Women Empowerment through Higher Education

(This is a valedictory address fir a seminar on Women Empowerment through Higher Education)

 Dear Friends,

 At the end of an interesting, informative and thought provoking sessions spread over two days, the valedictory address will certainly sound like a damp squib. I like to start with a cautionary note that I am not going to say something earthshaking about Women empowerment that you do not know. What I propose to say may sound a little unconventional in an age when women strongly feel and fight for equal rights in all walks of life.

Let me start with a confession- which may not surprise anyone here looking at my conservative sartorial get up- that I am not a militant feminist trying to paint all women as angels and all men as demons. 

I do not subscribe to any form of feminism or masculinism that is distanced from the fundamental human rights, i.e. the basic rights and freedoms to which all humans(men and women) are entitled and which include the rights to life, liberty, equality, education, opportunity, a fair trial, freedom from slavery and torture, and freedom of thought and expression. I am proud to be a woman as I recognize women’s intellectual and emotional potential to accomplish any task given to them and their extraordinary power to endure physical pain and mental distress. But I am not a hardcore feminist who blames all men for all the wrongs women are subjected to and seeks to privilege one sex over the other.  I am a real feminist who acknowledges the role and importance of men as well and support the rights of men as much as they support the rights of women. I believe in a spirit of cooperation and not confrontation to redress the sufferings of women in a society that has been for centuries a male dominated one.  But I am of the firm belief that men and women should join hands together to protect women against the denial of these rights and against the assaults of perverted masculinism.

This two day seminar on the empowerment of women has focused on higher education for breaking grounds to eliminate gender discrimination. In my humble and modest way, I would have liked the topic to be a little more positive by substituting ‘discrimination’ with the word ‘parity’. The reason is discrimination does carry a pejorative note of complaint, accusatory and a hurt feeling of self pity on the perceived presumptions that

1.                 1.We inhabit a male world- which is not true. This planet  is our world  which does not discriminate between men and women in disbursing her rich bounty

2. The male society is intolerant, prejudiced and ranged against the females en masse.

 I don’t like women being seen as whining and complaining, harbouring resentment against men, their binary opposite. I prefer the word ‘parity’ which is more nuanced as it asserts the functional equivalence between men and women in terms of mental, intellectual and performing power. Parity implies equality in status between men and women and therefore we must make a legitimate demand for gender parity based on the fact that both genders have equal claims to basic human rights. If women empowerment has to succeed, women must  assert their dignity, self confidence and self respect without appearing to be begging men to confer it on them.  The same argument holds for seeking inclusive policies to include women in policy matters and governing issues, which imply in the first place that women have been excluded and reparations have to be done only  by men to include them in the mainstream. It is important to understand that we- the citizens of India- or for that matter citizens of the world- includes both men and women. In democracy, inclusiveness is the peg to hang governance, formulating policies and schemes towards the welfare of the entire society that comprises men and women. When people protest about not implementing 33% reservation for women, my reaction is why should men confer this largesse on women. Do you need your husband’s permission to enter your own home? Similarly why do we need men’s permission to enter the house of representatives- the Parliament , the State assembly, the Municipal Corporations and the  Panchayats. This is because we have a mindset that always look to men for patronage and be on their doles. With women accounting for 50% of the population, we have enough bench strength to form a party of our own on one single ideology- of commitment to human rights to preserve true democracy. Human rights do not distinguish between right and left ideology. Human rights confer upon every individual the opportunity to realize his/her true potential. Hence my question is don’t women have the right to contest on their own without being supported by male caryatids?  In the Greek ancient temple architecture, we have caryatids- rectangular columns, shaped in the form of a person to support the entire structure.  Let us not make men our caryatids so that we can standup Let us not beg for seats, but contest the seats as our birthright. If men claim to have the prerogative to contest, women also have it iin equal measure.  If all women band together and contest as a party for implementing gender parity, our Constitution provides us the platform. L et people decide who can protect, nurture and sustain human rights which , put together, is superior to all other winnable ideologies that party manifestoes promise prior to elections. My first submission is to be fully aware of the motto Susan Anthony coined for Women’s revolution: “ Men their rights and nothing more; women their rights and nothing less".

