India is a land of striking contradictions when it comes to women. The same society that worships goddesses like Durga and Lakshmi also records one of the world’s most skewed child sex ratios. The country that elected a woman Prime Minister in 1966 still struggles to keep its daughters safe in their own streets, homes, and wombs. This is the paradox of women’s progress in India, a story where empowerment and oppression unfold side by side, often in the same household.
Table of Contents
Celebrating women’s achievements
India’s history is full of women who broke the glass ceilings of their time, often with very real swords in hand. The most iconic among them is Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, the warrior queen who fought the British in the Revolt of 1857. Born as Manikarnika Tambe in Varanasi, she refused to surrender her kingdom after the East India Company invoked the Doctrine of Lapse. According to National Geographic, she led thousands of infantry and cavalry into battle and died fighting near Gwalior in June 1858, earning even her enemies’ respect. General Hugh Rose famously called her the one “man” the Indian Mutiny had produced.
But Lakshmibai did not fight alone. Standing beside her was Jhalkaribai, a Dalit woman from the Kori community who commanded the Durga Dal, the women’s regiment of Jhansi’s army. At the height of the Siege of Jhansi, Jhalkaribai disguised herself as the queen and engaged British troops, buying precious time for Lakshmibai to escape with her son. As Feminism in India notes, her story long remained confined to oral traditions and Dalit folklore, only recently entering mainstream memory. Other women warriors of 1857, like Begum Hazrat Mahal of Awadh, Uda Devi of Lucknow, and Rani Avantibai Lodhi, also led armies and resisted colonial power.
Modern milestones
The contemporary list is just as remarkable. India produced one of the world’s earliest elected woman heads of government in Indira Gandhi. Kalpana Chawla soared into space, Mary Kom punched her way to Olympic glory, and Kiran Bedi became the first woman IPS officer. In recent years, Nirmala Sitharaman has led the Ministry of Finance, and Droupadi Murmu became the first tribal woman to occupy Rashtrapati Bhavan. Each of these names is held up as proof that the Indian woman has “arrived.”
The reality of gender inequality
Yet, alongside these celebrated lives, the data tells a far less flattering story. India’s economic growth and improved healthcare have not translated into equal social progress for women. As researcher Neerja Ahlawat has argued, development has become a “misnomer” when it fails to dismantle unjust cultural practice. The country can put a satellite into orbit but still cannot guarantee that a girl will be allowed to be born.
Skewed sex ratios and female foeticide
The child sex ratio remains one of the most damning indicators. According to the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-21), the sex ratio at birth stands at 929 females for every 1,000 males for children born in the past five years. While this is a slight improvement, it reveals a persistent preference for sons, especially in northern states like Haryana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh.
The technology that should have democratised healthcare has been weaponised against girl children. Ultrasound machines, meant to monitor foetal health, are routinely misused for prenatal sex determination and selective abortion. Studies published in the National Library of Medicine have shown that despite the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act of 1994, the female-to-male ratio in many regions continues to worsen. Son preference, fuelled by patriarchal inheritance customs, dowry expectations, and ritual obligations, keeps a quiet war going against the girl child before she even draws her first breath.
Violence against women
For those who do survive birth, the journey rarely becomes easier. The National Crime Records Bureau’s Crime in India 2023 report recorded close to 4.48 lakh crimes against women, a national crime rate of 66.2 per lakh female population. Uttar Pradesh topped the list in absolute numbers, while Telangana led in crime rate. The most common category was “cruelty by husband or his relatives,” accounting for roughly a third of all such crimes.
These numbers, alarming as they are, hide more than they reveal. The Social and Political Research Foundation points out that the National Family Health Survey-5 found that nearly one in three married women aged 18-49 has experienced spousal violence, a figure far higher than what police records capture. Underreporting due to stigma, fear, and lack of access to support services means that the iceberg of gender-based violence is far deeper than its visible tip. From dowry deaths and acid attacks to cybercrimes and sexual harassment at workplaces, the spectrum of harm is vast, and the survivors largely invisible.
The economic and political gap
Even when women are spared physical harm, structural barriers continue to limit their progress. India’s female labour force participation rate remains among the lowest in the G20. Political representation tells a similar story. According to an analysis of the Global Gender Gap Report by IAS Score, women’s representation in Parliament has actually slipped, and women in Cabinet positions have declined in recent years. The Women’s Reservation Act of 2023, while a landmark legislative step, has been deferred in implementation until after the next Census and delimitation exercise, pushing meaningful change further down the road.
