Today we find more and more women in familiar and surprising places. As heads of giant conglomerates and in police stations, in Parliament and in the trenches. By tradition and through history, Indian women were expected to fulfill roles that defined them only in relation to others-their parents, their spouse, their children. But increasingly women around us now define independent identities beyond those of daughter, mother and wife.
The reason they have changed is because we all have. The dynamics of economic reform begun in the last decade has transformed India and its women.
The new Indian women has much to celebrate. For more than two decades, the women's movement in our country has a long and a distinguished history, bringing to national notice issues like dowry, female foeticide, infanticide and illiteracy, violence against women and gender discrimination. Not that all these ills have vanished but I believe that one of the most positive developments in the past two decades of our national life have been the growing power and status of women. I also believe that the coming decade will see an even swifter change in the role Indian women play in all spheres and this will transform the face of our country.
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I have a question about female infanticide. According to my reading, this became easier and more widespread with the use of medical scanners in the mid-1970's. That means that the children born in this time are adults now. How has the resulting gender imbalance affected marrying customs? What do single men do if they can't find a mate? Are women more highly prized? Or trafficked?
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