Women's reservation bill

 The present government is proceeding ahead with the women's reservation bill. They want to expand the number of seats in the Lok Sabha and give this excess seats to the women. It is being touted as gift from Mr. Narendra Modi to the womenfolk of India. It will be advertised repeatedly that this government has done something which no other government had the guts to do and so they must be voted back to power. It is purely a tactic to try and ensure that they win the next set of elections, especially the one in West Bengal and hence the timing. Day by day this government is revealing and reveling in the cunning politics of Machiavelli and Chanakya.

The women of India need to decide do they need reservation or equality. Reservation is given for those who are incapable of competing with the rest. It is like the handicap in golf or horse racing or many of other such sports. Do the women want to accept that they cannot compete with men for the open seats?

The  power to bring equality in the society lies with the womenfolk. The men have no reason to try to bring about this equality among genders. Most are not even willing to talk and those who talk, tell that women are weak and need to be protected. The womenfolk need to train their sons, brothers, and other menfolk around them so that they start treating women as equals. It will take a few generations for this to turn around, but I find only a few women walking down this path. Unless this becomes a mass movement, it is unlikely to find traction. In my opinion radical feminism is not a good way to approach this problem of patriarchy. And the women need to ensure that it doesn't make a complete U-Turn.

Yes biologically and physically, on an average, the women are weaker then men, but in the rest they can be equal if not better. To fight elections one does not need physical strength, so why the reservation?

The other issue is that, it is already difficult to get to consensus with 500+ people, with 800+ people on the floor it is going to be chaos.

This is just optics for the BJP and Narendra Modi.

The second point is that, to increase the number of seats, delimitation will be mooted. While the government has stated that they will not increase the seats of any state and that the increase is bound to be proportional, it is becoming more and more difficult to believe what this government says. It has lost its credibility to a large extent. It will be surprising if the number of seats in the Northern state where BJP is strong, get the bulk of the increase in seats. It is unlikely that the Southern states will get any kind of significant increase of seats.

This women's reservation bill should raise an alarm among the womenfolk, but it will more or less be passed unanimously as every party will want to stake the claim that they were the ones who brought the women's reservation bill and hence they should be the one's to get the credit.

Misogyny in India

 In the book excerpt from the book The Song of the Clay Pot by Sumana Chandrashekar the author says that the world of Carnatic Music is full of misogyny. The male artistes refuse to have a female percussionist. The reasons are never known, it is just that it is a tradition.

Traditions arise due to various circumstances and become entrenched in the society. It becomes difficult to shake them. At the same time not trying to change a tradition which does not align with the current right thoughts, with right reasoning, needs to be considered.

In this example it is important that newer artistes start breaking the taboo and let women percussionists play alongside them. The women can lead the change, even if the men do not wish a change.

This has to happen vehemently, but silently. It has to send a message to those artistes not willing to take on a women percussionists, "Look, you are in minority". If this movement is kick started then it will take at least a generation for the men to accept this change.

This kind of misogyny is present not just in Carnatic Music, but is present in every facet of life, in every part of the world, including the so called "progressive", "advanced" nations of the West that pride themselves in leading the change. They forget that their women were not allowed to vote for a very long time and even today women change their name, not the men. The children take the name of the father, not that of the mother. By default in most societies the inheritance goes to the male children.

All this needs to change. The biggest driver will be education. The teachers (given that many of them are women) have to start driving these aspects into the heads of the children right from the beginning. The stress has to be on equality of gender and mutual respect for humans (irrespective of any difference between them) has to be cultivated from childhood, for the society to change and become better.

Expecting the privileged men to take this step is foolhardy. Will the women who, are the most of time guilty of discriminating against their daughters and even more towards their daughters-in-law take up the gauntlet to bring about the change?

 

Ahalya's Awakening by Kavita Kane

Ahalya's Awakening by Kavita Kané
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A modern interpretation of Ahalya's story. As per original story Ahalya is married to Rishi Gautam and Indra in the guise of Gautam beds her and Gautam curses her to be a rock till Ram redeems her aeons later.

In Kavita's interpretation Ahalya is a very intelligent girl who is not allowed to grow her learning thanks to the patriarchy around her and ironically her mother wishes to get her married to Indra who is a constant visitor at their palace and is smitten by her beauty. Ahalya flatly refuses to marry Indra.

During a war she is sent to the ashram of Gautam with whom she has a lot of intellectual discussions and in the process the fall in love, without either one of them expressing it explicitly.

