To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man’s injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man’s superior.
Mahatma Gandhi [To the Women of India (Young India, Oct 4, 1930)] Celebrating International Women’s Day on March 8 is probably little more than an annual ritual. In India, though, celebrating womankind is part of our cultural ethos. True, we battle problems like female infanticide and dowry, but the woman also gets elevated to the status of divinity. The freedom struggle had a fair share of women leaders and women’s empowerment gathered momentum post-Independence – not just in India, but all of South Asia.
What then, explains the skewed ratio in Indian corporate boardrooms? Even after the Companies Act 2013 and SEBI guidelines made it mandatory for listed companies to have at least one woman on the board as a director, the situation has not changed much. How dismal is the situation?
Who’s the most powerful person in the country? Do we also sometimes call him the Indira Gandhi of our times? Indeed, does the imagery still define “power” and “substance” in India? Inspired by this thought, we at BW Businessworld, dedicate our annual women’s issue to the “Most Influential Women” of our times. Identifying them was not easy. A four-member jury sifted through names suggested by BW bureaux across India to pick women who had left an imprint on our lives. In the Gen-Next category we include young corporate leaders like Isha Ambani, Nisaba Godrej and Roshni Nadar, who have inherited legacies, but managed to leave their mark on them too.
The second category comprises women leaders who have built companies from scratch, thriving against odds. We call them Self-Made Women leaders. Leading the league of Evergreen Women leaders, who are still going strong, are Kiran Mazumdar Shaw and Arundhati Bhattacharya. Together, the three groups of achievers represent the idea that India aspires to be - an equal and just society that Mahatma Gandhi referred to in his Young India essay. These women leaders are rewriting the India story.
This issue is not only of women, but for them too. Editor, marketing and advertising, Noor Fathima Warsia, does a reality check on the true status of the modern, evolved and accomplished Indian woman in the corporate space. Aniruddha Bose creates an entire personal finance capsule for women. He and a host of experts, offer tips on how women could make their money grow.
The issue in your hand also includes an in-depth report on the Mahindra Group’s fascinating rise from an automobile giant to a major player in aerospace, by senior associate editor C. H. Unnikrishnan, along with an exclusive interview with Mahindra Group chairman and managing director Anand Mahindra.
Unnikrishnan also takes a critical view of the proposed merger of India’s third largest petro-fuels retailer, HPCL and the country’s oil exploration giant, ONGC. The Assembly polls have given their verdict and deputy editor, Sutanu Guru mulls on the nuances of a wave that does not seem to have lost steam since the general elections of 2014.
The theme of the issue, though, explores the debate that the Mahatma had begun in 1930: “Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage?”
BW Reporters
The author is the Chairman & Editor-in-Chief of the BW Businessworld Group and the Founder & Editor-in-Chief of the exchange4media Group
