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As the country celebrates its 75th year of independence how its leaders fulfilled the constitutional promise to secure its people justice, liberty, equality and fraternity? Specially about the Indian woman, a question that has to be always revisited. India was at a cross road 76 years ago and it made choices that were enshrined in the constitution. It adopted a few years later now that it was free from alien rule it had to make choices in such a way that it citizens (men and women) were freed from class and caste oppression. Nehru had promises to keep. “To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India, to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease, to build of a prosperous democratic and progressive nation, and to create a social economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.” He said at the midnight. When India woke up to freedom the problem was that he and the other so called the leaders trusted to keep their promises under the afflicted notion of oppression and inequality. India is once again at the cross roads where the choices it made 75 years ago are being undermind especially on the issues of social justice.

The promises that inspire the enthusiastic participation of women in the National movement have remained unfulfilled as a deep and pervasive gender inequality, making the position of women inferior in Indian society still persist. What we perceive as west has many things to convey to the world, rationality, individualism and the importance of state towards the society. In this regard when we look back to the women history in India during colonial period O’Malley quotes becomes important. When he says, “The impact of West on Indian civilization has brought about changes that are more fundamental in the case of women than men. To men it brought a new conception of the world, of its material resources, ethical standards, and political possibilities, but to the women it brought slowly but potentially a new conception of themselves. If men reassessed themselves as citizens in a new India, women revalued themselves as human beings in a new social order.”

Women in Ancient India occupied a dignified place. During the Vedic period we come across the reference to some woman who excelled in learning and their hymns were included in the vedas. There were woman who could continue their studies throughout their life known as Brahmvadinis. Some of the outstanding woman of that age were Lopa Mudra, Apala, Kadru, Ghosha, Paulomi and others.However certain abuses like keeping female slaves in an aristocratic Aryan family and polygamy tended to lower the status of women.During Buddhist period also women gained importance ,among them the most important were Dharampala. Anupama ,queen kshena and others. women’s condition during the muslim  invasions and thereafter establishment of their rule was not good.

It was believed that by practice such as infanticide, childmarriage, sati, purdah system and prejudices against women’s education were some of the measures, adopted by the Hindu Society to save the honour of their women, in the long run but it hampered the progress of women. In these conditions also we see women’s as excelent as administrators, warriors, reformers and as religious teacher’s. The names of Padmini, Razia Begum, Durgawat, who fought against Akbar and Chand Bibi who defended the Ahmednagar Fort, represent the warriors and administrators.   

The well being of people is unquestionably the ultimate object of all development efforts and the basic quest of human Endeavour. Social empowerment in general and women empowerment in particular is very fundamental in achieving the goal. Economic empowerment has been considered instrumental for holistic development of the individual. Interestingly women’s crucial contribution in community development, social change and economic independence cannot be undermined. The question of women in this scenario becomes more crucial against this backdrop present paper purports to review women’s status in the current scenario.

In India despite the honour and reverence accorded to them as duties in mythology and personified tribute paid to them in historical monuments the ground realities remain opposite despite the fact that women are massively involved in almost all sections of economy, their work and earnings do not count in terms of every set of indices of development and social economic status, women of all regions and strata have faced worse than men. Women’s constitute 70% of world’s poor population. Women’s access to an ownership of resources is less than that being enjoyed by other communities.

At the turn of 20^th century the industrial revolution brought about radical changes in societies world over particularly societies ritual routed in the agriculture. The women in developmental paradigm assure that women have been left out in development process and hence need to be integrated to give benefit. The main objects of developmental programmes in this era of globalization is to initiate income generating programmes and to sensitize women about their rights, entitlements and legal framework and take a capacity building measures. Women development had come a long way from mere the earlier orientation. The status of women in Indian society is very complex within Indian subcontinent. There have been infinite variation of the status of women differing according to the cultural milieu, family structure, caste, class, occupation, property rights etc. All these factors are significant determinant of variations in her position in different groups.

Annie Besant while advocating the women issues states that, “when it comes to the details of administration and the applying of the principles to practice, you will constantly find that a women’s brains has a mastery of administrative details, which makes her most valuable where organization is concerned…In all places, where the poor are gathered together and where the young have to be thought of their it has been found that she will look into details that never strike the mind of man.”