After her return home she becomes forlorn and it is exacerbated by the fact that her father and brother are arranging for a swayamvar for her. She finally spills her being in love with someone else, but succumbs to the pressure and agrees to the swayamvar which everyone predicts will be won by Indra.

Fortune favours her and Gautam surprisingly wins her hand and he comes and weds her too. The initial days of marital bliss turn bitter as she gives birth to one child after another, looks after and runs Gautam's ashram. Her learning comes to a grinding halt as the burden of managing everything keeps increasing. The bonhomie between her and Gautam evaporates and Gautam appears another masochist.

Indra comes in at the opportune moment and Ahalya willingly gives in.

The question the author asks is should Ahalya be punished the way she was. The author's answers come out when Ahalya meets Sita in the forest after she has been banished by Ram. The discussion between the two women is worth reading.

One wonders does it make sense to look at millenniums old events through the coloured glasses of present day feminism.

A decent read.

View all my reviews

Naan Naanga... by Sivasankari (நான் நானாக - சிவசங்கரி)

Naan Naanaga... by Sivasankari
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The protagonist is a middle class Brahmin lady whose desire to to learn Bharatnatyam. But thanks to the orthodox nature of her and her in-laws family she is denied this chance. She does learn dance for about three years in her parent's place and gives a few performances, but all that comes to a stop when gets married at 20.

After that her life revolves around her husband and children. She had a nursed an ambition that she would realize her desire through her daughter, but fate willed otherwise and she had two sons.

At the age 40, 20 years after marriage, both the sons have gone away from the homes to study and the old passion comes back to gnaw at her. With great hope she tries to express her desire to her husband, but her husband is dead against it, even though she says that she is only going to learn the theory part of the dance and is not interested in giving dance performances. Her husband ropes in her son and her parents to try and and talk her out of this. She persists and leads to a big fight between them which is the first from the time of their marriage.

Eventually and surprisingly it is her mother-in-law who comes to her rescue and makes her son understand that he should let his wife fulfill her desire.

The book highlights the patriarchal Indian society which expects the womenfolk to suppress their desires and continue to serve others. It tries to indicate that it is time we move out that thought and let everyone, irrespective of their gender, have a chance to try and fulfill their desires.

A decent read.

View all my reviews

We should all be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book defines a feminist as anyone who wishes to have equality of gender. An idealistic thought, but difficult to realize in a male dominated society. So should we not aim for it? No definitely one should aim for it. As the author rightly points out in one place it requires us to provide a different upbringing to our children of either gender.

Any for of equality requires education and a social revolution. It will take a few generations for the humans to accept the equality. It took quite a while for women suffrage, today after close to a century we are talking of the possibility of a woman becoming the President of what is considered to be the most powerful country in the world. One can also see where the resistance to a woman President is coming, the while male.

It took a while for legal abolition of slavery and it took more than a century for it to be really implemented in some manner. It is still an unfinished task, the white supremacy has not yet petered off.

Similarly the gender equality will require a lot of social change. What Chimamanda wishes for will take time to be realized.

View all my reviews

A nice post by Rohit Kumar

Rohit Kumar has a very good post on how women are made objects of desire and treated badly. He has highlighted how the Entertainment Industry has denigrated the status of women.


My response to the post is as follow:


Well said.


The moot point is why do the women not take steps to ensure that such a situation does not arise, not that the men can shrug off their responsibility, but women have a role to play too.

Why cannot every mother, sister, aunt, grandmother, sensitize their son, brother, nephew, grandson to the other gender. Why do these women not teach their male relatives to behave? This will go a long way towards bringing equality and mutual respect between the genders.

Have we wondered why we have the stereo type mothers-in-law but not stereo type fathers-in-law? Is it ingrained into our women to belittle other women?

Unfortunately there is no doubt that we are a male dominated society where man dictates, but if all the women get together and educate, sensitize the males around them the world would be a much better place.


At the other end we have the feminist who wish to dominate the men. Both the extremes are bad for the society.

Any relationship where one dominates over the other and there is lack of mutual respect is a relationship filled with hatred, bile, jealousy and all the other negative attributes. There is no love.

It is only in relationship where each considers the other equal is there peace harmony, trust and hence love.

This applies to individuals as well as society. Try and analyze why we talk about racism, casteism, imperialism, religion base differences. All of this arises because one does not think the other is one's equal.

This is true of the relationship between gender too.

Hope there is a social revolution to get rid of this situation.