Traditionally India has been a male-dominated society. Women were confined to the domains of the household and it was left to men to venture out and earn a living and take upon social leadership roles. So in-effect, when the various laws were legislated, both during pre and post independence period of India, the majority of people who comprised the legislature were male. So much so was the sex-ratio skewed against women in these legislative bodies that to give a perspective that there were only 23 women members in the first Lok Sabha out of total of 446.
What came into being even though not intentional was that many of the laws had in them a strong male-biase. These laws included personal laws such as those related to marriage, divorce, maintenance, inheritance and guardianship. Also there was absence of laws related to women-specific problems like domestic violence, dowry, sexual harassment at work-place etc. All this left a gaping-hole in the legal-judicial system that kept women bereft of sense of justice. All this belied the promises enshrined in the principle of gender equality in the Indian Constitution. The Constitution not only grants equality to women, but also empowers the State to adopt measures of positive discrimination or reservations in favour of women.
But despite all these promises, the women in Indian society kept on suffering. The evil of gender disparity against women manifested itself in various forms in our society. The most obvious being the trend of continuously declining female ratio in the population in the last few decades. Other forms of this discrimination included social stereotyping and violence at the domestic and societal levels. Discrimination against girl children, adolescent girls and women continued to persist in many parts of the country.
In the course of time all this started changing with following women specific legislations:
• Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961
• Dowry Prohibition Rules, 1985
• Indecent Representation of Women, 1986
• The Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987
• National Commission for Women Act, 1990, to safeguard the rights and legal entitlements of women.
• The 73rd and 74th Amendments (1993) to the Constitution of India to provide for reservation of seats in the local bodies of Panchayats and Municipalities for women, laying a strong foundation for their participation in decision making at the local levels.
• Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005
• The Protection of Women against Sexual Harassment At Work Place Bill, 2007
Also the women’s movement and a wide-spread network of non-Government Organisations (NGOs) which have strong grass-roots presence and deep insight into women’s concerns started contributing and inspiring initiatives for the empowerment of women.
Today women are more confident and more liberated than ever before. The path breakers of Indian society like Kalpana Chawla, Indira Gandhi, Sania Mirza, Shiela Dixit, Barkha Dutt, etc. have become role models for the women in India.
However, there still exists a wide gap between the goals enunciated in the Constitution, legislation, policies, plans, programmes, and related mechanisms on the one hand and the situational reality of the status of women in India, on the other. Still there is no legislation for reservation for women in the parliament and it is still a debatable issue for quite some time now with no government having the courage to come out with a concrete law. So, more and more empowerment is the only way forward in fields of executive, judiciary and legislature. Till we don’t see equal participation of women in all decision making fields, emancipation of women would still be a dream.
But on the positive side, all the effort also definitely has brought about the change in our society. Today more and more people are aware of all these evils. Becoming aware of the evil is first step in removing it. A great role also has been played by the entertainment industry with popular films like ‘Damini’, ‘Bandit Queen’ etc. and popular serials like ‘Balika Vadhu’ , ‘Na aanaa iss dess meri lado’ etc. in highlighting these social evils as they exist in our society.
So we can clearly see that all the above mentioned efforts have proved that empowerment does not only lead to an emancipated woman but a woman who is infact more confident and more liberated. Only empowerment of woman can transform a woman once known as -- ‘Abala’ to what she has the potential to become – ‘Shakti’.
What came into being even though not intentional was that many of the laws had in them a strong male-biase. These laws included personal laws such as those related to marriage, divorce, maintenance, inheritance and guardianship. Also there was absence of laws related to women-specific problems like domestic violence, dowry, sexual harassment at work-place etc. All this left a gaping-hole in the legal-judicial system that kept women bereft of sense of justice. All this belied the promises enshrined in the principle of gender equality in the Indian Constitution. The Constitution not only grants equality to women, but also empowers the State to adopt measures of positive discrimination or reservations in favour of women.
But despite all these promises, the women in Indian society kept on suffering. The evil of gender disparity against women manifested itself in various forms in our society. The most obvious being the trend of continuously declining female ratio in the population in the last few decades. Other forms of this discrimination included social stereotyping and violence at the domestic and societal levels. Discrimination against girl children, adolescent girls and women continued to persist in many parts of the country.
In the course of time all this started changing with following women specific legislations:
• Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961
• Dowry Prohibition Rules, 1985
• Indecent Representation of Women, 1986
• The Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987
• National Commission for Women Act, 1990, to safeguard the rights and legal entitlements of women.
• The 73rd and 74th Amendments (1993) to the Constitution of India to provide for reservation of seats in the local bodies of Panchayats and Municipalities for women, laying a strong foundation for their participation in decision making at the local levels.
• Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005
• The Protection of Women against Sexual Harassment At Work Place Bill, 2007
Also the women’s movement and a wide-spread network of non-Government Organisations (NGOs) which have strong grass-roots presence and deep insight into women’s concerns started contributing and inspiring initiatives for the empowerment of women.
Today women are more confident and more liberated than ever before. The path breakers of Indian society like Kalpana Chawla, Indira Gandhi, Sania Mirza, Shiela Dixit, Barkha Dutt, etc. have become role models for the women in India.
However, there still exists a wide gap between the goals enunciated in the Constitution, legislation, policies, plans, programmes, and related mechanisms on the one hand and the situational reality of the status of women in India, on the other. Still there is no legislation for reservation for women in the parliament and it is still a debatable issue for quite some time now with no government having the courage to come out with a concrete law. So, more and more empowerment is the only way forward in fields of executive, judiciary and legislature. Till we don’t see equal participation of women in all decision making fields, emancipation of women would still be a dream.
But on the positive side, all the effort also definitely has brought about the change in our society. Today more and more people are aware of all these evils. Becoming aware of the evil is first step in removing it. A great role also has been played by the entertainment industry with popular films like ‘Damini’, ‘Bandit Queen’ etc. and popular serials like ‘Balika Vadhu’ , ‘Na aanaa iss dess meri lado’ etc. in highlighting these social evils as they exist in our society.
So we can clearly see that all the above mentioned efforts have proved that empowerment does not only lead to an emancipated woman but a woman who is infact more confident and more liberated. Only empowerment of woman can transform a woman once known as -- ‘Abala’ to what she has the potential to become – ‘Shakti’.
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