I don’t know what the results are going to be tomorrow, with exit polls varying in their proclamations but whatever it is, we in our country will not forget the picture of a small, diminutive woman fighting against the mighty power of the centre, with all its army and machinery to boot.
She did not balk at the size of the opponent, but decided to fight head-on! And with the fight turning physical, even had to campaign on a wheel chair, but campaign she did.
The world is full of such women who took on the mighty, either in the form of formidable men or draconian laws and won.
Seamstress Rosa Parks became one of the central figures in the civil rights movement in the US in 1955, when she refused to give up her seat on a bus so a white man could sit down. And it wasn’t the first time she resisted segregation on a bus either. Black people used to have to board the front of the bus, pay their fare, and then get off to re-enter through the back door. But, 12 years before the bus seat incident, Parks resisted that rule, refusing to get off the bus until she was forced off by the driver.
Those actions changed America, and today if we have a Vice-President black woman in the White House and an ex-President in Barack Obama, it all started with a simple black woman, tired after a day’s work who refused to give up her seat.
In Mamata Banerjee it seems a bit the same, with her refusing to give up her Bengal to a man from Delhi!
Then there was this all-female squadron of bomber pilots who ran thousands of bombing raids on the mighty Nazi-occupied Soviet Union during World War II.
Their leader, Colonel Marina Raskova — who was known as the “Russian Amelia Earhart” — started receiving letters from women all over the country who wanted to play their part in the war effort, beyond the support roles that were offered to women at the time.
Raskova led the charge to get women the opportunity to be involved on the frontlines of the war, and managed to persuade the military to establish all-women units. Maybe she was also instrumental in our armed forces including women in their battle units albeit much later. Her 588th Night Bomber Regiment remained completely female.
All little women like our Little Woman!
I don’t know what the results are going to be tomorrow, but whatever it is, we in our country will not forget the picture of a small, diminutive woman fighting against the mighty power of the centre, with all its army and machinery to boot.
Cheers to the little women of the world..!
Robert Clements is a newspaper columnist and author. He blogs at www.bobsbanter.com and can be reached at bobsbanter@gmail.com
