[Assam] The Nano & not so nano stuff

[Amlan Saha]

Ram Sarangapani wrote:

> quality airports, good roads, and last, but not the least of all, make sure
> women visitors are safe in the macho streets of Mumbai, Delhi & Kolkata.



India is not, I repeat not, going to become safer for women, especially 
for those who want to be treated just like another free human being 
anytime soon and by that I mean not in the next couple of decades 
probably.

I had to comment on this one because I feel strongly about it.

I judge a country, culture, civilization and all aspects that dovetail 
such concepts by one and only one yardstick and that happens to be - the 
freedom of a woman in that society.  Note that it is not "respect" for 
women that I care for but "freedom".  Having respect is good but what is 
more important is freedom.  We have a lot of dodgy "respect" for women 
in most Islamic countries but very little freedom.  In India this is 
often worse because on paper and by the constitution everyone is equal. 
  But the society is so wretched and disgusting that that is hardly ever 
the case.  The society may be great for some and may have done 
supposedly awesome things in the past but if the women are not free, in 
my books, that society is vile and worthless.

The sexuality of an Indian woman is, in the vast majority of the cases, 
owned (either outright dictated or subtly nudged or pressured) by just 
about everyone in the family except her - the husband, his in-laws, the 
village elders, her parents, the brothers, other self-appointed wizened 
ones/neighbors/relatives etc etc.  Young people rarely ever have the 
avenues and the opportunities to meet, mingle, and experiment in life. 
Even within a marriage it is not supposed to be for pleasure but for 
procreation!  Right from choosing the partner to the sending of the 
symbolic glass of milk, just about aspect of a woman's life is charted 
out for her by everyone except her.

Is it any surprise that such a country is unsafe for single women 
traveling alone or going about their lives on their own?  No amount of 
public policy or intervention from the government can do anything about 
all the pent up frustrations among the males in the society.  I, 
therefore, do not think that the police, who are often themselves 
lecherous, or the government can do anything about it.  Besides, they 
often tie themselves up in a knot trying to handle simple things like 
whether or not to extend spousal treatment to Sarkozy's girlfriend.

So long as the society remains as judgmental as it is, nothing is going 
to change.

Often I find, and often so in the US, educated and supposedly 
enlightened Indians rebutting me on the above that women are free in 
India, especially these days, to do whatever they want.  I then ask them 
about their sisters and they quickly get defensive not only about the 
FACT that their sisters studied at a local college while they (males) 
were sent to study at a faraway (and a better) college or that their 
sisters would never have been allowed to travel alone.  It gets even 
more farcical when they defend the case for how they should be able to 
provide inputs about whom their sisters should choose as partners but 
not the other way round.

When I traveled in India last winter (after almost a decade and thus 
expected things to be different) with my girlfriend, we found that the 
most pleasant places were those that did NOT have what many would call 
"main-stream" Indians.  Darjeeling and Sikkim were awesome - no one 
batted an eyelid who you were or what you did; bars were cool (very 
balanced gender mix); and most important no one gawked at her the way it 
was in disgusting West Bengal, Delhi, and a lot of cities elsewhere in 
India.

Insofar as hope for India is concerned, I take heart at the fact that 
divorces are shooting through the roof in India, at least in urban 
India.   For me, such divorces, largely fueled by the new-found 
financial freedom of women, is a great thing to happen in the Indian 
society.  In the past because women outside of marriage had no financial 
freedom they would have put up with suppressive and oppressive husbands 
and in-laws.  With a career of their own that the new economy, slowly 
but surely, is affording them, they can at last walk out on their 
husbands far more easily than Indian women ever have been able to.

I am sure things will change but not anytime soon.