Secular, Gender-equal Banking: My Unfolding Voyage 63

Indian Constitution implied India was socialist democratic republic. I had felt socialistic meant equal treatment and opportunities to each and every national / citizen, irrespective of income status, caste creed, gender and religion. Somewhat superfluously the Constitution was amended to make India secular as well in the 1970s, instead of making the State and public sector non-religious. The State continues to support religious communities of different types. Constitution has not been amended to make India gender-equal: the voting rights accrue at the age of 18 irrespective of gender, but men cannot marry before they are 21 years of age - three years later than a female is legally entitled to marry. But a public sector bank must practice secularism, gender-equality, backward caste/ tribe reservation and spread the use of National language Hindi. United Bank of India as a nationalized bank must contribute to these characteristic objectives of the State. When the first women employee joined the Bank in the mid-1970s, it was a radical departure from the traditions. United Bank Employees organised Hindu's Saraswati Puja while being secular and lead by Marxist leaders.

Some Hindu Temples practice gender equality but others do not. Some God men practice gender equality, others do not. Many religions and communities do not believe in gender equality. Individual families do not practice gender equality. So, the State has difficulty in calling itself gender-independent or relion independent. So, it calls itself secular, rather than being religion-independent. The Bank however encouraged its employees to go to different places or visit native village once in four years accompanied by their families by reimbursing the cost of transport up to a certain monetary limit, I took advantage of this facility twice while on the rolls of the Bank. On the first occasion, within six months of my marriage, we went to Hyderabad along with my parents. This is first time I had gone to keep a promise I had made to my wife before we married. She wanted to visit the abode of a Godman. We stayed with my cousin Ashokda for in two spans of 3 days each and in between travelled to and fro Puttapurthy where we stayed for two nights and three days. Puttaparthy is a small village with Prshanta Nilyam (Satya Sai Baba's abode of Great Peace) as the main centre of its attraction. We saw Satya Sai Baba from a distance as he strolled around through the crowd of devotees, followers, and visitors sitting on the lawns. My wife, Pramita (Topu) felt delighted for having fulfilled her desire to see Sai Baba at his abode. We also attended the evening prayers there. It was a great time that we spent there in cold winter, living in a rented slum's room, eating out in make-shift way side restaurants and observing the foreign visitors eating South Indian food. Satya Sai Baba is the only living Godman in my life time. He preached no religion but love, though his prayers are mostly offerings to Hindu God and His different deity forms. I heard lot of criticisms and controversies about Satya Sai Baba before and after visiting him. These however did not appeal much to me. The fact that appealed to me is that here was a person who attracted so many devotees and followers including people of various religion from various countries and allowing the rich among them to spend their wealth and energy for various philanthropic work in the ares of medicare, education and spreading message of love practising secularism and gender-equality without being part of the State or being an elected democratic leader or as an instrument of State policy. We returned safely and as per schedule to Hyderabad despite our worry following the mid-night accident that we experienced when the bus in which we were going to Puttapartti fell down from the road to a low-lying farm land on the side- a sudden fall through the air by about 4 feet and wait there for 5 hours for the bus to get repaired.

On our way back from, we visited my elder brother who was then working in limestone quarrying company in Birmitrapur, near Rourkela. After staying with my brother's family for two days, we returned back to Kolkata leaving my parents with my brother for an extended stay in Birmitrapur.

I was convinced that gender-equality and secularism was not something that need to be a part of State's policy or practised under directive by banks as an instrument of State policy. Legislation and legislators cannot imbibe the love that make them practice equanimity and benefit the society: they are in the business of selling concepts of various discrimination's and distinctions in the name of equality, freedom and socialism.