Aswini Ashok

70 years since Independence, the state of women in India though having been evolved to an extent is still very much behind other countries’ women population, let alone their own male counterparts. With a rank of 108 in World Economic Forum's gender gap index and a rank of 130 in Human Development Index, having adolescent birth rate of 23 i.e. 23 out of 1000 girls between the age group of 15 to 19 deliver a baby and only 39% of women population having secondary education, India’s growth remains not just unequal but unjust to its women population. The sorry state does not augur well for a country competing for a global spot being the 5 th largest economy and chest thumping on becoming one of the superpowers in the world. It is crucial that India’s growth is made inclusive without leaping ahead leaving behind the women population. Emancipation of women in our country has been through various phases, from eradicating Sati to ‘permitting’ women to enter the sanctum of the tem...

Patriotic lessons are seeded in our minds from time immemorial. Ever since we started school education, we were taught to be patriotic, through the sacrifices of great men who fought incessantly for the freedom of our country. Unfortunately, patriotism is taught only as a ‘concept’ of fighting an invader and the Patriots are only those who have fought the intruders. The evils within our own country and the system which made it accessible for ‘outsiders’ to conquer us is seldom educated. And the people who fought the internal system are never given the badge of patriots. Our History lessons were of valiant emperors, ambitious to spread their empire. The history of the subjects who form the majority of the kingdom is largely ignored. We know how mighty an empire was, but never know how satisfied the people were under that rule.  Thus we have fundamentally gone wrong in understanding ‘patriotism’, for which we are paying a big price now. The recent terror attack at Pulwama and the r...

       Comedy is a tricky premise. You either win all guns blazing or fall flat. There is no in between. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is one such experiment that fared well enough to receive so many accolades for its cast and storyline. However, as an Indian viewer, it is sometimes hard to interpret the jokes as we are unfamiliar with the socio-cultural background in which it is set. The late 1950s of New York City is something beyond our imagination of course. Maybe some of the jokes couldn’t have tickled our ribs, but the message they put across is always loud and clear. As an Indian woman, I have always believed that the emancipation of woman first comes through education and sexual liberation shall follow. This I found hard to understand in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, where the women seem to be sexually liberated, but for education, there is no due importance. Mrs. Weissman manipulating the women students in their post-graduate into believing that the Master’s degr...

Time and again there has been enough discussions on how sexism and casteism are intertwined. However “Brahmanical Patriarchy” is an exclusive case whose roots date back to centuries. It is the patriarchy that opened ways for more revived forms of discrimination and cruelty against women. To understand Brahmanical patriarchy one must be aware of the ‘gifts’ bestowed upon the Brahmins by their revered Manu Smriti. ·   Manu approves Brahmins to have illicit relationship with Shudra woman and also to abandon them and any child born of the relationship. ·   It also debars Shudras and women (even if born Brahmin) from reading the Vedas. Thus reducing the competition for Brahmin men. ·  It qualifies woman as a potential threat threat to any man citing them as the most harmful creatures capable of seduction,greed,etc., and warns men to avoid their company.             These are only very few gems from the script. Also there are ...

What is feminism? Who is a feminist? For me anyone who is remotely annoyed by patriarchy is a feminist. If you are a woman and you feel you have been tactically or out rightly side lined because of your gender and you have the agitation to do something about it, you are a feminist. If you are a man and the fact that you have to work your ass off and always be in a seemingly never ending race and you totally hate this screwed up system, welcome aboard! You are a feminist. But the 'F' word scares us so much that we prefer being called anything but feminists. That includes bizarrely built up words such as Equalist, humanist and what not? Thanks to the patriarchs. The simple reason that equality is never served in a platter and it is the feminine population which is being in the receiving end for ages, hence a little emphasis in the naming would do no harm to human race is still a rocket science for so many to understand. Since the word itself scares...