Let us simplify the ‘Timeline of Indian History’. This is a journey of the history of one of the greatest civilizations that the Indian Subcontinent has been. The Indian history timeline is the easiest way to understand the history of an ancient civilization with huge diversity.
This timeline covers all the major events and aspects of history that defines the Indian Subcontinent today. Furthermore, this is not only the history of India but also the timeline of the history of Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Indian History Timeline Chart
Bhimbetka Rock Shelters (30000-7000 BC)
The earliest records of the Indian subcontinent history exist in the form of the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka. It’s an archaeological site in central India that spans the prehistoric paleolithic and mesolithic periods, as well as the historic period.
It shows the earliest traces of human life on the Indian subcontinent and evidence of Stone Age starting at the site.
Some of the Bhimbetka rock shelters feature prehistoric cave paintings and the earliest are about 30,000 years old.
These shelters are situated on the southern edge of the central Indian plateau, in the foothills of the Vindhyan Mountains.
There are five groups of rock shelters, each of them decorated with paintings that are believed to date from the Mesolithic Period right through to the historical period.
The Bhimbetka site has the oldest known rock art in the Indian subcontinent, as well as is one of the largest prehistoric complexes.
Mehrgarh Culture (7000 BC to 3300 BC)
Mehrgarh is one of the most significant sites belonging to the Neolithic Age. At the same time, it is one of the oldest sites that indicate the introduction of the concept of farming and herding.
Mehrgarh, sometimes also anglicized as Mehergarh or Mehrgar, is located near the Bolan Pass on the Kacchi Plain of Balochistan, Pakistan, to the west of the Indus River valley
The site of Mehrgarh, spread over an area of 495-acre, was discovered in the year 1974.
Indus Valley Civilization (3300 BC to 1700 BC)
The Indus Valley Civilization was discovered in the 1920s. This is one of the most significant periods in the history of India. Indus Valley Civilization is divided into 6 significant phases.
Early Harappan Phase (3300 BC to 2600 BC)
The early Harappan Phase lasted for approximately 700 years, starting with the Ravi Phase.
It is one of the three earliest urban civilizations and made use of an early form of the Indus script, known as Harappan script, for writing purposes.
Around 2800 BC, the Kot Diji phase of the Indus Valley Civilization started.
Mature Harappan Phase (2600 BC to 1700 BC)
The Mature Harappan Phase started around 2600 BC. Large cities and urban areas started emerging and the civilization expanded to over 2,500 cities and settlements.
Urban planning, excellent sewage and drainage system, system of uniform weights and measures, knowledge of proto-dentistry, etc are some of the other elements that characterize the mature phase.
Late Harappan Phase (1700 BC to 1300 BC)
The Late Harappan Phase began around 1700 BC and came to an end around 1300 BC. However, one can find many elements of the Indus Valley Civilization in later cultures.
Vedic Period/Age (1700 BC to 500 BC)
The Vedic Period or the Vedic Age refers to the time of the compilation of the sacred Vedic Sanskrit texts in India.
Situated on the Indo-Gangetic Plain, the Vedic Civilization formed the basis of Hinduism and the Indian culture. The Vedic Period can be divided into the following two phases:
Early Vedic/Rig Vedic Period (1700 BC to 1000 BC)
Early Vedic Period represents the time period when the oldest of all Vedas, Rig Veda was compiled.
During this period, the king was believed to be the protector of the people, who took an active part in the government.
The caste system started becoming rigid and the families started becoming patriarchal. The major events of this time are:
- 1700 BC – Late Harappan and Early Vedic period coincide
- 1300 BC – The end of Cemetery H culture
- 1000 BC – Iron Age of India
Later Vedic Age (1000 BC to 500 BC)
The emergence of the later Vedic period was marked with agriculture becoming the dominant economic activity and a decline in the significance of cattle rearing.
The political organization changed completely, with the reduction in the involvement of people in the administration. The major events are:
- 600 BC – The formation of Sixteen Maha Janapadas (Great Kingdoms)
- 599 BC – The birth of Mahavira, founder of Jainism
- 563 BC – The birth of Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha), founder of Buddhism
- 538 BC – Cyrus the Great conquered parts of Pakistan
- 500 BC – Earliest written records in Brahmi
- 500 BC – Panini standardized grammar and morphology of Sanskrit, converting it
- into Classical Sanskrit. With this, the Vedic Civilization came to an end.
Ancient India (500 BCE – 550 AD)
Rise of Jainism and Buddhism
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The emergence of Buddhism in India -
Buddhism
Jainism or Jain Dharma is the religious philosophy that originated in the Ancient India. The religion is based on the teachings of the Tirthankaras.
The 24th Tirthankara, Lord Mahavira, is credited with propagating the religion in the various parts of the world. Buddhism is based on the teachings of Lord Buddha, who was born as Prince Siddhartha Gautama.
After attaining Enlightenment, Lord Buddha set on a task of teaching others how to achieve nirvana. His teachings were later propagated throughout the world by Emperor Asoka.
