Taliban's
mindless assault on human legacies
Men, Matters, Memories
By M L
Kotru
Somehow I
can't miss the irony of it; the
Bajrangdalis and their ilk beating their
chests, their ire fully aroused,
protesting the destruction of the
1600-year-old Buddha statues at Bamiyan,
125 miles north of Kabul, and threatening
Indian Muslims of dire consequences as a
result thereof. Not an unnatural
reaction, one thinks, from a set of
people who thought nothing of destroying
a five hundred year-old mosque because
they believed that it was built on the
ruins of a Rama temple. Somehow their
protests leave me cold, even in the face
of an horrendous crime committed by the
fundamentalist Taliban hordes in
Afghanistan.
Some
twenty two years ago I had the privilege
of standing in front of the giant-sized
Buddha statues at Bamiyan, hewn out of
sheer rock. It was a sight that left me
humbled, a signpost of Buddhism's spread
in the Asokan period, cutting across the
land mass from Afghanistan to Burma and
beyond. The Bamiyan statues were carved
out around the same time as Arab invaders
ravaged the grat library at Alexandria, a
''feat'' that appears to have been
repeated by Taliban 14 centuries later by
not just destroying the Bamiyan statues
but also the priceless collection of
Gandhara period artefacts at the Afghan
museum. The museum was a unique treasure
trove and always of great interest to
students of history of that period,
Indologists in particular.
The
Taliban by the sheer weight of their
mindlessness have cocked a snook, as it
were, at the rest of the civilised world
by destroying one of humanity's great
legacies. They have apparently chosen to
set a new benchmark for international
recklessness and irresponsibility. Even
if one were to go by the fundamentalists'
view of Islam, the holy book of Islam
forbids destruction of places of worship,
even those belonging to other faiths.
Forget the 'butshikans' (idol-breakers)
of history but nowhere does the holy book
commend such ghoulish behaviour. It will
he argued that the Taliban are not the
first to have carried religious bigotry
to such levels of intolerance. But that
was all in the medieval ages. Yes,
earlier marauders too inflicted
bloodbaths on innocent people in the name
of new-found faiths. It sounds strange,
though, that Taliban should have
undertaken a task which even their peer
Mohammad Ghazni of Somnath temple
ill-fame, had refrained from. Maybe,
Ghazni had a greater sense of history
than the Mullahs masquerading as
conquerors.
Even Nadir
Shah chose to leave the Bamiyan Buddhas
alone. If most of the world community has
expressed its sense of horror-barring
Pakistan which could have stopped it- at
the carnage in Bamiyan it is only
understandable. As understandable as the
Chinese studied silence on the issue. The
Chinese in their own way, during the pre
and post revolution years have done their
utmost to wipe out the Buddhist past of
the country, a process which they have
carried out with great fervour in Tibet
for the last few years.
In the
Bamiyan context, I am told, that official
circles in New Delhi are disappointed by
the poor response to Prime Minister Atal
Behari Vajpayee's appeal to world
leaders, including by the five permanent
members of the Security Council. For me,
personally, the poor response came as no
suprise. For one thing, the so-called big
powers are too embroiled in their own
affairs to be bothered about whether a
few statues, even of great historic and
civilisational import, are destroyed. The
Bush administration, too, new to office,
is still finding its way through the
minefields of the Middle East; the
Russians, continue to be bugged by Bush's
pursuit of the Star Wars dream; Britain
is facing an election; Japan has a shaky
government; and, China, as I said
earlier, couldn't care less. Besides, Mr
Vajpayee had to contend with the well
orchestrated, yet low-key
counter-campaign launched by
intolerance'' as exhibited when ''the
Babri Masjid was demolished and the
continuing anti-Christian campaign raging
in the country''. Yes, the campaign is a
fact, no creation of a perfervid
imagination.
And this
brings me to the absurdity of the loud
protests by the Bajrang Dal and the
Vishwa Hindu Parishad over the Taliban
barabrity in Bamiyan. For people who have
never ceased to pat their own backs after
the Babri Mosque was demolished in
December 6, 1962 and who are not loath to
speak almost reverentially of Dara Singh,
the killer of Graham Staines and his two
children, they should be the last to
protest. And the reference in one of the
Bajrang Dal statements that the Bamiyan
episode will have grave consequences for
Indian Muslims leaves me worried.
