Why Women Should Oppose Formation of a Separate Bank for Women
In the 2013-14 budget presented to the Parliament, the Finance minister has announced the formation of a Bank that will cater "mostly" to women and shall also be staffed by women. As it was being announced the women Parliamentarians including Leader of the Opposition, Mrs Sushma Swaraj, were seen greeting it wirh thumping of their desks. In itself their is nothing wrong with the formation of the bank. What is wrong is that yet another social bias is sought to be overcome by the policy of seggregation.
Our society has through centuries divided the itself into various groups and encouraged the social non interaction between them. We thus have the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Banias and Shudras strictly living within thei rown groups and despising the other groups.Within the individual castes also there are subgroups and so on. Seggregation seems to be the order of our society.
After acheiving independence and with spread of education and increasing urbanization, it was expected that our society will see more of integration within these different social groups. But as we all know it has not happened to the extent it should have. On the contrary we have further divided the society into Schedule Caste and Tribes ,Dalits,Mandal Commission recognised and so on groups. Reservations and quotas allocation is the order of the day.Thus instead of integrating we have succeeded in further dividing the society into many more groups than before.
Now comes the announcement of yet one more separate group formation in the form of an exclusive Bank for women. It will further deepen the already existing divisions within our society .Women need to be more integrated with men outside their homes so that the divide does not exist. Seggregation leads to much lessening of empathy between the groups.
Instead of developing a mutually inclusive society we seem to be heading towards forming a mutually exclusive society. Another announcement yesterday is that 25% seats in public transport buses will be reserved for women passenges in Delhi. One knows that these are more broken than followed in practice. Our answer to all social evils seems to be more seggregation.
Instead the State should promote awareness among the masses for gender sensitivity and treating all humans with respect. Strict punishment in speedy trials should be awarded to defaulters.There should be more and more occassions for interaction between boys and girls in schools and colleges. The large number of male youth who came out alongside their female colleagues during the protest that followed the recent brutal rape in Delhi is an excellent example of inclusiveness between the two sexes.
The women of India should oppose the formation of a separate Bank for them and instead demand equal facilities without bias from existing establishments. It is their right and duty of the State to ensure it. Separate facilities creation is bucking the responsibility and admitting failure. It is time that social evils and problems are fought in an inclusive manner and not on an exclusive manner. The State cannot be allowed to abdicate its responsibilities and should not be let off so easily.
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