India is the second-most populous nation in the world, but the dynamics of daily life are not understood by many people from the west. Indian life is conditioned by certain rules of kinship, social organization, the position of gender, and the construction of identity. Gender discrimination which is caused by centuries-old traditions is a burning issue of the Indian government. India lags behind other developing countries that have overstepped their ancient traditions and now they are on the way to a modern development while Indian women and men still become unequal. What are the main reasons for this problem?
Indian social life is characterized by interdependence. People are born in different groups – families, clans, castes, subcastes, and religious communities and they become an inseparable part of these communities for their whole life. A person’s greatest dread is to be left alone without social support. This interdependence is explained from the theological point of view: the very shape of a person’s life is observed as being greatly influenced by divine beings with whom an ongoing relationship must be maintained (Chakraborty, 2009).
Social interdependence belongs to the highest priority for Indian people; social bonds are expected to be long-lasting. Even economic activities that might involve impersonal interactions in Western countries are embedded in a social nexus in India. Western visitors to India are sometimes shocked to find that important business and government officials have left their works for many days to participate in religious activities or attend cousin’s weddings. It is not explained by laziness or hedonistic recreation, the main reason is the maintenance of social ties with relatives, caste fellows, and God (Uberoi, 1993).
In every activity, there is the belief that social ties can help the person. Indian children are taught from their childhood that their fates have been written by divine forces and their lives will be shaped according to the plan decided by more powerful beings (Agrawal, 2004). As the result, whatever they do, their actions presuppose the other people’s support. When a child eats, his mother puts food into his mouth, when a boy climbs a tree to pluck mangoes, another stands below with a basket to receive them. When a student applies to a college, he hopes that his relative puts in a good word for him with the director of admissions. At the age of marriage, young people hope that their parents find the appropriate bride or groom and organize the marriage with all necessary formalities. If they die, they are sure that their relatives bury them with all ceremonials. Indian people get accustomed to hopping on the relatives’ support (Agrawal, 2004).
These groups of relatives belong to certain groups of kin. Subsuming the family is patrilineage. It is also called the khandan, Kutumba, or kul in Central and Northern India. Patrilineage unites the group of males who belong to the common progenitor a few generations back including their wives and unmarried daughters. The clan is larger than patrilineage including males tracing common ancestry to a mythological figure. Clans are hierarchically ordered. Some Indians also belong to more formless groupings which are known as Sakha and vansh. Belonging to a certain class defines your social position in society. This inequality of clans has been traced from Indian ancestors (Agrawal, 2004).
These groupings are exogamous, so that a person who belonged to this clan may not marry or have sexual relationships with the member of the same clan. It is considered to be incest. In North India, the marriage between the person and the members of his mother’s lineage is also forbidden. On the contrary, in South India, such marriages are encouraged.
There are also kinship groups larger than family among Muslims. Here belong such groups as the khandan which is also known as patrilineage and the azizdar which is also called kindred. The azizdar group includes all relatives of a person connected by blood and marriage. Cooperation in specific rites is one of the main indicators of the kin group for Hindus. The males of the same patrilineage participate in rites with their wives. Unmarried daughters do not participate in such rituals and do not eat special foods. They are spectators of such ceremonies. After the marriage, a woman belongs to her husband’s patrilineage and takes part in worship ceremonies of his clan. Kin also join together to celebrate birthdays, marriages, and religious holidays. Various fictive kinships among neighbors and friends can be formed by informal agreement.
Cast-based discrimination and oppression have been a pernicious feature of Indian society. The caste system, which is based on the notions of purity and pollution, hierarchy and difference, has despite social mobility, been oppressive towards the Shudras and the outcastes who suffered the stigma of ritual impurity and lived in abject poverty, illiteracy, and denial of political power. The origin of confrontational identity politics based on caste may be said to have its origin on the issue of providing the oppressed caste groups with state support in the form of protective discrimination (Agrawal, 2004).
In all, caste has become an important determinant in Indian society and politics, the new lesson of organized politics and consciousness of caste affiliations learned by the hitherto despised caste groups have transformed the contours of Indian politics where shifting caste-class alliances are being encountered. The net effect of these mobilizations along caste identities has resulted not only in the empowerment of newly emerging groups but has increased the intensity of confrontational politics and possibly led to a growing crisis of governability (Agrawal, 2004).