The main theme of this seminar is about Women empowerment through higher education. Again I have a difficulty in understanding this concept. Today we know that men and women have equal share in university admission- and in certain disciplines, women students constitute a larger number.  Let us ask ourselves the question:  has this brought about any change in the mindset of men and women? The increasing number of rape cases, the Me-too stories , the treatment of women as the second sex in our male dominated society do not prove that higher education has made all that difference in our society. Educated women prefer to be silent and be dominated while educated men continue their partriarchal superiority over women. There s no data to prove that men are superior to women in cognitive domains or in emotional feelings or in intellectual discernment.  If educated people have failed to recognize the importance of women empowerment, it begs the question about the power and potency of higher education in bringing parity between men and women in our society.

We have to address ourselves to the question why higher education has not given the desired result? The last two days of seminar have closely dealt with this subject with statistical data to show the positive impact of higher education on women empowerment. When I glanced through the list of speakers, I recognized the proportion between male and female speakers has been in the ratio of 3:1. This proves that women, more than men are conscious of  the need for higher education to usher in gender parity. This discovery was a Ureka moment for me as it flashed in my mind that what is needed is not education for women, but for men. The key role of education is to sensitize us to the sameness and difference between the two genders and develop mutual respect for each other. I am reminded of William Bratton’s words: ”You cannot police a community without effectively working with the community.” This is true of all issues including gender neutrality and gender parity. We have to work with the opposite gender to usher in the change instead of taking recourse to blame game.

What is higher education? It is no doubt learning advanced courses to secure good jobs, to pursue study and research and contribute to the society. But higher education is more than jobs and economic success. It is towards building a fulfilling life, towards achieving personal growth and becoming aware and sensitive to society, citizenship and the commitment to equity and social justice. Our universities and colleges are turning out to be multiversities that impart skills towards securing a job but they fail to provide a broader and more inclusive  lesson of preparedness to meet the demands of life. Our universities have failed  to provide students the much needed emotional and personal preparedness that combines fellow feelings, humaneness, grit, resolve and a strong work ethic.  Gender sensitivity will be the automatic outcome of this kind of education where men and women move freely ,exchange ideas on equal terms and learn to work together in a  spirit of cooperation. For this purpose  colleges and Universities should organize  special lectures on various social issues by introducing students to world class books written on them. This is t be called The Great Book Series and twice a week a hour long lecture followed by a 30 minute discussion will open up young minds to important issues that are beyond the classroom. University education is to make young men and women develop curiosity to learn, whet their appetite to read and challenge their intellect to basic human issues that are currently glossed over.

I seek your indulgence to listen to my personal narrative. I come from a middle class conservative Brahmin family that believes in tradition and rituals that have been followed for many centuries.  But when I see myself today as someone who has found her own identity and not as someone’s daughter or wife or as a professional,   I recognize the significant role my family had played in shaping me. My father, a strict disciplinarian and a traditionalist at heart made no distinction between his sons and daughters when they were growing up. He encouraged his daughters to study and get into a profession of their choice – a move that came as a shock to his own parents and other elders who felt that parental responsibility begins and ends with finding a life partner for the girls. My father insisted on the sons sharing the household work with the daughters and educating all of them equally. In fact, none of us were even aware of the world outside with its deep biases against women being sent to schools and colleges.  He made all of us think and decide for ourselves how to challenge minds that have been set on blind conformity to tradition. Tradition is central to civilization and culture, but tradition like all other things in the world is subject to change.  We were made to decide for ourselves how to balance traditional beliefs with modernity that seeks a rational understanding of age old beliefs. This change could not have been possible without the active support and encouragement of the family that predominantly remained  a patriarchal family.

