An excerpt from the 2008 peace proposal submitted by Dr Daisaku Ikeda, President of SGI to the UN ( ) titled “Humanizing Religion , Creating Peace” says  : “Today ,more than one billion people are denied the right to safe water , and 2.6 billion do not have access to adequate sanitation. As a result, nearly 1.8 million children die every year from diarrhea and other diseases. Moreover the burden of collecting water falls unevenly on the millions of women and girls charged with doing this for their families everyday. This in turn reinforces gender inequalities in employment and education. Chronic ill health due to the lack of safe water and sanitation undermines productivity and economic growth , deepening global inequalities , and trapping vulnerable people in cycles of poverty….”.
Gender inequality has been one of the most serious concern today . We try to address this through various means like women reservation , relaxed criteria for women , various other commissions and acts targeting women welfare and so on but the problem of gender inequality still prevails . Basic reason is that this ills now lie in our genes and has become a genetic disorder of our society over past so many centuries without having any antibiotic cure. This goes beyond just the female feticides or the atrocities on women we read in the newspapers daily.

Going back to the issue of mostly women having the burden of carrying water in cans , haven’t we men designed the kalas that the women use to carry water and haven’t we dramatized this in movies as women carrying water in kalas .There is a saying in rural Bengal ( may be used in other states as well) that carrying water regularly in kalas help women to maintain a good waistline ! Don’t we present Barbie dalls and kitchen sets to baby girls? Why can’t they grow up with footballs or toy pistols? Is not it a process of conditioning the girl children to grow up with a certain pattern of thoughts that we men are most comfortable with . In southern part of the country I find many communities throw party when the girl children attain puberty or when they pierce the ears. I find it utterly-utterly disgusting. Why can’t we allow the girl children to grow naturally instead of reminding them at every stage that they are different from boys.

When it comes to sex , a study reveals that more than 50 per cent of the time women do not experience orgasm and many of them have not even experienced this at all . Is it because it is a privilege for the men only? I call it a charity sex .Men can easily say “I am tired today” seldom giving the same right to the other partner. No wonder , we needed to bring an act that sex without consent even between a married couple is rape .There are many such instances today in courts of law. Very intelligently we created five Shatis namely Draupadi, Kunti, Tara ,Ahalya and Mandodari and glorified what they went through . Take the example of Daraupadi . Wasn’t she a victim of gangrape ? Kunti was forced to sleep with other men by her own in laws in the name of maintaining the lineage ! Ahalya was a victim of men’s (read God in this case) cardinal desire. Mandodari was forced to remain loyal even though her husband was committing sins. We call them Sati and chant their names in many shlokas and thus create a process to glorify such acts generations after generations. After all there was no system of blogging that time or there was no electronic media. Only option was to connect such acts to religious practices and slokas so that they spread around and become a part of our belief just like Colgate toothpaste or Surf excel. How else can we anyway glorify Burqa?

Why is there so much fuss about what Sania is wearing or about Mallika Sherawat or Bipasha Basu when the likes of Agassi or Salman Khans get away ?

We cannot blame our genes. We are genetically conditioned now, not just the men alone but the women too most sadly. And we carry on the legacy i.e; it is the women who need to carry the virtue. Recently I found one of my woman colleagues badly suffering from cold and fever and it aggravated so much that she had to go on a short leave. Later I found it all started with her “Varalakshmi Brata” when women take early morning oil bath for a few days along with other austerities for long life of their husbands similar to women celebrating Shivaratri or Karvachauth. I happened to stop my wife doing the Shivaratri, fasting the whole day for my extra days of life. I told her rather than doing Shivaratri , if you tolerate my golf and beer , I would be living those extra days more ! I think men get away very easily merely by buying a gift or presenting flowers!

Since time immemorial religion has been the preserve of men, and has been beautifully maneuvered to justify all manly fatwas. Why is it then only women have to be the sole custodian of virtues?