New manifesto shared by women's groups in Assam is significant. Political assertion through women's collective efforts needs to be incorporated across diverse leadership agendas of social, cultural and political leadership in Assam. When women are discussed as sex objects on stage, pitied as battered persons in news, projected as mere cultural symbols of tradition and heritage during events and defeated as useless leaders in crucial decision making institutions and organisations, women need to assert their presence, participation and perspectives. Sometimes one realises when March 8 is celebrated across the world to endorse vaginal solidarity. With the pandemic times, such solidarity enabled, strengthened, positioned and transformed many disgruntled situations. This year's theme #choosetochallenge provide huge scope to restructure, restore and rejuvenate pluriversal struggles to survive and sustain together. Fostering leadership across gender diverse identities is another #choosetochallenge the heteronormativity within genders. We feel that we have to challenge the norms which stifle. We have ageist norms, able bodied norms, productive male norms, married motherhood norms, caste, tribe, religion and education specific society driven intimate alliance norms, customary norms which may bring out the worst in human beings. Body shaming is something which every woman, queer and man face whenever they deviate from the norms. Being agender is becoming a priority these days.
When it comes to leadership during a crisis anybody with a vagina are not considered at all. During Covid19 pandemic also women particularly held the fort from the kitchen to the ICUs. Within homes also women's emancipation was limited with additional drudgery of the household and free care for the young and the old. Women struggled between online modes, keeping jobs, working from and at home shuttling between multiple roles. Mobility of women got restricted, migrant workers who happened to be women started begging on the streets. Elderly farmer women joined the farmer protests to be able to break away from multiple pressures of agrarian market pressures and new economic reforms. Women on the streets of protests upholding constitutional values challenged the cleavages of systemic and structural exploitation.
Does women choose to challenge against the body shaming she faces everyday? Does queer women choose to challenge the hate crimes they bear everyday? Does transgender persons choose to challenge the public ridicule they withstand while working for their livelihoods? Do the young married women choose to challenge the marital rape they have to deal with in the name of binding or enlarging the family? Does the women homemakers choose to challenge their inability to find financial freedom and own inheritance and family property? Do mothers at any age choose to challenge the gender stereotyped motherhood roles? Does the underpaid female domestic worker choose to challenge the lack of social security in her job? Does the cis female sex worker choose to challenge the client for not following health specific safety measures? Does the female head of an institution choose to challenge the angularity of subordinate colleagues? Does women in leadership positions choose to challenge the misogyny and gender bias which exists in every layer of workplaces, public spaces and political spaces? Are women sold out to vote banks, pre-election gimmicks, jewellery, clothes, scooty rides, peanut cash transfers or are they using their agency to choose to challenge all glass boundaries restricting her in all walks of life? I guess women's agency within every sector are unmuting the realities beyond staged projections.
25 Nov 2016 - 8:30pm | CM Paul
A major study on displacement of peoples in Sikkim was released at a 3-day International Seminar on “North East: Peoples, Power and Perspectives” held at Sikkim Central University, Tadong.At the...
18 Oct 2020 - 4:11pm | AT News
AIAZWL: Thousands of people from Assam feel it quite unsafe to stay in Mizoram following Saturday's border skirmish where 3 people from the state sustained in an incident of attack by miscreants at...
5 Sep 2020 - 8:49pm | AT News
Guwahati: AGP leader and former CM Prafulla Kumar Mahanta is undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Guwahati. Mahanta, the 2 term Chief Minister was admitted in the hospital following his...
28 Jul 2015 - 10:23am | AT News
Chief minister Tarun Gogoi said that Dr APJ Abdul Kalam will be remembered for his outstanding contribution to the advancement of science and technology.Paying his last respect to the lifeless Kalam...
On a Saturday afternoon I rushed to watch a much-awaited film called Emuthi Puthi in Guwahati. The best part was that it was running in the nearest movie theatre for a reasonable price of Rs. 100. I had already met the whole team of actors and directors at Tezpur University council hall when they came for their promotions. The film had hilarious moments of fun and entertainment throughout. It was a journey of salvation through fish for one generation, while it was a way of getting out of the country to fetch an American dream for another generation. Women are the protagonists whose trials and tribulations compel them to move into this journey of life and death. The travels around the...
Elections have become the T-20 matches these days. Everyone is busy with balancing equations with religious, class, regional, ethnic, traditional lineages. Today our household voting practice started with the staff seeking leave from work to vote for the 1st time in life. One is 18 and the other 22. Rushing home to cast their 1st votes. One friend went to his hometown in the 1st phase of voting. His ailing mother, caregiver wife and young daughters could not vote. Only one vote was registered. Another neighbour went home in Darrang to cast her vote. Voter information is defined by the symbols that they would cast their vote on. Whom to vote is a big question for Assam assembly elections....
