Breaking Prejuidices Of Indian Society

By Asawari Bhadange

India is considered as a country of many different cultures. The government runs the campaign named “INCREDIBLE INDIA” to attract tourists and travelers towards the vast cultural variations of India. Even amid major political issues India has always painted itself as being the home of multiple religions. The population of India is the second largest in the world and still it is considered as one of the unsafe and backward places for women. We still run our country according to many stereotypes set in ancient times.

As India’s economy grows ,there is alarming drop in the number of women in the workplace. It was more than 31% a decade ago but now it has dropped to almost 23%. There are myriad reasons for this which includes changing if social pressures ,safety issues etc. Many of the fields are dominated by males and always have been. But there are still some brave queens who are not afraid to break stereotypes. One of them is Bhawna pallival, who is a private detective and head of her own agency based in Delhi, working in field so male dominated that even novels and tv series have no female detective leads. Mehrun-nisha Shaukat ali, works as a bouncer , a field where no one had even heard of women working as one. Shubhangi Yuvraj mandare, working as a assistant station officer at Mumbai fire brigade shows that the stereotype that there could only be a “fireman” and women can’t work in life threatening jobs is a myth.

The LGBTQ+ community is still a sensitive subject to talk about in public. From centuries ,members which are part of LGBTQ+ community are considered “unnatural” or “freaks” in India. They are culturally defined as “neither man nor women”. homosexuality always existed in ancient India, the proofs are in many historical documents. Everyone knew about these practices but they were frowned upon in society. Even though homosexuality was decriminalized back in 2009 by the supreme court it was again decided as a crime in 2013. Even though it was legalized in America since 2003 and in other nations as well. But again in 2018. homosexuality became legal. But it didn’t matter to the general public. The practice is still considered as unnatural and not deemed appropriate. These people are still stripped from basic human decency in India while western countries celebrates pride month. Even though the “third sex” is recognized in documentation, trans people are still being abused verbally and emotionally and discriminated in job scenarios and even basic human needs like medical treatments. While gender affirmation surgery is a thing in USA, in India when a person comes out as a trans to their parents they are either considered as mentally abnormal or they are treated by religious gurus. Legalization may be the good thing but India still has long way to go and let go of this prejudice. Yet trans women like dr. Trinetra Haldar who is an actual medical professional, Naaz joshi, India’s first transgender cover model and Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, a prominent activist and leader of India’s transgender community, bursts a bubble of society and continuous to prove that women can be successful and iconic , regardless of gender preferences.

A 2018 survey by social attitudes research, India (SARI) in Delhi, Mumbai, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh stated that 50% of adults still disapprove of women working. It also states that , disapproval of women’s work in India is higher than what it was in the US 45 years ago. The most striking result found from the study is almost 40% of Delhi residents thinks that Dalits marrying non-Dalits should not be legal. This proves that even after decades of trying about inclusion of all castes in everything, Indian society is still holding on to caste system that does not serve us anymore.

In 2019, 20 students in Telangana gave up their lives because they failed to pass the higher secondary education board exam. Is the word “pass” was really more important as their lives?. Its evident from the observation from past few years that only scoring good grades is not enough, you need to be a “topper” of some kind. Doing what you love isn’t an option, you need to be either an engineer who is studying in IIT or a medical students in one of the top universities to gain approval from your parents and relatives. Most Indian parents tends to compare their own children to their classmates or son of neighabour’s kid and they can get quiet violent in the process of to outshine a particular person by proving that their kid is better that other person’s. All that stress results in loss of many innocent lives every year. Why are we still holding a belief that our children owes us their lives just because we gave birth to them, that they does not deserve to life the life they want to live?.

Change is an inevitable thing. Moving forward is the only way if we want our country to be a safe heaven for all cultures and people. The more we continue to live in the past, the more we continue to loose touch with reality. there are always going to people proving that, breaking the stigma around the uncommon subjects. as it is said by someone , “Even if you are not ready for the day, it can’t always be the night”.

By Asawari Bhadange