Though Indian women have excelled on several fronts, much needs to be done to empower them across the fault lines of gender inequality. Thanks to changes in the constitutional apparatus and resolute commitment from our leadership, there has been a gradual improvement in several areas of women’s lives, but more needs to be done.Several trends are a cause for concern. The HIV epidemic in India is getting feminised with close to 40 per cent of those living with HIV being women. It’s likely to cross 50 per cent in the next five years. Female foeticide continues to plague our society. Paradoxically, the practice is rampant even among the educated middle class as witnessed in cities like Delhi and Mumbai — the engines of India’s economy and modernity. Trafficking, dowry and discrepancies in inheritance have not been relegated to the annals of history either! Hearteningly, the latest National Family Health Survey reveals a decline in fertility and an increase in institutional deliveries. The survey also found more women using modern family planning methods, indicating a surge in women’s negotiation power and participation in family decision making. These may sound like rare victories; but more such positive trends will be heard. The need of the hour is to be buoyed by these successes, and move ahead. In many ways the seeds for these successes were sown during the decade of liberalisation and globalisation starting in the 1990s that provided a much-needed push to the issues of employment. In India, women’s rights and issues have received serious scrutiny and concern, moving outside the small circle of feminists and women’s rights activists into the larger ambit of political and community leadership, which has been determined to address the link between social and economic empowerment of women. Over the past two decades, we have witnessed a relative increase in the economic participation of women. Nothing hastens social and cultural change in women’s lives like economic opportunities. Gain over finances is the first big step towards improving the ‘condition’ of women. This has already started to happen with globalisation having created greater employment opportunities in India. From jobs in the unorganised sector to banking and information technology, women have entered domains that were hitherto considered to be male-dominated. The other challenge is to fight for equal wages for women, especially in the unorganised sector. The Eleventh Five Year Plan promises to address these issues.We are also witnessing an upsurge in the political empowerment of women. Close to a million women are part of panchayats and local bodies, thanks to the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution that made one-third reservation for women mandatory. Women today are learning to navigate their way through the quagmire of politics and patriarchy. In many cases it was found that these women were not the actual decision-makers but mere proxies for their husbands. Now most of these elected women feel fully empowered to run their panchayats effectively, often more effectively, than their male counterparts. As the rigidities of gender divides continue to pose challenges, the diffident local village woman has transformed herself into an agent of change, authoring the beginning of social change.Another encouraging trend is the rising literacy among women. Gender gaps in literacy appear to be thinning in some states that have traditionally harboured grave gender disparities. In the last decade, the female literacy rate has actually increased more compared to the male literacy rate. Many innovative ideas have brought us this far. The Indian woman has yet to emerge fully from the shadows of the oppressive patriarchal system. The process is slow, and the task mammoth. We can have a gender fair and harmonious society if we really try. Let’s dare to dream. And work for it.The writer is election commissioner of India