I would like to read a few lines from Simone de Beauvoir, about the development of a young girl : ”When she does not find love, she may find poetry. Because she does not act, she observes, she feels, she records; a color, a smile awakens profound echoes within her; her destiny is outside her, scattered in cities already built, on the faces of men already marked by life, she makes contact, she relishes with passion and yet in a manner more detached, more free, than that of a young man. Being poorly integrated in the universe of humanity and hardly able to adapt herself therein, she, like the child, is able to see it objectively; instead of being interested solely in her grasp on things, she looks for their significance; she catches their special outlines, their unexpected metamorphoses. She rarely feels a bold creativeness, and usually she lacks the technique of self-expression; but in her conversation, her letters, her literary essays, her sketches, she manifests an original sensitivity. The young girl throws herself into things with ardor, because she is not yet deprived of her transcendence; and the fact that she accomplishes nothing, that she is nothing, will make her impulses only the more passionate. Empty and unlimited, she seeks from within her nothingness to attain All.”

I would like to end with a story that Shirdi Sai Baba narrated to his disciples.  “A rough stone trampled and trodden by passing worshippers accosts the beautiful stone sculpture inside the temple. The stone laments its fate and enviously says that the sculpture is lucky to be inside and remain the object of worship, reverence and admiration. “ Look at me and look At you, What a shame that I am treated with such callousness while you are feted and  honoured day in and day out.” The sculpture smiled and answered: “ I was also a stone like you to begin with, a part of the mountain. But when I was carved out of the mountain, chiselled ,sculpted and polished  I endured a lot of pain. At the end you see what I am as the sculptor recognized the quality within me and appreciated my silent endurance to make me what I am. We all have our potential. But many of us are not even aware of what we have and what we can become. No one will listen to your grunts and grumbles. Rise up and be counted. “ I leave it to you to ponder over the story. Recognize your genetic quality as a woman,  rise up to your full potential through your efforts and be counted. Higher education is the tool that can sculpt you to perfection.

TThe Hagia Sophia of India- a Monument to our Religious Pluralismalism

                                               The Hagia Sophia of India

Ayodhya is back in the news with a big bang to drown Rafael jets, the sound and fury of CBI’s in- house war, the unreserved voice of RBI against the government and the shouting and screaming in Sabarimala of traditionalists with their belief in unwritten laws that defy the written order of the highest law making body under our Constitution. Lord Ram is constantly invoked with offers of building his statue taller than that of Sardar Patel( hopefully the divine Maryada Purush Ram should not be upset at this motley comparison between him and a human, however tall the latter may be) and re-naming Lucknow airport as Lord Ram airport, equating Him with celebrity humans. Lord Ram  may even feel irked that he had to stand out in the open and not inside the sanctum sanctorum of a temple because logistics will not permit the temple to be raised to a height beyond 182 metres(597 feet).   It is impossible to divine how Lord Ram will react to stand outside the place of his birth and not inside where he had been feted and fondled as Ram lalla.

 But our politicians in their fanatic worship of Ram do not pause to wonder what the recipient of their largesse will say to this outward display of their reverence for him. But then all these orchestrations are not so much an outpouring of their feelings as they are to woo the millions of Ram worshippers in a run up to the national elections. The impatience not to wait for the Supreme Court’s verdict on the disputed site and the fear if it goes against the ownership claims of Hindu zealots to the place of Ram’s birth, have given vent to hysterical pronouncements that come what may, work on Ram mandir shall be started on that disputed site before the elections.

Irrespective of whether one is a Hindu or not, Lord Ram stands as an ethical ideal for all men and women to follow in every walk of life as a family person, as  a fair and just ruler, as an individual  who exemplifies the Maryada Purusha in every aspect. No one can deny a temple for Lord Ram even if s/he is not a Hindu.  The dispute has arisen because a Masjid had also spring up at the same site. The solution to this dispute has been eluding with no prospect of ever finding an acceptable one that satisfies both the Hindus and the Muslims.

One of my friends who had returned from a visit to Istanbul showed me pictures and described the monumental marvel of The Hagia Sophia, one of the most important Byzantine structures ever built. It has historical significance as it marks the culmination of the Christian era with the fall of the Roman empire at the hands of the Ottoman empire and stands as a monument to a mosaic architecture by the addition of the Islamic structures like the mihrab (a niche in the wall indicating the direction toward Mecca, for prayer), minbarr (pulpit), and four minarets. This architectural wonder has housed two different religious groups

The Sultan did not destroy the Christian mosaics and their frescoes and over them added  Islamic designs and calligraphy. Many were later uncovered, documented and restored . It remained a mosque until 1931 when it was closed to the public for four years. Thw founder of Modern Turkey Mustafa Kemal AtuterkIt who banned many of the Islamic customs and westernized the nation secularized the cathedral and the mosque and turned it into a museum in 1935.

