Reform NCW

by Manish Anand

National Commission for Women is a bewildering organisation. It baffles all interested in its work. At best it remains an organisation to make statements when an incident takes place and let people past their prime to make speeches, declaring themselves the best champion of women’s cause.


How badly it suffers from poverty of ideas could be gauged by putting its chairperson under a scanner. “We are ever thankful to the media as most of our jobs are done by them, Mrs Vyas remarked recently. She was attributing to the seriousness in taking up issues concerning women by the media.


Supposed to give instructions to BPO industry over women workers’ security, NCW could only repeat what the BPO association had themselves agreed to like police verification of cab drivers, radio tracking of cabs among other things. Nothing to contribute, but to enjoy the goodies that come at being in NCW! 


In October, NCW had compiled in association with NGOs and independent lawyers a comprehensive bill to amend laws concerning sexual assaults on women, but it remains in cold storage till date. Worse while presenting the bill to the Union home minister Shivraj Patil, Mrs Vyas had expressed much hope that Patil (calling him his elder brother) would be able to get the bill passed in the winter session.


But the minister found many of the suggestions tough to implement and in the fashion of ‘you propose and i dispose’, he washed his hands off the bill.


The utter incompetency of NCW breeds from the very unprofessional approach of the government. The post of chairperson has turned out to be that of rehabilitating politicians who do not fit into other scheme of the party. How do women expect themselves to be represented by someone like Girija Vyas who at best is a puppet.


And puppets do not stand for any cause!


If the National Human Rights Commission could be headed by the retired chief justice of the Supreme Court, why not National Commission for Women. At the same time, this body should not be into the hands of those who play the game for the cunning NGOs who have mushroomed for making fast bucks.


Till date there remains nothing substantial that NCW has made to the cause of women in India. And it would remain so if it’s into the hands of politicians. Politicians are the biggest enemy of any change that society demands. The fate of women’s reservation in parliament symbolises their intent best.