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India's women continue to tread water
By Ranjit Devraj
September 14, 2000
New Delhi - Women have led many ground breaking social and economic movements
in India. Yet despite their contribution to Indian society, women continue to
be denied due recognition as they are kept in their place by a mindset which
once sustained apartheid in South Africa, say activists.
Speakers at the session on rights and development, organized on Tuesday by the
United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and India's National Human Rights
Commission, cited several examples where women have shown the way out of
poverty, ignorance and social exploitation.
"A concerted effort is needed to recognize these broad-based movements and see
them as rivulets that are flowing across India as human rights movements," says
Devaki Jain, head of non-governmental organization Singamma Sreenivasan
Foundation.
Examples cited for recognition at the meeting included Aruna Roy, winner of
this year's Ramon Magsaysay award. Roy picked up Asia's verion of the Nobel
Prize for her leadership of a popular movement demanding the right to official
information for villagers in western Rajasthan state, which has one of the
highest female illiteracy and poverty rates in India.
The UNDP session also took note of the contribution of Medha Patkar, who has
led a popular movement against big dams in the central Indian Narmada Valley
for over a decade. Also praised was Vandana Shiva, who champions the right of
traditional farmers to seed, something which is being threatened by the forces
of economic globalization.
But according to Jain, there is still a need for "another version of Nelson
Mandela's 'Long March to Freedom', which is focused, strategic and political in
its intent". As an example, Jain refers to New Delhi's decision to carve out
the new federal province of Uttaranchal from the country's largest state of
Uttar Pradesh.
The new state will be made up of hill districts located in Himalayan foothills.
A decades-old demand in the region, this was transformed into a popular
movement six years ago led largely by women of the area. "But it is men who are
now jockeying around for the [state] chief minister's job," says Jain.
Women leaders have dramatically transformed the lives of the poorest in the
country, the meeting was told. One of the best examples is the famous
Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), based in the textile city of
Ahmedabad in western coastal Gujarat state.
Mirai Chatterjee of SEWA says the organization began three decades ago when
women pavement vendors decided to stand up to daily harassment by the local
police. Tired of daily beatings and the confiscation of their goods, the women
petitioned India's apex court, which upheld their right to sell goods on the
pavement.
"Human rights and human development go hand-in-hand and SEWA's experience
points to the need for an integrated approach and joint strategy incorporating
both the struggle for rights and development," says Chatterjee.
B Chaturvedi, head of the Department of Women and Child Development, admitted
there was need for a movement in favor of women's equality in economic, social
and political matters. "There is a strong continuing bias against female
children in large parts of India reflected in an adverse sex ratio, especially
in central Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, where some areas show only 500 girls
to every thousand males."
This inbalance, argues Chaturvedi, is the result of infanticides and abortions.
He also quoted statistics showing that 40 percent of women in India are still
married off before legal age of 18.
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