Why Women should care about Social Justice?

   When the beautiful, dark skinned princess of Panchala, Draupadi a.k.a Krishne was summoned to the Assembly, stating that Duryodhana have won her, with Yudhishthira being intoxicated with dice and have lost everything, Draupadi without panic, brilliantly questions the messenger, ‘Whom he has lost first, himself or me’?.

    It’s a question very similar to Quo Warranto we have in law, to question a person’s authority to exercise a power. With such an intellectual mind and belonging to the highest social class, I wonder how Draupadi was disgraced so badly in the Assembly of Kings and Noblemen, even after pleading that she was not dressed appropriately to come to the Assembly, as she was menstruating. How was she descended to such a situation?

    Is it because of fate or its just her husband, Yudhishthira is going through a bad phase, to make her a stake at a dice game?  If you are a person with a good conscience and is reading through the Sabha Parva of Mahabharata, you can understand the reason being the poor gender equality prevailed at that time with just two facts,

1)  Well before Draupadi, his brothers, his jewels, his elephants and other things, Yudhishthira puts up a hundred thousand of young serving girls as a stake and will lose them in the dice game. 

2) Every undignified act upon Draupadi in the Assembly was substantiated on a technical ground that she is now a serving or a slave woman who is bound to honour whatever her Master desires. 

  

   I find it beyond my reasoning ability, why did the most virtuous and celebrated men and women of the epic had not abstained from the act of gender inequality and slavery, leave alone working for emancipation of such social evils. Let’s assume what if Draupadi had voiced out to ensure a dignified life for the serving women and slaves of her time, as she had a great influence as a princess? She certainly wouldn’t have ended up with such harassment on the pretext of a slave. What if Prita a.k.a Kunti asserts Pandu to handle his own curse stuff and refuses to give him sons through other ways, against her wish? Women’s Reproductive rights would have been ensured long back.

   These are few instances picked up only for the sole reason that many are familiar with the story already and am just adding a different perspective to them so as to relate to the present day Women’s obligations towards social equality. Otherwise stories such as these are present in all religions, in all countries and at all times. About 1700 years ago in Egypt, Hypatia a renowned and highly influential female Mathematician, Philosopher and an astronomer had the courage to show her bloody menstrual rags to the man to discourage his unwelcome proposal towards her, stating that this is what he really loves. However she was later brutally murdered in a Church, alleging as a non-believer of God by a group of men under the control of the Bishop and her body was dragged and cremated outside the city, as a symbol of purifying the city.

   What transpires through these historical events are if you are a woman, your noble birth, belonging to a higher social class, individual courage, having high moral values, education or the intellectual mind is not going to secure, your dignified life. It is your concern towards the more vulnerable and oppressed section of the society and securing their rights is the key to your freedom and a better quality of life.

   To simplify the concept further, if at all we cared enough about the sexual abuses when it was happening to the women and children living in the city pavements, we wouldn’t have had the situation happening now on the premises of the gated communities. The more we ignore the social problems, the closer we are to experience it of firsthand. 

   So people, when something that happens around you badly affects your conscience, let not your social class, religious identity, political affinity or even the family roles shadow it but react to it, engage and act upon it. Why because, it is only by ensuring the existence of a proper social justice, accessible to all layers of the society, the dignity of female heirs of your family in the generations to come are going to be assured.