(HOST) On a recent trip to India, commentator Madeleine Kunin inquired into the status of women there – and what she learned was sobering.
(KUNIN) In India, a mother tells her daughter, as soon as she can understand, that she will have a hard life because she’s a girl, according to our college educated guide.
From what I could glean from eighteen days in India, that observation remains true. But there are contradictions. India is the country where Indira Gandhi was elected three separate times and where thousands of goddesses are worshiped with the same devotion as the gods.
My first clue about the status of women in India was that, in the north, I saw few women in the streets, at the markets, riding a motor cycle or even a bicycle. Life in India, takes place in the streets. “Where are the women?” I asked. At home. Purdah, keeping women sequestered is still practiced. We were told the tradition was established in the days when India was attacked by countless invaders. Their women needed protection.
There are still kitchen fires, where a bride is burnt “accidentally” because of an insufficient dowry. Life in the cities may be slowly changing, but life in the villages – where seventy percent of the population lives – remains tradition bound. “May you be the mother of a hundred sons,” is the blessing bestowed on the bride on her wedding day.
A recent article in the times of India deplored “the unspoken curse of the girl child,” noting that in one region, there are now 850 girls for every 1,000 boys, thanks to the availability of sex determination technology. The story described the birth of twins, a girl and a boy. The girl was weaker at birth, but then neglected; the boy received more food and thrived; only the authorities forced the family to feed the girl.
Why are boys favored? Girls must be married off, and marriage requires dowries. We twice passed a dowry truck, laden with furniture. But it doesn’t stop there.
A family may demand a house, a car, or at least a flat screen TV. Indira Gandhi called for the elimination of dowries and the end of the caste system. But no one paid attention. A college professor told us, yes, his daughter, also a professor, was given a dowry because they didn’t want her to be embarrassed before her in-laws.
Boys are desired for another reason: only a son can light his parent’s funeral pyre.
There is no equality between men and women in India, our guide explained. Women may be educated, go to work, but in the home, ‘the man is king.’ And the mother-in law rules the household.
There is one state in India that is different: Kerala. It has a literacy rate of ninety-seven percent, compared to between fifty and sixty percent for the rest of the rest of the country; it has a population of more women than men, a lower birth rate, and a tradition of female leadership.
Education. Therein lies the hope.
Madeleine May Kunin is a former governor of Vermont.