Indian Society Is Regressive For Women

Recently there was a great controversy around a statement of Indian Actress Malika Sherawat, who mentioned that Indian society is regressive for women; The actress was addressing a press conference when a female journalist questioned her why the star would search for her true love in her home country India, when she had publically earlier declared the county ‘regressive and depressing’. To this Malika Sherawat launched her on-spot impassioned response by urging the reporter to ‘Do Your Homework’. The journalist, according to Sherawat had taken the quote out of context.

She was referring to Variety interview from May, during which actress discussed her role in ‘Dirty Politics’ and how splitting her time between U.S. and India has helped shape her world view.

“I made a conscious decision to divide my time between Los Angeles, America and India,” the actress told Variety. “So now when I’ve experienced that social freedom, when I go back to India, which is so regressive for women, it’s depressing.

As an independent women, it’s really depressing.” Sherawat impressed that she was specifically talking about the state of affairs forwomen when she called India regressive.

She then drove home her point by mentioning the rampant cases of female feticide, infanticide, gang rapes, honour killings and the fact that 40 percent of Indian women are married below the age of 18.

And when the reporter suggested that Sherawat should watch what she says because she's painting India in a poor light, the journalist fought back, saying that by focusing on state of women, Sherawat was giving India a bad name abroad.

To which Sherawat responded, “As a woman, I should lie about the state of women that’s in our country?” further she added “So I didn’t lie. I said the truth.”

She made her point quite louder on what she meant and according to me she was very true, we need not be hypothetical and hide the situation that our country is facing. Instead we should try to solve the situation, the current scenario of nation and then proudly say out the truth when it actually changes. The current law and the current system is not giving all necessary punishment that could actually fear the people who plan to rape a woman, it still has many loop holes and lack a lot of strict attitude. There are few cases, which came to limelight and the criminals were punished, due to the fear of people and those who stood against them. But not every case gains the limelight and so not every criminal gets the proper punishment that they deserve. When a woman dies of rape or any such assault, it’s not only a woman that dies, with her dies the confidence of many more woman, with her dies the hope and faith of her parents, her near and dear ones. With that particular woman, many of her close ones get into the darkness and gets on to the depression. Out of those women being raped, some are also mother of small children, had anyone given a thought that after the incident what those little ones would suffer for a lifetime? No, we don’t think much, sometimes just some years of prison and sometimes not even that, is that enough to improve the state of woman?

Few of the states in India are still suffering from the dowry system that forces parents to kill the female foeticides, as they cannot afford to pay a good amount of dowry to marry their child and this future concerns stops them from giving birth to a female child. Some women are killed for dowry after marriage, some are tortured for dowry and some silently kills them to come out of this torture. Not only rape and dowry, there are many more things as such which is torturing the freedom of a woman. Indian women’s plight does not have a limit. This few issues are just to be named, domestic violence is also a part of it, poor education in the villages for female child, self esteem, and demonization, etc are many things that women of India are suffering from.

Indian society needs to have a broader view on the women empowerment and self esteem. If you yourself are willing to solve this, start from your home, start from your circle, encourage every woman in your knowledge to fight for themselves, to protect themselves and to speak for themselves. If a woman is suffering from domestic violence, support her and encourage her to take step against it and come out of it, don’t discourage her by saying to think her about her child’s future, or what society would say after her taking a step. Make her think positive, make her understand that rather then suffering for lifetime, it is better to fight for the time and make the life better. If a lady is being tortured for dowry, don’t tell her parents to pay it, it would only encourage the crime, instead ask to punish those greedy monsters for their act and if they cannot change their mind, they better face the prison instead of a innocent woman killing herself and leaving those greedy monster with a chance to harrash one more woman like her.

I salute Malika Sherawat for speaking on the topic and really would love to see other celebrity and big names coming forth to speak on the topic and let the society understand true facts.