“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” Rousseau’s words, written centuries ago, continue to resonate with disturbing clarity in our modern world. They remind us that the chains which bind humanity are not always forged by law or politics; often, they are woven into customs, conventions, and practices that deny the most basic human experiences. In India, one of the most visible symbols of this denial is the veil. A piece of cloth, seemingly harmless, becomes a barrier between a woman and the world, between her body and the air, between her eyes and the colours of nature.
It is not merely fabric ~ it is a chain, a denial of liberty, and a reminder of how half of humanity has been subdued by the other half. The sight of a young girl, her frail body covered so tightly that her face is barely visible, is enough to shake the conscience of any observer. What crime has she committed to be denied the feel of fresh air on her skin, the warmth of the sun in winter, or the freedom to stretch her arms and embrace the world? She is not a criminal, nor a sinner. She is simply a child, born into a society where her gender determines her fate.
The veil becomes her introduction to a life of restrictions, where every step, every breath, and every opportunity is mediated by the guardianship of men. This guardianship is not requested by her; it is imposed upon her, justified by tradition, muscle, and the assumption that women must be protected, controlled, and contained. The denial begins at birth. In countless households, the arrival of a boy is celebrated with joy, sweets, and festivities. The arrival of a girl, however, is often met with silence, disappointment, or even sorrow. Families continue to produce children until a son is born, reducing daughters to mere stepping stones in the pursuit of a male heir.
The absence of a boy becomes a curse for the mother, a stigma she carries regardless of her own will or effort. From the very first breath, the girl is marked as lesser, as incomplete, as someone whose existence is tolerated but not celebrated. This disparity extends into every sphere of life. Nearly 40 per cent of Indian girls drop out before Class 10, with almost three million leaving school between 2019 and 2024 and dropout rates soaring above 20 per cent in states like Bihar and Assam. The path to education is littered with obstacles ~ long distances to schools, lack of toilets for menstrual hygiene, unsafe commutes, and the ever-present fear of harassment. Families, already struggling with poverty, prioritize the education of boys, while girls are pulled out to care for siblings, fetch water, or prepare meals.
The message is clear: her place is not in the classroom, but in the home. Even in nourishment, disparity persists. Girls are often fed less and given fewer opportunities for health, while boys receive larger portions and priority in care. The girl learns early that her body is secondary, her needs negotiable, her health expendable. This denial of equal upbringing is not accidental; it is systemic, rooted in the belief that boys are investments and girls are liabilities. When she grows older, the chains tighten further.
Though women form 41.7 per cent of the workforce, over 90 per cent remain in insecure informal jobs, and even in formal sectors wage disparity and the glass ceiling persist. Women may enter the workforce, but they are rarely allowed to rise to leadership. Only 17 per cent of executive positions are held by women, and their representation on company boards hovers around 20 per cent. The double burden of managing household responsibilities alongside careers forces many to withdraw or stagnate. The denial here is not of participation alone, but of recognition, reward, and respect. The veil itself becomes a symbol of this denial. Statistics reveal that 61 per cent of Indian women cover their heads in public, with prevalence highest in North India.
In Rajasthan and Bihar, nine out of ten women veil themselves. While often justified as modesty or respect, the veil in practice becomes a barrier ~ blocking vision, breath, and participation. It is not merely a cultural act; it is a restriction that limits mobility, confidence, and individuality. Campaigns like “Ghoonghat Mukt Jaipur” and grassroots movements in Haryana have begun to challenge this, urging women to lift the veil not just from their faces but from their lives. Women leaders in villages, sarpanches and activists, are setting examples by rejecting the veil in public life, showing that empowerment begins with visibility. Yet the veil is only one manifestation of a larger problem: the assumption that men are guardians and women are wards.
This assumption is not rooted in biology but in power. Women may be physically weaker, but they are also the procreators of humanity. They carry life, nurture it, and sustain it. To deny them the right to feel air on their skin, to see nature’s colours, to walk freely, is not protection ~ it is oppression. The guardianship imposed by men is not a gift; it is a theft of liberty. It reduces women to objects of gratification, vessels of reproduction, and symbols of honor, while stripping them of individuality, agency, and dignity. The tragedy of modern civilization is that despite material progress, it has failed to return freedom to women.
Rousseau’s noble savage, living in nature with freedom and equality, has been replaced by a society where laws, customs, and conventions legitimize inequality. Women are chained not by nature but by social creation. Man has chained women, and in doing so, has chained himself to a distorted civilization that denies half its population the right to live fully and this denial of freedom is not theirs alone; it diminishes all of humanity. When half the population is subdued, society loses teachers, doctors, scientists, and leaders. Generations grow weaker without equal nourishment, economies falter without fair wages, and democracies fall silent without women’s voices. Every chain placed on a woman is a chain that binds society itself.
This hypocrisy is most glaring in politics. The enactment of reservation for women in Parliament is itself a dichotomy. If political parties truly valued women, they could have nominated them freely, without waiting for a law to compel them. Instead, the entire exercise is reduced to sloganeering. Slogans like “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” sound noble, but they ring hollow when girls are denied education, when crimes against women rise, and when half of humanity is still chained by the other half. The reality is that women are praised in speeches, worshipped in slogans, but betrayed in practice. The question that must agitate the mind of every reader is simple: why should 50 per cent of humanity control the other 50 per cent? Why should muscle dictate liberty?
Why should tradition override dignity? Why should half of humanity be denied the right to live fully? The veil, whether literal or metaphorical, must be lifted. It is not a rejection of culture but a reclamation of humanity. Women have the right to see the world through the veil-and beyond it. They have the right to education, nourishment, mobility, wages, opportunities, and dignity. They have the right to be celebrated at birth, valued in childhood, respected in adulthood, and honoured in old age.
They have the right to live not as wards but as equals, not as objects but as individuals, not as shadows but as citizens. Rousseau sought to reconcile the contradiction between natural freedom and civic life. In our time, the contradiction is sharper: women are born free, yet everywhere they are in chains. The task before us is not merely to recognize these chains but to break them ~ to agitate the conscience, to demand equality, to insist on liberty, and to affirm dignity. This is the responsibility of every reader, every citizen, every human being. The veil must be lifted, the chains must be broken, and the freedom of women must be restored. Until that freedom is lived and not merely proclaimed, society stands guilty of betraying half its soul ~ and no civilization can claim to be truly free while half of humanity is subdued.
(The writer is a retired Air Commodore, VSM, of the Indian Air Force)