People & Their Problems

New Delhi, 7 March 2009

Women In Pubs

NO CASE OF EMANCIPATION

By Dhurjati Mukherjee

The recent public outcry and debate over girls being attacked in a Mangalore pub may have lost the fizz, but it has raised important questions revolving around India’s culture and tradition, women’s freedom and right to partake western lifestyles, decency and modesty both in dress and behaviour and also the form a protest should take. While violence in any form has to be decried, one wonders whether the few women who go to pubs do really represent Indian women. Most media reports have condemned such violent attacks, and quite justifiably, but the argument that stopping such activity in pubs curtails women’s emancipation cannot be accepted, at least in our country.

Pub culture in India is no doubt, relatively new and limited to metropolitan cities, wherein by and large the well-off sections of society visit for a drink or too. Thus, the problem is of the elite class, which constitute a mere five per cent of the population and is obviously influenced by western ideas and lifestyles. Indeed, pub culture does not in any way indicate the spread of women’s emancipation, education or the progress of society from any standpoint. Actually, the morals-modernity debate has little significance as it concerns a very small minority.

The real index of measuring women’s emancipation and freedom can only be made viz the spread of education, specially higher education, amongst them, increase in employment opportunities compared with other countries, health facilities and nutrition for pregnant and lactating mothers, control in trafficking etc. An increase in women going to pubs and night clubs dancing and drinking with men is no indication of women’s emancipation. However, it is good to see that in recent years, a section of women have been defying somewhat oppressive patriarchal structures and controls and going for higher education and employment in relatively new fields.

It is relevant to note that there has been considerable debate over the indecent portrayal of women both in Hindi and regional cinema and the negative effect it has had on children, specially girls in the society. This is not hearsay but a trend corroborated by surveys. This is so because the dress and behaviour can be emulated from the West but cannot be adopted in a relatively poor country with a high population growth like ours. However, there is a yearning and tendency to copy lifestyles. Not only is there an increase in violence but so also in trafficking, other than poverty.

A vulgar dance or portrayal of indecent and illicit relationship before or after marriage, as shown in films, cannot be considered as part and parcel of our Indian culture. How can we just emulate lifestyles of a developed country where the conditions and problems are totally different? Instead, it would be better if we try to learn from the West, its technological development, civic sense, health and sanitation-related developments, system of running institutions, especially educational et al.  

As for the problem of drinking, there is no denying that it is regrettably ensconced in not just cities but in villages as well as the lower strata of society. Number of families have been ruined. The undersigned had undertaken a survey in the slums of Kolkata and Delhi, where the male member (almost one in every three persons) was found to indulge in excessive drinking, leading  to severe financial crunch in running the house (if one could call it one) and arranging for children’s education, thus forcing the wife to look for work outside.

One cannot deny that there are certain social implications of economic and technological growth, but these need a positive direction. Say, better and wider use of IT for enhancing citizen facilities, both in urban and rural area, should be the desirable implications. So, discotheque or pubs can continue to entertain a certain elite section of society but the Government should be firm about restrictions and rules to be imposed. Besides, there is nothing wrong in protesting against such pubs, as we have seen in case of some liquor shops being opened in residential areas etc. However, there should be restraint.  

As for attacks on women, it goes without saying that these must be condemned. But it is jarring that the outcry against the Mangalore episode was so severe in comparison to very little being done to check growing incidence of trafficking or rape. One is inclined to ask: What steps have been taken by women activists or by State governments in tracking and curbing trafficking? Have there been any protests, and if so, were they as vociferous as the reaction against the pub attack?

In rural (and also urban) areas of the country, poverty lures girls and they become victims of trafficking. If the protagonists of ensuring women and girls get a better position in society are serious, they should go deep into the malaise and pressurize the government to take effective action. Perhaps a thorough study of the prevailing conditions in the slums and squatter settlements of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, could throw light on the problems being faced, particularly by women. 

Emancipation of women does not mean opening pubs or discotheques to them but ensuring that girls get the requisite education all over the country and don’t drop out before Class X. A movement on these lines is clearly required. Also simultaneous skill training from Class VIII onwards could help in many becoming self-employed. Moreover, higher budgetary allocations are needed in the health sector to reach out to the opposite sex in the backward and remote areas. More so, as number of surveys have revealed pitiable conditions of pregnant and lactating women and girls.   

The elitist control of our society has ensured that problems faced by the upper and middle-income sections of society are raised effectively for redressal. The problems of the suffering masses – in this case the torture, oppression and poverty of women and girls – are discussed in seminars and workshops! Sadly, there is no grass-root approach to the problem. One is inclined to ask how many of the members of the State women’s commission or the National Women’s Commission visit the countryside to help in ameliorating the conditions of the opposite sex? 

Media reports were emphatic that sex is essential in life and freedom of women and girls to drink and dance in pubs should be allowed. But will this ensure their emancipation? The media needs to understand and take the lead along with NGOs in making the government and people understand the true meaning of emancipation of crores of women? Doesn’t it mean getting them out of their poverty, squalor and ignorance? Instead of protests, isn’t it time for spreading awareness? --INFA 

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)