A Thomson Reuters report of July
2012 describes condition of women in India in these words: Canada best G20 country
to be a woman, India worst - Policies that promote gender equality,
safeguards against violence and exploitation and access to healthcare make
Canada the best place to be a woman among the world’s biggest economies, a
global poll of experts showed on Wednesday. Infanticide, child marriage and
slavery make India
Sometimes, it almost looks like a
hopeless situation. Urbanizing India
is certainly a development to talk about but there is no denial that the gender
crime is present there, too. Casting-couch and glass-ceiling have only added to
the oldies like dowry murders, molestation, eve-teasing and rape cases.
Forced sex and prostitution is
one big ring that operates in almost every city. Don’t the police and the public
know the red-light areas of the city they are residents of? Yes, they know.
Some from the public make the customers. Police see it as the consistent source
of income. And women are traded. The blood is sucked out and the flesh is cut
dried to the extent that it becomes insensitive to every sensation.
The system is working to maintain
and promote the status-quo if not to worsen. We can say worsening is not a
feasible option anymore as changing times have brought to the surface the
voices seeking end to this status-quo. But the rhythm, the flow is still not
there.
At the same time, the
policymakers have been successful in making the voices demanding the change
one-shot events ultimately labeling and treating them as standalone exigencies
where a minimalistic approach to the remedy is used to kill the larger scope of
an issue.
The changing urban scenario in India ,
mixed with the increasing media consumerism, makes metro and big cities places
where voices-for-change can be raised, heard and promoted.
The policymakers in the system
realize this. But, they also realize that there is a much larger, voiceless and
suppressed India that forms
the major chunk of their vote bank and not this metro India . They
also realize that the information consumerism has made it possible for the
voices of this metro India
to reach the non-metro and rural India .
They realize that this outreach
has the potential to affect the mindset of this larger India once a movement
gets an upper hand in dealing with the politicians and policymakers as had
happened in the initial days of the anti-corruption movement launched by Anna
Hazare. If it happens so, they are bound to lose their vote-bank and their
unlimited access to rule and lord over us.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
