Dr. Vishiesh Verma
March 8 is synonymous with international women’s day (it is a public holiday in many countries). In 1945, the charter of United Nations was signed in San Francisco and it became the first international agreement which proclaimed gender equality as fundamental human right. In fact, every day is women’s day why women need a day devoted exclusively to themselves. The mother, the wife- is the spine of a home. In a feminist article a work done by women in the kitchen is equalized to that of a pilot who flies an airplane. A wife serves her children, the husband and her home too, after serving all the needs of the others, the woman attends to her own needs. We don’t know the value of the service women do for the well-being of the family. Their unselfish service is taken for granted. It seems woman was the first human being that tasted bondage. Woman was a slave before the slave existed,” said August Babel in his text on ‘Women under socialism’.
It is indeed sad that after 66 yrs of independence of the country women are still under bondage, unable to assert their rights, silently pulling up with the atrocities. A report on, “Men and women in India in 2012” brought about by Ministry of statistics and program implementation says that 46% of women (15-19 yrs) are not involved in any kind of decision making. About 40% of women have no access to money. International Centre for Research 2010 calculated 45% of Indian girls are married off before 18 yrs of age. In the list of crimes committed against the women in 2011 cruelty by husbands and relatives continue to occupy 43% and molestation 18.8%.
About 70% of the Indian population lives in the villages. Rural Indian women are extensively involved in agricultural activities. However, the nature and extent of their involvement differs with the variations in agricultural production, and varies with the land owning status of farm house- holds. Their role ranges from farm managers to landless labourers. Their work remains for most part invisible and unaccountable in production and employment statistics. The proportion of women in agricultural production and post harvest activities ranges from 20% to 70%. But it is most unfortunate that role of women in agriculture has not been highlighted over the years. The Women cultivators are typically and wrongly characterized as economically inactive and they play only a supportive role in agriculture as farmers’ wives. In fact, rural women have fewer opportunities for access to education, employment and asset ownership. Without education these women enter a vicious circle marked by fewer opportunities for employment. Nearly 35% of rural households in the country are headed by women and they are poorest of the community. The contribution of women of J&K state in agriculture is eye-opener. The total work force in 2001 was 37.54 lakh workers consisting of 26.80 lakh males and 10.74 lakh females. This workforce consisted of 26.09 lakh main workers and 11.45 lakh marginal workers. Work participation rate amongst females was 22.45% in 2001.
A sectoral breakdown of women workers as per census 2001 reveals that 6.05 lakh women out of the 15.91lakh were cultivators and 0.57 lakh out of the 2.46 lakh were agricultural laborers.
In India, over 90% of rural women workers are unskilled; most of them work in informal, un-organized sectors. The wage rate for women in agriculture are thirty-fifty percent less than those for men and female casual labourers have the highest incidence of poverty of any occupational category.
Women, it is said, hold up half the sky. Forget the sky, in India, women most often don’t even own the land they toil on all their lives. Women comprise barely 11% of land holders in the country. Yet, they constitute almost a third of the agricultural labor force and 72% of employed women are in the agricultural sector. The low proportion of land ownership among women assumes significance in the light of the close link established between landlessness and rural poverty. Women continue to comprise a disproportionate share of the landlessness and rarely hold legal rights to land. Despite several studies highlighting the significant cost of excluding women from control of land and its resources, a vast majority of women continue to be engaged in dead end agricultural operations. It is the lives of women in rural areas that truly represent the reality of Indian women. The needs of women here who suffer from poverty and lack of basic services is a more pressing and it is at this side that greatest attention has to be paid. One of the main hurdles to women’s development has been their preoccupation with repeated pregnancy from the adolescence and their heavy physical work load, malnutrition, inadequate availability of maternity and child health services and poor availability of women health personnel in the villages.
Once Pt Nehru said, you can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women. A survey report by Nielsen revealed in Times of India (July 16, 2011) that Indian women are the most stressed out in the world, 87% of them remain stressed most of the time. In workaholic America, only 53% women feel stressed. In the present Indian set up it is not simple for a woman to get education, job, and promotion as a right. Everywhere she has to struggle and undergo stress. According to ILO, out of 131 countries for which data was available (in 2013) India ranks 11th from the bottom in female labor force participation. A 240-firm survey shows that 11% of Indian companies have women CEOs. There are only 7% of Indian women employed in professional and managerial occupations and the proportional increase has been just one percent between each survey, besides there are 4% women at senior management level (Incorporated from the study by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
There are no two opinions that India has had a very good track record of holding regular elections and a democratic form of Government, it remains one of the worst performers in the Gender Inequality Index (GII) of the World Bank. The GII captures the loss in achievement with in a country due to gender inequality and is based on measures of health, labor force participation and empowerment. In the Human Development Report 2012, India performed poorly than neighbouring Pakistan despite having a higher per capita income and a democratic Government. More strikingly, it is ranked 133rd out of 146 countries and even lags behind war -torn countries such as Iraq and Sudan.
“Women’s Rights are Human Rights”. This declaration was made at the 4th international conference on women in Beijing in September 1995. This conference had 12 issues for the ‘Platform for Action’. But the stress was on ending the oppression of women and girls and transforming the social economic and political structures which underline and perpetuate poverty, in- equality, injustice, violence and war. The crux of the problem is present Indian Social setup where in women’s rights are not respected nor protected and promoted as malleable, indivisible and Universal human rights. Atrocities on women are on the increase.
Women’s question is really a human question. By devaluing women men are not only dehumanizing half of human race but actually alienating themselves. Human question involves integral concepts like human development and human rights. Human rights imply freedom from discrimination, fear, injustice exploitation etc and freedom to live decent life and work. It requires total attitudinal change both in men and women. Empowering women must be a united approach. Men and women working together in all realms of human existence can result in a harmonious non-repressive society and a better world in future.
(The writer is a former reader Coordinator of University of Jammu.)
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