Dear All
Yesterday on March 8th, i received several messages on my mobile "Happy women's day" and "Watch Cady's Video and get hot", and "We are cute daughters, sisters, wives, lovers, mothers and are sources of strength"
Yes I am happy that my spouse, child and myself are all alive and happy together. But not at the injustices that I see around based on class, caste, race, ethnicity, religion, sex/gender etc. In India around 56% women are anemic, around 45% of the population live below $1.25 per capita per day and many women die during/after delivery (due to hemorrhage, sepsis, toxemia, unsafe abortion in that order). The picture is more pathetic with regard to dalits, adivasis, landless, Muslims (in some pockets), slum dwellers and migrants and women amongst them.
The possibility that there may come a time when women are few with decline in sex ratio at birth is another cause of anguish (in China, India, Georgia, Vietnam, Nepal, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Republic of Korea, and even in Pakistan I hear). In India poor women and girls - dalits in particular-are bought and sold, polyandry is being strengthened in pockets o f India, poor women's wombs are being sold through surrogate motherhood, and sex work will soon be considered as work if liberal feminists and HIV/AIDS lobby have a say (put the men behind bars, and decriminalize women pushed into prostitution). Do we want a society where there are few women/girls and there is no institution of family or an institution where patriarchal family does not exist- whatever form heterosexual- or people of diverse sexual/gender identities living together?
Abortion research and advocates are being pushed in India by northern donors/research institutes due to global concern over population growth, while unsafe abortion is only the fourth reason for maternal death in our country. Perhaps it is the first in some other country where abortion is illegal. Do we need a monoculture of solutions? Climate change is not due to our growing population of poor, but due to unfettered consumption in the north and by elites in growing economies. Is it not due to unequal power relations, lack of temporary methods of contraception and sexuality education that girls and women are pushed into abortion in India? Is not population growth linked to poverty and lack of economic security? Provide safe abortion on the grounds that poor women and girls want- rape, husbands forcing themselves, husbands leaving them, domestic violence etc- but not as a method of contraception or for sex selection of males or sex balancing. Is our body our private property, or are we trustees to our body, intellect and resources to meet our basic needs and then give back to society wherein inequities are a reality?
As I get called every March 8th or before or later to speak I wonder who am I to speak on behalf of the 75% not shining India/global population. Let them speak in proportion to their numbers, not just the LGBTI groups and women compelled into prostitution due to patriarchy and poverty (sorry my friends from out there from both these groups ). Collective rights of marginalized women and girls (dalits, adivasis, slum dwellers, migrants etc) have to prevail over individual ones. Gender justice has to prevail, linked to caste, class, ethnic, race justice. .
Lastly, I no longer see myself as a daughter, sister, wife, mother, daughter in law or sister in law. I just want love and friendships, see progress towards justice in my life time, and claim my humanism and self respect from its margins- for i have sold my mind, body and soul for fifteen years for paid development work. Not occupying relation positions and organisations, hopefully my source of strength will emerge soon!
Thanks anyway all those who wished me
Ranjani K.Murthy
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