Frankly,
even the crocodile of the fable would
have been embarrassed by the highdecibel
show which some 60 Bajrangis put up
outside the UN Office in New Delhi on
Monday. Walking to my car at the India
International Centre parking lot that
morning, I found some 30 odd of us
blocked, unable to get out simply because
the Bajrangis had laid seige to the only
exit alongside the UN office. They were
no more than 60 in all, waving their
trade-mark triangular saffron flags, with
a lone Tibetan flag thrown in as an
afterthought, shouting and screaming,
mouthing obscenties directed at Muslims
of all hues in Afghanistan, Pakistan and
India. Dig, dig , dig- that was their
refrain. And what they wanted to dig up
was every mosque, every Muslim shrine. If
the whole of Afghanistan was to be dug
up, Pakistan too was to be razed and
India to be cleansed of the evil (read
Muslims). Among the speakers, ironically,
standing on the iron barricades put up by
the police, was an antique Sikh, out of
the WWF pack, sporting designer shoes and
ear-rings the size of a baby porcupine,
and yet again a so-un-Lama-like young
Lama, visibly uncomfortable with his
gear. The hulk, as he harrangued the
crowd, sounded more like the speaking
partner of the ''Undertaker'' of the WWF
gang.
I asked
one of the policemen why he wasn't
shooing them away. He pleaded his
helplesness even as he confided that the
mandatory permission for the
demonstration had not been obtained.
Anyway, the Bajrangis and their flock did
their shouting bit, got themselves onto
TV screens, prsenting a sheaf of papers
at the UN office. And as I finally
managed to drive away I remembered the
tough time the self-same VHP and Bajrangi
men have been giving the Buddhists at
Bodh Gaya and Sarnath, how they have laid
claim to part of a hallowed Buddhist site
and even built a temple there. My mind
went back to the time when India, for the
most part, had turned to Buddhism and how
Hindu revivalism sent it packing from the
land of its birth, cast away to lands, as
distant as Tibet, China, Japan, Korea,
Sri Lanka, et al. I also thought of the
total state of neglect of the hundreds of
stone images of the Buddha, the Buddhist
pillars and sculptures lying about in
villages near Bodh Gaya, of the utter
neglect by the State of the old Gaya
Museum housing rare artefacts including
the 10th century miniature of the
Mahabodhi temple and any number of
priceless sculptures going back to 6th
and 10th centuries.
What the
Taliban have done a unparadonable and
they will, hopefully, one day realise the
damage they have done to Afghanistan's
heritage, its pre-Islamic heritage in
particular. But the Bajrangis too, would
do well to remember that they are
beginning to be seen as the look-alikes
of the Taliban, their Hindu version they
may be.
|
 |
Hal
to make 50-seater ATR turboprop
By D K
Arora
The
Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) is
confident of selling 50-seater ATR
turboprops in India. HAL and the
French-Italian consortium ATR (Avions de
Transport Regional) have recently
initiated an ''industrial partnership''
for the manufacture of over 100 ATR
turboprop passenger aircraft. The
turboprops are to be manufactured at HAL
factory in Kanpur, according to the HAL
Chairman, Dr C G Krishnadas Nair, who
spoke about the deal during the Aero
India 2001, which concluded recently in
Bangalore. HAL was negotiating with
Indian Airlines and some other parties
for the sale of ATRs. ''We are confident
of bagging orders for the 50-seater
aircraft soon, ''he said.
Dr Nair
informed that the national flag carrier,
Indian Airlines had already selected HAL
ATR 42-500 for acquisition after
international bidding. ''We were found to
be the best. The airlines plans to
purchase six of these regional aircraft
this year'', he added. Indian Airlines
plans to operate the smaller aircraft in
the North-East and some other sectors in
the country. At the Aero India 2001, both
HAL and ATR had put up a joint stall to
showcase the turboprops.
The
traffic profile in some of the areas does
not permit viable jet operations.
Therefore smaller, 50 to 70 seater
aircraft, are the only answer to the
problem. We need to have cheaper and
fuel-efficient small aircraft and have to
create conditions so that their operation
is economically viable, ''said Mr Yadav,
civil Aviation Minister.
ATR is a
partnership of EADS (European Aeronautic
Defence and Space Company) (50 per cent)
responsible for the marketing, sales and
customer support of the ATR family of
regional turboprops. The company is a
consortium known as GIE (Groupement of
Interet Economique).
