NEW DELHI, India – Lawmakers elected India’s first female president, officials announced Saturday, in a vote seen as a step forward for the millions of Indian women and girls who face bitter discrimination in everyday life.
The position is largely ceremonial. But observers said the selection of Pratibha Patil, 72, in a vote by the national parliament and state politicians will widen the role of women in the country’s often male-dominated political scene.
“This is a victory of the principles which the Indian people uphold,” said Patil, wearing her signature oversized glasses and a red and gold celebratory sari. As she waved a V-for-victory sign on television, marigolds and colored powders were tossed at her feet.
Patil had been expected to win because of her support from the governing Congress party, and her deep political ties and friendship with Sonia Gandhi, leader of the party and the powerful Gandhi dynasty. Patil is a steadfast loyalist of the Gandhi family, which has long maintained a strong hold over Indian politics.
Patil took in nearly two-thirds of the votes, defeating Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, the candidate of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, a Hindu nationalist party.
Over four decades, Patil has held various political offices. A trained lawyer, she most recently served as the first female governor of the northern state of Rajasthan.
Several Indian women have served in high-ranking positions. In 1966, Indira Gandhi – Sonia Gandhi’s mother-in-law – became one of the first female prime ministers in the world. But while women gain more political clout, widespread discrimination endures.
So many female babies are abandoned at birth that the government has set up cradles across the country for families to safely deposit the unwanted infants, who are viewed as an economic burden because of the tradition of requiring the bride’s father to pay a groom’s family often large dowries. The use of sonograms for sex selection is illegal but still practiced, and human rights groups estimate that about 10 million female fetuses were aborted in the over the past two decades.
As many as 40 percent of Indian women are unable to read or write because boys are given priority in education. And sexual harassment in the office place remains a serious concern, even in urban centers.
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