Safety of women in India

By M L Satyan

Bengaluru, May 6, 2023: “In our country every woman has to struggle to survive,” said a woman at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. She further said to a press reporter, “Today women in our country are not safe. If the medal winning women wrestlers are sexually abused, then, what about other common women? I have come here to support the protesting wrestlers.”

I have been closely watching the videos and listening to news reports about the protesting wrestlers. Instead of providing protection, the Delhi police ill-treated the wrestlers and tore the clothes of Sakshi Joshi a reporter. Watching all these I have mixed feelings like anger, disappointment, helplessness and fear.

I have a 23-year-old daughter. My wife and I are worried about her safety and we are really afraid of her future. Today this is the situation in a vast majority of families in India.

Are the women safe in our society? Today, women live with constant fear and they do not feel safe as expressed below:
• Girl children feel unsafe even in their own home environment.
• Homemaker women are worried about their safety within their homes.
• Working women are concerned about their safety at their workplaces.
• Girl students feel unsafe in their school/college/university campuses.
• The safety of resident girl children of Child Care Centres is a question mark.
• Female patients are worried about their safety within a hospital/nursing home.
• Women travellers feel unsafe during bus/train/flight travel environments.
• Women devotees/inmates are not safe in an ashram environment.
• The safety of women religious in convents/congregations has become risky.

Even after 75 years of Independence, the country’s women are not safe. Oppression of the lower caste, indifference to women and the silence of the mainstream, are among the many hard-hitting truths today. There are enough statistical reports to prove that women in India are at risk, and not enough is being done to ensure their safety.

This is the country where elections are fought with catchy slogans like ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ (Save the girl child, teach the girl child). This slogan has become meaningless today. One of the disconcerting facts of India is that gender discrimination is at its highest peak. Gender discrimination or sexual discrimination is a social evil that breathes in almost all the corners of India.

Gender discrimination simply means unequal rights and unequal treatment between male and female. It is a menace which is deeply-rooted in our society.
Even though the Constitution of India protects and provides equal rights to men and women and provides equal measures to enhance the position of women in society, yet there are many women who are not able to enjoy the rights which are pledged to them.

According to World Health Organisation (WHO), nearly 30 percent of all women who have ever lived in a relationship have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner which further resulted in violence from family. Several welfare programs were launched by the government to reduce gender inequality in India. But they were not effective.

Sangita Singh, an HR professional, says, “Women in our society are bearing the brunt in some or the other form such as Physical Violence leading to injury, impairment, damage; Sexual violence involving rape, molestation, forced marriage, and abortion; Emotional violence containing threats, harassment, acid attacks; Economic violence leading to limiting the access to basic needs, lack of health facility, withholding monetary support etc.

Women are trapped in the societal norms, its rules and customs. The orthodox traditional patriarchal family system has always constricted the role of women mostly to the domestic world. In India, from ages men have dominated women. As a consequence, women have lower status in the family and in the society. Lack of awareness among the genders, especially women, for their rights and opportunities is still there in India. Because of their ignorance women accept to tolerate the violence and trauma of the family.

“Sexual violences have been systematically utilised as weapons by dominant castes to oppress Dalit women and girls and reinforce structural gender and caste hierarchies,” states a report by Equality Now, a global women’s rights’ non-profit and Swabhiman Society, a Dalit-led grassroots organization in India. The report finds that in the state of Haryana, a vast majority of sexual violence cases against Dalit women and girls – over 80 percent – were committed by men from dominant castes.

Perpetrators from dominant castes know they are likely to go unpunished because every branch and echelon of the system is weighted in their favour, and this impunity for sexual abuse creates an enabling environment that fosters further abuse. This is the case with Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, president of Wrestling Federation of India. Some women wrestlers have accused him of sexually abusing them. At the instruction of the Supreme Court two FIRs have been registered.

It is more than ten days and nothing has happened. This person in one of his interviews to a news channel, openly said that he hugged a woman wrestler without her consent and she felt uneasy about it. The untold stories could be many. There is no sign of his voluntary resignation. He has the audacity to say, “I will resign if the PM asks me to do so.” The concerned authorities (PM, Home Minister, Sports Minister, Party President) are keeping mysterious silence. So far, no religious leader has expressed solidarity with the protesters. This is the sad state of affairs.

On the one side, we take pride in comparing the nation to a mother and say “Mother India”. The earth is called “mother”. Many holy rivers have feminine names and there are innumerable goddesses. Yet, the vulnerable women live in fear every day. This is the irony in our country. The safety of every woman in India lies with the responsible parents, family members, citizens, teachers, religious leaders, politicians, judiciary and police. Only when we ensure the safety and security of women, the slogan “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” will become meaningful.