ATR offers
a family of regional turboprops in the 44
to 77 seat categories. The ATR 42-500 and
the ATR 72-500 versions are the new
generation aircraft of the ATR family.
These aircraft have been modified to
reduce noise and vibration levels and
their new interior includes
noise-absorbing materals and tuned
vibration damping systems. ATR aircraft
are present on all five continents. There
are over 100 operators worldwide, with
deliveries now totalling 613 aircraft, of
which 359 are ATR 42s and 254 are ATR
72s. The private domestic carrier, Jet
Airways, has five ATR 72s its fleet.
ATR is a
world leader in the market for 40-to
70-seater regional turboprop aircraft.
Commencing with the ATR 42, which entered
service in 1985, ATR has developed a
family of high-wing, twin turboprop
aircraft. In 1996, in order to respond to
operators'increasing demands for comfort
and performance, ATR launched a new
generation of aircraft designated the ATR
72-500 and ATR 42-500. Like Airbus, ATR's
family concept provides savings in
training, maintenance operations, spare
parts supply and cross-crew
qualification.
In the
year 2000, the French-Italian consortium
registered orders for 82 ATRs (54 ATR 42s
and 28 ATR 72s) with 29 operators. The
company announced a total of 24 firm
orders (six ATR 42-500s and 18 ATR
72-500s) and 10 options (four ATR 42-500
and six ATR 72-500) with eight airlines.
In additions. ATR secured 43 second hand
aircraft (44 ATR 42s and four ATR 72s)
without counting 13 lease extensions
which are not included in the overall
results, according to Ms Ann de Crozals,
Manager, Media Relations, ATR.
Since the
re-establishment of ATR it has sold a
total of 75 new aircraft in less than 30
months. Its number one position can be
confirmed in terms of cumulated
deliveries. To date 613 ATRs have been
delivered to 100 airlines in 65
countries. ATR is the first civil
turboprop programme to reach this level
in only 15 years.
Investors
and operators, according to an Airfinance
Journal (October 2000) poll, have awarded
ATR the number one position in the
turboprop market and this for the second
consecutive year. The poll, entitled this
year ''Jets fail to kill props'', was
published in the Journal's October
edition last year. Investors and
operators have ranked individual aircraft
models on the basis of five criteria;
operational success, investor appeal and
re-marketing potential, residual value
and value for money. Both the operators
and investors ranked ATR high above all
of its competitors, confirming ATR's
leadership in the turboprop market. In
addition, in the overall operators' poll
(jet and turboprops), the ATR was ranked
as the number two regional aircraft.
The ATR 72
beat many of the regional jets, a result
that throws caution on the much heralded
death of the turboprop'', said the
Airfinance Journal. ''Props still have a
role to play on the growth of the
regional airlines and routes.''
Airfinance Journal concludes: ''Maybe the
airlines, which have committed themselves
to an all-jet fleet in the belief that
that is what the public demands, should
re-evaluate''. The ATR aircraft is
proving every day its exceptional
reliability on the market with an average
of 99.5 per cent for the new generation
500 series (ATR 42-500 and ATR 72-500);
and of 99 per cent for the ATR 42-300 and
ATR 42-320) and ATR 72 (ATR 72-200 and
ATR 72-210)
Europe
continues to represent the biggest market
for ATR where the jet like comfort of the
500 series is more and more recognised
and appreciated. Friedrich-Wilhelm
Weithoz, Chairman of the Board of
Eurowings Luftverkehrs AG, confirmed this
by stating: ''Our passengers particularly
appreciate the outstanding comfort of the
ATR-500 series.'' Eurowings decided in
December 2000 to add six ATR 72-500 to
its fleet. The ATR 72-500 by Eurowings
since Lufthansa took a stake in the
airline. With 27 ATRs (11 ATR 42s and 16
ATR 72s) Eurowings operates the largest
ATR fleet in Europe.
Air
Dolomiti took three ATR 42-500s with an
option for four additional aircraft of
the same type in order to frther develop
its regional network in close
collaboration with Lufthansa. The ATR 500
series entered the Air France network in
2000 with the introduction of an ATR
42-500 by Airlinair on the
Lille-Strasbourg route.
