Women empowerment and female leadership has been an issue of concern of this century and the last, and lately there is increased sensitization of the matter with tabling of the Women’s Reservation Bill in the parliament. This bill (Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam), had been doing the rounds of the parliament since 1996 under different governments, but political compulsions all these years had ensured that it never saw the light of the day. The recent tabling of the bill in the parliament is a political stunt or not, we see a lot of flurry but no plausible solution for implementation.
With the arrival of the auspicious Navratri this year, it reminds us one more time that we ‘women’ were ‘empowered’ since ancient times as is seen extensively in our concepts of Goddesses and in the rituals of Goddess worship.
In our ancient scripts, the feminine factor is strongly recognized in the philosophy of Sankhya — in the concept of Purusha and Prakriti. Sankhya philosophy teaches us that the universe was born from the union of Prakriti and Purusha. Prakriti here refers to the basic cosmic material that is the root of all beings, and Purusha to the spirit or conscious energy that governs life and reality. Prakriti is an agile, flexible, earthly and eternal entity which represents the female aspect of creation.
The prime concept of Sankhya is that of the divine duality of purusha and prakriti–matter and spirit, energy and consciousness. In the Bhagwat Gita, in his question to Krishna, Arjuna puts Prakriti before Purusha. Being a yogi, he knew that one must deal with the material-energy side of things before one can hope to know about spiritual matters. Also, he implied the threefold mystery: knower of the field, the knowing, and the known. Purusha and Prakriti are the two basic, independent and eternal principles that are the main cause and reason behind existence.
The Goddesses were worshipped as the consort of the Gods as they were the ‘Shakti’, the divine strength and the cosmic power of their spouses — the ‘Shakta’. A God was visualized as inactive and transcendent; it was the goddess who was active and immanent.
‘Ardhanarishwara’ –the half-Shiva, half-Shakti icon is a portrayal of this union of the divine forces. Like Shiva, Durga has a third eye, wields the Trishula (the trident) and at times, has matted hair. Both have the Ugra Roop (the angry persona) and the Saumya Roop (the benign, peaceful persona); this is unique to these two enigmatic deities.
MA Durga — the protector came to existence to defeat the demon king Mahishasura. Once MA Durga was created with the collective energy of Tridevas and Gods, the ten-armed super-goddess received endowments and boons from the other Gods. Shiva gave her his Trident, Shri Vishnu gave her his Sudarshan Chakra, and Brahma gave her his Kamandalam of holy water and wisdom. Indra gave her his vajra, Varuna gave her his conch, Agni gave her a missile or spear, Vayu gave her a bow and arrows, Vishwakarma gave her his axe and an armour, and the lord of the mountains gave her a lion.
Celebrating Devi Mata is to celebrate the feminine power and this reminds us all to ponder on the true meaning of the feminine and its status today. In today’s political context, women’s reservation is a necessary step, as agreed by women and also by political parties by virtue of knowledge or political compulsion, to enable women in the same way as MA Durga was endowed with the boons and gifts of the tri Devas and other Gods to restore peace, harmony and protect the world.
Empowerment through reservation is especially important in the rural and sub urban areas where patriarchal society has metamorphosed into various ugly forms which defies all logic of a sane mind and norms for a meaningful societal existence; these societies diminish women to the lowest of the low irrespective of their caste and clan. In order to make sincere implementation of the bill in its true spirit for women upliftment, a new formula can be arrived at that does not require a Delimitation process. What is needed is moving beyond political gain and do some real good work for humanity and the country.
Cast based reservation policy is unique to our country on this planet. There is no doubt that it was implemented with the best of interest of the backward casts and tribes, and it has had great impact over the last 75 years uplifting and enabling many tribes and backward castes already. But in today’s world, many from the younger generation show concerns for reverse casteism. Along with the Women’s’ Bill, now is the time to re-think over all caste-based reservation system, and streamline and direct these benefits to those tribes, geographic groups, or financially downtrodden who need it to survive and exist in a modern world and release what is possible to the general category.
Dynamics of any population/ society creates newer ‘poor strata’, ‘newer down trodden people’ and marginalized patches who are unable to access government benefit/s for various reasons. And as evident women are half of those underprivileged too, in fact worse sufferers within them than their male counterparts.
Citing MA Durga’s celebration of creation, of life, of victory of good over evil, would like to reiterate that She protects mankind from evil and misery by destroying negative forces such as jealousy, prejudice, hatred, anger and in today’s context – using social engineering as a tool for vote bank politics. If Caste census is necessary for upliftment of the underprivileged and identification of the ‘new strata’ of people falling below poverty line/ socially deprived group for socio-political reason, and not for politics through social engineering, may the Goddess let it prevail.
We Bharatiyas or Indians tend to look at a social issue from one angle, but social issues, however, do not lend themselves to unidirectional understanding as these are often much nuanced and complex in aetiologies and manifestations. While some facts may be easily visible from one angle, facts of contrary significance can also be seen if we carefully look at the issue from a different perspective. It is necessary to understand deep-rooted social issues in an integral manner as the implications are varied and repercussions may rapidly propagate, affect and influence. And the whole process is dynamic, changing with time, with digitization of societies and few other influences small and big.
May the Goddess enable the decision makers see and feel the situation of reservations in the country in its true spirit for a prosperous Bharat Varsh where younger ones can grow up with equal opportunities without knowing his or her caste; and girls/ women – the other half of humanity can have ‘near equal’ representation in the authority bodies of the country.
The author is a Consultant Doctor at Moolchand Medcity.