TOW 29: The World Before Her

Claim: Women in the "new India" are better off than women in the "old India."



The World Before Her by Nisha Pahuja shows a very compelling story of a nation held in a cultural struggle between its traditions and roots and its new age of communication and globalization. This dramatic change affects all Indians, although especially the lives of Indian women. Although it is clear that the modern Indian woman, as represented by the Miss India contestants in the film, feel less constricted in what they dare to dream for their future and are more optimistic than fundamentalist Prisha, there is still a great struggle before women in either spheres can truly call themselves equal to men.

From the beginning, baby boys seem to be preferred over baby girls in India, a sentiment that almost all the women interviewed in the film confirmed. This is because when a woman got married, her family used to have to provide a sizable dowry to her husband's family. Furthermore, women usually moved away with their husbands and could not take care of their parents as easily. This is a problem that affects women all across the country, and not just in the more rural villages where traditionalism is high. In fact, there have been reports of baby girls found in trashcans in even the larger cities of India, showing that this is a problem that affects even the "modern" side of India as well, according to The Atlantic. This preference of baby boys has led to India's skewed sex ratio, where there are about 30 million more men than women currently. Clearly, this is still an issue that really affects the whole nation as a whole and is not just limited to some villages across the country.

Although women in the cities can generally find better opportunities than women in the countryside, violence against women still exists in both areas. In particular, reports of rape have raised human rights concerns internationally. In 2012, a young woman and her male friend in New Delhi were aboard a bus. She was then gang-raped and beaten severely with a metal rod. This tragic incident raised great concerns across the country, as people in New Delhi protested for days for better laws to protect women from rape. There have been rape cases in smaller villages across the country as well. This year, two teenage girls were raped in a village in northern India. It is said that authorities were notified but did not respond immediately. Although cases of rape in smaller villages may be reported less often or not get as much attention, it is clear that the country is still striving to deal with this heinous crime that affects the cities of modern India just as often.

It is true that a shift towards modernization has allowed more women to break free from the social constraints that they were bound to traditionally. However, many issues dealing with women and how they are treated are still a major problem even in the "westernized" cities across the country.