GENDER DISCRIMINATION

                         

From my childhood, one thing which lingers to emain baffling is relegation of women to the category of second grade citizens in almost 5,000 years of human civilization. Nobody ever paused to question the society to claim to be civilized  despite deliberately keeping half of the population ignorant. Besides a few negligible oasises, by and large it has remained patriarchal in which the fair sex played the role of second fiddle. Particularly after the advent of Islam, in which veil sytem has the sacrosance of a faith tenet, they were pushed behind the walls and public appearance was almost banned. Even in other cults, barring a counted few exceptions, women were not permitted to come on the fore as public figures. Generally, this pitiable scene was in vogue as late as till the first half of the last century.

In many developed and rich countries like France and Saudi Arabia, they were denied franchise till recently. We are all born of mothers but the dominating males have decided that the presence of women in religious places will make them impure. Islam does not permit them entry into mosques. What is the male attitude towards the female members of the families of Caliphs? In some other religions also this discrimination is prevalent. Ladies have no enytry in the Shabrimala pilgrimage of South as well as Shani temple Sidnapur. Under this bias, rarely you will find women pandit, purohit, mullah, maulvi or Shankaracharya. The society having goddesses galore being so faithfully adored befools itself by pushing the womenhood behind.

Things look a bit better in certain pockets. In the hilly and mountainous regions like Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, North East etc. women work shoulder to shoulder with their male counterparts. Similarly, for female, the conditions are comparatively better in Kerala and West Bengal for two reasons -  some sort of matriarchal families and spread of education. Due to these two leading factors, the male and female demographic ratio never became pathetic like in some other states including Haryana. This also leaves a hint that if the govts stressed female education, the gender bias will peter out by and by.

The above points further disturb me that despite nearly 70 years of political freedom, in India, the participation of women in governance has been negligible. If the illiterate and criminal family members of politicians could be ministers, why not the common ladies? Today there are hundreds of illiterate ladies working as mukhiya, sarpanch and panch. Then who are delaying 33% reservation to them. Known senior leaders of RJD and SP are on record to have opposed any such move tooth and nail. Are not their own family ladies occupying important positions in states and at the Centre? Are they keeping their daughters illiterate?  Can they claim to be democrat? Is this a healthy trend for our democracy? Jara sochiyega !