1)
INTRODUCTION
2)
The women who
blazed the trail
3)
Microscopic
Minority
4)
Sad Plight of
Women
5)
Empowerment is the
only answer
6)
What is
empowerment
7)
Women who proved well due to political empowerment
8)
Political
Empowerment at the National Level
9)
Position in
Panchayats
10) Reservation in Parliament and Assemblies a
myth ?
11)Social Empowerment
12)Role of NGOs in social empowerment
13) Steps taken by Govt for social
empowerment:
14) Empowerment paves way for glory
15) CONCLUSION
INTRODUCTION: “There
is no chance for the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is
improved. It is not
possible for a bird to fly on only one wing,” said Swami Vivekananda. But
through centuries, societies in the
world over have been trying to fly on only one wing, denying women their
rightful place. The greatest champions of women’s rights have been great men
like Gandhiji, Raja Rammohun Roy, Ishwarachandra Vidyasagar, Maharshi Karve and
ironically those who have systematically exploited and degraded them have also
been of a largely-male dominated society. The very concept of women empowerment
shows that society as such has given a raw deal to women – who comprise nearly
fifty percent of the population and women themselves have to come forward to
fight for their rightful place in all walks of life and prevent their
exploitation in every field. Women, who number 498.7 million according to the
2001 census of India, represent 48.2 percent of the country’s population of
1,027.01 million. Let us analyse the ways and means for empowerment of women.
Quite often we are carried
away by the roll call of honour – the name of few luminaries who have left
their footprints on the sands of time or who are fighting lonely battles –
Indira Gandhi, Sirimao Bandaranaike, the first woman Prime Minister of a
country (Sri Lanka) in the world, Chandrika Kumaratunga, Golda Meir, the first
woman Prime Minister of Israel, Margaret Thatcher, the first woman Prime
Minister of UK, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, the first woman President of UN General
Assembly and many others. As a supercop, Kiran Bedi even excelled her male
colleagues in jail reforms for which she was awarded Magsaysay Award. Now one
hears a lot about Nisha Sharma, the UP girl who sent her prospective groom and
in-law to jail for making unreasonable dowry demands.
Microscopic Minority: All
the names cited here have been empowered women and they made both the society
and womenfolk proud of them. But they form a microscopic minority in a country
where even after more than half a century of Independence, women are still
looked down upon as a lesser species, virtual second-class citizens.
Sad
Plight of Women:Attitudes towards women have not changed; in fact, things
have indeed gone from bad to worse after Independence. Despite law, such
reprehensible practices as female foeticide, female infanticide and child
marriage are still prevalent in many parts of the country. Dowry is a plague
that stalks every family having marriageable daughters and like AIDS it has no
cure. Incidence of sexual harassment, eve teasing, sexual abuse of female
children and rape are on the rise. Women form a sizeable percentage of the
workforce in the unorganized sector, but most of the labour laws do not cover
them. Those who have been to the pilgrim centers of Matura, Brindavan and
Varanasi would have noticed the large number of widows living in abject penury.
These are the widows dumped here by their relatives from West Bengal and other
States. In almost every sphere, the female species is the most vulnerable.
Empowerment
is the only answer: Will the empowerment of women mean a
difference to their present status? The answer could be mixed, though the
positive side overshadows the negative side. with all the social attitudes
towards women, an empowered woman is in a far better position than a lay,
unlettered and helpless woman. And this empowerment has to cover the political,
economic, social and legal fields.
What
is empowerment: It is giving
lawful power or authority to act.
If people were empowered they would be able to participate in the
planning, execution and implementation of developmental schemes. Apart from Political Empowerment Economic and Social
Empowerment are crucial. Empowerment and
development are closely related. Empowerment
leads to development, which further leads to greater empowerment.
Women
who proved well due to political
empowerment:As regards political empowerment we have come a long way. We
had an “iron lady” in Indira Gandhi; women like Sarojini Naidu, Vijayalakshmi
Pandit Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Dr. Sushila Nayyar, Sucheta Kripalani have done
not a little to mould modern India. There are veteran MPs and Ministers in the
Centre and the States. Ms.Mayawati and Ms.Jayalalithaa, have proved to be
astute politicians while Ms.Mamata Banerjee has shown that she is still a force
in Indian politics, to be reckoned with.
All the same, women
empowerment in national and State politics has just been a non-starter. It has
taken 56 years and 13 Lok Sabha for the percentage of women members in the
House to move up partially from a mere 4.4 percent in 1952 to 8.8 percent in
2004, a figure that is far below the average of around 15 percent in countries
which have elected legislatures. Though our dismal record is comparable to
Brazil’s 8.6%, Indonesia’s 8.0%, Russia’s 7.6%, Japan’s 7.3%, Sri Lanka’s
4.4%and Bangladesh’s 2.0%. Yet we are far behind countries like Sweden (45.3%).
Cuba (36.0%). Germany (32.2%), China (21.8%), Pakistan (21.6%), UK (17.9%) and
France (12.2%).
