Home makers, change makers and other species

INDEPENDENCE SPECIAL/ POLITICS

A furious debate has been set off in Indian feminist circles about the real significance of the nomination of a woman to the post of President of India.

This is a great victory for women, said some feminist groups, because it will show there are no glass ceilings in India, that a woman can aspire to any job. Role models can have a catalysing and liberating effect on a group.

A woman panchayat chief is more likely to sensitise rural society to women's rights than a man. Leadership does understand gender, these groups argue, and power can empower.

But there are others who say Patil is just another willing victim of patriarchy and should not be viewed as a woman but as just another politician. Patil, these groups argue, represents a smokescreen for status quoists. So, in a landscape dotted by powerful women holding powerful jobs, what have the women of India really achieved for themselves in 60 years of independence? Or is it just a case of women of status discussing the status of women?

All around us, voices speak of gender discrimination through poetry, fiction and non-fiction. The extra-parliamentary Left has exhorted followers to avoid traps that institutions place.

But those in BPOs who have defied social norms and opted for a live-in situation say partner-battering is not an unknown phenomenon.Same sex marriages are being reported but honour killings continue. Divorce is on the rise. Whether this is the articulation of some silent feminist social strain or part of a bigger social political picture is hard to say.

What is puzzling is why there is no cohesive movement of women for their rights "" any rights, whatever they might be. If there is organisation of women, it is working in small pockets, dividing, uniting but well within permissible limits.

Does this mean that in 60 years Indian women have achieved what women elsewhere continue to fight for "" existential resignation/contentment?

The 1950s and the 1960s saw a battle of rights for the women of India. The Hindu personal laws of the mid-1950s were amended to allow women to inherit property but it took 55 years to amend the law to give women an equal share in ancestral property.

In the 1970s, women came out on the streets following the Mathura rape case (a woman called Mathura was raped in a police station when she went to file a complaint and the policemen were acquitted for want of evidence) leading to changes in the Criminal Procedure Code and Evidence Act.

In the 1980s, the Shah Bano case for maintenance for divorced Muslim women saw an intense debate on the relationship between the state and women from religious minorities.

The giving and taking of dowry saw some draconian laws being enacted. Whether the crime has gone down is hard to say, but certainly it is not being reported as much.

The 1980s and '90s also saw an intense discussion on sati: if a woman killed herself after her husband's death as part of social practice, how could social mores be changed to ensure she had the right to live? In the 1990s, far reaching reforms in village governance led to the promulgation of the Panchayat Raj law and reservation of seats for women.

This was a new face of woman empowerment, though evidence of cronyism has led feminist groups to question whether this is as gender-progressive a move as it appears.

So, 60 years after Independence, is there anything like an Indian feminist movement? India has had great women leaders. They have led important movements. But in all honesty, an Indian feminist movement? Well, it exists if it works for you...