urban-rural divide has vanished. Earlier it was believed that

though women in the rural areas did not enjoy economic empowerment,

there were no crimes against their dignity. But now, the stories

coming from a remote village in Jabalpur and a mega city are the same—

violation of modesty, domestic violence, forcible marriages and

divorces. One wonders if women in India have become too insensitive

or voiceless!

 

An Imrana in Uttar Pradesh left in the lurch by her religion and

society, a 13-year-old kid in Chhattisgarh already mother of a child

from criminal offence being forced to live with the offender, the

rapist offering to marry the victim in the court, a nurse who was

pushed into a life of a comatose by her junior colleague,

unsuspecting college girls abducted and violated upon by human

predators, a foreign dignitary physically humiliated in the Delhi

street—there is no pattern or reason to explain these away. These are

manifestations of a society that is fast losing its values.

 

Crime against a woman is not a crime against an individual. It is a

crime against the society as it affects her, her progeny and her

family. We have the great illustration in Mahabharata, where Krishna

tells Draupadi that he takes the abuses on her as heaped on him and

the society. A crime for which he said the Kuru lineage would pay

dearly. And pay they did.

 

For some time now, reports have been appearing in the media about the

lack of girls of marriageable age in Punjab and how men are going

outside to fetch brides, obviously at a price. Similar stories of a

pathetic male-female ratio are emerging elsewhere in the country too.

 

Dress codes for women will not do. Nor will it help to post four

extra police personnel in road corners. While there is a dire need

for safeguards inside and outside the home, the law and judiciary

would have to be seen to be delivering justice within a reasonable

time-frame of crime. And the punishment should be eye for eye, tooth

for tooth. Not just that. It is high time that the government evolved

a comprehensive policy and workable solutions to the enormous

problems of female abuse. Voluntary organisations, women's groups,

teachers and parents should get together in small effective groups to

campaign, to bring about an attitudinal change in the society,

especially in men towards women. Unless we start now, we would be

contributing to the growth of another generation which has no concern

for the fellow human being, the woman.

 

A society is measured by the status it gives to the woman. Not for

keeping her in wraps or under the thumb; but by the fearless freedom,

both physical and intellectual, she enjoys. One remembers the

definition of an ideal society envisioned by Mahakavi Subhramania

Bharati. He said that he would consider that society ideal where an

extremely beautiful maiden, heavily bejewelled, walks without fear,

unescorted, in a moonlit night and comes to no harm. What he

considered ideal sounds Utopian today!

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