It just flashed on my mind why in Ayodhya the two seligous structures  cannot co exist in the same site. The temple can be built on top of the masjid (which  needs repairs and reconstruction after it was brought  down nearly 20 years ago) and there can be two roads one elevated and the other down below each one leading to the masjid and the temple. We have brilliant architects and engineers who can make this an architectural marvel housing both the religious groups. The Islamic sentiments and their use of masjid as a place for worship, for study and discussions about Islam can be  preserved while Ram Mandir can be constructed at the place believed to be Ram’s place of birth. If we can build Sardar Patel’s statue as the tallest world statue, we can make Ayodhya  a unique model of religious co existence. All we need is a statesman-like approach that is true to secularism as enjoined by our Constitution while true to the Hindu pluralism that has no theological proscriptions in accepting other religions as the core perception of divinity is inherent in all faiths.. Hinduism emphasizes that everyone actually worships the same God by different names and different ways.. India has many thousands of years of historical acceptance of multi-cultural pluralism as evident from the many religions that have been a part of its adherence to religious diversity. India is a unique nation where Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism have been practiced by people who profess to one or other faiths.. As the world’s largest democracy, India has a unique opportunity to showcase its multifaceted heritage of religious diversity through a well designed masjid mandir marvel.. Let our architects ad engineers from both religious orders sit together and plan, draw and design two structures in the site that is now foolishly being disputed. If the Hagia Sophia stands for an amalgamation of Byzantine and Ottoman cultures, India can have its own version of the Hagia Sophia,  a mandir-masjid monument to its religious pluraiism.

Secular Vs.Theocratic State

                                                       Secular Vs.Theocratic State

A lot of events have taken place since I wrote my last blog, almost four weeks to date. My decision to embrace silence, ironically strange for a voluble writer like me has been a distressing decision , though an intentional and  considered  one. Often I have felt the weariness of writing that has hardly any viewer, leave aside a reader and yet every time after hitting a new low I am back at my desk to thump the keys almost  in a hurry as though  to make up for the lost time. The reason is purely selfish as writing has always been therapeutical and enabling for me as it relieves me from the oppressive pressures of unexpressed thoughts and feelings and  help me experience the lightness of being,  where “lightness’ signifies freedom.

The last few days have witnessed upheavals in all spheres of Indian polity-government, society and politics. The responses to the upheavals emanating from the cacophony on our news channels and abusive messages on the social media, have left many like me dumb and bewildered.  The modern squealing that sticks either to black or white with no scope to fuse the two into grey has left many thinking and unbiassed apolitical persons confused as to how to adopt both sides of the coin simultaneously. Sabarimala verdict by the Supreme Court and the virulent defiance of the same by traditionalists claiming allegiance to faith that can be best described as supra- logic and supra- rational has polarized the polity right down the middle. The recent happenings defying the orders of the highest court and blocking women in their reproductive age from entering the Sabarimala temple has left me and many others  in a state of limbo with regard to Constitutional  obedience to the judicial order threatened by the dominance of tradition masquerading as blind faith.

India is at the cusp between modernity and tradition. While tradition is the mainstay of culture in any society, tradition that has over ages transformed into paternalistic injunctions, reserves wisdom for itself and rejects all opposition as sacrilege to sacred order. Sabarimala controversy has brought once more to centre stage the binary conflict between religious faith and social justice. The defiance of the highest court of the land has raised two other questions: (1)Is India veering towards a theocratic society and (2) how modern can tradition change into and how much of tradition can modernity absorb?

