Women empowerment, a myth or reality

PS Bali

The empowerment of any section of the society is a myth, until they are conferred equality before the law, so it would be perhaps wrong to say that women empowerment in India is a myth. Women empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social or economic strength, making her entitled to equate men, thus it substantiates the fact with the participation of the women in all activities such as education, politics, media, art and culture, service sectors and science and technology.

Since ancient times, women in India is considered to be a divine, to whom people worship and respect,

The principle of gender equality is enshrined in the Indian Constitution in its Preamble, Fundamental Rights, Fundamental Duties and Directive Principles. The Constitution not only grants equality to women, but also empowers the State to adopt measures of positive discrimination in favour of women. The Indian Constitution guarantees to all Indian women equality (Article 14), no discrimination by the State (Article 15(1)), equality of opportunity (Article 16) and equal pay for equal work (Article 39(d)).

In addition, it allows special provisions to be made by the State in favour of women (Article 15(3)), renounces practices derogatory to the dignity of women (Article 51(A) (e)), and also allows for provisions to be made by the State for securing just and humane conditions of work and for maternity relief (Article 42).

Notwithstanding, such a gigantic space in the Indian constitution, women in India is till date facing wrath of honour-killings, biological sex difference has caused wide discrimination between men and women, female foeticide leading to morally and socially sick race, rape and molestation. She is striving to get identified and is still longing for free life to live.

Transcending, orthodox beliefs women tried lot to equate men, but were let-off, she sought reservation in local bodies, but were not given as men felt that if women came in politics, their seat would be on stake, that’s why even after year’s of struggle, women is still craving for adequate representation in any house of the parliament and in local bodies.

The women held a sacred position in context of religion in India. Since Vedas, she has been worshipped as deity and it has been proved from numerous excavations, where it was found that people worshipped women idols in different eras.

Eventually, in later Vedic period, women respect came to decline, in that era, women was thwarted to participate in public bodies, men over shadowed her desires, harsh laws were imposed on them, like that of Sati, Devdasi and child marriage among others, thus making them speechless, powerless and hapless creature. 

They were considered to be the entity for house-hold and at many places her free movement was also debarred.

All these factors led to the constitution of female bodies, to fight for their rights, but could not stand against men, as there was no unity among them.

The prime feminist activism in India picked up momentum during later 1970s. One of the first national level issues that brought the women's groups together was the Mathura rape case. The acquittal of policemen accused of raping a young girl Mathura in a police station, led to a wide-scale protests in 1979–1980. The protests were widely covered in the national media, and forced the Government to amend the Evidence Act, the Criminal Procedure Code and the Indian Penal Code and introduce the category of custodial rape. Female activists united over issues such as female infanticide, gender bias, women health, and female literacy.

The National Commission for Women was set up by an Act of Parliament in 1990 to safeguard the rights and legal entitlements of women. The 73rd and 74th Amendments (1993) of the Constitution of India have provided for reservation of seats in the local bodies of panchayats and municipalities for women, laying a strong foundation for their participation in decision making at the local levels.

Despite such commissions, committees no change has been witnessed so far, still in many parts of the UP, Bihar, Haryana, MP and Punjab, female foeticide is on rampant. For men in these areas, women are nothing more than a dust, they treat them like animals.

Moreover, the statistics in the Indian Census-2011 tells a horror story, where sex ratio declined like anything. The Constitution of India gave equal rights to the women with men from the beginning. Unfortunately, women in this country are mostly unaware of their rights because of illiteracy and the oppressive tradition.

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