Open Forum
Patricia Mukhim
North-eastern women are told they are better off than their counterparts in the rest of the country. For one, the scourge of dowry does not afflict women here in the scale that it does in north India. But dowry's pernicious effects are not altogether absent either.
Dowry is not a phenomenon among the tribes of this region. Second, women in the region enjoy greater social mobility. What characterises tribal society is the openness to allow social interaction between boys and girls. In many ways this openness promotes healthy sexuality.
With this openness it is but natural that women here would enjoy a false sense of well-being. But that is just one small part of the whole. Patriarchal mores obtain here as they do in other parts of the world. Gender roles are clearly defined and men expect women to perform the domestic roles of wife, mother, cook, washer-woman and also to care for the infirm and the elderly in the family. Besides the above chores, women in rural hamlets also have to collect firewood and water, sometimes from a great distance away. Families engaged in slash and burn agriculture require the support of women for planting, weeding and harvesting. But since their labour is not classed as "work" because it does not fit into the normative paradigm of economic theories, women are classed as unpaid workers.
Yet their contribution to the work force in the primary sector is as high as 85 per cent in all the seven states.
It is ironic that few women are in state legislatures and a handful in the panchayats wherever those have been constituted. Only 14 women are represented in the eight state legislatures which comprise 460 members.
Assam, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura have Panchayat Acts which mandate 33 per cent representation of women. Predominantly tribal states like Mizoram, Meghalaya and Nagaland have been kept out of the purview of the 73rd and 74th Amendment Acts on the plea that they have their traditional systems of local governance. But these traditional institutions are malecentric in composition and have no space for women. As a result, women have no political voice. Reasons for this pathetic scenario are not far to seek. Since the gender division of labour is clearly marked, women are literally tied to their homes and their "house work", making it impossible for them to step out into the public domain and to engage in hard-boiled politics.
Little wonder then that the only women who have taken part in active politics are either those coming from educated, elitist backgrounds or retired government officials or those from affluent business backgrounds who enjoy political clout and want a taste political power or widows of politicians who jump into politics merely to fill the vacuum created by the death of their husbands.
But this is not to say that women have remained outside the political ambit. They have carved out their own roles but those are limited to playing foot soldiers to political parties and their candidates.
Women are deprived of political space not because they are not competent but because men are not ready to share power. Surprisingly, the very men who exclude women from politics also make use of their resourcefulness as peace negotiators during conflict. When confronted by security forces in conflict-ridden areas of the region, women are used as human shields to protect the interests of armed rebels. They are also considered the avant garde of their respective cultures. In ethno-nationalistic conflicts, armed insurgents often assert the uniqueness of their culture by positioning women as cultural symbols.
Since men have long since abandoned their indigenous outfits, the onus falls on women to don the mantle of cultural guardians by wearing traditional outfits.
The demands made on women reflect a retrogressive mindset. In Manipur, sundry outfits in the Valley demand that Meitei women only wear their traditional "phanek". In Manipur, the role of the Meira Paibis or women torch-bearers has received much publicity particularly after their unprecedented mode of protest against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).
But the truth is that the Meira Paibis are not a politically conscious group aware of their own rights and their own roles. They are mobilised for short-term political gains of people who manipulate them at will.
Coming to Assam, when the All Assam Students Union (AASU) movement was at its height, women were urged to take part in the demonstrations and were told to come dressed in their mekhala-chadar. AASU itself was a malecentric organisation which only used women as frontline soldiers during confrontations with the state.
Although women in Assam played a key role in the anti-foreigner movement, they were nowhere to be seen when the accords were signed or when negotiations took place between the agitators and the state. Nor were women visible in the power structure of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) which came to power after the anti-foreigners movement.
Assamese or Manipuri society are not the only one where women are inhibited from asserting their rights. Even matrilineal Meghalaya has its male preserve. Women are excluded from decision-making in their traditional institutions. Although the culture is matrilineal, the worldview is very patriarchal. Except for the fact that lineage is from the mother's clan line and ancestral property passes through the youngest daughter, every other aspect is the same as in other states of the region. Meghalaya, in fact tops the list in terms of domestic violence.
Empowerment of women is still jargon bandied around by governments and NGOs. Women have not yet understood what empowerment actually means. They still believe that somebody out there is going to empower them. This of course is a fallacy.
(The author is a columnist and social activist from Meghalaya. She can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED])
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