Page 111 - SocialHarmony

The Land of Virtues 115

documents. This type of basic equality in society will help realize
the hidden potential of women, which can then be used in the
creation of a new, ideal society.

Two important services – primary education and primary
healthcare – are almost entirely handled by women in India.
There is a myth propagated all over the world that women in
India are ill-treated and they spend their entire lives confined
within the house, serving their husbands. This is untrue. The
contribution of women to the progress of India is incomparable.
In the agricultural sector, women put in more work than men.
Our tribal women are the bread-earners of their families through
productive activities such as weaving and cattle-grazing.
Women manage agriculture and animal husbandry to a large
extent. It is only due to women that our much-acclaimed
White Revolution has been possible.

We do not give much thought to our own energies and our
own social system and hence, we are unable to view women in
a non-traditional manner and unable to take pride in them. We
had a lady Prime Minister for 16 years. Not only India, even
Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have had lady Prime
Ministers. This has been possible only because of the unique
approach towards women in Asia. No religion or cult in the
world propagates a female God – for them, God can only be
male. India is the only country where woman has been
visualized as Goddess, be it Goddess Durga, Goddess Saraswati,
Goddess Amba or Goddess Bahuchar. And still we complain
that women are marginalized. We need to abandon such
thinking and approach the rest of the world with confidence
and competence; we have the potential to change the world.

There is no yardstick to measure the power of women. If a
woman is cooking and she scalds her finger, she might wait
eagerly for her husband to come home so that she can show it
to him and gain some loving sympathy. But the husband might
curtly brush aside her injury and ask her to serve him dinner
instead, leaving her hurt and disappointed. However, the same
woman will not think twice before leaping into a flaming house
if her child is trapped inside. No man would dare do so, but the