Aiborlang and Tsungkamla
Bosco B.Ed College, Dimapur
The 8th of March 2018 is kept aside as women’s day. This is to show respect and importance of women in the society. As far as our knowledge is concerned many churches celebrate this event to mark the essential of a woman both in the church and in the society. If we are not mistaken the Mother’s Day is also kept aside as a special day in which the mothers are being felicitated by the church members especially in our Christian state like Nagaland.
In the Christian holy book, the Bible, the first book which is the book of Genesis speaks about the importance of a woman to accompany man in the society and thus Eve was made by God to accompany Adam in the Garden of Eden. Hence such is the importance of a woman in the society. Frankly speaking no one came into existence without a woman. However, with all this credibility to women it is sad to see the situation of women in our Christian state like Nagaland. Since 1963 Nagaland got it full-fledged statehood, till date no woman is ever elected as the law maker in the state legislative assembly.
According to the record, Rano M. Shaiza was the only woman elected as an MP from Nagaland to the Lok Sabha in 1977. Let us not forget that in the last 13th election five women candidates contested the election, yet sad to say that no one was elected as an MLA. If we are not mistaken a year ago, the T.R. Zeliang government’s pushed for 33 percent reservation for women in the civic polls, but unfortunately this led to a violent protest and eventually it led to his resignation and cancellation of the polls.
Moreover, the government was forced to write to the centre to exempt Nagaland from reservation as it would violate its social status (The Telegraph March 5, 2018). Thus, is this a right time to celebrate the Women’s Day? This situation reminds us of the Naga novel ‘A Terrible Matriarchy’ written by Easterine Kire who at the beginning line of the novel stated the problem of women in social status by the words of a four and half year old girl who said ‘my grandmother didn’t like me’.
In the same page the grandmother herself create a family discrimination by denying the wish of the chicken leg to the girl child in which she said ‘that portion is always for boys. Girls must eat the other portion’. Here we see the clear discrimination of a girl child since childhood and unluckily till today it continues the same in many places. By saying this we are not against any individuals but we just want to make a deep reflection on a special day like this for the women. A close friend of us said that a particular woman in Nagaland had contested an election for several times yet she had never won an election. She again added that she does not know whether the candidate is incapable or the people think that it is against a social status to elect a woman to the State Legislative Assembly.
Therefore, the prejudice against women in our social status is very strong that we can’t think of electing a woman to the State Legislative Assembly. On the other hand, the advanced countries in the world like UK had elected several women even as Prime Minister (Margaret Thatcher and Teresa May). As a result the presence of women in the society is important and so the prejudices against them should be stopped. It is also very sad to hear and read in the news about the exploitation of women in our society such as rape, force to marriage and many other issues that are against women. In a patriarchal society men are considered more important than women, and so there are lots of social issues and malpractices which mostly are against women for instance, fetus infanticide if a child is female. Lastly, as we keep the International Women’s Day let us remember that women too play a vital role in the society; imagine what will be, if a society is without women.
Let us develop an attitude of respect for women and empower women in the society and we are sure that the world will be different and better place for all.
