A century has passed since 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. In 1910 the first international women's conference was held in Copenhagen in the labour-movement building. Ever since, the 'International Women's Day' has been observed and the next was held on March 19, 1911 in Germany, Austria, Denmark and some other European countries.
Russian revolutionary and feminist, Alexandra Kollontai, had helped to organise the event in Germany wrote that it had exceeded all expectations...Germany and Austria were seething and trembling in the sea of women. Meetings were organised everywhere…..in the small towns and even in the villages, halls were packed so full that they had to ask (male) workers to give up their places for the women.
A hundred years after that glorious march of the women, what is the image of the Indian Woman that is being beamed into our living rooms every day? What stories do Santu, Jyoti, Amoli, Anandi, Sia and scores of other women tell us every evening? To be a true Indian woman, you have to accept the traditional rule of the patriarchal hierarchy and completely sacrifice her own wants and desires! Nay, not just wants and desires but her own identity and existence!
Law today emphatically prohibits female infanticide, child marriage and sexual abuse of any woman. But what does Amma do in LAADO? Openly murders the female child and reduces the rebel Sia into a servile maid servant. Anandi, the helpless child bride of BALIKAVADHU, is abused harassed and kicked around by Dadidsa who can get away with every type of ill treatment of her Bahus (daughter-in-law). In Jyoti serial allows Shushi to be used as a prostitute to satisfy the material needs of her husband and Jyoti herself is kicked out on false charges of adultery with her “loving' husband turning a “blind eye”. In BANDINI, Santu enjoys her captive role and tolerates the abuse as a “low caste woman” as a good virtue in order to become a role model for all mothers. The worst ofcourse is “Bairi Piya” that for nights together shows the sexual exploits of the “Thakur”(landlord) on Amoli whose own husband is portrayed as the spineless servant who gifts his married wife to his master for his sexual pleasures! One wonders why the different woman's organization are so conspicuously silent ; does it not concern the National Woman's Commission when the national channels beam such vulgarity about women?
The two channels that promote such disgusting and loathsome serials are ofcourse making loads of money. NDTV Imagine {Bandini, Jyoti etc}and COLORS (Laado, Balikavadhu, Bairi Piya etc.) have increased their TRP substantially and millions watch these serials with bated breath. Both these channels belong to very reputed groups; the former being a part of NDTV and the latter being a part of Viacom 18 that partners with Network 18, the CNN-IBN group. Wonder whether people like Barkha Dutt, Pranay Roy, Rajdeep Sardesai etc ever watch their own group's productions and deal with such issues in their “We the People” and “Big Fights”!
Be that as it may, on this day of International Woman's Day, it is a tragedy what we have reduced this day to a ritual, unconcerned about the real state of the woman in this country. The media which can influence a large section of the populations portrays her as a “BANDINI”. Are we going to accept this image?
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