2024 ushered in a new head of the civil services in Maharashtra. Part of the usual routine, except that this change in guard saw the claim of a lady officer to the top post being given the go by yet again. When most states in India have had lady officers helming the state bureaucracy, it is rather odd that Maharashtra, a state that prides itself on its progressiveness and gender parity, is yet to appoint a woman to the coveted post of Chief Secretary. The question is – why was Sujata Saunik, with a good track record, overlooked for the post a second time? She is the fourth woman after Chitkala Zutshi, Chandra Iyengar and Medha Gadgil to be overlooked for promotion to Chief Secretary.
The conclusion is inescapable – seventy six years after independence, the Indian establishment is still slow and grudging in allowing women to shatter the glass ceiling. It took the prodding of the Supreme Court for women to be given permanent commission in the armed forces; inducting them in combat formations has taken even more time, never mind the legacies of Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi and Rani Chennama of Kittur. The private sector is little better, with independent women directors being appointed to corporate boards in recent years. It is heartening to observe that the appointment of women as District Magistrates and Superintendents of Police is now fairly common, a far cry from when I joined government service over four decades ago.
But the reality of womens’ place in Indian society is still far removed from the paeans sung to their exalted status as mothers, sisters and daughters. A patriarchal society still assigns the woman a place subordinate to her male cohorts. Girls are to be married off once they come of age (and, in many communities, even before that). Even in more educated environments, the female is expected to subsume her ambitions to fit into the role of wife and mother. Recent studies reveal the disturbing fact that the participation of women from higher income families in the labour force actually diminishes.
It is in the efforts to free herself from the straitjacket of patriarchalism that the woman faces her greatest hurdles. The female students of the Government Medical College, Kozhikode had to move the Kerala High Court in 2022 against the restrictions imposed on their movement outside their hostel after 9.30 PM, when no such restrictions applied to male students. Authorities justify such restrictions on grounds of safety of women students, a damning confirmation of the insecurity that pervades the lives of women even today. In an earlier blog (see here), I had mentioned a book “Why Loiter?” by three women researchers that highlighted how public spaces were out of bounds for women to enjoy, untroubled by the prurient attention of men.
It is not just in the public space; women face ordeals even in their homes. Sections 63 to 92 of the recently enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita detail crimes against the female sex, ranging from sexual offences to dowry demands, domestic abuse to unwanted male attention and rape. Despite the Supreme Court guidelines in the Vishakha case as far back as 1997, and the enactment of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act in 2013, it took till the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century for the MeToo movement to find its feet in India. With the fear of loss of employment and of ostracism, both from their own gender and from society, women were hesitant to publicly name those harassing them. The ongoing episode of India’s women wrestlers fighting sexual harassment by those running their federation reflects the sobering reality of the continued dominance, socially and politically, of the rich and powerful male. The MP accused of sexual harassment continues in Parliament while the wrestling federation continued to be his fiefdom through his trusted lieutenants, till, thankfully, the government stepped in to try and put an end to this unsavoury chapter.
The enquiry by the Ethics Committee of Parliament against the now former MP, Mahua Moitra, is another example of how a hierarchical male-dominated society firmly tries to stifle the independence of women, especially if they are single, “modern” and with strong opinions of their own, which do not gel with the prevailing orthodoxy of their social milieu. The questions put to her by the Chairman ranged from wanting to know the nature of her relationship with the male who had access to her parliament questions login, the number of her visits to Dubai, the hotel she stayed in in Dubai and whether she met that person there. When the issue under examination was only the access of a private individual to an MP’s parliament questions login, these questions would clearly cast aspersions on her character (as perceived by a patriarchal society). Had the MP in question been a male who had given access to his parliament questions login to a female, these questions would never have been asked. Obviously, the Indian male escapes the scanner for behaviour that is not tolerated in a female.
The Indian male is nurtured in a milieu that, while paying lip service to the female, expects her to subordinate her aspirations to her family expectations while tolerating behaviour that would raise eyebrows in gender-progressive societies. Domestic violence at the hands of her husband and in-laws is a feature in many families. The birth of a girl child is often not welcomed, leading to instances of foetus abortion and female infanticide. The girl child has the last priority in access to health, nutrition and education, causing intergenerational deficits in the healthy development of the girl child. Boys are given a lot of latitude in the parental home. This leads to a sense of entitlement: there is no sharing of household chores and responsibilities, an attitude that is evident even after marriage: witness the rampant alcoholism in males and the abandonment of women post-marriage. The Government of India has rightly given primacy to the slogan “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” : checking sex-selective abortions/female infanticide and educating the girl child will improve the female:male sex ratio as also enable women to be active in social, political and economic life. I suggest the addition of “Beti Badhao” to the slogan, to enable the girl child to function as an independent agency, free of patriarchal restrictions.
V. Ramani's web 