The Emergence of the Indian Woman
By Anirudha Dutta
Rupa Publications India
Pages: 247. Price: Rs 395.
Woman empowerment has been the subject of hot debate in
academic soirees and conferences. The discussion gathers ‘sound and fury’ and
breaches the academic circles when a nirbhaya or Moga bus incident happens. However,
as soon as the media storm abates, the matter goes back to the closed environs
of statistical data and analysis. Not surprisingly then, most books and
articles on the subject are either overwrought emotional outpourings or dry
tomes of data that reflect trends in women literacy, gender ratios, crime and
what have you.
Anirudha Dutta’s book ‘Half a Billion Rising’ does not
follow the beaten track. Dutta carves out a niche for himself where statistics
and sentiment meld to form a readable ‘whole’. He makes out a case that
‘numbers never tell the full story’. So he peoples his book with real women
from various echelons of society. Vignettes of strong women, who breached male
bastions, are dexterously woven into the narrative. These women breathe life into a subject that
has hitherto been the domain of feminists, sociologists and crime reporters. We
have the bright-eyed Daksha of the sing-song voice from Gujrat who vows not to
get married because she has seen her mother enslaved in torturous matrimony. We
have the brilliant Saira, born and brought up in the Mumbai slums, who prevails
upon her father to let her continue her studies. We have the feisty Priyanka from
Munger in Bihar who sponsors her own studies and manages admission to a Mass
communication and Journalism course in Nalanda University. And there is Salva
from Hyderabad who breaks the traditional shackles that bind a Muslim girl to
become a commercial pilot. These voices grip and beguile with revolutionary
candour spurring the reader to unravel the skeins of real life stories.
That is not to say that the book is not well researched. The
statistics are there for all to see. Dutta dwells upon skewed gender ratios, literacy
and mortality rates, female foeticide, crimes against women et al. However, his
analysis goes beyond number crunching and examines the economic and social
mores that cause or result in such statistics. The anomalies in data are not
brushed aside but analysed and interpreted. Tongue-in-cheek Dutta tells us that
Bihar has a better gender ratio than Punjab simply because only men migrate
from Bihar in search of jobs while people from Punjab migrate with families. Certain
social practices are re-examined for fresh, though not always palatable
perspectives. Our presumption that education and prosperity reduces
malpractices like female foeticide comes a cropper when Dutta connects such a
practice to prosperous families in Punjab. Prosperous families can afford gender
determination tests and have access to pre-natal home kits of foreign origin. Apparently, it is also easy for them to fly to
Bangkok for gender selective abortions which are illegal in India.
In keeping with the time-honoured tradition of research
analysts, Dutta also discusses the drivers of change- Education, strong Role
models, NGOs and Government support. The narrative in such parts becomes
somewhat staid and repetitive. Thankfully, he pulls the reader out of this
morass soon enough. Things become interesting when he attempts to measure and
quantify women empowerment through not just literacy and crime graphs but representation
in films and the electronic media. The growth of the protagonist in ‘Queen’
from a timid girl who would bend backwards for her fiancé to a woman who wants
to live life on her own terms, becomes a metaphor of progress for the writer. Dutta
ends his book on a politically correct note when he devotes a chapter to how
boys and men need to accept and respect these changes. But even as you rue this
diplomatic mouth speak, he reverses gears and with brutal honesty discusses the
dark side of such empowerment. Women like Geetika Sharma and Bhanwri are held
up as symbols of women whose hunger for power and money debilitates.
Published in the Tribune on 17th May 2015Part of the Dream Weave Walk Network 1999-2012