Position
in Panchayats: Of course, we made a bold beginning in
respect of the political empowerment of women at the grassroots level during
the Rajiv Gandhi regime. During his regime, the 64th Constitutional
Amendment Bill for reservation for women in Panchayats was introduced. Though
it failed in the Rajya Sabha, it was reintroduced during Narasimha Rao’s
regime. In December 1992, Parliament passed the 73rd and 74th
Constitutional Amendments providing for 33% reservation for women in the
Panchayat Rajbodies. In the last decade after the legislation came into force,
the women as Presidents and members of the Panchayats have played a signal role
in local bodies. Women have stormed male bastions of power not only in the village
panchayats, but in the municipal councils and municipal corporations in towns
and big cities.
“Women elected to
Panchayats and municipal councils because of reservation policy are now
asserting themselves,” says Sudha Mohan, who teaches urban studies at Mumbai
University’s Department of Civics and Politics. Although women are still
under-represented in the national political arena, the 73rd and 74th
Constitutional Amendments have increased their access to decision-making at the
local level. This has resulted in practical changes, according to actress and
Rajya Sabha member, Shabana Azmi. For instance, she said, women in local
government tended to take up basic issues like water, health facilities and
education even as their male counterparts seemed more interested in building
marriage halls and community centers.Large-scale entry of women in local
self-government institutions in rural and urban India has changed the face and
tenor of the elected bodies. For instance, for a change one can feel the predominant
presence of women in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation(BMC). This civic
body had approximately five women corporators before the 1992 elections. In
2002, 78 women entered the 227 members house
because of the reservation policy.
Reservation
in Parliament and Assemblies a myth ? Right from 1996, the women
of India have been waiting for the clearance of the Women’s Reservation Bill
that would give them one-third reservation in Parliament and the State
Legislatures. The Bill was introduced several times since then, but because of
the lack of sheer political will, it still remains in the gestation phase. Can
we ever expect the menfolk who dominate Parliament and State Legislatures with
a more than ninety percent majority to surrender their privileges and positions
overnight? On some plea or the other, the move is scuttled again and again. The
ball started rolling from the days of the Gujral regime, got stuck up during
the Deve Gowda rule and started moving again after the advent of Vajpayee
government. There have been ugly scenes in the Lok Sabha when irate members
tore up the Bill or snatched it from the Minister introducing the Bill.
Nonetheless, almost all parties, even those opposed to the Bill in its present
form, do agree that women should be given greater representation in Parliament
and the State Legislatures. Ultimately, what form the Bill will take in future
when it comes to the Lok Sabha remains to be seen.
Social
Empowerment: Political empowerment of women is only a part of the overall
mainstreaming of women. At the political level only a microscopic minority of
women, at the helm of affairs, can effect the change in the life of women. It
is the economic and social empowerment of women that needs to be given greater
importance. This could be achieved a lot though education. Education of women
means greater awareness of their role in society. Awareness of their rights,
better knowledge of housekeeping and better performance of their roles as a
housewife and mother. Education and training have opened up the avenues of
employment and self-employment in the organized sector. As never before women
are working in diverse fields as doctors, engineers, IAS officers, IPS
officers, bank officials and in a wide range of sectors in the unorganized
sector. In agriculture, most of the operations are run by women.
Role
of NGOs in social empowerment:Non-governmental organizations are
playing a significant role in the empowerment of disadvantages women. Just a
few years after Independence, the Government set up the Central Social Welfare
Board, an apex body of the voluntary sector that aids more than 10,000 NGOs
across the country, helping women stand on their own through such programmes as
socio-economic programme, vocational training and other similar programmes.
Steps
taken by Govt for social empowerment: The Department of Women
and Child Development has been implementing special programmes for the holistic
development and empowerment of women with major focus to improve their
socio-economic status. There has been policy shifts from time to time based on
the shifts in emphasis. While the focus earlier was welfare and development of
women, now the focus is on ‘women’s empowerment’. In fact, the year 2001 was
declared as “Women’s Empowerment Year” to bring greater focus on the programmes
for women.A programme of Support to Training-cum-Employment for Women (STEP)
was launched in 1987 to strengthen and improve the skills for employment
opportunities for women below the poverty line, in traditional sectors of agriculture,
small animal husbandry, dairying, fisheries, handlooms, handicrafts, cottage
and village industries, sericulture, social forestry and wasteland development
where women are employed on a large scale. The scheme was essentially designed
for the marginalized and assetless women, female-headed households and other
poor women. Other major government programmes to empower poor women have been
the Swayamsidha launched in March 2001 and the Swa-Shakti Project (earlier
known as Rural Women’s Development and Empowerment Project), launched in
October 1998. All these projects are designed to empower the lower
socio-economic groups in the country.WOMEN
DEV CORPN IN STATES
Empowerment
paves way for glory: Here give some good points through your
analysis
Conclusion: Empowerment
by itself may not place women on an equal footing with men. The greatest need
of the hour is change of social attitude to women. Take the classic case of
dowry. Dowry is still rampant in a virulent form even among the highly educated
a girl may be, dowry is still demanded. We have seen the case of Nisha and she
and her parent too were willing to pay the dowry. Only when the demands crossed
the limits, she fought back. How many girls are there who can toe her line?
Women’s empowerment means a lot, but the ultimate goal of the equalization of
man and woman would materialize only when her complementary role is recognized
by the society.