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| Sunday, 30 January 2005 |
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Outlook: Way to go!!! by Arefa Tehsin In the bustling street of Homagama, while returning from work for the first time, some four months back, it was a delight seeing women with umbrellas in hand and purses on shoulders flowing down on the roads after work. When I landed in Sri Lanka with apprehension as well as delight, of being in a new place I had not thought that this country will be so alike yet so different from my native lands. I had read Ernest Hemingway saying that we should not mistake motion for action. But very soon the realisation dawned on me that it was not mere motion that was seen. Sri Lanka is indeed more reformed than India as far as the women's issues are concerned. In the cities as well as rural areas, especially metros, many women in India are trying to break loose from their age-old cocoons of dogmas and forms to emerge as butterflies in their full colours, and are doing wonders, but this sadly is not the case with the masses in general. Female foetuses found floating in a drain, girl infanticide - exception or norm? Woman burnt to death by the in-laws, Village woman forced into Sati (custom of wife being burnt with husband at latter's demise), Honour killing by family, Group child marriage grow tall and ugly, Forced marriage results in suicide, Domestic violence surges high and so on are just some of the kind of headlines that you may frequent in newspapers. Old habits die hard... old attitudes die hard too. There have been a lot of reformist activities going on in India for the upliftment of women for a century or two. People like Raja Ram, Mohan Roy and Mahatma Gandhi have denounced, condemned and strived hard to rid India of these vices. However, India is a society that is profoundly devoted to the past. It tried to seek change within defined borders, without expanding edges of thoughts and beliefs. Education, one of the defining factors in making the women realise themselves, is at a very low ebb and accounts for such inferior status of women in most parts of India. On the other hand Sri Lanka, 'The Paradise Isle' (as I read on one of the billboards), has a soaring rate of women literacy, which explains a lot about its social conditions like in Kerala - an Indian State with near 100 per cent literacy. Another major factor is the cultural difference. At the time of Buddha, the 6th century Indian society was incarcerated and the values bleeding with the appalling caste-system. The status of women was reduced to nothing, rather less than nothing. She was just an object of pleasure and service. Manu, the legal authority of Brahmins has mentioned in the scriptures that a woman is more degraded and dirty than a beast. In that aeon under the Brahmnical hegemony the word of Manu was the law. On the other hand Buddha went against this and gave woman equal status as man and treated their relationship in a democratic manner. These facets are echoing upto date in both societies. The dowry system in India, equally prevalent in the city dwellers as the rural folk, is a great stigma and is responsible for many evils including female foeticide, female infanticide as well as dowry deaths. People don't want a girl child because they don't want to raise her and ultimately pay dowry at the time of her marriage and be troubled owing to more and more demands from the in-laws even after marriage. If they don't live up to the demands, the girl might end up being yet another stove-burnt case. At certain places, amongst the so-called well-educated class, dowry is fixed for each particular profession; for an engineer a large sum and for a doctor still larger and so on. Well, at least it saves all the bargaining between the girl's and boy's parents before marriage! Ever seen an Indian movie with the hero and heroine getting married without the family consent and the family coming to avenge by trying to kill the girl or the boy? It is not a fictitious thing folks; this is what happens time and again and at times in a much more horrendous a manner. Domestic violence is yet another dismal story in India. Also, a shockingly small percentage of women in India, both working women and house wives, from both lower and upper income groups, take independent decisions. Another staggering fact is about the mobility of Indian women. According to the book 'Unequal Citizens', a whopping 86 per cent of the thousands of women surveyed said that they needed permission from their husbands to move out of the house. Quoting Srilata Batliwala about the chronic and deep rooted male authority in India. "... (men's traditional power over women)... is reinforced by control over her body and physical mobility; by the right to abdicate from all responsibility for housework and care of the children, the right to physically violate or abuse her; the right to spend family income on personal pleasures (and vices); the right to abandon her to take other wives." My husband and I used to casually contemplate about a few acquaintances in Sri Lanka, happy with a single girl child to be exceptional. Until one day one of them was amazed to know of our contemplation. Such are our perceptions... we, the progressive city dwellers of India. Sitting cross-legged wearing a saree or a skirt on a two-wheeler would raise lot of eyebrows out there. But what do we see here... women dealing with the law and such practical things practically! There are indeed many problems and issues of women, which need urgent attention in Sri Lanka but speaking in holistic terms, ladies, you all have come a bit further than what Mary Astell feels, "If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?" |
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