Tag Archive for: Politics

“Reservation of Women should be above party politics” in TOI Blog

Google Doodle honouring India’s first female scientist Asima Chatterjee, Sushma Swaraj the roaring lioness speaking on behest of India and on India’s foreign policy in UNGA, and Sonia Gandhi urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure that the Women’s Reservation Bill meets a logical conclusion.

After decades of delay in the domain of women empowerment, 2017 has been a fast paced roller coaster ride, and the current government is keeping us on our toes in the hopes of seeing more rapid progress and development.

If anybody delves into the history of India they would know that such slow progress was unwarranted and would find its roots deeply entrenched during the colonial period of British India. The British Empire didn’t want the citizens of our nation rising to a respectable level. So our legal system barely budged as a matter of fact it retrograded, and our manner of living was purely medieval. Yet out of the prevalent evils of casteism, and female subjugation some women of our nation became leading pioneers and are globally acclaimed. Here, we name a few:

1. Asima Chatterjee, a renowned Indian chemist’s 100th birthday was marked by Google with a Doodle on the 23rd of September. An organic chemist, Asima Chatterjee paved the way for Indian women in science and improved the odds of survival for patients with cancer, epilepsy, and malaria.

2. A pioneering botanist and cytogeneticist, Janaki Ammal, born 1897, is credited with putting sweetness in India’s sugarcane varieties. There is even a flower named after her, a delicate bloom in pure white called Magnolia Kobus Janaki Ammal, only a few nurseries in Europe cultivate the variety.

3. Born in 1865 in an extremely orthodox Brahmin family in Maharashtra, a 9 year old girl got married to a widower who was almost thrice her age. The girl later on became the first Indian woman to qualify as a doctor. Her name was Anandibai and her husband’s name was Gopalrao Joshi. Gopalrao, was determined to educate his wife when she expressed her wish to study medicine at the age of 14. Unfortunately, before she couldn’t practice medicine as she left her heavenly abode at the age of 22.

4. Dr Rukhmabai has the honour of being the first practicing lady doctor of India. Her journey was not an easy one, she was married at the age of 11, child bride Rukhmabai Bhikaji contested her husband’s claim to conjugal rights in an iconic court case that led to the passage of the Age of Consent Act in 1891. In 1888 despite the out-of-court settlement, this case became a landmark in colonial India for raising issues of age, consent and choice for women in marriage. Rukhmabai was ostracized by society, but she didn’t let this affect her ambition of being a doctor. She finished her studies and obtained a position as Chief Medical Officer in Surat. She never married again and remained active in social reform till her death in 1955 at the age of 91.

Though Dr. Rukhmabai’s case might have played a pivotal role in the Age of Consent Act, the age limit was only increased from 10 years to 12 years. India is still fighting the confusing interloped situation of child marriage and the Age of Consent, where logic dictates justice albeit practice otherwise. In the fight for proper judicial and legislative rights of women, Sonia Gandhi wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 20 September, 2017, urging him to take advantage of the majority BJP members in Lok Sabha to pass the Women’s Reservation Bill. The women’s Reservation Bill plans for 33% reservation of women in the Lok Sabha and all state legislative assemblies, yet Panchayati Raj and Civil Bodies already have this reservation for women. If passed, India can be acknowledged as a leading global figure in political and participation equality of women. It can help surpass the few number of women that we hold dear as ‘leading figures’ or ‘pioneers’ who work so hard to break the glass ceiling, and provide the nation with many more women defying the patriarchal assigned roles.

Currently the global average for Women in Parliament is 22.4%, India stands at a meager 12%. On a global scale we rank 103rd from a list of 140 countries, and in Asia we rank 13th out of 18 countries. It’s about time that we quit hiding behind the curtain that India is one of the youngest nations in the world. After 70 years of Independence, a rapidly growing nation, and the vision of our founding fathers it’s time to take action and not hide behind a veil of excuses.

As shown by the stories of the pioneering scientist women of India reservation is not a necessity, but it is a good set up. The women scientist pioneers of India were fortunate to have husbands, or fathers support them at a time when women were prone to child marriage and pushed to bear children. The manner in which they broke the chains of society was with the help of the chain makers of society, the men in their lives. It’s time for us all to stand up and give our women a helping hand, in the form of a mother, father, sister, and brother.