Goa points the way for women

“After you have spent some time in relatively conservative northern India, the state of Goa can give the impression of a feminist paradise — especially this year, when women have been unusually successful in running for key posts in the powerful local village councils, ” Nilanjana S. Roy wrote for The International Herald Tribune. The “state’s village councils are active and engaged, and to have so many female ‘sarpanches,’ or council heads, elected in one year is, to many, a very encouraging sign,” Ms. Roy wrote. In some areas, like the popular resort towns of Calangute and Candolim, “women have become council heads this year through the application of affirmative action policies,” she wrote. “But in Salcete, 42 percent of the successful candidates were women — including many who won their seats in general wards, not just in constituencies reserved for women.” Traveling around Goa, especially in the inland villages away from the more well-visited areas, the contrast between the lives of women in rural northern India and here is stark. Except for a few high-crime areas, most women here can expect a much higher level of personal safety than women in Haryana or Uttar Pradesh, two of the north’s largest states. That sense of security is evident in the number of women on the roads and other public spaces in Goa, even after dark — and in the freedom with which they live and work. Women have significantly greater land rights in Goa, thanks to the Common Civil Code dating back to the days of Portuguese colonial rule. Under the code, elements of which survived the Indian annexation of Goa in 1961, women are entitled to a share in both parental and marital property.