DIGNITY OF AND JUSTICE FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN

From Sampath’s Desk:

DIGNITY OF AND JUSTICE FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN

 

 

In December 2015, a married woman in Chennai, who was continually harassed, tormented and tortured by her husband and in-laws demanding more and more dowry, had to flee her matrimonial home fearing danger to her life with just the clothes she was wearing. This was really heartrending and tear-jerking. That she was not allowed even to recover her things either at the time of leaving or subsequently was still really miserable and agonizing.

 

However, it was heartening and inspiring that the Madras High Court came to her rescue by ordering her to appear before an All Women Police station in Chennai with complete details of her belongings, and the police was directed to escort the woman to retrieve and recover all her belongings including jewels from her in-laws’ house. This is just one example of dowry harassment. Maybe, many of our sisters/daughters might be silently suffering the woe and pain.  

 

From womb to tomb, injustice is meted out to our womenfolk trotting out one lame pretext or the other in the name religion, race, community, caste, tradition, custom, culture, practice, etc. And there is an age-old practice of treating a girl as ‘Paraya Dhan’ (another’s wealth). The outmoded psyche and concept should go.

 

Not only in India but the world over - even in the so-called advanced countries like the U.S. and the West bloc - women are considered  inferior and subservient to males. And the harassing males do the injustice with impunity. This is cruel, inhuman and even barbaric.

 

 

That even the marriage, an instrument of bond and blissful wedlock between a man and woman, supposed to usher in gender equality, is working inversely in some cases with males dominating, imposing and enforcing their diktats on women is very unfortunate. Women continue to be denied freedom much less a say in any decision-making. Women’s voice mostly remains muzzled.

  

People must be sensitized to treat women equally and with dignity, from womb to tomb. For they hold half the sky. Again, a woman is a full circle as, within her, is the power to create, nurture, and nourish relations, and transform generations. 

In India, parents are averse to have a girl child - specifically the husband and in-laws - since they think that a girl child is a liability to the family. This mindset should change. In addition to dispensing with the practice of dowry in any form, the age-old one-sided practice of mulcting only the parents of the girl with the entire cost of the marriage and connected expenditure should be revisited. The marriage and related expenses should be made to be shared equally by both the bride and bridegroom families. A law to this effect should not only be brought but also be strictly enforced so that parents of girls may feel comfortable with their daughter(s). Sensitization should perhaps begin from the school curriculum itself. Boy and girl children should be trained at home in all domestic chores to be shared by both.

 

More than enacting women-friendly laws, there should be a conscience change, as, all of us know, domestic, egoistic, behavioural, socio-economic and cultural problems can’t be solved by laws and legal actions alone. There needs to be an emotional transformation. After all, our country is called ‘Bharat Mata’ and we Indians worship many Goddesses.

 

 

R.SAMPATH