ATR also
continued its market penetration in
Eastern Europe- in Czech Republic with
CSA (one ATR 42-320) and in Poland with
White Eagle ATR 42-300). ATR further
consolidated its presence in the French
overseas departments with Air Tahiti and
Air Caraibes taking respectively one ATR
42-500 and one ATR 42-300s day by Farnair
Europe,one of the major European players
in the Express cargo transportation.
Farnair Europe is the launch customer of
ATR's full freighter version.
In Africa,
ATR made a major breakthrough in the
promising Algerian market with private
airline Airways, which ordered a total of
seven ATRs (three ATR 72-500 and four ATR
42-320). ATR also signed a contract for
to second-hand cargo version ATR 42-300
with DHL Aviation Africa (part of DHL
worldwide express) for their overnight
delivery network specialising in express
mail and parcel delivery services.
In the
Americas, the high performance of the ATR
42-500 is proving to be well adapted to
the difficult environment (hot and high)
of regional operations in Latin America.
Long time customer Aces Colombia added
six ATR 42-500s to its fleet. DHL
Worldwide express selected the ATR for
its ideal cargo suitability for its
operations with DHL Venezuela (one ATR
42-300), DHL Guatemala (one ATR 42-300),
and DHL Puerto Rico (one ATR 42-300).
Continental Express (US) as well
Aerogaviota and Aerocaribbean (Cuba)
confrmed that the ATR has the confidence
of the operators by transforming their
lease into a cash sale.
The ATR
72-500 is well adapted to the Asian and
Asia Pacific regional market as it has
the lowest seat mile costs in the market.
Bangkok Airways confirmed its
satisfaction by ordering six ATR 72-500
and taking an option on six additional
aircraft of the same type. Bangkok
Airways currently operates eight ATR
72-200/210 and one ATR 42-300. Air New
Zealand ordered, at the beginning of
2000, one additional ATR 72-500 in order
to further expand its already successful
regional operations. Ari New Zealand
currently operators a total of eight ATR
72-500s.
In the
second hand market, Necon Air (Nepal)
took one ATR 42-320 for its spectacular
mountain flights over the Himalayas.
ATR's high wing design is perfectly
adapted for this type of operation. South
Asia Airways in Bangladesh has signed up
for three ATR 42-320s. ---CNF
|
|
Today
is International Women's Day
Mix and match feminism
By Radha Rastogi
When Jhumpa
Lahiri, the acclaimed Pulitzer short story prize
winner, recently chose to go through with a
traditional Bengali wedding, complete with all
the rituals, nobody was urpsied.
In contrast, when
Rohini Kumar, a PhD student at a leading
university in the USA came to India to marry her
Bengali groom, she was appalled when told that at
the traditional 'Bahu Bhath' ceremony, she would
have to serve food first to the male elders in
the family. It was against all her beliefs, and
she didn't feel comfortable compromising on it.
She expressed her dilemma to her mother-in-law,
and they decided that both Rohini and her husband
would together serve the guests. A tense moment
was thereby averted.
Senior bureaucrat
Rati Vinay Jha not only shed her maiden surname
on marriage, but in a show of double loyalty,
took on both the first and second names of her
husband. She is a high-powered, high-profile
bureaucrat with undisputed power credentials.
Journalist Shahnaz Anklesaria Aiyar appended her
husband's name and he chose to return the
compliment by appending her name to his.
Top-level bank executive Aparna Mehta observes
the Karva Chauth fast- for the well being of her
husband to the delight of her mother-in-law.
Welcome to the
shifting kaleidoscope of present day feminist
India I hate to say post- feminist as it is as
meaningless as post-democracy- where as many
varieties of feminism are emerging as there are
women. Some were lucky to be born with the
feminist silver spoon in their mouths, some were
not. But in the present high of new wave
confidence, women are discovering to their
delight that they have one thing in common: the
luxury of choice.
Young Indian women
are now busy adapting old theories, remoulding
them closer to suit their individual tastes and
desires. Says Aparna :''I want to keep the Karva
Chauth. I think it is a beautiful way of showing
love for your husband. I call myself feminist,
but my brand of feminism is my own-- basically
anything I am comfortable with.''
In a contrast to
the doctrinaire feminism of the 70s, which had to
adopt extreme postures just to be heard, today
feminism is more mainstream, having accepted the
basic fact that feminism divorced from women's
lives is meaningless, just as women's lives
without a feminist overview are sterile.
At the centre of
this paradigm shift is the growing number of
young women, many of whom were born to early
feminist mothers who fought for the basics they
like for granted today: the right to work, the
right to choose, the right to equal opportunity.
