More miles to go

Every year on March 8 - International Women's Day - rallies and meetings are held, new policies announced, advertisements released and editorials written. How far has the Indian woman travelled since? Changes have taken place, some of them hard-won victories. Yet, there is more to be done. As KALPANA SHARMA observes, the day should act as a reality check.

I ASKED a well-informed, socially-conscious Mumbai college student whether she knew what March 8 stood for. "Something to do with preventing AIDS?" she responded. Had she heard of International Women's Day? She had not. She could not remember, in all her 19 years, ever having registered that March 8 is International Women's Day. So much for such symbols.

This young woman's response is a reminder of how much things have changed since the 1975 United Nations Conference on Women in Mexico City when the U.N. declared an "International Year for Women". Since then there have been numerous international meetings focussing on women's status culminating in the most recent Beijing Women's Conference in 1995. Yet all the rhetoric and symbolism of a "day" for women, or a year, translates differently in different countries and for successive generations, as is evident from the response of the young woman quoted above.

In 1975, the symbol was important in India. The year marked the release of the first comprehensive Status of Women report. It made many people, including women, stop in their tracks. Everyone knew things were bad for Indian women but no one realised just how bad. The report contained shocking statistics of the abysmally low social indicators relating to women in India, a full 28 years after Independence. It gave a direction and focus to many of the campaigns that followed for changes in the laws that affect women. It resulted in a reassessment of development policies that had failed to incorporate the specific needs of women.

A few years after the report, the contemporary women's movement in India caught national attention as it launched high profile national campaigns against dowry and for changes in the rape and inheritance laws. The Status of Women report, on its own, would certainly not have drawn the kind of attention it eventually did if it had not been backed by an active women's movement.

It is also because there was a movement that a day like March 8 came to be regarded as important, something to celebrate, a day to reflect on the situation of women. It became a kind of rallying point, albeit only in the cities, for women's groups. But because the origins of Women's Day were not indigenous, were not linked to a specific event in this country, it never became a natural focus for events and celebrations.

Although the origins of March 8 are not connected to events in India, the idea of such a day came out of a radical struggle by women which is relevant to women worldwide. The International Women's Day emerged from the struggle by women in the industrialised West entering the paid work force in the early years of the 20th Century for equal rights and the right to vote. Their demand was resisted not just by conservatives but even by trade unions and socialists who considered this as divisive when the need was for unity of the working classes as a whole. As a result, in the United States, women trade unionists had to set up the Women's Trade Union League in 1903 to organise women on political and economic issues.

The first Women's Day was initiated by these women in 1908 on the last Sunday of February. Two years later, at the second International Conference of Socialist Women in Copenhagen, the idea of an international women's day was first mooted and enthusiastically accepted.

By the time the United Nations accepted March 8 as International Women's Day and declared International Women's Year, in many countries that day already had a resonance. In Cuba, for instance, t the government already recognised it as an important day and in 1975 launched a campaign against macho male attitudes and practices and also brought in a new marriage code that made housework the responsibility of men and women. In many countries, March 8 was often used as an occasion to announce policies for women. In 1984, the Women's rights Minister in France announced an anti-sexist law which would apply to the press and advertising agencies.

In the first decade after its international acceptance, March 8 was noted in many countries. Even today, in many western countries it is marked by rallies and demonstrations. But increasingly, it is becoming apparent that its symbolism can be only as meaningful as the people who observe it. In India, March 8 has become a token day, when governments release advertisements, announce policies for women, meetings and conferences are held, statements are made, sometime editorials are written in newspapers. Some celebrate, some reflect on the distance that still has to be travelled by Indian women. And for the majority, the day is like any other day. Those who celebrate March 8 are sometimes accused of being frivolous, of not acknowledging the abysmal state of women in many parts of the country. Yet, it can be argued that even as we lament the lack of progress in many areas, there is reason also to celebrate. There are changes that have taken place, many of them hard won victories, many handed down without too much of a struggle because of the political atmosphere, all of them important.

Thus, the women-oriented developmental policies have not been entirely wasted even if they have been inadequate. Even if women's health in this country shows unacceptably high figures of maternal mortality, today they live longer than men. More women can read and write, many more are entering professions that had been closed to them, even poor women have access to credit and are finding ways to survive economically without the support of a man. None of this would have been possible without a specific and strong campaign to change the situation of women in India.

Especially in cities, you can visibly see the difference in the self-confidence displayed by the new generations of young Indian women. These women are the inheritors of the struggles of their mothers for equal rights. They do not accept any limits on their rights as individuals. They are articulate and assertive, and despite male attitudes, are just beginning to shatter many ceilings, including the infamous glass ceiling that tried to keep women in their place, near the bottom. So even if my young friend in Mumbai has no idea about the origins of March 8, it probably does not matter to women like her because they already know who they are and therefore do not need symbols to make them feel better about themselves.

That, however, is not the reality for the majority of Indian women. The importance of a day when women can speak up and be heard will remain as long as women's rights remain on paper and are not a reality. We know from recent events - such as the reports on the condition of widows in Varanasi - or the daily reports of the increasing violence against women, what a distance women in India still have to travel. So, March 8 should act as a a reality check, a day to open our eyes and really take a hard look at what is happening to over half the population in this country.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Features
Previous : How yoga can help the heart
Next     : New hierarchies in death