Recently, I was at a meeting with senior Indian diplomats. After a healthy discussion on India’s recent foreign policy accomplishments — defence agreements with the U.S., trade deals with China and Japan, and a general feeling of confidence surrounding the proactive international agenda of the Narendra Modi government, one of the members of the group raised the question of the appalling treatment of women in India. “This is one of the hardest questions I encounter as a diplomat,” the senior-most diplomat said. He went on to elaborate that this is not a country-specific problem. After all, he said, in total numbers the U.S. has more cases of rape and sexual assault than India does, including aggressive sexual assaults in university campuses. So, he concluded, the media, especially the international media, should stop singling out India on this issue.
Vishakha N. Desai I found myself both distressed and slightly sympathetic on hearing his answer. On the one hand, as a historian and daughter of a Gandhian woman who fought for India’s independence and helped establish one of the first women’s organisations in the country, I know that explaining the role of women in India is complicated. Whenever I am asked this question in the U.S., I often say that it depends on the context.
It is very confusing for outsiders to make sense of the multivalent nature of Indian women’s position in society. They wonder: how is it that India can produce women political leaders, from a Prime Minister to Chief Ministers, but also rank amongst the countries with the highest levels of infanticide, with millions of “missing girls” as the Nobel laureate, Amartya Sen, has pointed out? How is it that India can boast of female executives in national financial institutions, but its women rank 140 out of 179 countries in the Mother’s Index Rank (compared to China, which ranks 61)?
Clearly, these apparent contradictions don’t fit neatly into easy generalisations. My 98-year-old mother was as upset as I was to hear about the horrible Nirbhaya case in Delhi. But when I went to see the recent theatrical production of the same name in New York, it left me distressed — it was mainly about anger and victimisation of young Indian women. Seeing the play in New York, where a majority of the audience had no knowledge of India or its complex cultural attitudes towards women, made me acutely aware of the dangers of projecting a one-dimensional view of any culture. I almost wanted to stand up and say, “Please, there is another side to this story: I am a second-generation feminist, and my mother was fighting for women’s dignity in 1935!”
Nonetheless, I had to acknowledge that for the large majority of Indian women, life is not only tough, but precarious. As a recent Economist article points out, resources spent on women in India are more uneven than in most countries. Women in India are far likelier to die giving birth, because of a lack of even basic medical assistance, than in China. The increased numbers of sexual assaults and rapes (at least in terms of reporting) in recent decades suggest that growing prosperity, if anything, has led to a greater clash of traditional attitudes with contemporary ambitions.
This brings us back to the discussion with Indian diplomats. In the international context, it is not useful to make excuses or rationalise the problems a large number of Indian women face. It would be far more effective if we first acknowledged that there is a serious problem in India. It is as much about attitudes as it is about policies.
Women’s groups in India were right to criticise Prime Minister Modi when he gave a backhanded compliment to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for being tough on terrorism “despite being a woman”. Such retrograde views, whether conscious or unconscious, are all too prevalent among Indian leaders. They have to be pointed out, and the leaders must be made accountable. Equally important, policies have to change, whether around increasing resources for strengthening the maternal health of women, or for educating girls and keeping them in schools.
Indian diplomats would do well if they first addressed the problem facing Indian women, pointed out what the government is doing or is willing to do to address the issue, and finally educated their international audiences about the complex nature of women’s roles in India. Only then can they place the issue in a global context and share their concerns for women everywhere, making sure that they denounce degrading of women no matter where they occur. It will not help to blame the media or external forces as being out to sully India’s reputation. India is strong enough today to acknowledge its problems and move forward by finding solutions. It will require consistent efforts to change age-old attitudes that kept women subservient.
(Vishakha N. Desai is Special Advisor for Global Affairs to the President and Professor of Practice, Columbia University, President Emerita, Asia Society.)
