Happy Independence Day to all of us as today, it has been 74 years since we have achieved freedom. From then onwards we have come a long way. We were able to get this freedom as the fight was fought by male and female freedom fighters. They fought with our tormentors by fighting and bearing their responsibilities without even a furrow on their face. Today, women have gone a way ahead in society and achieved many impossible achievements. From being soldier to scientist, from being chef to aeronaut, from being teacher to politician, they are ruling and grabbing success in all the areas of this country and making the countrymen proud day by day with their hard work and achievements.
But still there are many facets of society where women are considered as the weakling, of inferior stature who don’t have the right to speak or achieve whatever they want. When we talk about giving more freedom to women or getting equal pay then some men will come out and say Why more freedom? They have been given reservations, maternity holidays and what not. So, why more freedom?
I would like to ask them a question: when you come from the office or workplace, you become so tired that you just want to relax but when your wife, mother or sister comes from the office, you want her to work in the kitchen. When you are just working in the office, she is managing the whole house, her office, her periods and if she is a mother then child as well. But you will say that it is just a meagre work which is of no value. But when she is unwell and you have to work then that work becomes a herculean task and you feel yourself as some superhuman who is managing all things alone and you will brag about it in front of everybody that how humanae you are that you share responsibilities with your other half.
It’s not that I am generalizing that all men are the same but, in my lifetime, I have seen only some men whom I can count on my fingertips who actually share responsibilities. This is just a glimpse in life of a woman from the working sector. Now I will talk about girls and women who are residing in villages. The story is entirely different there. The girl goes to school with lots of dreams but gets married as soon as she finishes school or she has just entered college. When that girl becomes a wife, she bears responsibility for the whole house along with its inhabitants. But at least there was a hope that they were able to go to school or college.
But the arrival of this pandemic COVID-19 and lockdown has made their situation become more pathetic. During the lockdown period, they were locked in the house with their tormentors and they abused women in whatever they wanted. There was an article in ‘The Hindu’ that ‘For the first time in 10 years, domestic violence complaint calls by women surged, such a pattern has not been for 10 years.’ The situation grew out of hand because when locked with their perpetrators they can’t go out and ask for help. So many of the women opted to still take a bold step by calling on helpline numbers, by hiding in their rooms, fearing that someone might hear them and they will become subject to abuse again.
Whereas women were seeing such worse conditions, the girls in several areas saw totally different and devastating situations. There are many areas in India where parents who are not much well off, to ease up their burden are marrying off small girls who have not even turned 18. Their parents either because they belong to a weak economic class, or as the administrative surveillance was not up to mark because of COVID-19, or as they would not have to shell a lot of money because of people’s limits, they opted for marrying their girl off who has not even crossed the tender age. One of the major roles which has played in early marriage of these girls is also that schools are closed because of lock down and schools used to play a huge role in the lives of these young girls. From sanitation to keeping check on their health, from keeping track of their studies to investigation of their absence, they kept all the data because of which parents also used to adhere to the fact that they can’t marry their daughter or son at an early age or they will become subject to punishment by law. Now as there is no such check they are doing according to their wish.
This is my innermost desire that a day should come when we are builders of this society; when we are not given a place, whereas we know it’s our place; when male members of family don’t help but share responsibility; when we are taken as a weakling but as the strongest creation of Nature, who we actually are.
Eduindex News 