Whoever said matriliny equals women’s empowerment has strayed from the truth. The bitter truth is that women in Meghalaya’s matrilineal society have been shown their places by citing tradition. Indeed, tradition is the subterfuge to keep women within the confined spaces that society decides. And universally society follows a gender construct outlined by its male members. This gender construct that women are only fit for so much and not more is something that societies across the world have internalised for hundreds of years until the Feminist movement came along followed by a more nuanced understanding that gender is a social construct and therefore the norms it defines and sets can be broken because those norms keep women in eternal bondage in the name of tradition.
The Rajiv Gandhi led Congress Government did great disservice to the nation when it exempted Meghalaya, Nagaland and Mizoram from the ambit of the 73 & 74th Amendment Acts which gave birth to the Panchayati Raj institutions in the rural areas and the elected urban local bodies in the urban areas. The Government’s contention then was that the above three tribal states already have functioning traditional institutions which are democratic by nature. The short-sightedness of those heading the Ministry of Panchayati Raj at the time has kept tribal women out of grassroots governance. The Government then never did its homework and did not understand that tradition is what holds women under societal siege. This was amply demonstrated when women in Nagaland wanted to contest elections to the urban local bodies in 2017, there was so much violence that most of them were forced to withdraw from the race.
In Meghalaya the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC) has been asked by the High Court why women are not allowed to participate in the running of traditional institutions or to contest for the post of the headman. The KHADC in its response has said that a referendum would be held to ascertain if women wanted to be involved in running traditional institutions. This is problematic on several counts. Women in every society internalise the gender norms handed down to them. Hence women themselves are conditioned to think that the Headman’s post is beyond their ken and that men are naturally cut out for that job. This is patriarchy speaking and was evident from the responses that women themselves gave to this newspaper when asked if they were keen to contest for the post of the headman. This mental, psychological and sociological conditioning that women are not equal to men in leadership roles can only be unlearned through gender awareness campaigns. Otherwise, women can themselves be their own worst enemies and will continue to be subservient to men because tradition says so. If women can hold ministerial positions in the state cabinet why can they not head a small village? This question demands answers.