The other major events of the Ancient Indian period are:
- 333 BC – Darius III was defeated by Alexander the Great. The Macedonian Empire was established
- 326 BC – Ambhi, King of Taxila surrendered to Alexander, Battle of the Hydaspes River
- 321 BC – Chandra Gupta Maurya established the Maurya Empire
- 273 BC – Emperor Ashoka took over the Maurya Empire
- 266 BC – Ashoka conquered most of South Asia, Afghanistan and Iran
- 265 BC – The battle of Kalinga, after which Emperor Ashoka embraced Buddhism
- 232 BC: Ashoka died and was succeeded by Dasaratha
- 230 BC – Satavahana Empire was established
- 200 to 100 BC – Tholkappiyam standardized grammar and morphology of Tamil
- 184 BC – Collapse of Maurya Empire with the assassination of Emperor Brihadrata, Establishment of the Sunga dynasty
- 180 BC – Establishment of the Indo-Greek kingdom
- 80 BC – Establishment of the Indo-Scythian kingdom
- 10 BC – Establishment of the Indo-Parthian kingdom
- 68 AD – Establishment of the Kushan Empire by Kujula Kadphises
- 78 AD – Gautamiputra Satkarni took over Satavahana Empire and defeated Scythian king Vikramaditya
- 240 AD – Establishment of the Gupta Empire by Sri-Gupta
- 320 AD – Chandragupta I took over the Gupta Empire
- 335 AD – Samudragupta took over the Gupta Empire and started expanding it
- 350 AD – Establishment of the Pallava Empire
- 380 AD – Chandragupta II took over the Gupta Empire
- 399 to 414 AD – Chinese scholar Fa-Hien traveled to India
Medieval Period (550 AD to 1526 AD)
The medieval period can be divided into the following two phases:
Early Medieval Period (Upto 1300 AD)
- 606 AD – Harshavardhana became the King
- 630 AD – Hiuen Tsiang traveled to India
- 761 AD – First Muslim invasion by Mohammed Bin Qasim
- 800 AD – The birth of Shankaracharya
- 814 AD – Nripatunga Amoghavarsha I became Rashtrakuta king
- 1000 AD – Invasion by Mahmud of Ghazni
- 1017AD – Alberuni traveled to India
- 1100s AD – Rule of the Chandelas, Cholas, Kadambas, and Rashrakutas
- 1120 AD – Kalyani Chalukya Empire attained peak, Vikramaditya VI introduced Vikrama Chalukya Era
- 1191 AD – First battle of Tarain between Mohammed Ghori & Prithivi Raj Chauhan III
- 1192 AD – Second battle of Tarain between Ghauri and Prithivi Raj Chauhan III
- 1194 AD – Battle of Chandawar between Ghauri and Jayachandra
- 1288 AD – Marco Polo came to India
Late Medieval Period (1300 AD to 1500 AD)
- 1300 AD – Establishment of the Khilji Dynasty
- 1336 to 1565 AD – Vijayanagar Empire
- 1498 AD – First voyage of Vasco-da-Gama to Goa
Post-Medieval Era (1526 AD to 1818 AD)
The major events in the post medieval era are:
- 1526 AD – Babur, the Mughal ruler of Kabul, invaded Delhi and Agra and killed Sultan Ibrahim Lodi
- 1527 AD – Battle of Khanwa, in which Babur annexed Mewar
- 1530 AD – Babur died and was succeeded Humayun
- 1556 AD – Humayun died and was succeeded by his son Akbar
- 1600 AD – East India company was formed in England
- 1605 AD – Akbar died and was succeeded by Jehangir
- 1628 AD – Jehangir died and was succeeded by Shah Jahan
- 1630 AD – Shivaji was born
- 1658 AD – Shah Jahan built Taj Mahal, Jamia Masjid and Red Fort.
- 1659 AD – Shivaji defeated Adilshahi troops at the Battle of Pratapgarh
- 1674 AD – Maratha Empire was established
- 1680 AD – Shivaji died
- 1707 AD – Aurangzeb died and was succeeded by Bahadur Shah I
- 1707 AD – Maratha Empire broke into two divisions
- 1734 AD – Pamheiba invaded Tripura
- 1737 AD – Bajirao I conquered Delhi
- 1740 AD – Bajirao I died and was succeeded by Balaji Bajirao
- 1757 AD – Battle of Plassey was fought
- 1761 AD – Third battle of Panipat ended the expansion of Maratha Empire
- 1766 AD – First Anglo-Mysore War
- 1777 AD – First Anglo-Maratha War
- 1779 AD – Battle of Wadgaon
- 1780 AD – Second Anglo-Mysore War
- 1789 AD – Third Anglo-Mysore War
- 1798 AD – Fourth Anglo-Mysore War
- 1799 AD – Tipu Sultan died, Wodeyar dynasty was restored
- 1803 AD – Second Anglo-Maratha War
- 1817 AD – Third Anglo-Maratha War begins
- 1818 AD – End of the Maratha Empire and British control over most of India
Colonial Era (1818 AD to 1947 AD)
The Colonial Era started with the British taking control over almost all the parts of India and ended with the freedom of India in 1947.
The major events that took place during the Colonial Era are:
- 1829 AD – Prohibition of Sati
- 1857 AD – First Indian war of Independence, known as Indian Mutiny
- 1885 AD – Indian National Congress was formed
- 1930 AD – Dandi Salt March, Simon Commission, First Round Table Conference
- 1915 AD – Home Rule League was founded by Annie Besant
- 1919 AD – Massacre at Jallianwalabagh
- 1931 AD – Bhagat Singh was hanged by the British, Second Round Table Conference, Gandhi-Irvin Pact
- 1919 AD – Khilafat Movement, Jalianwala Bagh Massacre, Rowlat Act
- 1937 AD – Congress won power in many states, World War II broke out
- 1921 AD – Civil Disobedience Movement
- 1928 AD – Murder of Lala Lajpat Rai
- 1942 AD – Quit India Movement, Rise of Subhash Chandra Bose
- 1922 AD – Quit India Movement suspended after the Chauri-Chura violence
- 1946 AD – Muslim League adamant about the formation of Pakistan
- 1947 AD – India gained independence and witnessed partition
Independent and Modern India (1947 onwards)
In 1947, India became independent and from that year onwards, started India’s struggle to become one of the leading nations of the world.
Today, the country is regarded as one of the fastest-growing major economies of the world.
Recent Posts
Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.
On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]No need to remember all the data, only pick out few important ones to use in your answers.
The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.