We have been residents of Guwahati a city in the making. Its a city of rivers, drains and hilly streams all woven together in a fascinating ecology of hill and valley. Our locality receives annual flash floods during the monsoon months of May till September and remains dry during the other months of the year. We live with respected elite citizens with academic, business, bureaucratic, political, social and cultural affiliations. Our house happens to be a centre of many things like trees, flowers, birds, cats, snails, earthworms, vegetables, grasses of diverse varieties and also water supply lines, floods and three electricity lines which connects the neighbours electricity supply too. We...
Age is celebrated in Assam. People live their life fully through their ageism. Patriarchal ageism goes beyond gender. Any gender might practice ageism. People like to be ageing genders. Owning, patronising, controlling, oppressing and bullying are some of the consequences of ageism. If you are adulting, ageing and male you can earn maximum previlege as an ageist. Some of the classic ageist remarks,"Bura baapekor uporot kotha nokobi." 'Do not talk on top of an old father.' "Ami bohut thair pani khaisu nohoi amatke besi jano niki?" 'We have drunk water from many places, do you know more than us?' "Ajikalir deka tezor bor dom ami nu kun kuta." 'Nowadays young blood has too much power we are...
Covid 19 pandemic has opened up many truths around us. One such truth about our city is the growth of vendors and hawkers who visit our homes, byelanes or localities even during covid times. Only voices sometimes one could hear during home quarentine and lockdown periods were that of vegetable, fish, chicken vendors. Earlier we used to hear 'Dorupay wala' vendors from Bihar and UP with all kinds of utility products in dirt cheap prices and mekhela sador selling vendors during the flood season mostly from flood affected districts of Dhemaji and Lakhimpur. But these days we hear about spice sale, food item sale, delivery staff from various companies like swiggy, zomato and all food joints...
Journey of women through the heart of Assam across the banks of Brahmaputra is indeed an interesting one. It is a journey of knowing the length and breadth of the nooks and corners of the country at one go. Baatein Aman Ki or Peace Conversations is such a process which engages people, institutions and organisations to explore ways of understanding each other. It involves communities, people, women, activists, academicians and students to uphold the values of peace, co existence, harmony and democracy. This journey begins on Sept 22 and extends till October 13. It will be starting from Jorhat then go to Kaziranga, Tezpur, Nagaon, Guwahati, Bongaigaon, Gossaigaon and Kokrajhar before moving...
I am 71 years old now since I felt free from being a colony. I have travelled through waves of troubled existence and silent deaths in the last 71 years. Today at the threshold of being free and fair I have many thoughtful reflections. Do I celebrate the freedom of 71 long years or do I believe in the mirage of being free? I am a country with millions to be precise more than a billion odd persons in diverse contexts. My progress lies with the progress of these people and all others around me. My ecological existence is getting very diverse with changing moments in the history, politics and social relationships around my borders. I have survived a million mutinies which are both violent and...
Last month I travelled to Wakru in Arunachal Pradesh through Tinsukia district of Assam with a bunch of young professors. It was a self-driven ride of about 4 hours from Dibrugarh the second city in Assam. The journey was fascinating as my friends stopped at various points on the way spotting orchids, big trees, abandoned shrines and beautiful rivers. Suddenly my friend would look away from the steering wheel and say, “Look look, look at the pride of those orchids hiding behind the tree branches.” Orchids of different varieties bloom along the roadside in Arunachal Pradesh. There are yellow orchids, white and purple ones called ‘Kopou’ in Assam. There were trees along the highway which had...
My wilderness treks have taken me into some of the most memorable forests in India and abroad. Whether it was the sacred grooves of Mawphlang or the Rhododendron forests of North Sikkim, wild treks through community forests in Nagaland or elephant rides through the rhino, elephant and tiger parks in Assam. I was fascinated by the wilderness of Pench wildlife sanctuary in the border of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, Bharatpur and Sariska in Rajasthan and Bandipur in Karnataka. I was lucky to explore the teak forests in Narmada valley in Madhya Pradesh, hornbill habitats in Sejusa in Arunachal Pradesh, thick forests in Ranikhet, Nainital, Dehradun and Mussouri during the 90s and early 2000s...
In a recent incident of writing my name, a receptionist at the hospital asked for my name in full. After haggling with the convoluted spelling of my name, she reconfirmed Miss or Mrs? I said just write ‘Ms’. She seemed very confused. Her male colleague beside her smirked with a side glance while changing the spelling of my name on the file he was preparing. All other people in the queue who were male looked at me and the receptionist with many questions in their minds. I clarified to the receptionist who seemed like a newly trained hospital staff, about the ‘Ms’ part. Since marital status is not revealed in Mr, why should women reveal their marital status through Miss or Mrs. Then she said...
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