While I will not be too pessimistic about Ladli Laxmi, I am profoundly disturbed by the “Naari tum…” campaign. It rings of a rightist, conservative idea on women – the reason why women in India, in spite of so many programmes for empowerment and so many years of struggle, remain shackled and unable to break the glass ceiling. The patronizing attitude towards women that coloured some aspects of the women’s movement during the days of the struggle for independence (an article follows soon), has unfortunately burgeoned and mutated into a compulsion to exalt the woman – turn her to a paragon of male-defined “womanly” virtue, an raise the entire female sex on a pedestal of Vestal Virginity and godliness. The converse of this, is what I fear even more. The “good” woman – vessel of shraddha, sanskaar (anyone who can precisely define that term for me, gets a big prize), and shakti – walks a tightrope. One foot out of line, and she falls. This is not a circus. There are no nets in real life. There are only “keepers of culture” who dig the pit very quickly, so you fall as deep as you rose high.

We do have a problem on hand – there aren’t enough Indian women in national politics. The solution is not increasing space on the top floor alone, though. The way to politics will have to be rid of its patriarchy and the physical, sexual and career insecurities that women face as budding politicians will have to be attacked first.