[Assam] The Nano & not so nano stuff

[Chan Mahanta]

Very well said.

In fact it is the best, most accurate and to the point piece I have 
ever  read on the subject.

Great job Amlan.


cm








At 11:21 PM -0500 1/10/08, Amlan Saha wrote:
>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.
>
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