A lot of the Indian paradox,
especially in the social sphere is simply explained if we remember a
fundamental fact – till even 50 years back, we were a primarily feudal society.
The average life expectancy was less than 40 yrs, urbanization was less than 20%.
Today the life expectancy is close to 70, urbanization is close to 40% (my
guess is it’s actually closer to 50% on including census towns).
But just two generations back,
when our grandmothers were shy beauties and our grandfathers were angry young
men, we were a feudal society. Today we are a not-really-feudal society.
Now, for some reason, feudal
societies across the world seemed to bring out a very virulent sense of
patriarchy – far more than tribal/hunter-gatherer societies for example. Being
a not-really-feudal society, we are a pretty-much-patriarchy.
This is well known. If you see a
street in any of our cities you will mostly see men. There will be something like
3 women, and 50 men in that street. It’s almost eerie. In comparison, if you
see a street in Singapore or Japan it’ll mostly be full of women, and the
street itself will be full of women’s shops. That is perhaps a very basic, but
I feel robust indicator of the level of patriarchy in a society, since job
statistics are more skewed by parenting choices.
Then of course we have crime statistics.
Women are not safe in our cities, and in our families. There are so many rapes
daily. There are fathers and brothers hacking girls in their family to pieces
because she married/loved the wrong boy. This is really what shames the
urban-middle class. It directly affects their sense of what their country is.
Each disgusting, shameful, terrible criminal incident, makes them despair at
the barbarism of our patriarchy. But there is a caveat here, and it is a large
caveat: news cannot report the everyday. The news anchor cannot start her story
saying, of the 30,000 fathers in India who got to know about their daughter’s
love interest today, 4 of them undertook a heinous crime based on feudal
morals. She cannot say, 70 million women went to work today, went out for
dinner, went to meet friends, and there were 10 horrible rapes across the
country.
So how do we get a sense of where
we are then? How do we know is we have reached the stage of a
pretty-much-patriarchy, instead of a barbaric feudal patriarchy? How do we know
if we are moving forward?
It’s a difficult question, and my
personal answer is – scooties. Girls on scooties. I have seen young women
whizzing around on scooties in Meerut, Porbandar, Udaipur, Mangalore, Goa, and
random parts of Kerala. It’s happening everywhere – whether the North or the
South, whether it’s in cosmopolitan Bangalore or small cities in Uttar Pradesh.
It’s happening because girls need to study, they need to go to coaching
classes, they need to sometimes get the groceries, they need to meet friends
and there is no public transport. It’s happening due to necessity, but it’s
happening – and it means that our society is responding to our changing needs.
Our young women are getting that space to be individuals pursuing their goals.
Their families are buying them scooties to do so, even in places without a
single multiplex or shopping mall.
There’s no going back from that.
Once there are girls on scooties, once that idea of a young woman taking
individual action has happened, things can only move forward. That’s my belief.
Source: Google images (http://images.travelpod.com/tripwow/photos/ta-00a9-e964-2c08/scooty-girls-patna-india+1152_12864436785-tpfil02aw-3458.jpg)
I don't know who these ladies are, but they're cool and I'm happy
No comments:
Post a Comment