Having cut their teeth on basic feminism, they
are now taking up from where their mothers left
off. Talk to a wide spectrum of university
students, professionals and home-makers, and they
say that the time has come to openly acknowledge
that the personal is political and the political
is personal.
''Our lifestyle
choices must reflect our beliefs, else what sort
of feminists are we if we say one thing and do
another because it is socially expedient?'' asks
an executive with a leading TV network. ''I
believe I have rights over my body, so obviously
I have the right to choose the partner of my
choice, with or without marriage,'' she says. Her
parents were shocked, but she insisted on being
honest, and they have accepted the situation.
Clearly the new
feminists have high expectations of themselves .
They also are confident enough to live out their
beliefs and are comfortable doing so. They are
neither apologetic nor defensive about it. ''I
want to be who I am, never apologise, never
forget that we are half the human race,'' writes
a young college student of her hopes for the
future.
Young women seem
no longer to be concerned with being 'good' by
traditionally accepted standards, but good by
their own yardstick. ''For this I thank my mother
who, despite her day and age, taught me the
difference between being aggressive, which is
negative, and assertive, which is positive,''
says Aparna.
Not for this new
breed the crippling duality of their mothers'
lives. The latter, even when emancipated by the
standards of their day, had to accept social
limitations because the climate was not ripe for
change. In the 1940s, India's first woman Indian
Foreign Service officer, Rama Mehta, took on her
husband's name and resigned from service because
the IFS was closed to married women.
And as late as the
'60s, women officers would routinely hand in
undated letters of resignation on joining the
Foreign Service, which could be used anytime they
chose a marriage partner not in tune with Foreign
Office interests.
But feminism is an
evolving continuum. Ten years ago it was
unthinkable to have a secretary in the Ministry
of External Affair, today a woman has crashed
through the glass ceiling to become Foreign
Secretary. Says one young officer, ''Just as our
mothers fought for access and opportunity, we now
work within the system for leadership and
control.''
This new
positivism is giving young women today their
refreshing catholicity and honesty. It is now
possible to be a home-maker, rear babies, enjoy
reading Mills and Boons, delight in your
appearance, work or not work. And yet call
yourself feminist. Their voices are now less
strident and judgmental because they are more
assertive and confident.
Women now more
clearly understand the concept of freedom: not
from responsibility, but of choice based on
empowered decisions. And having made the choices,
to be able to stand up and say, ''Yes, I feel
good about being a woman.''
Because in its
widest sense, present day feminism is getting to
be less about ideology, and more about a feeling
of self worth. (WFS)
|
The
Human Female
By: B.K. Karkra
Her importance
lies in the fact that she is a father's daughter,
a husband's wife, sons' mother and brothers'
sister. Her tragedy is that when she is not
something of a man, she is nothing. She has been
acceptable both as a ' pativrata' and a
prostitute, but never as a person. Her unending
search for identity is still on. As a beloved of
the man, she could 'launch a thousand ships' and
'burn the topless towers of Ilium'. A Dr. Fastus
could beg a 'sweet Helen' to make him ' immortal
with a kiss', but left to herself, she has been
weak and vulnerable. The world outside her home
is full of booby traps. For her, 'the snakes hiss
where the grass is green'.
The suffering and
subjugation that she has undergone through the
ages and the pain that she has swallowed for
centuries should be enough to drive any sensitive
being to tears. The fact that she has survived
it, is something akin to our subcontinent
surviving the slavery of a thousand years and it
also seems to confirm the Darwinian doctrine of
the 'survival of the fittest'. She is, indeed,
biologically more stable than the human male---
out of around five thousand centenarians in
France today nearly four thousand are the women.
Woman is, undoubtedly, the most sophisticated
creation of nature. For instance. her body has
been provided with three distinctly separate
orifices--- two for primary excretory functions
and one for sex, whereas man has to manage with
two and the birds with just one. Man is now a
sparable for procreation purposes and woman still
is not. Again, unlike the other female species in
the nature, she has been endowed with a face and
figure matched only by the poetry that these have
inspired over the ages.
