Its been a good 40 days since this blog was last updated, the delay partly due the summers process which required some level of confidentiality and partly due to the laziness which creeps in after such a long break.
31st of October reminds us of one lady; a lady so strong in her influence that she became the first woman prime minister of India, the first lady to become the elected head of a democracy, the lady behind the "Garibi hatao" slogan which spread across the country like wild fire; she also gave India its only "Emergency".
Love her or hate her, but you cannot be away from Indira Gandhi if you are discussing women and India.
Looking back at those days, I think India has progressed a lot. There is indeed more gender equality in the present era. How?? Woman have good representation be it in Politics or Business and they are in line with the needs of their job. They are equally aggressive, equally manipulative, and equally diplomatic. But by acquiring these traits, I feel that women have lost their identity and their USP i.e. compassion. The world is moving towards a uni-sex revolution trying to amalgamate everyone with the same set of values. But is this sustainable? We indeed have higher disposable incomes due to this model but has the stress in our lives grown faster than our incomes?
Time to take a break; think and reflect. Will be back with a continuation on the same topic.
Till then, a tribute to the Iron Lady of India - may her soul rest in peace.
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4 comments:
I agree with you that Mrs Indira Gandhi was the great lady of not only her times but also she and her life is a great source of inspiration for the aspiring women. With her iron will, she showed it to the world that a lady can also govern a country intelligently and that country which has so many diversities, castes, cultures and their own problems, religions, languages. In the nutshell, she has defied the maxim "Beauty and Brains cannot exist together".
If we look analytically towards her life, we will find out that her life was totally disputed. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru admitted that Indira never gave due importance to her mother. She was not influenced by her mother at all. She was under the great influence of her father and she liked challenges and the greatest challenge she faced in her life was when she decided to marry Mr. Feroz Gandhi against her father's wish by whom she was too much influenced. This was the first step taken by her in her life where she showed her independent thinking and defied the society's norms and emerged out as a winner. Through this she showed to the Indian society at least that women are not going to take things at their face value. she really forced the people to think that a girl has a right to make decisions about her own life.
The second biggest example of her iron strength which she showed to the world was when she became the PM of India. Our country was under crisis but she she showed her mettle and the two wars which we fought with Pakistan and in 1971, she led to the birth of Bangladesh.
That was her clout and that was her shrewdness which men always think its their prerogative.
Then third exemplary strength which she showed when she gave her go ahead for conducting first Pokhran nuclear tests. Our former President Mr. Abul Kalam has written in his autobiography that only person with tremendous will and courage can take a decision of going ahead with conducting nuclear tests as that time pressure from the world powers for CTBT and NPT was enormous. Hats off to her!!!!
The story of emergency and compulsory sterilisation programme needs no introduction.
She was the lady of her own will and she defied the constitution and put behind the bars all the great politicians of that time.Though some of her acts went wrong but she corrected them later.
Her great inner strength was displayed when she was making the arrangements of the funeral of her son, Sanjay Gandhi.
And finally the last act of her life Operation Bluestar, the controversial decision which she took and for which she laid her life.
A great daughter, a great wife, a great mother, a great leader and a great person.
No man in this country can stand next to her.
it was nice to read your article....however i am a little confused regarding your view on women losing compassion...aggression in any form is undesirable...it is assertiveness which has brough women this far...and being assertive does not necessarily mean losing one's sense of compassion. i might be wrong but thats my opinion on this
yeah yeah yeah ... may her soul rest in peace ... pretty much like the way she ensured Lal Bahadur Shastri's did. I knw I knw nothing was ever proved ... bt den i guess Samriti is right ... Beauty & Brains do smtimes exist together !!
I appreciate the comments posted for the post by Abbu. But what tickles my grey cells is was the post really meant to reflect the ideals suggested in the comments or somethin else?
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