Gendered use of public spaces
The paradox is perhaps most visible in something we rarely notice: who gets to use the street. Architect and researcher Shilpa Ranade, co-author of the influential book Why Loiter? Women and Risk on Mumbai Streets (2011), has shown through years of fieldwork that Indian public spaces are overwhelmingly designed by and for men.
Mapping the male gaze of the city
Working through the Gender and Space Project at PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action and Research), Ranade and her co-authors Shilpa Phadke and Sameera Khan mapped how women actually move through Mumbai. As CEPT University’s research portfolio documents, Ranade used two mapping methods to study behavioural differences between men and women in public spaces. The findings were striking. Women rarely linger in parks, tea stalls, or street corners without a clear purpose. They walk briskly, eyes ahead, holding bags close. Men, in contrast, are free to sit, smoke, chat, and simply exist in public.
This is what scholars call the gendered production of public space. Streets, maidans, transport hubs, and even shopping districts are not neutral. They carry invisible codes about who belongs and who is trespassing. A woman who loiters, who hangs around without an obvious reason like shopping, commuting, or accompanying a male relative, is read as suspicious or “available.” Her presence demands justification.
The right to loiter
Ranade and her co-authors argue something radical in Why Loiter?: women must claim the right to be in public without purpose. To loiter, in their framework, is to claim citizenship. Public response to violence against women in India usually swings between two extremes, blaming the woman for being out at the “wrong” time or place, or demanding she be confined “for her own safety.” Both reactions, the authors point out, restrict women further. Intensified policing and surveillance often reinforce the idea that public space is naturally male and that women are temporary visitors who must follow rules to be allowed in.
This goes beyond Mumbai. From poorly lit bus stops in small towns to dargahs and chai shops dominated by men, the everyday geography of Indian cities and villages reflects and reinforces power relations. Public toilets for women are scarce. Streetlights are uneven. Public transport, while heavily used by women, is rarely designed around their safety needs. Each of these design choices quietly tells women: this space was not built for you.
Understanding the paradox
So how do we reconcile Rani Lakshmibai with the falling child sex ratio? How do we hold both Kalpana Chawla and the 4.48 lakh crimes against women in the same hand? The answer lies in recognising that visibility is not the same as equality. A society can celebrate exceptional women while continuing to oppress ordinary ones. Symbolic victories, a female President, a woman astronaut, a Bollywood film about a warrior queen, do not automatically dismantle the patriarchal scaffolding underneath.
Sociologists describe this as a “development paradox,” where economic indicators improve but cultural attitudes lag behind, sometimes even hardening as new technologies meet old prejudices. Sex-selective abortion, for instance, is a marriage of modern medical technology with deeply traditional son preference. The smartphone in a young woman’s hand may give her access to the world, but it can also become an instrument of harassment, surveillance, or honour-based control.
Real change requires more than icons and slogans. It requires reshaping schools so that boys learn empathy and girls learn assertion. It requires courts that move faster, police that listen better, and urban designers who plan cities with women in mind. It requires families that celebrate daughters not as future brides but as future citizens. And, as Ranade’s work reminds us, it requires the simple, revolutionary act of letting women just be, in homes, in workplaces, and on the streets.
What do you think? When you walk through your own neighbourhood, who do you see lingering at the tea stall, the park bench, or the street corner, and who is just passing through? And do you think celebrating individual women heroes risks distracting us from the everyday changes most women actually need?
References
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/history-magazine/article/india-warrior-queen-lakshmi-bai-fought-british-rule
- https://feminisminindia.com/2016/11/22/jhalkari-bai-dalit-woman-essay/
- https://www.amazon.com/Gender-Discrimination-Development-Paradox-Ahlawat/dp/8131607747
- https://edukemy.com/current-affairs/kosmos/2021-12-04/improving-sex-ratios-widening-gender-inequalities-paradox-which-has-remained-unresolved
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5341607/
- https://www.deccanherald.com/india/india-records-close-45-lakh-crimes-against-women-in-2023-ncrb-report-3748058
- https://sprf.in/crimes-against-women-in-india-trends-challenges-and-policy-responses/
- https://iasscore.in/current-affairs/indias-gender-parity-paradox
- https://portfolio.cept.ac.in/archive/gender-and-use-of-public-spaces/
- https://thinkmatter.in/2014/09/14/why-loiter/
Leave a Reply