India Plows Ahead!
09/15/2005
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Many Indians regard their homeland as a "forward-thinking nation" despite considerable evidence to the contrary. Some Indo-optimists even believe that the next epoch will be "India's century." (Of course, being the recipient of hi-tech industries seeking dirt-cheap labor is not quite the same thing as creating those businesses.)

But the level of superstition still extant, particularly in the countryside, is deeply rooted and often sexist.

The current unpleasant example is of a women forced to do the work of an animal because she touched a plow. [ "Woman harnessed 'to till field'" - BBC]

A woman in the Indian state of Chattisgarh has been forced to plough a field harnessed alongside a bull.

The move was ordered by village elders who said she had angered the rain god by breaking a taboo on women touching ploughs, thus risking a drought.

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