Woman power, powerlessness

I am certain that even diehard cricket fans have given up watching the T-20 series nowadays. The reason for this is what is happening on our news channels, with a ball-by-ball commentary of the match going on in the Congress headquarters. Watching the heated debates, listening to the hysterical reporters chasing MLAs, buses and the Three Wise Men sent from Delhi, leaves no mindspace for anything else. Compared to the stately departure of the late Queen of England, the messy handover of power in the Grand Old Party appears like a tawdry tinpot country’s Me-Too moment.

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So, I will not go down there: in any case, I know even less about the internal wiring of our political parties than the local paanwala, so why even try? Instead, I am trying to figure out how parties that are led by women are different from those led by men. On second thoughts, women often morph into stern control freaks, setting aside their traditional role as the ones who knit families together by using persuasion, guile and emotional blackmail. There was a time when it was believed that women are more honest and fairer than men in financial matters. That, too, is a busted myth. Just look at the stashed wealth and jewels tumbling out of their homes, the benami properties they hold and the henchmen they have protected and one realises that power corrupts men and women alike. There is one party, however, that has resolutely kept women out of its inner circle. And this, perhaps, is also the reason why it goes so wrong in responding to crimes against women. The daily roster of crimes and the bias against women in general will one day cost this party its vote bank.

I grew up in a world where women were rarely given their due. It is a cliche now to say that women have to run twice as fast to keep pace with their male counterparts, but remember that all cliches are ultimately true. Even in a liberal, educated family such as ours, there were separate rules for girls and boys. No matter how well we girls did in our studies, the freedom to choose a career before being married off just did not exist. My father did not allow me to join a medical college, as I ardently wished to do, saying that women doctors neglect their families. Like so many patriarchs of his generation, he firmly believed that women were meant to tend and nurture their families. Today, I am amazed that I took it lying down but such were the times we grew up in that we never questioned our fathers.

To that extent, I am happy that girls and boys are now treated in educated middle-class families as equals. Here, I am not including the many girls who still suffer at the hands of abusive husbands and those who are tortured for dowries, for there is so much still that needs to be done to empower women. A local woman who irons our clothes recently told me how her daughter, who had suffered for years at the hands of an abusive alcoholic husband, begged her parents to let her leave him, but each time she was sent back to the same hell she wanted so desperately to escape. And why? Because her parents feared what their community would say. Then, a few weeks ago, she came to them with bloody marks on her neck where her husband had attacked her with a knife in a drunken fit, smashing her mobile phone so that she could not call for help and slunk out. God knows how she tottered back and this time even her parents refused to send her back. A kindly neighbour offered her a job and she is happily working and safe from a life of fear and indignity.

Yet, for every happy ending is the story of a girl who has hanged herself, or been tossed into the bushes or a canal after being kidnapped and raped. When such crimes are reported, the police try and persuade the victim to withdraw the case or refuse to register an FIR. The media is more concerned with whether the perpetrator of this crime belongs to this party or that community. It is enough to turn one’s stomach so I hope that the news we are offered in print and on TV goes back to highlighting the really vital issues that we need to address: environmental degradation, social injustice, the sorry condition of our towns and cities and the pathetic state of primary education and health. There was a time when this is what reporters were trained to spot and pursue. Today, all they seem to do is promote the interests of one political party or the other.

We are currently celebrating Dasehra, a festival dedicated to the worship of the Devi who is the embodiment of female power, Shakti. Every locality has a huge image of Durga riding a tiger, her feet crushing the monster Mahishasura, a weapon held in each of her hands. On the eighth day of this 10-day festival, we worship little girls and wash their feet to honour this powerful protector of the world.

Will someone tell me why we cannot treat the girls and women in our world similarly for the rest of the year?