From “SHOLAY” to “SHOON TE SHAAN”

Is it really the time to celebrate?

“Naach Basanti Naach” For our entertainment, to please us, to save the life of your love… Naach… The most powerful character “ The Basanti” in the blockbuster movie Sholay was tried in the court of love. Finally succumbed to the situation, Basanti did the Naach to attain the target she had set. This happened in 1975. During the tenure of Indira Gandhi as the Prime Minister and Kiran Bedi as an IPS officer. During the period when Mother Teresa was the mother to every wounded man. During the period in which the film industry and its huge audience could have just died for one song from Lata Mangeshkar or MS Subbulakshmi. Right from Arth starring Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil showing a woman’s search for her own identity to Mrityudand where now the woman decided how to make men dance to save their own lives, women of India were making a mark. From Provoked to Saat Khoon Maaf and from Kya Kehna to Kahaani. Yes Indian women stood up and made their presence feel. Not just in media but also in real life. In 2005, India finally had something called Gender Budget thanks to the then finance minister P. Chidambaram. The courage shown by Priyanka Bharti from Vishnupur Khurd village who ran away from her in-laws’ house for its lack of toilet raised awareness in the most rural part of India was remarkable. We delivered superstars like Aishwarya Rai and Mary Kom. Indias’ very own daughters Geeta Phogat, Babita Phogat and the courageous Arunima Sinha proved the fact that at any given point of time we are better than anyone else on the Earth. Ghazal Dhaliwal made a very powerful talk on the INK talk show wherein she shared her experience about how the society views women and the intricacies of womanhood and how she victoriously fought it back. In a rare gesture, our Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has vowed for a clean India with ‘Swach Bharat Campaign’ was seen touching feet of 104-yr-old woman Kunwar Bai from Kotabharri village of Dhamtari who sold her goats to build toilets. The topping to the cupcake was the Nepotism remark made by the fearless Kangna Ranaut on the Koffee with Karan show. We even managed to mark an impression on the so much hated Trump that Indian origin Seema Verma managed to bag a great opportunity in his office. Quite delightfully I replayed the Shoon te Shaan ad by Star TV Ek Nayi Soch a number of times. Finally from deciding to not change the surname after marriage just for the sake of it to replacing the so called “ & SONS” tradition. Mr. Perfectionist seems to be in a spree to end gender discrimination. Congratulations to the women of India. Its time we celebrate. BUT SERIOUSLY ? Does this showbiz stuff really run deep in our society? Extremities existing in a small place called India… With all due respect to Hema ji for portraying the role so well, I would like to highlight that this was not just cinema, this was the reality. Back then women were exploited. Back then women were nothing much except an object of focus in media or advertisements for that matter. So is the case now. In movies, in music videos and television, in everything that you can think of. There is a strong focus on women as sexual objects rather than women. In 2010, a five-minute video featuring Jean Kilbourne went viral, racking up over 2 million views; it covered the very negative effects of advertising on women and girls. A rather disturbing reality of how innocence of girl child was just bought in a few thousand rupees has been shown in Agneepath featuring Priyanka Chopra. The Jessica Lal, the Nirbhaya rape case, Uber rape case and lot many which were never even been filed leave apart the thought of uncovering them. Women of India have faced it all. The most recent news “Police in the western Indian state of Maharashtra have found 19 aborted female foetuses near a hospital. Senior police officials in Sangli district said the remains were “buried with the intention of disposing them”.” In another recent advertisement on the national radio, a girl child is heard thanking her parents to have at-least given her birth in-spite of the fact that they left her in the middle of nothing. On my research for this article I came across some extremely sickening and unfortunately quite predictable facts that I found extremely important to highlight. Huffington post came out with a survey in 2016 stating that In the past decade, while Indian GDP has grown by around 6%, there has been a large decline in female labour force participation from 34% to 27%. The male-female wage gap has been stagnant at 50% (a recent survey finds a 27% gender pay gap in white-collar jobs).Crimes against women show an upward trend, in particular brutal crimes such as rapes, dowry deaths, and honour killings. A report in 2016 claimed that over the last three years, there were over 24,000 reported dowry deaths in India. Shockingly As many as 70% of married women in India between 15 and 49 years of age are victims of beatings or rape. According to UNICEF, foetal sex determination by unethical medical professionals has today grown into a ₹1,000 crore industry in India. Although child marriage is illegal in India, almost half of all women between the ages of 20 and 24 were married off before the legal age of 18. Also surprisingly a report, shows that in India we have “extremely high” levels of gender inequality, with a Gender Parity Score of 0.48, compared to an ideal score of 1. In The National Crime Record Burreau’s 2014 report, 39.8% of rape victims in India are girls under the age of 18%. While the male literacy rate of India stands at 82.14%, the female literacy rate is only 65.46%, with Rajasthan having the lowest female literacy at 52.66%. And despite an improving child sex ratio, India still ranks an abysmal 127th out of 146 in the United Nation’s Gender Inequality Index. What level have we attained!! Is it really the time to celebrate?

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