Reservations : A rise to dependency?

As soon as females begin to be your equals, they will have to become your superiors. This fear of subservience materialized in every other man during the 1800s so much that they ended up excluding the exclusive right to elective franchise to women. It was then the term feminism first realized and yet has its field covered throughout.

Feminism

An expression that has been consistently putting forward its views against misogyny and has been striving for equality since decades. Equality is the most evolved concept in this subject; it has been progressing its ways from voting rights to the rights against body shaming, the equivalent partition of property rights to the proper amount of compensation privileges to rape victims, and so on. This subject has enlightened through bare foot candlelight marches to online hashtag tweets with the sole purpose of being heard.  Despite all these movements and voices, the condition hasn’t altered. According to a report of the world population review, it is estimated that nearly 35% of the women have experienced some form of sexual harassment in their lifetime.

In addition, pursuant to a report of 2018, Nepal police dealt with 768 rape cases in five fiscal months, which leads down to 5 rape cases daily. These reports are frustrating as it appears as if the evolution of first-wave feminism to the fourth one has driven down to nothing but humiliation and criticism. But who do we blame for this? The activists who have been striving their ways get women to fight for their moralities or the state who has been assisting the activists by formulating privileged rights for women. I believe we have to blame the emerged concept of both the parties concerning feminism that has been struck down in their heads since eras.

The reservations were first announced in the colonial policies in the 19^th century, and since then, such raw intentions paved its way in many countries’ legislation in a much-improvised manner. Following the trend, Nepal, too, headed for these guidelines through the introduction of the so-called most-appreciated constitution of the year 1990. And since then, the circumstances have intensively aggravated as such privileges never taught women to fight but instead generalized the concept of them being inferiors. Maybe this is the reason why women still hesitate to immediately defend themselves during sexual assaults as the feeling of being considered a minority is deep down within them and, more importantly, are even getting braced by the state itself via the introduction of the so-called advantaged laws.

These schedules made those innocents believe that no matter what, they will get to a post that they might not even deserve, and due to this reasoning, women never learned to fight and therefore, will not also if such provisions continue to exist. Somehow this is the reason why women are never appreciated for their hard work as people deep down assume that their success has been achieved just because of the existence of various quotas. Such non-deserving facilities have only proven to be a consolation factor for men where they end up building their self-esteem by considering themselves superior as they always did for years. This notion was to be abolished through feminism, but I sadly stand by this fact that such articles, in contrast, ended up promoting pre-eminence of men over women.

Many Feminist marches hold a conjoint slogan. It says, “women need to fight.” Standing beside my perception, I certainly accept that for them to combat, we first need to set them free. Setting them free relies on the grounds of letting them being on their own without any backups. The term affirmative actions were first grasped with the motive of giving respect to the underprivileged ones and that the concept of allowances first emerged as a pang of guilt to their previous discriminatory actions. However since such privileges haven’t turned fruitful enough, it’s high time we comprehend that these conveniences are just a massive barrier to what women can turn into. Therefore this holds the immediate requirement of amendment of Article 107 of the Motor Vehicles and Transport Management Act of Nepal that provides reservations of 2 seats for women in public vehicles. Cancellation of such facilities might result in the increment of harassment in cars or so at first but would eventually make women more resilient and keener in the long run. Moreover, the amendments of the numerous policies mentioned in Part 6, 7, and 8 of the constitution of Nepal 2015 is a must as its high time women realize that such positions are to be earned with hard work and dedication and that it just couldn’t be granted to them.

People say hindrance builds up a dark path. Annulling these articles might turn hazardous at first, but in the upper hand will also promote what feminists have been craving for for a very long time, and that is equality. These movements will even for sure, frame up an innovative concept of justice, enhancing the accurate idea of Article 18 of the Constitution of Nepal. Hence discriminatory writings in the name of affirmative approaches are just an exemplary form of taking the full financial responsibility of a responsible and capable youth that will result in no gain ending the state’s situation to be more catastrophic and devastating.

Upholding individual responsibilities will genuinely enrich the dignity and respect that women have been craving for decades. This step will lead to a better Nepal where Nepali women need not be offended for being addressed as Nepali cheli as those terms would then be only considered as a portion of Nepali literature, a place where females would just be termed as individuals and not minorities and where women would yet fill the parliament house with their majority needless of the reservations. As a whole, it would turn Nepal to a decorous place for both men and women to live in.

By : ALANGKRITA UPADHAYAY