In large numbers. To make a difference.

An ass begets another ass. An ignorant woman usuallyraises an insensitive ignorant child unless that child gets jediis as teachers or friends or wives or husbands reared by other intelligent women. 

One  intelligent woman when she becomes a mother produces TEN capable, intelligent people. Even if she bears only two children in her lifetime. 

I haven't the patience to explain the math here. Most of us that read and write blog posts in this space have the common sense and education to figure that out for themselves.

The point of this post is to point out that what urban India face today is a dearth of women that are truly educated. Women that are trained to bring up children to become good, contributing, participating, change-leading, space age citizens. Women that have the insight or education to know what the country really needs and what to do about empowering another woman or to contribute to social development in ways that matter.

Look at statistics according to the last census we had.

"A person aged seven and above that can both read and write with any understanding in any language, is treated as literate. As per 2001 Census, the overall literacy rate of India is 65.38%."

 65.38 percent of the ENTIRE population.

How much of that number represent the female population?

"The male literacy rate is 75.96% and female literacy rate is 54.28%. The social system in India promotes education for the male gender while the female population, especially in the deep interiors of the country, is kept away from schools."

54 percent of the total population of India. The ones that do go to college and the ones that you find here, with access to the internet, a computer of their own, and with an English medium education represent less than 10 percent of that 54 percent. 0.5 percent of the total population.

"The Supreme Court in its 1993 ruling held that children had a fundamental right to free education. Ex – President A.P.J Abdul Kalam gave his assent to the Constitution (83rd Amendment) Bill, 2000, and the “right to education” was incorporated in the Constitution as a fundamental right. The country had failed to implement the provisions of Article 45, providing for compulsory and free education of children up to 14 years of age within 10 years from the commencement of the Constitution.

India is developing but at a very slow rate, this is not the fault of a corrupt government; it is due to this problem of illiteracy only."

Let us look at the major problems of this country.

Population explosion.It is not like it is the man alone that makes all the babies. And why cant she say "no"? 1) She dependson 'him' for her food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, childsupport. 2) Her parents think of her as a 'liability', 'paraya dhan'. 3) She does not have friends that can support her, all her friends were females that share the same fate as her, they are in no position to help or support her even if they want to. She was never allowed to mix with males or have a strongmale friend somewhere that she could look to for support or help or information. 4) Social insecurity. Indian society is like a veritable jungle for the poor unattached female, if she came out and tried something of her own, she without some sort of support, would get raped and mauled anyways. 5) There are no halfway homes, shelter for battered women, or women's self help group that is easily accessible to her. So she goes on having bay after baby, and watches them kill her female babies, she takes it all quietly thinking that is her destiny, that is the way women are supposed to live.

She becomes a dangerous woman herself in time, fiercely jealous of the freedom other women might have,  she suffers so much, she is ready to strike down anyone else that has what she never could hope or expect to have. Or worse still she dies inside, and transforma to this person that is  capable of quietly watching another woman being really or virtually battered to death without aword of protest or the will to help.

Why should she? Who was there when she suffered?  If she could take it, well, everyone else should be able to do so too.

What about female foeticide? Well, who kills the girl child? Whose decision is it? The father or the mother? In most cases - hold your breath - it is the other mother - the mother of the father that decides in such matters. Another FEMALE that decides the fate of a female unborn.

Illiteracy among girl children. Who in the family decide who is to go school? The father or the mother? In most Indian families it is the mother or the mother-in-law that decrees "send the boy child to school. the girl child would be married off and would go serve another  family, why bother to invest anything on her? She is paraya dhan".

Paraya dhan .

It means "another man's resource". "Somebody else's" = paraya . "Wealth" "resource" = dhan.

Unemployment another major problem of this country - is there paucity of work? Or is there a dearth of paid work? Which one is it?

If you care to study only one sector of our economic ecology, let us say, academics, wait let us be more precise, let us consider the government sponsored secondary and primary schools, in every state there are hundreds of posts - UNFILLED. Vacant. Why?

O because they cannot find the right candidate.

Most of our industries are UNDERSTAFFED.

Most of our workers underpaid. Teachers exploited. Females and children exploited. Abused. Repressed. Violated.

We do not have infrastructure to support free education for all our children. We do not have infrastructure to support or train our female students. There are not enough options for females and children.

It does not change.

Insensitivity to women's rights. Insensitivity to choices a woman makes. 

Why?

Because the consumers - that is the females and children - are unaware of government policies. They are unaware of their rights. They are unaware of their own history, their legacy, their heritage. They are unaware of the fact that what they are taught to think of as natural, normal is in fact abnormal and unnatural.

My problem is that am alone - Rosa Parks stood upto a problem that most people in her community already saw or were beginning to see or knew and felt in their hearts to be a problem. But few had the pluck to stand up to protest because they feared for their lives, jobs, family security etc.

I am alone because women in my country still do not see YWCA's attitude as a problem. They have only just begun to get into jobs, visit a mall on their own and buy a few sarees and buy their children an expensive pair of shoes and they think they have arrived.

Because compared to what their mothers had, they have "plenty" and they are loathe to lose all that by being outspoken about issues like that of the YWCA. Or the freedom or rights of a single woman. Who asked you to be single? And if you chose to be single, that is your choice, you have to be prepared to face persecution or whatever are the consequences. You know this is not the US, this is India and it is your fault! So shut up and do not bother anyone please.

There are hundreds and thousands of Rollings in the US and Europe and New Zealand and Canada. 

There are just a few hundred of them in India and they are not connected.

Each one of these Rollings are locked in in their grids fighting it out alone as best as they can.

One dreams of spawning a movement.

Attractive, educated, financially independent, healthy woman? And yet you say you have a problem? Are you bloody crazy? Do you know how many dont even get to eat a square meal a day? Or have a safe bed to sleep in at night? Do you know how many get sold off into the flesh trade due to poverty and lack of education? 

Who the hell do you think you are? 

I know who I am. But I dare not assert that self - the times are not congenial. So I give up. I do not give up on being who I am.

I just give up on hoping to get a normal, decent life here in my own country until there are more of us demanding the same standards and norms in unison.

I give up protesting openly until my sisters wake up from their reverie and illusion of a 'good life' and are ready to pitch in - for their right to decideabout their right to health, safety, security, dignity, their right to dress the way they want to, right to their sex lives, their jobs, their education, their lifestyle, their expenditure, their dreams, their lives.

Till then I shall quietly try to keep myself alive and well. Bend to ward off dangerous tides, draw nurture fromwhat I perceive as adversity, be like the winter root, lie in wait for the Spring, ten feet underground.