WOMEN IN INDIA: HOW FREE? HOW EQUAL?

Women in India: How Free? How Equal? The United Nations sponsored photo exhibition, was first exhibited on UN Day (24th Of October, 2001). The idea of the exhibit evolved out of a report authored by Kalyani Menon-Sen and A.K Shiva Kumar. On 9th January 2002, the exhibit opened to the public at the IIC Annexe, New Delhi. Armed with experience as a photographer and a photo editor, I stepped into the shoes of a curator. With just five weeks in hand to curate a gender sensitive show, the effort seemed sheer madness. At the onset, I had clarity about just one thing. I was looking for stories, bodies of work that would raise questions about the status of women in India. The audience for the exhibition was a major factor in determining the kind of genre I was looking at. The exhibit was sponsored primarily for the UN Day celebrations. Photographs produced within the documentary/reportage genre seemed best suited to the space and the audience. Works outside these two traditions would have needed another platform and a lot more time to integrate together. The single image in itself didn't matter. Yet it was in the pursuit of that single image that the photographers ended up creating very powerful and evocative bodies of works. Gender inequality exists world over. The differences are just a question of degrees. And India is no exception. Approximately 481 million women live here. A phenomenal number striving for a decent life. Some get ahead through sheer accident of birth, some through hard determination while a large number remain marginalized. In comparison to women in developed countries, the status of women in India of course seems abysmal. Tradition, economic status, lack of education all contribute in large measure to keeping women subservient. Empowered women are a minority. Albeit, a growing one. Feminism in India is still an intellectual concept. Freedom and equality mean different things to different women.