Kundli is a small place, an industrial corridor along the Delhi-Haryana border. While Hasina cycles her way to the shoe-making industry, just 2 km from the chaul she lives in, she remembers her daughter Noor having asked her for crayons on her way back home. Noor goes to the school that every kid in the chaul goes to. It’s wonderful how times have changed. There was a time when her family couldn’t afford two meals, let alone thinking of giving proper education to their child. It was only after industries started to shift to Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, that men started to get jobs. But was a sole earner of the family enough?
No, it wasn’t.
Initially, no men in the chaul wanted their wife to earn bread, add to the family income, because it was too much for their ego to ask. It was only after a call from one woman – Hasina, that things changing both in the family as well as the locality. She fought her husband to join as a worker with the newly opened shoe industry. Seeing her go to work, many women slowly joined her. Now, almost all women go to different industries in the corridor on their cycles. They are independent, and the happiness is apparent from the enthusiastic faces every morning. This is the “new women” of a “new India” that aspirational voices talk about.
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The changing face of indian women, and it is changing for good. There was a time when women were not allowed to be a part of Sabha and Samiti, a political assembly in the Vedic times. But now, politics revolves around pressing women issues. The third tier of our democracy in the form of panchayat and municipal corporations is dominated by women. Infact, 50% of reservation is being provided in states like Bihar. Issues like banning alcohol, triple talaq, women’s reservation bill have become major political issues. The need for a gender sensitive society seeking for equality has become more vocal than ever before.
Everyday society provides various testimony to the fact that women in India are becoming centrepoint of issues. The most recently released “Toilet Ek Prem Katha” shows the female refusing to come back to her husband until he builds a toilet. It is only after he gets one built, that she returns. This particular message shows how the new woman in India are much more vocal and their basic needs which was hitherto neglected is becoming more and more relevant.
The new women in the form of ASHA workers and Anganwadis in villages have made women realize that they can be better participants in the social platform and be financially independent. Infact, a recent study on effectiveness of ASHA INCENTIVE shows how the ASHA workers have helped in creating awareness about family planning, motivating couples to have two or less children. They have also helped in improving antenatal health care facilities. All this has helped create an impact even in underdeveloped states like Jharkhand where both Infant Mortality Rate and Maternal Mortality Rate is improving.
Economically, the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report shows how if women are made a part of the Indian Economy, it can increase the GDP by 27%. Infact, the report also shows how for the first time in history, we have been able to close the gap in the number of females graduating with respect to males. The closing of the gap in tertiary education shows the increasing prioritization of women in the education sector.
Until development is not engendered, it may endanger, because it only when women got involved, that a toilet was built in a home in the rural area. It is only after the new India women got involved, that IMR and MMR improved. Women like Hasina is what we should call the real empowered women. While coming back from work, Hasina bought the crayons Noor has asked for. She was waiting for her mother with glittering eyes. This glitter is the hope for a better future to come.
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