fair unfair
Women take the cake, and the icing too

Women can boast of extraordinary accomplishments in the last 12 months — both at the top as well as at the grassroots. The dramatic stirrings of the marginalised were as much in the limelight as the feathers in the cap of those who had moved on. Aruti Nayar reports

(From left) Padmavathy Bandhopadhaya — Flying colours. Sonia defied the khap panchayat diktat. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw — Power of technology

Uniformity rarely makes for distinction. Yet, it is the women in uniform who walked away with most of the honours in 2004. Ever-favourite cop Kiran Bedi continued being the Kiran of success by getting the medal, in the beginning of the year, for meritorious service in the UN, where she is currently posted. The country got its first woman Director-General of Police with Kanchan Chaudhry Bhattacharya taking over as the head of the force in Uttaranchal. There was more to cheer about when the Army and Air Force let women march ahead and soar higher. Punita Arora became the first woman Director-General of the Forces’ Medical Services and Padmavathy Bandhopadhaya, the first woman Air Marshal. Another never-before was Meera Bowankar, the first woman Joint Commissioner of the Mumbai Police’s Crime Branch. Despite the success of these icons, that the process of recruitment to the Armed Forces needs to become gender sensitive was driven home when Haryana’s Surya Moudgil. She protested at being examined by male gynaecologists and the top brass had to concede that she had a point.

Business, where women have made it a habit to break the glass ceiling, saw a number of them scale new heights. Biocon India’s Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, also recipient of The Economic Times’ Businesswoman of the Year Award, emerged as the richest woman in India (Rs 2,000 crore plus). Her rise and rise and rise is an inspiring tale of foresight and dedication. Another, exceptional high-flyer in the corporate world is Vidya Chabbria, Chairperson of the Jumbo Group - for the third time in a row, she figures in the coveted Fortune List of 50 most powerful women in international business. Way down in the food chain, working women in the unorganised sector crawled up from 19.7 per cent in 1991 to 21.7 in 2001. In sharp contrast, the number of women in the organised sector grew by over 50 per cent in a span of six years - from 19.7 per cent in 1995 to 29.7 in 2001.

Nearer home, Amritsar’s Rupa Bajwa made waves with her first book The Sari Shop, which made its way to the list for the Orange prize for Women.

There were also new social beginnings, exemplified by the other Sonia, from Asanda, who mustered courage to cock a snook at the anachronistic khap panchayat and created a ripple-effect; her defiance of the panchayat outlawing her marriage to a man of the same gotra emboldened others to, if not flout, at least question this retrograde and repressive custom.

The juxtaposition and interplay of woman as the arbiter of her destiny and as a hapless victim, still the gudiya as a plaything, was epitomised by the Gudiya episode. A television channel appropriated an essentially personal conflict to purvey reality bytes. Nisha Sharma, who in 2002 made headlines for spurning a dowry-demanding groom, married an engineer in the US and made it to Oprah Winfrey’s show.

Many were the survivors, but many times more were the victims of violence and apathy. Despite having a woman Chief Minister, Delhi retained its dubious distinction as the "rape capital.’ While a Swiss diplomat’s rape made news, a member of the President Bodyguards was involved in sexually assaulting a young girl. The Capital also took the lead with one of the worst sex ratios in the country at 868 girls per 1000 boys in the 0-6 years, as per the Census 2001.

If Lakshmi Pandit, Femina Miss India World, had to give up her crown because she hid the fact of her marriage, it was the beastly side of the beauty business that surfaced when Anara, a former Miss Jammu, an IAS aspirant, was lured into pornographic films on the pretext of a break in Bollywood.

Despite symbols and signifiers of empowerment, there was little on the legislative front to cheer as far as women’s rights go.

According to the National Family Health Survey, 20 per cent of married women between 15 to 44, are exposed to domestic violence. The long-awaited Domestic Violence Bill is to be brought up for discussion with recommended changes. It should have become an Act long back but like the The Women’s Reservation Bill that will give women 33 per cent reservation in Parliament is still hanging.

Same-sex marriages come out into the open. In February 2004, Sheela and Sree Nandu, Kerala’s celebrated same sex couple had, after being hounded by their families, declared in a magazine interview, "We want to live together till our death". The year-end saw two girls from Amritsar eloping to marry. Mala, a shy girl flaunted her secret marriage in Delhi to Raju, a tomboy from a middle class Jat Sikh family of Amritsar. Their parents blamed the movie Girlfriend while, in Bihar, a lesbian couple was harassed by the police. Thiruvanathapuram held the first-ever festival of lesbians, gays and transvestites. Social sanction and the freedom of choice might be far away but such relationships are, increasingly, coming out of the closet.

The last month of the year saw some heartening Supreme Court decisions. At long last, the Supreme Court ruled that a woman’s moral character was no defence for the accused in a rape case. The Bill to grant daughters equal rights in ancestral property, on a par with sons, by amending the Hindu Succession Act, is on the anvil. The Chief Justice of India, R.C. Lahoti, this month, asked courts to be more sensitive to rights of women. These end notes hold out hope of some promises being fulfilled in 2005.