Woman was, no
doubt, never meant to match man in muscular
strength. However, it is mind that rules the
world and not muscle. It is doubtful if
wrestlers, boxers and weightlifters have ever
occupied a position of dominance in any civilized
society. In fact, law is always around to ensure
that the strong do not, in any manner, overawe or
oppress the weak. Nevertheless, physical strength
does put a man in a situation of local
superiority in relation to his woman in the
confines of their home. Law is also normally
reluctant to enter homes. As an inhuman
consequence of this, a quarter of women worldwide
suffers violent abuse in the privacy of their
homes as per a United Nations' survey. This
figure is as high as 8 percent in Pakistan and
Chile, 60 percent in Papua New Guinea and 50
percent in the Republic of Korea. Our own record
in this area is also not very enviable. In fact,
there is an additional dimension to this case in
our country--- the burning of brides for dowry.
An effort has been made to deal with this
pernicious problem by inserting some drastic
provisions in our penal laws like Section 304B
I.P.C. (for dowry death) and 498A I.P.C (for
dowry related harassment). But the problem lies
buried in our social psyche and laws alone cannot
wash our minds clean. Many, in fact, now hold the
view that these legal remedies (specially, Sec.
498A) have proved to be worse than the disease
itself, as these look like breaking up many a
home.
Physical delicacy
is, however, not the primary reason for the sad
plight of women. It has instead something to do
with the society's excessive obsession with her
chastity. A single false step or just a mishap
and her body, mind and soul supposedly get
polluted for all time to come. Such a 'kulta'
(disgraced woman) is often left with only one
solution to her problems--- the nearest village
well. Chastity is, indeed, cherishable. The
sexual act does not involve baring of the bodies
only, but the entire being. However, why all the
burden of virginity should be borne by the poor
lady alone?
I am afraid, so
far as woman is concerned; every society has
blood on its hands. A chapter in our
'Brihidaranyaka' Upanishid talks of what
preparation a man should make if he wants a son
of particular attributes. After the preparation,
he is told to persuade his wife for sex. If the
poor thing is not in mood and is, thus, not
cooperative, he could be justifiably rough with
her. Fatwa-e- Alamgiri (a sort of multi-purpose
code) enacted by Emperor Aurangzeb also decrees
that a woman is at the disposal of her husband
once the 'mehar' is paid or promised to be paid
on demand. Accordingly, she must respond whenever
he summons her to the bed. In Iran, the Islamic
judges are said to have issued orders that any
young girl sentenced to death must first be
raped, 'since if executed while still a virgin
she would go to heaven'. In sub-Saharan Africa,
from Sudan to South Africa and from Mali to
Mozambique, spousal abuse is at its worst. Some
ethnic groups there are told that 'if a man's
wife dies before he has assaulted her, he must
prove his manhood by beating her corpse'! Even in
the most enlightened democracy of the world, the
United States of America, 'domestic violence is
the biggest single cause of injury to women,
accounting for more hospital admissions than
rapes, muggings and road accidents combined'. So
this is what man has made of woman over the ages.
Superficially
perhaps, sex is a messier affair for woman, as it
involves her internal organs, causes irreparable
rupture of her hymen on the first occasion and
the sexual secretions are also left deposited
with her. Besides this, it may also lead to the
multifarious problems of an unwanted pregnancy.
However, all this should make no difference from
the culpability angle. The main sexual organ is
the brain. Pollution, if any, really occurs
there. Yet, the societies seem to think that only
woman gets polluted in the act and man stays
pure, though almost always he is the motivator
and in some cases an outright assailant. Whatever
be the forces at work in the societal psyche, the
unfortunate fact is that the victims have always
got punished ruthlessly and the villains allowed
to go scotch free.
Curiously, law and
societies seem to have chosen different
directions for themselves on this issue. In law,
(except under the Islamic codes) fornication is
no offence. Adultery and rape are the crimes for
the men only. Societies, however, ensure that
woman suffers even heavier punishment for all the
three. Laws, possibly, run ahead of the times and
these correspond to the idealism that a society
is yet to rise to.
All the above,
however, does not mean that man is essentially a
villain and woman a paragon of virtue--- both are
just human. In fact, most of the fighting for the
women has been done by men only. The things have
certainly been improving for her for over a
century and a half, when men of the calibre of
Raja Ram Mohan Roy started taking up the cudgels
for her. She, however, is still substantially in
bondage and the goal of her emancipation is even
now not in sight. The effort to raise her from
the state of 'a property' to the level of 'a
person' would have to go on far beyond this
international year of her empowerment.
|
|
| |
|
|
