Hopefully, a new dawn will soon rise on the dim, dreary lives of old Delhi's forgotten women, says Najeeb Jung.
It happened at last. After drama that would be the envy of any good playwright — snatching and tearing of papers, a feigned attempt at attacking the Chairman's podium, protesting and lying on the floor of the house, marshalls evicting esteemed members of the House of 'elders', stage managed protests and interviews with TV channels — the Rajya Sabha, on March 9th, passed the historic Women's Right to Representation Bill. It has taken 14 years for the Bill to reach this stage and it took the unlikely combination of the opposition BJP, the ruling UPA and the Left parties to vote together to get it through against the champions of the intermediately oppressed, i.e., the Mulayams, the Lalus et al.
The Bill now awaits the consent of the Lok Sabha, where it is expected to encounter far greater resistance, with grumblings now coming up even within the BJP, and the state assemblies. The passage of this amendment will put India ahead of some of the most developed countries in the world.
Once approved, over two hundred MPs in the Lok Sabha will one day be women. As I am reminded of Nehru's famous speech of a soul long suppressed finding utterance , my thoughts turn to the ordinary woman in the walled city of Delhi where I grew up.
It is often 11 pm when she gets ready to call it a day. The sounds of the TV in the main bedroom can still be heard. But she does not have the luxury of forgoing the night's sleep because the morning will begin before dawn, at 4.30 with the magical sound of water falling from taps that are dry for the rest of the day. Running water is precious and rationed: In a low-lying mohalla the supply could last for as much as an hour and a half but in the upper reaches of the neighbourhood, the 'bhojala pahadi' (the small hill on which the Emperor Shahjehan established the citadel city named after him) the taps could run dry in half an hour.
Today, this once-imperial city is near unfit for human habitation. The houses are long past their structural sellby dates and the mohallas are unimaginably over-populated . A house that was home to perhaps a family of four or five in the fifties, even in the early sixties, now houses three times that number. The sons of the family have married without moving out and their wives and children are part of the household.
The men are barely educated and have spent their lives as rickshaw pullers, factory labourers and kabaadis. A physically draining regimen and terrible nutrition leaves them incapable of any real work as early as when they are in their forties. The escalating price of a basic diet —vegetables , even dal — makes it unaffordable. So the standard meal for even the respectable poor is chapatis, coarse rice and buffalo meat. The food is cooked in the fat of the meat itself. This dreadful unbalanced diet leads to obesity, heart disease, diabetes and the other ills that follow in the train of bad food, too much or too little physical exertion, and the lack of ventilated homes and fresh air. The consequences are disastrous for the household's women.
Ailing, sullen men hang around the house. Of the two rooms in the average dwelling, the men have the first right of rest. So even on a summer afternoon in Delhi, when the temperature tops 40 degrees celsius, the only place for women to stretch their legs is atop the roof.
These women move directly from childhood to womanhood. There's no pleasurable adolescence, no carefree teen years to be nostalgic about. Married off young, they relive their mothers' hardships in new homes. They age rapidly: Young girls married in their teens are old women by the time they reach their thirties. Multiple pregnancies, unhealthy food and unhelpful men lead to raised cholesterol levels, creaking joints, and hypertension.
And yet, no one speaks for them.
A life that begins before sunrise, that's made up of the non-stop stress of cooking, cleaning, dusting and washing clothes, compounded by a permanent anxiety about money, passes without comment in the councils of the powerful. The salons, drawing rooms and offices of Lutyens' New Delhi talk of 9 per cent GDP growth. These are Delhiwallahs too, but of another sort, a different species.
Less than 5 miles from the haloed houses of parliament where the Women's Reservation Bill is being debated and denounced, lies the walled city. The nearest entrance is through Ajmeri Gate. This medieval gate leads on to Gandhi Baba road, the city's red light district. This is where the poor man finds his prostitutes. Of the one hundred and seventy odd brothels, there isn't one with adequate sanitation. I read an interview given by the newly posted lady inspector of the Kamla Nagar police station where she said that the prostitutes live and work in such vile insanitary conditions that even she, inured to misery and squalor, feels sick.
There isn't a politician, civil servant, social worker, or NGO activist who isn't aware of the terrible lot of these poor women. They raise their children, slave for boorish men and run households that treat them like automatons designed to serve, and get no thanks for their labours.
At a time when the government has just shepherded a historic Bill through the upper house of Parliament, let's spare a thought for the invisible women who live within Old Delhi's walls, and hope for the local government, and civic society, to wake up to the special needs of these women. Far from giving them a seat in Parliament, provide them the wherewithal for a life of dignity and fulfilment of minimal needs.
