In Rahul Gandhi’s interview with Arnab Goswami in 2014, just before the General Elections—he repeated the word ‘women empowerment’ almost as a panacea for all the problems in India. I believe Mr Gandhi does himself no favours when he produces political wisdom contained in his idiosyncratic style, and yet, he got it right, albeit to the point of triteness; and with repetition so blandly delivered, it essentially made him a caricature online. In my opinion, the answer to the way out of poverty, especially for a country like India, is this: women empowerment.
Never has an issue such as this been intermixed with so many factors: education, labour force participation, population control, wages, GDP growth and among others, the traditional structure of the family. A recent report shows the number of women in our formal workforce dwindled down to 26% in 2018. Needless to say, this or any other related study, or its solution, was not raised by any major candidate or party this election campaign.
Whenever women are mentioned politically; it is first in regards to their safety, from preventing them from getting killed at birth due to monstrously hideous practices, or to ensure they can travel distances bereft of unwanted advances, and also, with increasing their rate of education and literacy. It is rare for someone to mention women as a powerful economic, and criminally under-involved bloc, although it does tend to happen, in its own way.
However, it is arguably unheard of to link poverty with women empowerment. Most seem to view it from the lens of either singular objectives such as limiting our population or ensuring that women find employment which provides an additional income to the family. The potential to abate a variety of debilitating factors subverting our growth lies in women empowerment and, not in schemes which promise a minimum income guarantee. The economic and social upliftment of the female citizens of this country can play a vital role in addressing poverty problem in India.
It starts with healthcare. If you give a woman, any woman, however poorly educated, sovereignty over her body, whether through birth-control or the right to an abortion; you exponentially increase the chances of her not only using that to reduce the number of children she has but with that, her family’s carbon footprint is reduced. Lesser children mean fewer usage of fossil fuels. Subsequently, declining fertility rates added to a higher level of education result in a demand for not only a higher quality of life but also, demand for more autonomy. This leads me to the question, would a woman’s financial autonomy result in decreased levels of domestic violence?
The current Government, although, doing absolutely well in staking political capital by trying to increase bank accounts, has the wrong approach. It passed the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017 which although seemingly benign, might lead to the declining number of women, especially, women in their 30’s in the workforce. One of the many follies of positive discrimination on display here. Many-a-times, I have observed, that while Indian laws may not be accused of wrong intentions, they are often criticised for faulty execution or scarce deliberation.
Think for a moment, if the government had focused on allocating their budget to education and healthcare for women; would it have uplifted the status of women in India? People talk about sociological aspects or the pure gender aspects of women being empowered, but, I believe, women empowerment could be the solution for poverty.
If women have access to better education and healthcare, the family gets a helping hand; the children get a better education and medical attention, leading to a compound effect on future generations. I hope the next government, unintentionally or in a doggedly motivated spirit, invest in the autonomy of women not merely for ‘gender-rights’, although that itself might be reason enough, but rather, to understand its ability to raise our country from abject poverty.