When I’m wearing my Indian woman’s chappals, I’m deeply annoyed by western feminists advising me on how women in the country of my birth should fight harder for their rights, and perhaps a workshop in California for example, may help equip them with the tools to do that.
Anyone who says an Indian woman needs to attend a workshop to learn how to fight for her rights has never been to the average grassroots organization there which is usually driven by a posse of formidable women dealing with issues most western women’s activists couldn’t begin to imagine.
But when I’m wearing my “journalist-from-the-west-shoes” and covering the stories that are India’s shame – stories on female foeticide, treatment of widows, women trafficking, forced marriage – then I long for a quick and easy solution to the inter-connected cultural beliefs that make the life of so many Indian woman hell.
So it seemed that one such easy solution – though as it took 13 years to come to fruition, it wasn’t all that quick - was the Women’s bill passed on Women’s Day in the Lok Sabha, India’s Lower House of Parliament.
I guess it should be a cause for celebration – and that’s how this bill is being billed – Indian women rejoice for you are now free. You now have 33% of all parliamentary seats which can only be occupied by a woman’s bottom, not a man’s.
But of course, if there’s one lesson to be learned from life is that complex problems don’t usually have one quick fix.
Shabnam Ramaswamy is a woman who should know both sides of the argument. Currently based in Murshidabad in West Bengal, she’s spent her life working in grassroots women’s issues – but she knows full well all the pitfalls of an easy fix. As a representative of her local Panchayat (a local governing body) where for some years, 33% of all seats have been reserved for women, she’s seen how these so called “reserved” seats can be manipulated. And she knows how the best intentioned law doesn’t always mean real justice for those it was designed to protect.
Reserving seats is just a political band aid, she says; better to start with the foundations of real equality: education, healthcare and vocational training to give them financial independence.
On the audio button below, you can hear Shabnam Ramaswamy’s response to the Women’s Bill passed on Women’s Day in the Lok Sabha.
on Mar 18th, 2010 at 5:42 am
All these drama of Women’s reservation is a farce. Instead of empowering women through proper education and good care and human consideration we see our politicians reserving seats for women. Even in that reservation some of them want to segregate women even more in the name of caste and creed. They are doing grave injustice to the common masses of the country. It is pathetic to see even women MPs rejoicing as if they have won the war and annexed Pak occupied Kashmir to India!!! The politicians fool the Indian public on all non issues. Without addressing the prime issues of women in India, this reservation will bring more evil than good to Indian women! Let these MPs first bring human conditions for Indian women in the villages where women almost live like animals and where they are beaten up and paraded nude through village streets just for taking drinking water from an upper caste area well! Will these inequalities and inhuman treatments end just by this reservation?! No reservation can bring the women in the village to flip a page in education. The politicians who are playing out the drama of reservation should see to it that each Indian girl have the opportunity to get a decent education. If Indian women are empowered in its true grass roots level they don’t need any bread crumbs thrown at them in the form of any reservation. They will sure have the power then to compete and achieve in any field. Do any of the Indian politicians ever show the guts to empower women in such a manner instead of acting out the farce of reservation in the parliament?! Said all these, it would be interesting to check out how some (so called scholars) people oppose Women’s reservation. It would give us a a hint of how powerful forces attempt to muffle up the voice of a big chunk of our society. Can we ever be equal with such powers reigning upon our women folk?!!
Check it out here: http://www.asianlite.co.uk/detail.asp?iPro=9845&iType=16