J K Mathur
Retired Banker

At the instance  of Study Hall’s  Shalini Chandra, I went through with interest the article written by Dr Urvashi Sahni, on the Study Hall Fondation website, which may be taken as some kind of a key-note address on the burning topic in view. The rejoinders, in prose and poetry, are well-informed, analytical and seem to have emanated from the core of respective commentators’ hearts, indicating strong feelings and anguish on the torment and injustice inflicted on our daughters.

Somebody has rightly said that a daughter is a ‘miracle created by God’. She is forever loving and caring; she is full of inner beauty and external charm. The very presence of a daughter lights up a place in the family and spreads an aura of assurance, a sense of dependability. Parents with sons only and no daughters do not know what they are missing. A daughter in any house-hold, forms the fulcrum round which all activities move, be it sweeping the floor, cleaning the house, cooking, washing utensils, looking after younger siblings and running all sorts of errands; at the same time, she adds income to the family’s pool, wherever possible. It is the daughter who stands like a rock behind her parents. Telling testimonies of daughters’ role in any family are available in plenty in the saga of ‘Prerna’ ,the formidable school being run by Study Hall for the female children of poorest families; they not only help their families in keeping their pot boiling but also study  and excel in academics, sports and cultural activities.
Against this background, a question which everybody is asking but not finding reasonable answers is why these daughters, who are vital cogs in any family, are being subjected to atrocity and cruelty ranging from bad to worse. Daughters are killed at birth, trafficked when they grow up or raped mercilessly, compelled to marry as a child bride and are prone to exploitation of all types by those who hold some kind of sway over them. One shudders to know about inhuman stories that have recently come to light where even the fathers have committed heinous crimes of incest on their own progeny. What is alarming is that in spite of serious repercussions of the recent gang rape in Delhi and the vehement protests and undying demand for death to rapists in our legal system as well as formation of fast-track courts to dispense expeditious justice to sexual offenders, the newspapers continue to report cases of rapes from various parts of the country.

This leads us to believe that the criminally-minded are undeterred even by the possibility of harshest punishment. The mind-set of the people in general that is loaded against women in our country, must be made to undergo the much-needed change. Age-old social customs and cultural shackles imposed by mostly the male law-makers and holy men in ancient India, who gave credit to male superiority in their pronouncements in scriptures, are required to be diluted. Their judgmental views on the woman-folk have been articulated in religious texts and mythological accounts where many restrictions are state to have been placed on women; they have been shown as lesser human beings. Even our revered Tulsi Das Ji has  bracketed woman with  rustics and animals, deserving coercion (tadna).  Sita also had undergo the Agni-Pariksha. Manu Smriti is chauvinistic in its approach to woman. Devdasis in our temples were required to render rituals and sometimes services of the dubious kind to religious heads and their henchmen. Centuries of oppression, instigated by our religious and cultural commands, have subjugated and degraded the daughters of India. They are considered as burden on the family and have to be given away in marriage to other families where a new chapter of atrocities is opened. While the sons are supposed to be assets in the family balance sheet, the daughters are reckoned as liabilities as soon as they are born. The male inheritors are invariably preferred in matters of education and imparting of skills as the daughters have to go out of the family as ‘ paraya dhan’. So the thinking is- what is the use of investing in their education and equipping them with gainful skills as the consequent benefits are not likely to accrue to the family. In this context, our voluntary organizations engaged in the education of the deprived female children are doing divine work. All efforts should be made to encourage them with all possible means for the education and resultant empowerment of women.

An encouraging trend has emerged where the daughters of the family are also coming out in the open and fighting for their rights as equals. The recent changes in the Statute, where the daughters are also eligible for 50% of the family property, will go a long way to empower them and put them on a higher pedestal. It will help in bestowing to them their rightful place and give them a semblance of respectability in the society.
The dynamics of social change, the vociferous roar for social justice, steps taken for the emancipation of women and rapid shift in the mind-set of the society is the only hope for our daughters. It is imperative that they should come out of the stigma of ‘weaker sex’ and metamorphose into ‘Shakti’ to fight the rakshasas  (demons) of our ‘samaaj’( society )and emerge with flying colours.