Wednesday 20 September 2017

What ails the Indian woman - rural India






Women the world over have been exploited and India is no exception - except the women in India have to grapple with multiple problems - facing sexist comments, lewd remarks and gazes, discriminated at work, marginalized at home, and many other manifold problems.
Women in rural India lack basic human rights, they are grappling with the problem of clean drinking water, sanitation facilities, proper hygiene and denial to basic education facilities. Girls even in urban cities have to occasionally sit on dharna( a sit in protest ) to demand that their school be converted to a senior secondary from secondary - having college facilities - the teaching staff in rural areas leaves much to be desired. The other day I was watching the only teacher in a school was caught on camera dead drunk and the classes had to be called off. Mostly girls have no educational choices to make in rural India - they have to either take it or leave it - the available courses are dismal - so dreams of becoming doctors or engineers or joining the administrative services remain dreams unless the student changes residence and moves to the city. The same goes for male students in rural India.
Finding jobs in rural India is like looking for a needle in a haystack - and to top it all the problem of lack of savings is compounding the problem. Is anybody looking into this problem? Nothing is visible on ground - even if voluntary agencies come forward to establish schools or conduct classes for the girl students it could make a huge difference to their lives - if the Government comes forward it will be even better - of course all these projects have to be handled sans red tape and with a sense of commitment and well being for the community.
Similarly women and their children in the rural areas have to face total lack of medical facilities- the health clinics which refuse to run, the doctors who are just not interested in work, for any major illnesses the women folk have to run to cities which in turn have more problems than solutions to offer. The recent deaths due to lack of oxygen and deadly killer diseases is a point in example. Then what is the way out? Will these manifold problems just be discussed for a few days only to be brushed aside under the carpet because it doesn't suit individuals. That would be ignoring and compounding the problem. The solution lies in not running away from the problem but facing it village by village city by city and it takes dedicated workers and agencies to address the problems - slowly but surely.
The problems facing the women in rural India is in itself a paradox - the problems of urban women can be dealt with in another post another day - however the moot problem has to be sorted out by a mix and match of both private individuals, voluntary agencies and of course the Government of the day - till then all media can do is highlight because media can't solve it can only show - Cheers till then  

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