India is one of the few countries where women enjoy a comparatively better status than many women in other parts of the world. True Indian women face many problems and are subject to the same social pressures which women experience in other parts of the world. But relatively speaking, their situation is much better than what it used to be in the pre-independence era.
Status of Indian Women on Cultural Tradition and Views of Time
On the positive side women have made rapid strides in every aspect of modern life. The constitutions guarantees equal opportunity and where necessary provides necessary safeguards from possible exploitation or injustice. Indian women of today are not afraid of voicing their opinions or joining forces with other women in the local community to fight against social maladies and injustice. They have opportunities to take bold decisions or lead unorthodox lives, which might have made them vulnerable to social ridicule and family pressures few decades ago. Undoubtedly, women of today in India enjoy better status and freedom than women in the past.
On the negative side, Indian women suffer from many disabilities and social injustices. This is true for all Indian women, to whatever religion they may belong, except where their status, roles and responsibilities are directly influenced by religious beliefs such as marriage and inheritence. Indian women rank high in terms of the number of prostitutes in the world, girl children neglected, abused or often sold purely for economic reasons, as victims of AIDS, and women living below the poverty line or forced to do physical labor even when they are pregnant or sick. And speaking of the sexual attitude of Hindu males...we know they are not much different from their counterparts in other religions.
It is difficult to generalize the situation of women in India due to the heterogeneous nature of Indian society. Women belong to different social and economic strata and what is true in case of one particular category may not be true in case of others. So much has been happening in Indian society as of late that, it is difficult to make objective conclusion about the situation of women in India without inviting an opposite reaction. And this often gives scope for distortion and misinterpretation of the facts.
The internet itself is a glaring example of such distortions. There are many websites on the Internet today that present a very pathetic situation of Indian women, especially Hindu women. Some of them do it to catch attention while some do it purely with malice and an aim to distort Hinduism for personal or political reasons. Some of them quote from Hindu scriptures to prove their point, but fail to present the other side of the argument also. Obviously the people who publish one sided information about Hindu women of Hindu society have little sympathy and tolerance for whatever that Hinduism represents. Their approach is one sided, utterly biased and intended toconvert people to other faiths or draw attention to themselves.
It is true that some of the ancient scriptures were very partial to women and treated them with disdain, but we have no evidence to suggest that people followed these scriptures to the word. In ancient India there was a great deal of social diversity and hardly any organized political or religious machinery to implement the religious laws universally. Religion was then, as it is now, mostly a matter of personal choice. The smritis, or the law books of Hinduism had little impact on the day to day lives of a vast majority of the people. The kings and the nobility had little interest in the masses beyond collection of taxes. It is therefore incorrect to base ones conclusions exclusively on scriptural evidence.
We therefore request the readers to be careful about such articles and websites when they search for information about Hindu women on the internet. The problems of Hindu women are not peculiar to Hindu women. They are problems common to most of the women irrespective of the religions they practice.
The Government of India was represented at the 2013 session of the Commission on the Status of Women(CSW), where Member States committed to ending all forms of violence against women. They recognized that there is a need to address the economic and political underpinnings of violence; ensure access to justice; strengthen multi-sectoral approaches; and end harmful traditional practices that negatively impact women.
The 2011 Census in India revealed that there are 919 girls for every 1000 boys in the 0-6 age group in India, highlighting the imbalance in child-sex ratios. Ideally, this ratio should be above 950. This imbalance is a result of the practice of gender biased sex selection - a manifestation of deep seated patriarchal mindsets leading to the preference for sons over daughters; aided by technological misuse. Some of the consequences of an imbalanced child sex ratio are an increase in violence against women and girls, trafficking for marriage and restrictions on mobility and choices of young girls. Another manifestation of patriarchy and discrimination is the high prevalence of child marriage, with almost one in two girls married before the age of 18 i.e. 43 per cent of women aged 20-24. Child marriage has a tremendous impact on the health, education and well-being of a girl.
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