A Subcontinent Of Inequality

The plight of two women from completely different ends of the social spectrum tells one big story about India

- By Ruth David

It’s been a punishing year for women in India—and not only because Covid-19 has made life and work a daily crisis. The barriers remain stark in 2020: economic, cultural, legal, political, even journalistic. The summer saw some of the country’s television channels and newspapers demonizing a Bollywood actress who was accused of everything from black magic to murder after her actor boyfriend reportedly killed himself in June. When autumn arrived, media became fixated on another woman—a teenager belonging to India’s lowest caste, the Dalit community, who was allegedly gang-raped by members of a higher caste and died on Sept. 29.

The caste violence and the Bollywood scandal are at different ends of India’s social spectrum. One involved a woman oppressed by religious tradition in the depths of society; the other, a free-spirited female member of the entertainment community. Yet the fate of the unnamed 19-year-old rape victim and the plight of the 28-year-old film star, Rhea Chakraborty, paint a bleak picture of the status of women in India today. Together the two incidents reveal the way many politicians, including members of the ruling Hindunationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, and much of the country’s hyperactive social media envision a woman’s place in India— subservient to the bounds of traditional mores. If women remain second-class citizens in the world’s biggest democracy, the effects on the country’s struggling economy will be dire.