Sapna K Sangra
Come March and the media is abuzz with the write ups, discussions, debates and campaigns on women’s issues. Rightly so, as we witness this eighth day of March marked as the International Women’s Day, it is worth celebrating our achievements as well as acknowledging how much still needs to be done. The theme for 2017’s campaign ‘Be Bold for Change’, necessitates being bold in how we frame and celebrate our past and current achievements and how we carve out a direction for our future from here.
At the outset, in celebrating International Women’s Day, it should not be forgotten that women in many parts of the world lack the gains that have been made in a few countries and hence have little reason to celebrate. There are countries/regions in which the most basic rights of self-determination, bodily integrity and freedom of movement are denied to women and where poverty, racism and inequality are exacerbated by male dominance. There are also many places where women are not free to campaign for their rights or where their sometimes hard won freedoms are being eroded. To give just a few examples, we have witnessed: Chinese feminists being arrested for planning an International Women’s Day campaign against sexual harassment in 2015, the reinstatement of an abortion ban in Russia and now the abortion rights threatened in the USA; the lack of basic human rights in Saudi Arabia; the continuing turbulent fight for women’s equality in Afghanistan; denial of girls’ rights to education especially in our own country’s rural areas as well as in many African countries and the kidnapping and rape of women in the world’s conflict zones. Such examples and I could give many more underline the importance of International campaigning and solidarity.
Observing things closer home, we have some good news and I can count on some of the women’s achievements in the state and having a woman Chief Minister is the striking one. This is remarkable for Mehbooba Mufti is the first woman Chief Minister of a Muslim majority state who happens to be a Muslim herself. This fact is relevant to our social understanding as it marks a triumph of women not only in a patriarchal society like India; it also, is an epitome of the status of Muslim women in India at large and the state in particular.
State Women Commission with Nayeema Ahmad Mahjoor as the Chairperson along with Kavita Suri and Gulzara Masoodi as its members deserves to be placed on records and all credit to Muftis for giving due importance to women’s issues and understanding the dire need to fill-in the position that remained vacant for seven years till Shameema Firdous was assigned the job in 2010.
I, as a woman, take pride in making a mention of Neelu Rohmetra who has become the first woman to helm an IIM in the capacity of a Director and Anju Bhasin having become the first Vice-Chancellor of Cluster University Jammu. While teaching has largely been labelled as a women-specific profession, there has always been a gender deficit at the administrative positions which these two appointments are likely to make a difference to. Had Shehnaz Ganai been successful in getting the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation Act 2004 amended and getting 20 percent reservation for women in Government jobs, the scenario would have been entirely different in the state. Nevertheless, it’s just a beginning.
The visibility of women in police has increased manifold especially in the traffic wing and it is more than a welcome sign. Nisha Nathyal, Shaheen Wahid and Ms. Sargun as SSsP traffic are doing exceedingly well in manning chaotic and unruly traffic in both provinces of the State. Shakti Devi has been the recipient of the International Female Police Peacekeeper Award 2014 by the UN’s Police Division for her “exceptional achievements” with the UN mission in Afghanistan, including her efforts towards helping victims of sexual and gender-based violence. Arti Thakur successfully headed Women Police Station Jammu consecutively for four years and Mst. Gulshan Akhter did the same in the valley. Kudos to Ashima Kaul for being honoured by the President of India on figuring in the 100 Women Achievers Award by the Ministry of Women and Child Welfare in partnership with Facebook and to Meenu Mahajan for being crowned as Mrs India Exquisite for year 2016-17 in a National Annual Pageant organised in New Delhi.
Let me also cheer up the ones fighting their battles unabated and not giving up. Shashi Thakur, a role model for many girls aspiring to join the police service in the early 90’s has been fighting a lonely battle to get an impartial enquiry done into the false and defamatory FIR registered against her by her own department for raising her voice against the encroachment of Chowadhi Nallah. Rajni Sharma who worked as a contractual lecturer in the off-site campus of University of Jammu has mustered the courage to rise up against the alleged harassment by the university authorities and lodging a complaint with the CVC without any headway. No wonder, the system breaks, corners, coerces and easily stigmatize women; yet, her agency comes to the fore when she not only faces it all despite adversity but advocates change.
While I draw these examples, these may well appear to be individualistic cases and truly so, am too, not trying to draw a rosy picture for the ground reality for women at large is still different and the larger question of changing their lives still remains fundamental to women’s issues. Our concern for women’s issues must become a movement. We can only bring a structural change of having gender parity once the strong foundation is laid on the correct lines and the only way I can visualise this happening is by investing as much as possible in our Girls’ education. District Kathua was mentioned in Prime Minister’s Mann ki Baat last month. The Prime Minister lauded efforts under ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ programme in Kathua by devising convergence model involving different Government departments and agencies in bringing positive change in the mindset of the people towards the girl child. The child sex ratio has shown significant improvement of 10 points-up from 835 to 845-which is a healthy and encouraging sign. The moment such news begin to pour in from other districts, the wheel would begin spinning in favour of women in our state. There has to be a paradigm shift in how we perceive gender inequality and address the same. The World Economic Forum predicts the gender gap won’t close entirely until 2186 and this is too long a wait. IWD can be an important catalyst and vehicle for driving greater change for women and moving closer to gender parity. It has not to be men for women or women for men; it has to be both men and women for all.
With the reigns of the state in the hands of a woman Chief Minister, one can expect structural changes in the position of women in the socio-economic, political and educational sphere like never before and 33 percent reservation for women in the state legislature is not really asking for too much and I am sanguine, Ms. Mufti is going to deliver!
(The author teaches Sociology at the University of Jammu and is the State Chairperson for SPIC MACAY)
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