Is Women Empowerment a Distant Dream in India?

Even though India is moving ahead technologically and economically, Indian women still fall prey of social discrimination. When Swami Vivekanada said, “That country and that nation which doesn’t respect women will never become great now and nor will ever in future.”, he perhaps could not foresee the future of women in India. Actually the male dominated society of India follows the phrase of Manusmriti that ‘the woman is undeserving for independence’ and that is the attitude, which reflects our lookout for the women in our country.

In every stage of life, a woman faces discrimination. The discrimination towards women starts with female infanticide. According to the census of 2001, the national sex ratio is 921:1000 (women 921 and men 1000). This ratio evidences the rate of female infanticide in Indian society. In many occasions, mothers are not even informed about the infanticide while in some cases grandmothers encourage to this brutal practice. Haw can a woman forget if her parents and grandparents did the same thing to her, she would not be able to even see the world.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “If you educate a man you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman you educate an entire family.” In the sphere of education, female children always remain deprived in comparison to their male counterparts, especially in villages. Even after the implementation of the universal law to educate every kid under the age of 14, this law gets violated in almost every village. Still it is believed that women are made to manage the household. So what is the point of educating one’s female child, since the prime motto of the parents are always to see their daughters as someone’s wife and house maker.

How many news of domestic violence do you come across in the morning newspaper everyday? Most of the incidents of domestic violence occur as a consequence of the demand for dowry. And if their demands are not getting fulfilled, the abusers don’t even hesitate to kill the bride. I just can’t believe how a living human being is getting killed for few cash and kind? Even though some laws like Section 498A do exist to protect women’s rights, very few women know about this.

A woman should always take her own decision, be it her education or her marriage or her career. But how many women can take their decision independently without other’s influence. Some quit education after marriage while some quit their jobs to satisfy her husband and family-in-law’s will. She has rights neither in her decision making nor in her own life.

According to some sociologists women empowerment will be achieved by gaining fivefold empowerment framework, namely- welfare (socio-economic status), access (access to resources and services), conscientisation (an urge to remove the discriminatory practices), mobilization (action level of empowerment) and control (power for decisions making independently).

But one has to understand that these five levels, which are interconnected, can’t be achieved without the help of the women. Women have to fight for their rights and should increase their control and participation in decision making. And as Jawaharlal Nehru said “You can tell the condition of the nation by looking at the status of women.”, one day, India too will proudly say that the status of women in India is no less than the stronger sex.