In Indian Politics, Encouraging Signs of Gender Parity

The article was first published in GARP Risk Intelligence, September 29, 2017; http://www.garp.org/#!/risk-intelligence/culture-governance/conduct-ethics/a1Z1W000003rBK4UAM/In-Indian-Politics-Encouraging-Signs-of-Gender-Parity

Traditional social structures continue to limit progress at the grassroots.

In a cabinet reshuffle on September 4, Nirmala Sitharaman became the Defense Minister of India. The elevation of a woman was a positive signal towards the goal of achieving gender parity in India. Sitharaman and two others, Sushma Swaraj (External Affairs) and Smriti Irani (Information & Broadcasting), are responsible for three of the most important portfolios in the Narendra Modi-led government.

Women are under-represented in politics across the world, even as research has found that women in policy positions are more sensitive to the needs of the society and improve governance standards.

In a broader context, gender parity remains elusive.

In India’s historically agrarian society, at least until the service sector started to grow much faster, women contributed significantly to farm production. Beyond farming and allied activities, women mostly stuck to entrepreneurial pursuits like making snacks and pickles, running beauty parlors, tailoring, and teaching at home. These areas were seen as extensions of their roles at home, required low financing, and allowed for flexibility to stay at home and manage home as well as work. These businesses typically remained small. The motivation for working was to enhance the family income or attain a certain degree of financial independence, or it was out of compulsion.

Restrictive home and workplace structures, and societal and cultural contexts, play an important role in women’s decision to participate in the workforce. There is evidence to show that increased participation of women in the workforce results in better economic growth. However, the converse may not be true.

The economic liberalization in 1991 and the high GDP growth rates of the last decade did not really improve the status of women in India. India ranked 125th out of 159 countries in the Gender Inequality Index of the United Nations Development Report of 2016. The country had a pitiful score of 0.12 out of 1 on economic empowerment as per the gender equity index (2012), and only 27% of women above age 15 participate in the labor force.

“A Gargantuan Task”

Dr. V.P. Jyotsna, an obstetrician, expert in gynecological endoscopy and high-risk pregnancy, the Birthplace, says, “A majority of rural women are subjected to lack of education, child labor, early marriages and early childbearing, inadequate health care, and an abject lack of awareness regarding health and nutrition. Various social stigmata – caste based, gender based and religion based – contribute to the lack of empowerment of women in India. To try to empower and strengthen the role of women, one needs to untangle a complex web of age-old traditions. That’s a gargantuan task.”

Governments have taken several steps over the years for attaining gender parity, notwithstanding many that were not taken. For example, changes in law like the daughter's right to property and the duty of a daughter to take care of parents, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act that stated that men and women be paid equally and that child care facilities be made available on site, have been introduced. But they were not enough to turn the tables on tradition.

Some organizations are taking purposeful steps to bring down the glass ceiling and make workplaces women-friendly. In fact, many of the traditional businesses are now embracing women from their families as leaders of their businesses. Many companies are electing women to boards to bring in a diversity of views.

Day-to-Day Obstacles

The biggest challenge is in the micro environment, the mindset of the immediate circle of people whom every woman encounters. While many countries have gender parity issues, the problem is amplified in India due to deep-rooted socio-cultural attitudes. In a male-dominated society, family support for men is taken for granted; for women, it needs to be sought.

Familial duties primarily fall on the women. They are born with this sense of responsibility, and the environment around them only exacerbates it. While family and society impose restrictions, many women self-impose restrictions too, on travel and extended working hours, due to a sense of responsibility that they are not able to let go.

A very small percentage of women have achieved the pinnacle of success and become role models for the rest of the Indian women. Dr. Jyotsna says, “It's commendable that ‘some’ women have been blessed enough to escape discrimination at various levels or successfully shaken it off in such a way that they have managed to be on par with their male colleagues.

Inconsistent Progress

“Although their successes are laudable, it is in no way a reflection of the plight of the majority of the women in India. Definitely the proportion of women moving ahead in terms of education, awareness and financial independence is increasing, but not uniformly across all strata. These women who advance in life and depict success stories in the public eye do serve as inspiration to many. Yet the real change is to be seen in the men.”

With women like Sushma Swaraj, Nirmala Sitharaman and Smriti Irani as lawmakers, there is hope that policymaking becomes sensitive to the needs of women. However, in spite of being an eternal optimist, I am reminded of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”:  

To the horror of the other animals, the pigs begin to walk on two legs, and the sheep drown out their protests with their newly learned slogan, Four legs good, two legs better . . . There is only one commandment now: “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. As the animals peep in the farmhouse windows, to their amazement they can no longer tell who are the pigs and who are the humans.”

The zeitgeist of deep-rooted tradition, religion and social customs cannot change unless the men equally participate in the process by taking collective responsibility of the household work and believing in the cause of gender parity. Continuous interventions at the micro level by men in the lives of women will go a long way to achieve the gender parity that women envision.