By Our Special Correspondent

THE WOMEN’S liberation movement which started a hundred years ago in the countries of the West has come circle in India with the passing of the historic 33 percent Women’s Reservation Bill in the Lok Sabha on March 9, 2010. It’s a breathtaking windfall of a gift for women coming as it did just a day after women urban and rural had finished celebrating and grumbling at various venues to mark "International Women’s Day" on March 8, 2010! Suddenly now it looks like there’re a lot of men in this country who do want their women folk to be liberated in every sense of the word liberation….although these days society seems to be torn between definitions of what liberation should and should not mean in the interests of harmony in society between men and women.

In Panaji there were several functions paying tribute to women liberated and women partially liberated and women who still have a long way to go before they become financially independent women i.e. not dependent on father in their youth, husband in their marital years and sons (or unmarried daughters!) in the autumn and winter years of their life. Women by and large continue to suffer from material poverty and remain beholden to men on many counts be they fathers, husbands, sons or employers….this despite the large number of women who do "double duty" working at home as well as 9 to 5 jobs in offices, especially in urban metros.

At one of the "International Women’s Day" celebrations the Bailancho Saad had fiery and eloquent lawyer Nandita Haksar to put things in perspective. Speaking to a 300 strong audience of women from small-time rural and urban Goa, many with children in tow, the celebrated Goa-settled Ms Haksar, speaking in a mix of Hindi and English, traced the history of the women’s movement for basic human rights on par with men. "On this day, March 8, 1910, a hundred years ago in New York," she reminded, "15,000 working class women from factories decided to protest for the first time against injustice…" It was a historic moment remembered and recreated by women the world over when March 8 comes around.

Speaking on the subject of "State Responsibility Towards Women", she reminisced poignantly, "when we were dealing with the 16-year-old Mathura’s rape case in the Supreme Court I remember it was the first time we were using the word rape in Hindi — balatkar - and we could hardly say it properly!" Such was the embarrassment and even her mother wanted to know if it was alright to use such language in public…now, of course, everyone uses the word and understands it for what it is — violence against the basic right of a woman not to be raped. At least in the eyes of the law women have come a long way and this is something to celebrate together with other women who celebrate "International Women’s Day" the world over.

Women should celebrate be in the city or in the village, Nandita Haksar urged, "The women’s movement is a happenings movement, the fact that all of you can leave your homes and come to this event itself is something to celebrate!" She remembered the first time in India in 1975 when women celebrated the day at the Lal Quila in Delhi, she had been invited to speak on the occasion, "At that time I could hardly talk, my voice wouldn’t come out, I too was scared to speak out…in a bus if a man touched me I was too scared to say anything and preferred to get out at the next stop rather than stay in the bus!" Amidst sympathetic laughter and claps in the audience, she confessed, "See, I’m talking to all of you and can any of you believe that at one time the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. Today nobody can say anything to me!"

It may be one woman’s small problem, Nandita Haksar concluded on an upbeat note, but "every woman’s small problem is our problem. This is a movement for a better world and a lot of men are with us and they too are fighting for women’s rights…I tell my husband that the women’s movement is to change society, make society a beautiful society. We are not fighting only for bread, roti…but also for the khoobsoorat gulab (beautiful rose)!" That was the message that the working class factory women in New York a hundred years ago were trying to tell the world, when they sang a song which said, "We’re marching, marching because we want bread…and we’re fighting because we want roses too!" Women the world over are still saying the same thing. Treat us like equal human beings on a common platform.

Several other educative-cum-entertainment programmes at the function reiterated the usual women’s’ rights messages e.g. Rajini Ratnakar Naik sang a song about life in her village of "Ponda-Querim"; a Vinita Coelho team of the Goa Bachao Abhiyan presented a slideshow asking women to be alert and to take an interest in village planning for it will affect the quality of their life for the better or worse. A drama group presented a vivid skit focusing on domestic violence, AIDS and other issues concerning women’s frustrations and dilemmas and how they impact family life. Even as restlessness set in at the Gomantak Maratha Hall where the Bailancho Saad "International Women’s Day" function took place, there was a welcome break - delicious hot batatavadas were distributed along with tea in flimsy plastic cups; the women’s movement in Goa still has to practice eco-friendliness in this respect!