Bigotry Against Tribal Women

Bigotry Against Tribal Women

 Dr.S.Meena priya dharshini, Assistant Professor, Mother Teresa Women’s University.

The society always treated woman as an object of sex and sexual exploitation.  It was an established fact the woman was looked down in all aspect of life.  Discrimination is showed towards her in all spheres, in the disquiet of tradition and culture.  The Indian literature given controversial statements regarding the status of woman in the society.  Manu Dharma Shastra says woman should not be given freedom, she would be kept under the control of man at every stage of life. In India, caste system can only be comprehended when it is realized it is essentially permeated by religion conception further, the caste systems has established direct link between the religion beliefs and the social differentiation.  Each group of caste each caste and sometimes ever sub-caste was allowed it cultivate its distinctive style of life in the matter of diet, dress, worship, marriage etc.  discrimination against women is most evocative, traumatizing and political subject.

Although it is not a direct issue of development yet it affects women’s development effort and obtaining there due share in development efforts.  Crimes against women are assertion of dominance our themes and come from the baser instincts by society. 

The powerful and rich expects women of lower status to serve them in various ways on also takes the form of the assertion of dominance of power and of riches over of which is sexual favours and in case they deny them by resistance, rape, kid napping, molestation take place familial crime was rare in Indian society.

Dalits live in separate colonies, cut off and distanced from other communities and localities.  Even today, inter caste marriages lead to large-scale violence.  Dalits do not have access to public wells or to public eating places.  They have to use separate glasses for drinking tea in village restaurants in some states of India.   Atrocities and violence against Dalits basically arise in the context of ‘keeping Dalits’ in their place, within the social hierarchy mediated by caste and un touch ability.  These forms of violence amount to racial discrimination.

Despite many positive developments in securing women’s human rights, patriarchy continues to be embedded in the social system in many parts of India, denying the majority of women the choice to  decide how they live.  The over –riding importance of ‘community’.

In a patriarchal sense ensures that women rarely have an independent say in community issues.

Female feticide continues to be common. Poor families have little interest in educating girls and will often engage them in marriage as children to ensure they are taken care of economically. Levels of crime, high all over India including rapes kidnappings, instances of dowry death, mental and pure’, sexual molestation and physical ‘torture’, harassment and trafficking. Domestic violence is also widespread and affecting women in all  classes, castes and religions and is often associated with dowry. While dowry has been banned since 1961, it still contributes to high levels of violence against women, whose husbands and families harass wives for increased dowry.

While the overall situation affects both men and women from these disadvantaged groups, gender and caste status intersect to create violence against women as and poverty on the other, as well as with political, legal and religio-cultural discrimination. A new report on the plight of lower caste women in rural India reveals a depressing portrait of rape, sexual abuse and harassment and suggests that it is virtually impossible for victims even to file a complaint at a police station let alone achieve justice.  An extremely high number of sexual assaults takes place on women from desperately poor Dalit or tribal communities .  But fewer than 5  percent of cases make it to court, activists estimate.

 Dalit women in India are targeted for violence and discrimination not just because of their gender, but also on the basis of their caste community, religious affiliation and other factors.  The rape is a major means for isolating her and her husband within the community because of the stigma attached to this crime in India.  Other common forms of violence perpetrated against Indian women include: female feticide (selective abortion based on the fetus gender), domestic violence; dowry death; mental and physical torture; sexual trafficking and public humiliation.

Many dalits are not aware of their rights under special legislation designed to protect them and it is rare that police voluntarily inform them of those rights.

There are seven major areas of discrimination against women belong to poor section in India.  They are:

a.       Malnutrition:  India has exceptionally high rates of child malnutrition, because tradition in India requires that women eat last and least throughout their lives, even when pregnant and lactating. Malnourished women give birth to malnourished children, perpetuating the cycle.

b.      Poor health: females receive less health care than males.  Many women die in childbirth of easily prevented complications.  Working condition and environmental pollution further impairs women’s health.

c.       Lack of education:  Families are far less likely to educate girls than boys and far more likely to pull them out of school, either to help out at home or from fear of violence.

d.      Overwork: women work longer hours and their work is ore arduous than men’s , yet their work is unrecognized.  Men report that “women, like children, eat and do nothing” technological progress in agriculture has had a negative impact on women.

e.       Unskilled: in women’s primary employment sector-agriculture-extentsion services overlook women.

f.       Mistreatment: in recent years, there has been an alarming rise in atrocities against women in India, in terms of rapes, assaults and dowry related murders.  Fear of violence suppresses the aspirations of all women.  Female infanticide and sex-selective abortions are additional forms of violence that reflect the devaluing of females in Indian society.

These discriminations against women in the existence of patriarchic society where woman one considered the weaker sex and the possessions of men. The low social and economic and political empowerment of dalit women leads them to be considered as easy and soft targets.  Moreover the premium on femal chasity is so high in society that crimes of a sexual nature against women are hushed up as they are likely to girls buy and bring the family dishonours. Even  dalits and adivases are subjected falls within the scope of the convention in which Artice 1 includes ‘descent’.  This form of discrimination is also expressly forbidden by the Indian constitution.

Anyway the growing self awareness and self reliance of dalits promoted by the Government’s policy of reservation renaissance ideologies within the dalit community, participation of dalits in struggles for recognition and so on have threatened the vested interests and privileges o f the hitherto dominant non-dalit castes.  Raising consciousness of dalits and their resistance on a wide range of issues such as distribution of surplus state land, minimum wages, dignity and justice have led to brutal caste based violence and massacres against dalits and dalit women in particular.

Works Cited

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 http://tribal.nic.in/tribes.html - Tribal Population of India- Data - 1995.