Condition of 'women' and 'backward classes' in India after 6 decades of
independence
History:
Dravidians the earliest inhabitants of the country had a
well structured administrative and social system thousands of years back,
before the advent of Aryans. Women had a
very important role in the society. When Aryans who were nomads, reached India
they were amazed at what they saw here.
Well structured economy, cities, flourishing trade, art forms.( best
example is Indus Valley civilization) Aryans being a warrior clan defeated the
peaceloving Dravidians without much effort. What happened then? Social system started degrading. Condition
of women and backward classes became worse with the passage of time. Sati,
untouchability and all such barbarian customs evolved and lead to the stagnation of society.
Present:
In India 95% of prominent public representatives, corporate leaders and top bureaucrats are 'men' belonging to forward castes. Why? Why dont we have more representation from members of 'backward castes' and from among 'women'. Backward classes constitute majority of the countries population. Brahmins constitute a very small minority of less than 5% of India's population. But they hold majority of the powerful positions even after 60 years of independance. Why? Why women and backward classes are segregated from power and wealth? Remember the words of the great revolutionary, 'Bhagat Singh' : "Once the british leave, the elite classes will take up their position and continue exploiting the masses."
Some great reformers emerged from backward communities during the british rule including Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Sree Narayana Guru (whom even Mahathma Gandhi considered as a guru) E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker, Jyotiba Phule e.t.c. These powerful leaders tried to reform the society. They tried to uplift their downtrodden brethen through various movements. Ambedkar recommended mass conversion to Buddhism to escape the shackles of caste system. Sree Narayana Guru gave the slogan "One caste, one religion, one god for man". Many of the social reform movements which occurred at the same time as our freedom movement saw success mainly in South India. In North India all such movements were crushed by the landlord class. Today the states which can boast of least caste based and gender based discrimination are Kerala and Andra Pradesh.
What is happening in other Indian states?
Atrocities
against backward classes (Source: Wikipedia)
Rajasthan
In Rajasthan, between the years 1999 and 2002, crimes against Dalits average at about 5024 a year, with 46 killings and 138 cases of rape. In January 2007, a Jat girl was thrown into a canal near the border with Haryana for marrying a Dalit boy, although she swam to shore and was rescued by strangers.
Bihar
Ranvir Sena is an caste-supremacist fringe paramilitary group based in Bihar. The group is based amongst the forward-caste landlord, and carries out actions against the outlawed naxals in rural areas. It has committed violent acts against Dalits and other members of the scheduled caste community in an effort to scuttle reform movements aimed at their emancipation.
On the evening of January 5, 2006 Bant Singh, a poor Sikh Dalit, was attacked by unknown assailants. His injuries necessitated medical amputation. He alleges that this was in retaliation for actively working to secure justice for his daughter, who was gang raped by upper caste members of his village in Punjab five years earlier.
A 55-year-old Dalit Sikh woman, Sawinder Kaur has been tortured, stripped and tied to a tree in Ram Duali village of Punjab because her nephew eloped with a girl from the same community. The police arrested four persons for allegedly committing the crime on 9 September 2007.
In January, 1999 four members of the village panchayat of Bhungar Khera village in Abohar paraded a handicapped Dalit woman naked through the village. No action was taken by the police, despite local Dalit protests. It was only on July 20 that the four pancha yat members were arrested, after the State Home Department was compelled to order an inquiry into the incident.
In Amritsar, a Sikh mother of four children, Gurmeet Kaur was allegedly paraded naked by a father and son duo at the bus station of Jhamaka village falling under Chabhal police station on Sunday.
A Dalit Sikh woman, Sukhwinder Kaur of Sumel Kheri village was molested and beaten up by an octroi contractor of Malaudh when she resisted his attempt to sexually exploit her.
Maharashtra
On September 29, 2006, four members of the Bhotmange family belonging to the DalitBhandara district of Maharashtra. The women of the family, Surekha and Priyanka, were paraded naked in public, then allegedly gang-raped before being murdered.
Atrocities against women (Source: Wikipedia)
A 1997 report claimed that at least 5,000 women die each year because of dowry deaths, and at least a dozen die each day in 'kitchen fires' thought to be intentional. The term for this is "bride burning" and is criticized within India itself. Amongst the urban educated, such dowry abuse has reduced considerably.
