Giving women their due alone would ensure their safety

The provisional census data of 2011 do not indicate the nation’s progress when viewed in the context of Jawaharlal Nehru’s vision. He famously said, “You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women.”

In fact, our everyday observation does not suggest that we are not heading towards achieving the real freedom tested on Gandhiji’s touchstone either: “India will attain full freedom on the day women can walk safely at night.” Not much elaboration is needed to show how unsafe it is for women to travel alone, even during the day in some cities, let alone at night.

Two good things in the census are: 2001-11 is the first decade after 1911-21 to add lesser population and the sex ratio (number of females per 1,000 males) has increased to 940 from the previous decade’s level of 933.

But this slower pace of growth is no consolation with the population size peaking to 1.21 billion, which is poised to swell faster to make India world’s most populous country, surpassing China, by 2030. Even otherwise, 181 million more people in a decade or a net addition (births minus deaths) of about 50,000 every day is not a small figure.

That apart, though sex ratio has increased, still there are 3.72 crore fewer females than males in the country (586.5 million females for 623.7 million males).  More worrisome was the fact that the child (0-6 years) sex ratio has come down from 927 to 914.

This is supposed to be on account of female foeticide and selective sex determination.

The male preference is on account of the continued male dominance in the society despite claims of social and economic advancement of the country. Women do not get equal status as men. They are humiliated and abused at school, college, work place, in bus, train and everywhere. Bride burning continues unabated.

Official data does not, or rather, cannot, dispute the discrimination against women. The Economic Survey 2010-11 says, “In terms of gender equality index (GEI), India with an index value of 0.748 ranked 122 out of a total of 168 countries in 2008. The GEI captures the loss in achievement due to gender disparities in the areas of reproductive health, empowerment, and labour force participation with values ranging from 0 (perfect equality) to 1 (total inequality). The GEI index value of 0.748 indicates a higher degree of gender discrimination in India compared to countries like China (0.405) and Sri Lanka (0.599)”.

But how to check this menace, injustice against women and clean the society of the brutal elements that hinder progress of women and through which of the society?

One solution to ensure equality among men and women and thereby to eliminate harassment of women everywhere and to make them walk alone without fear, that is, to achieve real freedom is to work towards the equal participation of women in all productive activities. In other words, it is ensuring woman employment to the extent of 50% in every sphere of economic activity.

This is not to say that women are not adequately employed now. In fact they are working for longer hours than men. If the household work—upkeep of home, washing, dusting, taking care of the children etc—is economically valued, it would be equal to half of the gross domestic product of the country as found by the UNIFEM (United Nations Development  Fund for Women) and in  several other studies. So, what is meant is to provide productive employment, to be clearer, paid employment, to women to the extent of 50% in every sector of the economy.

Not only in household chores, but in the unorganised work, where quality of employment is poor with low wages and high work, women outnumber men. In the National Rural Employment Guarantee work, where manual work is done against a paltry daily wage of around Rs100, women participation is almost equal to that of men; in some states it is much higher.

What is to be noted here is that the work in informal sector doesn’t provide sufficient income for a decent living. Women are working mostly in the areas of low wage or no wage situation. Their participation is very low in the organised sector.

As per the data provided in the Economic Survey 2010-11, of the total number persons employed in the organised sector of 275.49 lakh by the year 2008, only 55.12 lakh that is 20%, are female employees.

Public sector, which is supposed to be an ideal employer, has 30.4 lakh female workers in its total workforce of 176.74 lakh, which means 17.20 persons. Private sector is a wee bit better in this area; its female workers of 24.72 lakh account for 25%. But it is not to be forgotten here that the private employers extract more work and pay lower salaries than the public sector. Does it not mean that women are preferred where exploitation is high in addition to their no-wage and low wage employment?

So, woman’s presence everywhere, in a proportion equal to their share in population, will force those men who are now behaving as brutes to behave as human beings. This needs real change. 

Without fundamental changes in the social structures, even the reservations in elected bodies are not giving any desirable results as the experience is showing. Although women’s reservation Bill is being eternally delayed by the male-dominant society there are reservations, already in place, in Panchayats and local bodies to the extent of 33%.

Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Rajasthan, MP and Himachal Pradesh have a higher reservation quota of 50% and AP has very recently joined club, as eighth state. But in most of the cases where reservations are allowed, husbands of the elected representatives are acting as the de facto functionaries while women are allowed to play a nominal role. So, the solution, which may now look utopian, will see women everywhere —50% —at every office, establishment; in all the sectors of economy—agriculture, industry and services; both the types of the system, formal, informal or organised or unorganised; manual or sophisticated—women should be in high positions such as IAS, IPS officers and ministers and they should get their due share there, but more importantly, they should be chauffeuring  autos and buses; piloting air planes; doing jobs during the day and the night.

When women are seen in equal numbers like men, no criminal will dare to attack and harass them.

It should be agreed that this is not going to happen so easily, as said. But, if and when it happens, it would amount to men sharing the power equally with women. And that is exactly not acceptable for those who have been enjoying the power for generation.

The path towards the goal is, therefore, not rosy nor anywhere near the sight. Yet, there should be a persistent struggle to reach the goal. Debating on the issue focusing on the anomaly is hopefully will be a crucial step in the direction of building the public opinion against the injustice meted out to 50% of the population.