Greatly Changed Status For Indian Women

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31236, 7 December 1966, Page 2

Greatly Changed Status For Indian Women

"The Press" Special Service

AUGKLAND.

The belief that women in India are downtrodden and their only domain is the home, is a story of the past. This is home out by Dr. Leela Ponnapa who, with her husband Dr. K. A. Ponnapa, has recently joined the staff at Tokanui Hospital, near Te Awamutu.

Opportunities were open to women in India in every field and there were many teachers, doctors, lawyers, members of Parliament and even a few engineers among them, said Dr. Ponnapa.

The women, who tend to be gentle and timid by nature, enjoy a status in public life vastly different from earlier generations—thanks to Mahatma Gandhi, who fought tooth and nail for the rights of women.

Though many things have changed for women in India the custom of arranged marriages still persists but in a slightly different form. The parents of the boy usually choose a bride and negotiate through her family. Nowadays, after agreement to a proposed marriage, the parents allow the couple to meet over a period of time and wait for their approval after which the engagement finally takes place. Few Divorces

This present system is an improvement as formerly the bride and groom met on their wedding night for the first time. Dr. Ponnapa says that, even though divorces can be obtained, the system works very well and there is a very low divorce rate.

“When two people start life together there are bound to be emotional difficulties as

they adjust to each other,” she said. “In India, when such a situation arises, the parents will always stand by and give guidance and counsel and see that the marriage does not founder."

Dr. Ponnapa considers another reason for so many successful marriages in India is that, perhaps, the women are more submissive and tolerant of the shortcomings of their men. She says that marriages must still be made between members of the same community within the same caste but thinks that, just as so many other things have changed, so will this attitude toward inter-caste marriages. Dr. Ponnapa has been impressed to see what is being done in New Zealand for the under-privileged and realised how much easier it is to manage with our small population compared with India’s 500 million.

Although India’s present economic situation is a grim battle for the Government she feels the situation is unavoid-

able and the achievements since 1947 represent enormous progress for an economy that had to start with hardly any funds. Population Growth If India could control the population growth, Dr. Ponnapa said, conditions could be vastly improved. The everincreasing birth-rate keeps all Government planning behind schedule and makes the country unstable. In spite of the millions of rupees spent by the Government on family planning schemes, there have been no satisfactory results. As in many countries, it is those who can afford to have bigger families who take the initiative and restrict them. Those in poverty seem totally unable to accept the contraceptive measures the Government has tried to educate them to use.

Many of these women are pregnant almost continuously

and know the hardships they face. Dr. Ponnapa considers more research will be necessary to produce some radical form of contraception acceptable to the masses. Before coming to New Zea-

land, Dr. Leela, as she is known at the hospital, and her husband, had charge of a 60-bed hospital run by a British and Scottish tea-planting firm for their workers and their families. An advertisement in the British Medical Journal attracted them to New Zealand because it coupled an interest in psychiatry with the opportunity to travel while their two children were at an age where it was not going to interrupt their schooling. Since arriving, her four-year-old daughter, Mythila, has started at kindergarten and her son, Sanjay, is looking forward to his third birthday.