Child marriage has been traditionally prevalent in India and continues to this day. Historically, young girls would live with their parents till they reached puberty. In the past, the child widows were condemned to a life of great agony, shaving heads, living in isolation, and shunned by the society. Although child marriage was outlawed in 1860, it is still a common practice.
According to UNICEF's "State of the World's Children-2009" report, 47% of India's women aged 20'24 were married before the legal age of 18, with 56% in rural areas. The report also showed that 40% of the world's child marriages occur in India.
India has a highly masculine sex ratio, the chief reason being that many women die before reaching adulthood. Tribal societies in India have a less masculine sex ratio than all other caste groups. This, in spite of the fact that tribal communities have far lower levels of income, literacy and health facilities. It is therefore suggested by many experts, that the highly masculine sex ratio in India can be attributed to female infanticides and sex-selective abortions.
All medical tests that can be used to determine the sex of the child have been banned in India, due to incidents of these tests being used to get rid of unwanted female children before birth. Female infanticide (killing of girl infants) is still prevalent in some rural areas. The abuse of the dowry tradition has been one of the main reasons for sex-selective abortions and female infanticides in India.
The incidents of domestic violence are higher among the lower Socio-Economic Classes (SECs) The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 came into force on October 26, 2006.
The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act was passed in 1956. However many cases of trafficking of young girls and women have been reported. These women are either forced into prostitution, domestic work or child labor.
Health
The average female life expectancy today in India is low compared to many countries, but it has shown gradual improvement over the years. In many families, especially rural ones, the girls and women face nutritional discrimination within the family, and are anaemic and malnourished.
The maternal mortality in India is the second highest in the world. Only 42% of births in the country are supervised by health professionals. Most women deliver with help from women in the family who often lack the skills and resources to save the mother's life if it is in danger. According to UNDP Human Development Report (1997), 88% of pregnant women (age 15-49) were found to be suffering from anemia.
Family planning
The average woman in rural areas of India has
little or no control over her reproductivity. Women, particularly women in
rural areas, do not have access to safe and self-controlled methods of
contraception..
Year | Crime against SCs | Crime against STs |
1997 | 27,944 | 4,644 |
1998 | 25,638 | 4,276 |
1999 | 25,093 | 4,450 |
2000 | 23,742 | 3,959 |
2001 | 25,516 | 4,098 |
Total: | 127,933 | 21,426 |
Average: | 25,587 | 4,285 |
Dravidians the earliest inhabitants of the country had a well structured administrative and social system thousands of years back, before the advent of Aryans. Women had a very important role in the society. When Aryans who were nomads, reached India they were amazed at what they saw here. Well structured economy, cities, flourishing trade, art forms.( best example is Indus Valley civilization) Aryans being a warrior clan defeated the peaceloving Dravidians without much effort. What happened then? Social system started degrading. Condition of women and backward classes became worse with the passage of time. Sati, untouchability and all such barbarian customs evolved and lead to the stagnation of society.[/quote]
This is an out-of-date theory Pogo, no-one believes in the Aryan Invasion Theory anymore, atleast not by any scholar involved in IVC studies. Now before you accuse me of supporting the "Hindu Nationalist" view, please note that my objection your paragraph is purely evidence based, and not on any political/ideological or religious basis.
The Dravidians were not the earliest inhabitants of the subcontinent either, and even today we don't know the identity of the Indus Valley Civilisation. Yes, some linguists such as Asko Parpola are advocates of the Dravidian hypothesis, whilst others support the Munda hypothesis, and some people like Michel Witzel don't believe the IVC inhabitants even had a writing system! However, all such origin hypothesis are far from established, and have been critically reviewed by other linguists. The biggest problem to deciphering the script is due to its brevity. As of present, there is no universal consensus amongst linguists as to the identity of the IVC people, let alone scholars from other fields like archaeology.
Secondly, the practice of Sati actually goes against the Vedas, there is a verse in the Rig Veda which explicitly encourages widows to move on in life and to remarry. There is no mention of untouchability in the Vedas either, which is a custom that came into vogue much later on.