Women were significant participant in the national movement. Leaders such as Sarojini Naidu, Suchitra Kripalini, Kalpana Dutt Joshi, Bhikaji Cama and Aruna Asif Ali became emblematic in the freedom struggle. But even more than their presence there was a wide spread involvement of ordinary women from different walks of life in different regions many of them came out of their home into public life for the first time, often inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, who made their participation an important part of his over political strategy of non violent non-cooperation. Sarojni Naidu was of the view, “There was no power in the world that could set any limitation to women achievements. There was no salic law which would hold good in the world when women were determine that they could rise to the full height and stature of their capacity.

Inevitably these women have had their own notions of freedom, their goals would have been somewhat different from those of their male counter parts and their expectations of living in a newly independent country must have been colored by their very unequal and often oppressive social and economic circumstances but it may be still be safe to say that the writers of the constitution did manage to encapsulate many of the hopes and dreams of the women of the time.

Consider what the constitution offered. Explicit recognition of equality before law, and rejection of any kind of discrimination, including on grounds of gender, along with empowering the state to adopt measures of positive discrimination in favor of women, to neutralize the cumulative socio-economic, educational and political disadvantages they faced. Art (16) promised equality of opportunity for all citizens (and, therefore for all women) in matters relating to employment of appointment to any office under the state; Art 39(a) noted that the state should direct its policy towards securing for men and women equally the right to an adequate means of livelihood, and Art 39(d) stressed equal pay for equal work for both men and women. Several other provisions took note of the need to provide dignity and empower women in various ways over time; other legislation banned traditional customs and practices that were clearly unjust and discriminatory, such as dowry and child marriage.

So far the things are so positive, and if these declarations have been mostly or even substantially fulfilled the grand daughters of those millions of women of 1947 would today be living their dream. After all seven decade’s is a reasonably long time in the life of a country, and should be more than enough to effect significant progress along the lines of the announced social contact. So how far have things actually changed for Indian women in this period this has to be retrospect.

Equality before law has certainly existed as a basic principle but it has non been accompanied by equally just implementation and both the letter of the law and its functioning have not confirmed to the basic spirit to the constitution in the absence of the systematically co-defined set of laws recognizing and providing remedies for various kind of gender discrimination, women’s equality before law has had to be interpreted through case law.

The workings of the criminal justice system and indeed of the civil courts are replete with instances of balant gender discrimination that surely limit women access to justice especially for women from poor and disadvantage contexts. In terms of some of the most basic demographic indicators there is always improvement much of this decline in mortality rates is due to the decline in infant mortality rates. Women and girl child in India continue to exhibit some of the worst nutritional outcomes, similar to or worse them some least developed countries where per capita income is much lower.

Perhaps the demographic indicator that reveals most starkly the continued inferior position of women in Indian society is the sex ratio. Education appears to be one area of progress compare to 74 years ago but here to the progress have been too delayed, limited and slow and indeed very poor compare to most developing countries. Still they are well below the global average of 80%. These shows the prove enough of the deep and pervasive in equality that still persist in India.

Low recorded work participation of women is often a reflection of the low status of women in society, since the huge amount of unpaid labor that they perform is simply not recognized.

This is not to say that conditions are so stark for all woman in country. There is a huge amount of diversity, not only across urban and rural areas but across different states, socio-cultural group and income classes. And there has been substantial progress for particular group of more privileged women and girls. But in a broader sense the promises that inspired the enthusiastic participation of so many women in the national movement have remained unfulfilled. 

1. Indrani Sen, Women and Empire (Representation in the Writing of British India 1858-1900), orient longman, 2002. 2. Lalita Devi, Status and Employment of woman in India, B.R. Publishing Corporation, 1982. 3. A.K. Mishra, Women Leadership (A management perspective), Sri Publishers & Distributers, New Delhi, 2009. 4. Rama Mehta, The Western Educated Hindu Woman, Asia Publishing, 1970. 5. Dr. Reema Kaul, Women and Crime, Omega Publication, New Delhi, 2006. 6. Manmohan Kaur, Women in India’s Freedom Struggle, Sterling Publisher, 1985.