The notion I’m going to deal with is seats and forms of power. I’m going to talk about India because it’s a country which is changing rapidly. I feel this notion is best illustrated by trying to see if all citizens are on equal footing in India today. First, we’re going to see there are inequalities among citizens. Then, we’re going to speak about the inequalities among men and women. Finally, we’re going to see the evolution of Indian society.
First, India is divided into four unequal hereditary social castes: it’s the cast system. If someone was born in one of these castes, he can’t change or marry someone belonging to another cast. Their exists another cast in this cast system known as the outcasts: it’s the Untouchables or Dalits one. It’s the lowest caste because Dalits are only allowed certain jobs such as cleaners and cobblers. Even though the cast system is forbidden, it still exists in rural areas and more precisely, there still exists discrimination against Dalits. In fact, they are obliged to use specific eating places, schools, temples and water sources. Today, there are 170 million Dalits in India and over 40 percent survive on less than 2 dollars a day. It’s the first form of inequalities among citizens in India. If exist inequalities among citizens, exist also inequalities among men and women.
The dowry tradition is the largest form of inequality among men and women. When Indian girls prepare to marry, their families have to give dowry or a gift to the future husband’s family because it’s a compensation for the groom’s parents for the cost of educating their son. If after the wedding, the girl’s family has not paid the dowry, the woman is subject to torture and sometimes can even get killed.
More of this, India knows (experiences) another problem: they missed 50 millions girls in India today. Indeed, a lot of girls are killed at their birth because of many reasons. This practice is called a gendercide. There are several reasons of these murders. One is the dowry tradition: raising a boy is financially more attractive because you can receive money when the boy marries. A girl doesn’t seem as attractive as a boy because parents have to pay for her wedding. Another reason is boys can look after family business and when when they are old they carry on the family name. So, even finding out the sex of a baby before birth is illegal because sex-selective abortions are practiced. In 2011, the gendercide resulted in a gender imbalance as there are 940 Indian girls for every 1000 boys. In spite of these inequalities, we can finally say that India is a country that is currently changing.
India is today the story of two dueling narratives. On the one hand, there is the poverty face. There is about two-thirds of India’s population who lives below the poverty line. For example, slums are in extension around cities like the New-Delhi slum where the poor Indian population live in hope getting some jobs. However, on the other hand there is the Indian tiger: even if a lot of Indians are still poor, India’s economy is changing rapidly. India knows a GDP (growth domestic product) very important: about 7 or 8 percent per year. The high-tech cities grows everywhere in the country. These high-tech cities such as Bangalor look like a science fiction fantasy. India is at the center of the computing communication revolution. Graduates are confident in the development of the communications technology sector and want to work in these cities. India is currently a country with great engineering and managerial talent, and a highly entrepreneurial spirit among its citizens. It’s a country on the march because its economy keeps transforming thanks to the rapid development of high-tech sector.
We have seen that there still exists inequalities among men and women and among citizens in India. However, India is a country which is currently changing in terms its economy.
