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IT has been a quarter century since the report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India was the released. The report, a milestone in our institutional efforts at awareness raising and advocacy, led to a flurry of women-centred programmes, all ‘designed’ to enhance the status of women. This phase in our history also witnessed a significant escalation in women’s participation in all spheres of activity – including in movements for the right to control and manage natural resources, to information, to participation in decisions on development – all of which set the parameters of global debates on these issues.

And yet, as the recently released ‘Women in India: How Free? How Equal?’ by Kalyani Menon-Sen and A.K. Shivakumar, UNDP, Delhi 2001 so effectively points out, the gap between rhetoric and reality remains depressingly wide as ever. Nothing expresses this more starkly than the steady decline in the female-male ratio from 955 per 1000 in 1921 to 927 per 1000 in 1991, the last Census. This also implies, assuming 105 women for every 100 men, a proportion reflecting relative equality, that there are close to 25 million women missing in India. ‘Some are never born, and the rest die because they do not have the opportunity to survive.’ At the start of a new millennium this is nothing to be proud of.

Public interest in depressing statistics is rarely high. More so these days when the shift from a Nehruvian ‘controlled’ economy to a ‘market-oriented’ dispensation has ostensibly freed us from the ‘Hindu rate of growth’ and ushered in the pre-conditions for an era of prosperity. No wonder the excitements in the world of the ‘bold and beautiful’ generate more attention than the release of reports on crucial concerns, even when well-packaged.

So, are Indian women, fifty years after the adoption of the Constitution, more free and equal? What do freedom and equality mean for women in India? Can they exercise their right to live with dignity? To develop their potential and choose what they want to be? Minimally, are they protected from the major sources of unfreedom – from violence, discrimination, want, fear and injustice? And, how equal are they to men?

The Menon-Sen and Shivakumar exercise is important because their report has made an attempt to unpackage the Gender Empowerment Index, to elucidate the circumstances of people’s lives which the numbers at best only partially capture. Hopefully, though much of this data is known to experts, the report can contribute to a wider debate.

For a start, it is heartening that women can hope to live twice as long now than they did in 1951. Yet, there is a 18 year longevity difference between a woman in Kerala and Madhya Pradesh. This despite little difference in per capita incomes. The figures for gendered infant mortality rates tell the same story – insignificant improvements over time and little reduction in inequalities marked by region, caste and class. Why?

For one, the few disaggregated health statistics we have (and most ‘female conditions’ are not considered health problems at all) show that women are rarely consulted about their health problems, that there is a huge shortage of women health professionals, particularly in rural areas. Half the women suffer from anaemia and our maternal mortality rates are 100 times what obtains in the West. Over half the couples still do not use contraception, but amniocentesis clinics are flourishing.

The picture in education is no different with half the women still illiterate. (Incidentally, the real jumps in female literacy came in the last decade, from 37% to 50%.) Yet Rajasthan, which introduced major innovative schemes for women – Women’s Development Programme, Shiksha Karmi, Lok Jumbish – has seen a growing gap between women and men. And please, this is not just because we are a patriarchal society, but because we refuse to invest sufficiently, and with due regard for quality in education.

The statistics about work are more striking – with most women-centred activities still being classified as non-work (domestic, household). The wage differentials remain huge, and participation in the labour market hazardous. Not that harassment and violence are not experienced at home. We rarely talk about child sexual abuse, or domestic battering. By no means do the invocations to Saraswati or Laxmi run true.

Critics might well argue, ‘Why not focus on the positives?’ Well, at least partly because of our continuing unwillingness to engage with even the basics. It is good to learn about a Miss World or Universe. It would be better to be told about an improvement in the sex-ratio.

Harsh Sethi