As we celebrate yet another women’s day, we need to know what this marginalised sex needs to do to regain the ground it has long ceded to the other sex. All aspects — social, legal and medical — must be taken into account to understand the complexities of the genders and ensure a healthy interpersonal bonding.
For a starter, one needs to have a manifesto. This article is an attempt in this regard as it puts forward certain points that need to be done to ensure that women get their rights.
First, everyone needs to understand that it is the male genetic code that determines the sex of a child. The formation of the chromosomes, X and Y, has nothing to do with the mother. Indian mothers of all religions, castes and creeds are always blamed for giving birth to daughters; women have suffered all forms of cruelty under this stigma. A media blitz, including posters, leaflets, etc, must drive this point home fast and loudly.
Second, puberty is a hormone-determined behaviour. For girls to be aware of it and to make themselves look attractive are not wrong. Normally, parents and relatives too are delighted to see their little girls slowly flower into pretty teenagers. They can gently guide them on costumes best suited to enhance their attractiveness without being crude. Boys too, for whom puberty happens a little later, can be guided to express their newfound interest in the appearance of the girls they know — classmates, neighbours, etc — through friendly and courteous behaviour. While the boys may wish to show off their new-found masculinity through swaggering mock-fights between each other, family guidance can help them to not translate this sense of ‘power’ into bullying girls. All this happens, in both sexes between nine and 14 years of age. Good family and school guidance will make all the difference to how the sexes treat each other as they grow up.
Social institutions, particularly in villages which are governed by panchayats, need intensive counselling to ensure a harmonious male-female camaraderie in the community. Equally, the police need such training.
Then, there are khap panchayats which are summoned when a group of five or 21 village panchayats feels that the social conditions in their community are getting out of control. Each individual panchayat sends a representative to become a member of the khap. Venerated elders may also be invited to join it. More than anyone else, these leaders are the ones who need to undergo at least a week-long intensive training and counselling session before the date set for the meeting of thekhap panchayat. The Centre and State Governments must send a team of liberal, political educators to teach law and constitution, human biological/sexual needs of young people and economic and agricultural experts to encourage the khaps to consider innovative methods of development for their territory. Above all, they have to firmly understand that constitutional rights cannot be violated by their dictat. For instance they should understand that a gotra in the times of the Vedas may have consisted of only a few hundred people but today each gotra will have millions and millions of members not in any way related to each other and so the khap’s demand for a ban on same gotra marriages cannot be sustained, let alone be the justification for murder.
love between young people may arise out of individual acquaintance or a marriage arranged by parents. In both cases, with a sympathetic social environment, love is a thing of beauty to be cherished as a bonding which will carry the couple through life, which is long, together in harmony and happiness. This love is the basis of human society.
Panchayats exist not only among Hindus but also among the Muslims. Christians, too, have a similar institution. There is nothing wrong with such human associations at the grassroots level, it is only that the nation needs to recognise their worth to the basic units of society and make a supreme effort to keep all of them informed about the Constitution, law, medical advances and technology and so on. It will cost a lot of money, no doubt, but serve better for the nation and its people. But by far the most important empowerment for women, nearly half of the population, is a common civil code.