As we can see, kinship in India plays a very important role. The belonging to certain kin may decide the fate of the person and his further life. Women in Muslims belong to the patrilineage of their husbands as in every patrilineal society. In such a system, there is a high value placed on the male offspring and men largely inherit properties (Agrawal, 5). Women are treated as temporary members of their natal household and their incorporation into their husband’s household is always fraught with uncertainties. Their fates depend on their husbands. According to the rules of Manu written in 200 B.C.: “by a young girl, by a young woman, or even by an aged one, nothing must be done independently, even in her own house”. “In childhood, a female must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, when her lord is dead to her sons; a woman must never be independent” (Gender Inequality, 2001).
Women’s lives in India are shaped by customs that are centuries old. Women have less freedom of choice than men. The most important decisions are a husband’s duties. Is it gender discrimination or religious traditions which have been followed for centuries?
Indian males significantly outnumber females in India and this imbalance has increased over time. The sex ratio according to the 2001 census report stands at 933 per 1000 males (Gender Inequality, 2001).
As the result, the role of women in the family is underestimated as well as her role in the labor market. Gender discrimination in the market reduces the quantity of skilled and talented workers and as the result has negative economic consequences as compared with most well-developed countries where women have more possibilities to use their talents (Esteve-Volart, 2004).
Gender discrimination has deep historical roots in the Indian culture and it leaves women out of the economic mainstream. This kind of discrimination is usually identified with differential wage rates. Female labor participation in India is still low: it accounts for 28 percent according to the National Sample Survey (Esteve-Volart, 2004). Women from the middle classes do not tend to participate in the labor force; on the contrary, women from poor households have to work to feed their families.
Most women from well-to-do families where a man is considered to be a breadwinner do not seek to work. On the other hand, this inequality concerns those women who have to feed their families themselves and have low wages in comparison with men.
According to the 2001 census report, 120 million women live in poverty. The deaths of young girls in India exceed the deaths of young boys by over 300,000 every year and every 6th infant death is reasoned by gender discrimination (Gender Inequality, 2001). Five million girls were eliminated between 1986 and 2001 because of fetal sex determination done by unethical medical professionals. The rate of extermination continues to increase after the census of 2001. Sex determination and sex-selective abortion become the burning issue in India.
Indian women face discrimination from their childhood. Gender disparities in nutrition are observed from their childhood to adulthood. Malnutrition is one of the main reasons for most deaths of girls below 5 years old and these deaths are caused by gender discrimination. Girls are breastfed less frequently than boys. On the contrary, males are always fed first and better in Indian families. According to some estimates women consume approximately 1,000 calories less than men (Gender Inequality, 2001). There are a lot of diseases among Indian women which are caused by nutritional deprivation. As the result, most of them suffer from anemia and women never reach their full growth in India. These conditions complicate childbearing and result in low birth weight infants. Women receive fewer healthcare facilities than men. Most parents neglect their female children even if they are ill. Male offsprings are the wealth of Indian families. Many women die during childbirth because of some complications which may be prevented. All these deplorable statistics have been caused by gender discrimination which has been rooted in India for centuries.
The Government of India tried to improve the status of women as workers with the help of certain acts: Maternity Benefits Act (1961), Equal Remuneration Act (1976), Contract Labour (1970), Inter-State Migrant Workers Act (1979), and others (Gender Inequality, 2001). Over one million women have been elected to local panchayats despite deep-rooted biases according to the result of the 1993 amendment to the Indian Constitution requiring that 1/3 of the elected seats to the local government structures be reserved for women (Gender Inequality, 2001). Nevertheless, this problem has become more and more topical. Inequality remains, men are more likely to get promotions than women and have higher wages for the same work compared to female workers.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has stated, “Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance” (Gender inequality, 2001). There is a need for new kinds of institutions, incorporating new norms and rules that support the equal and unbiased relationship between men and women in India. Although Indian women organize a lot of organizations to fight for their rights, it is quite difficult to get out those traditions that have been deep-rooted for centuries. It is necessary to rebuild the whole social system including groups of kinships and the construction of identity. If the Indian government has success in such kind of a great reconstruction, India will start the new phase of its development.
Reference List
Agrawal, A. (2004). Social Construction of Gender. Foundation Course: Human Rights, Gender & Environment. USA: University of Delphi.
Chakraborty, T. (2009). Kinship Institutions and Sex Ration in India. USA: Washington University in St. Louis and NBER.
Esteve-Volart, B. (2004). Gender Discrimination and Growth: Theory and Evidence from India. London: London School of Economics and Political Science.
Gender Inequality. (2001) Azad India Foundation.
Uberoi, P. (1993). Family, Kinship and Marriage in India. UK: Oxford University Press.