Essays

"She means the world"—promoting empowerment of women may be just one of the 8th millennium development goals, but this aspect is crucial to success in all of the seven others. That's why it was said by Jawaharlal Nehru, "You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women."

Women Empowerment means increasing the power of women, socially, economically and politically. The enactment of appropriate laws to improve the status of women is today's burning need. Women have capabilities to make a world of difference in the great march of human civilization. In ancient times, due to lack of opportunities and health facilities, low status of women became a vicious circle that needed to be broken to enhance the development of India. The other problems have been bias in job, sexual harassment, domestic violence marital discord which hamper the women's development.

Law is a tool for women empowerment and their better representation which is a must for social change. There are various examples to prove that the laws have made women eligible for different roles in the world affairs.

Indian women who increasingly refused to be trapped in a bad situation and were shedding silent tears reflect the long overdue empowerment of women. Today, Hindu women have options to walk out of a bad marriage rather than live unhappily because of several provisions of "Hindu Marriage Act 1955" which laid down provisions of divorce, and empowered the women to say goodbye to their long Sufferings. The Act has several provisions relating to registration of marriage restitution of conjugal rights, judicial separation and various grounds of divorce. Now, women can get a share in the ancestral property due to an amendment in "Hindu Succession Act 1956". There are other laws as well for strengthening the women power, such as "Hindu Adoption and Maintenance* Act 1956", As per the "Muslim Shariyat Act. 1937" a Muslim woman can opt for divorce according to her will and can get maintenance in the form of "Mehar".

Dowry is a stark reality. An ever increasing number of women in the urban areas are openly coming out against it. While complaints received from women are majorly dowry related, a good number are further related to harassment by in-laws. "Dowry Prevention Act" was enacted in 1961 to combat this evil and adequate provisions have been added to safeguard women from the domestic violence.

A new provision of free education for girls from primary to higher studies has been made for those girls who are single child of their parents, aims to increase the literacy rate as well as sex ratio of girls. The education-gender disparity is a major problem as the overall literacy rate is 74.04%, but the literacy figures for men are much higher at 82-14% while that for women is much lower at 65-46%.

With changing times, for empowerment of women, a number of laws have been amended and formulated such as the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act. 1956; the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961; the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986; the Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987; Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005; Hindu Succession Amendment Act 2005 and the Prohibition of Sexual Harassment of Women Bill, 2010. However, despite the existing laws much is left desired.

Women's Reservation Bill, which proposes to reserve 33% of seats for women in the lower house of Parliament of India, the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies, is yet a pending bill. Moreover, though the laws are said to grant justice to the innocent, sadly it is not true in many cases involving crime against women. This stands true especially in cases of sexual assault and rape cases as despite these prevailing laws, rape and sexual harassment cases are on rise. Ironically, in most of the rape cases the victim is branded as a woman of loose morals. Abominably, in many cases, this heinous crime is committed by the guardians of law i.e, the police and the millitary personnel. Cases linger on for years and in many cases, due to political influence, criminals get away scot-free. One such example is the famous Priyadarshini Matto case, where the culprit Santosh Kumar Singh. charged for rape and murder, was evicted and was finally brought to books after a horribly long period of 10 years, largely due to public pressure. Jessica Lall murder case is another such case, whereas Jessica was shot dead by Manu Sharma in front of 300 guests. However, Manu. the son of a wealthy politician, was acquitted by the court due to 'lack of evidence!' It was only after the public and media pressure that the case got reopened and the culprit was given life imprisonment. While Ruchika Girhotra's case outraged the entire nation, the culprit S.RS. Rathore, the Inspector General of Police, who molested the 14-year old girl that drove her to suicide, walked out of the jail 'with a smile on face'. Ironically, on March 8, 2011—celebrated as International Women's Day—a Delhi University girl was shot dead in broad daylight.

These are just some of the several incidents that the country watches every day where women—be it a 3-year-old girl or a senior citizen—are the hapless victims, Today women always have to be on their guard—be it park, public transport, cinema hall, educational institute or work place. The condition of the rural women is even worse as in the absence of education and awareness they are greater victims of the injustices meted out to them.

Overall, a look at the status of women in India today is a cause of great concern. Right from female foeticide, infanticide, child marriage, domestic violence, sexual violence, sexual harassment at the work place ... to the treatment meted out to elderly women makes one wonder at her emancipated status.

The government ushered in the new millennium by declaring 2001 as the 'Women Empowerment Year'. True, with economic independence women are making their mark in many areas like sports, literature, .science, arts, journalism, politics and business world. Economic independence has added to her confidence to march ahead and conquer the world but the daily battles that she fights everyday on this journey are not only painful but disgusting. Moreover, it is the need of the hour that this development should not only be restricted to a privileged few but rather should percolate to all sections of women uniformly so that India actually becomes great, by Nehru's standards.