It happened at last. After drama that would be the envy of any good playwright — snatching and tearing of papers, a feigned attempt at attacking the Chairman's podium, protesting and lying on the floor of the house, marshalls evicting esteemed members of the House of 'elders', stage managed protests and interviews with TV channels — the Rajya Sabha, on March 9th, passed the historic Women's Right to Representation Bill. It has taken 14 years for the Bill to reach this stage and it took the unlikely combination of the opposition BJP, the ruling UPA and the Left parties to vote together to get it through against the champions of the intermediately oppressed, i.e., the Mulayams, the Lalus et al.
The Bill now awaits the consent of the Lok Sabha, where it is expected to encounter far greater resistance, with grumblings now coming up even within the BJP, and the state assemblies. The passage of this amendment will put India ahead of some of the most developed countries in the world.
Once approved, over two hundred MPs in the Lok Sabha will one day be women. As I am reminded of Nehru's famous speech of a soul long suppressed finding utterance , my thoughts turn to the ordinary woman in the walled city of Delhi where I grew up.
It is often 11 pm when she gets ready to call it a day. The sounds of the TV in the main bedroom can still be heard. But she does not have the luxury of forgoing the night's sleep because the morning will begin before dawn, at 4.30 with the magical sound of water falling from taps that are dry for the rest of the day. Running water is precious and rationed: In a low-lying mohalla the supply could last for as much as an hour and a half but in the upper reaches of the neighbourhood, the 'bhojala pahadi' (the small hill on which the Emperor Shahjehan established the citadel city named after him) the taps could run dry in half an hour.
Today, this once-imperial city is near unfit for human habitation. The houses are long past their structural sellby dates and the mohallas are unimaginably over-populated . A house that was home to perhaps a family of four or five in the fifties, even in the early sixties, now houses three times that number. The sons of the family have married without moving out and their wives and children are part of the household.
The men are barely educated and have spent their lives as rickshaw pullers, factory labourers and kabaadis. A physically draining regimen and terrible nutrition leaves them incapable of any real work as early as when they are in their forties. The escalating price of a basic diet —vegetables , even dal — makes it unaffordable. So the standard meal for even the respectable poor is chapatis, coarse rice and buffalo meat. The food is cooked in the fat of the meat itself. This dreadful unbalanced diet leads to obesity, heart disease, diabetes and the other ills that follow in the train of bad food, too much or too little physical exertion, and the lack of ventilated homes and fresh air. The consequences are disastrous for the household's women.
Ailing, sullen men hang around the house. Of the two rooms in the average dwelling, the men have the first right of rest. So even on a summer afternoon in Delhi, when the temperature tops 40 degrees celsius, the only place for women to stretch their legs is atop the roof.
These women move directly from childhood to womanhood. There's no pleasurable adolescence, no carefree teen years to be nostalgic about. Married off young, they relive their mothers' hardships in new homes. They age rapidly: Young girls married in their teens are old women by the time they reach their thirties. Multiple pregnancies, unhealthy food and unhelpful men lead to raised cholesterol levels, creaking joints, and hypertension.
And yet, no one speaks for them.
A life that begins before sunrise, that's made up of the non-stop stress of cooking, cleaning, dusting and washing clothes, compounded by a permanent anxiety about money, passes without comment in the councils of the powerful. The salons, drawing rooms and offices of Lutyens' New Delhi talk of 9 per cent GDP growth. These are Delhiwallahs too, but of another sort, a different species.
Less than 5 miles from the haloed houses of parliament where the Women's Reservation Bill is being debated and denounced, lies the walled city. The nearest entrance is through Ajmeri Gate. This medieval gate leads on to Gandhi Baba road, the city's red light district. This is where the poor man finds his prostitutes. Of the one hundred and seventy odd brothels, there isn't one with adequate sanitation. I read an interview given by the newly posted lady inspector of the Kamla Nagar police station where she said that the prostitutes live and work in such vile insanitary conditions that even she, inured to misery and squalor, feels sick.
There isn't a politician, civil servant, social worker, or NGO activist who isn't aware of the terrible lot of these poor women. They raise their children, slave for boorish men and run households that treat them like automatons designed to serve, and get no thanks for their labours.
At a time when the government has just shepherded a historic Bill through the upper house of Parliament, let's spare a thought for the invisible women who live within Old Delhi's walls, and hope for the local government, and civic society, to wake up to the special needs of these women. Far from giving them a seat in Parliament, provide them the wherewithal for a life of dignity and fulfilment of minimal needs.
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