The Court order aimed at gender justice and parity. Menstrual cycle is a biological happening and there can be no stigma attached to it.  Even men have periods though they do not bleed, but they have other syndromes during these days when they get tired, moody, irritable and crave for food. These are normal bodily functions and have no other significance. No woman is impure just as no man is during these days. There has been no divine command that restricts women devotees from entering the temple till they are past their reproductive stage. Where are such dicta written? Who has codified these ‘do’s and ‘donts’? To say  Lord Aiyappa is a bachelor and likely to be seduced by women is not only absurd to the core, butit  is a denigration of the Lord as though he is a weakling who cannot resist the assault of women on his chastity.  No wonder, in our patriarchal society- both in the East or the West, it is only women who are seducers and poor men are victims who have no choice but to end as rapists.  The Supreme Court had factored in the physiological changes in women as routine occurrence while giving its verdict that there shall be no discrimination against women on the basis of such absurd and unauthorized traditional beliefs masquerading as divine commandments.   What were the traditionalists doing when this issue was filed in the court? They did not assert that the court had no jurisdiction over their tradition because they must have felt that patriarchal tradition will be the winner. They also knew that such a discrimination with no  clear authorization as the Holy writ went against the fundamental principles of  Constitution. Once they had submitted to the Court to pronounce its judgement, what right did they have to violate the court order? It is here the Constitution as the supreme Bible for a secular nation comes into force. If this constitutional pact is torpedoed by traditionalists ( I am a little wary of calling them  fundamentalists), the danger of sliding back to a theocratic state is not far off.

Our academic intellectuals and scholars have to address the second key issue of how far we can go modern and how far we can remain within tradition. What is tradition? Do we need it or do we dispense with the inherited tradition in our eternal search for originality? Take language. We write in a language that has evolved over many millennia. Though language that we use today is different from what it was earlier, these changes have to be seen in the backdrop of its origin and source.  The idea of tradition is central to art and culture that get reflected in all our artistic, aesthetic,  religious and even our daily activities. But the change is equally perceptible as all human activities change with the advancement of ideas, knowledge and intermingling of cultures of different societies. We have to re-contextualize the concept of tradition to be in sync with changed times. But it will be foolish in our enthusiasm for something new, that we fail to acknowledge the anterior influences that have shaped modernity. What is important is to delineate those aspects of tradition that have contributed to the evolution of human society and development and reject those that have been detrimental to human progress and are not in line with modern democratic concepts of equality, freedom and justice.

Seen in this light the Sabarimala verdict is a reaffirmation of gender equality and not a denigration of the deity. It does not pooh- pooh traditional offering of prayers to Lord Aiyappa, but it builds on that tradition to make the rituals inclusive for all worshippers. The real denigration lies in the outcry of the traditionalists who fear the Lord may be seduced by the entry of women. Those who oppose the Supreme Court verdict continue to believe in the patriarchal form of social organization where males hand down rules that they erroneously claim to be sanctioned by Hindu religious scriptures but lack authenticity to back them. The reversal of the Supreme Court order that put a ban  on the ‘traditional’ Jallikattu in Tamilnadu ignores not only  the risk to human  life and to the animals, the victims of human madness, but it also shows the government’s surrender to irrationalists who cited ‘tradition’ as something that cannot be tampered by judicial authorities. We have umpteen cases of honour killing that has no rational justification except the traditional belief in caste and religious distinctions.

All human conflicts  stem from irrationality that is presented as divine injunctions and therefore transcend all logical and rational scrutiny. But Tradition is tradition. Modernity is modernity. There is no clash between them except  our patriarchs’ refusal to recognize how one evolves out of the other. Tradition is as essential to human progress as it contains the seeds of modernity. Tradition is too vast an entity that it can accommodate any amount of changes without the least fear of vanishing without a trace. Without the seeds there can be no plants. So is the case with tradition. Without tradition, there can be no modernity. Just as seeds are inside the fruits and are needed for further propagation, tradition is inside modernity and has a perennial presence in all civilizations and cultures.  As the plant grows and sheds the seeds, the good ones develop into newer plants while the others mingle with the soil to enrich the land and make it fertile for the future plants.

Sabarimala should not be converted into a conflict between secular and theocratic society. India is not a theocratic state where the government is either ruled by a deity or by officials who claim for themselves the status of being divinely appointed. We are a secular democratic state which is not bound by any single religious order. It is unfortunate that political parties spearheaded the recent Sabarimala agitation and dragged the judiciary into religious matters whereas judiciary, being an arm of the secular government had to make  a secular intervention to ensure men and women enjoy the same privileges as enshrined in the Constitution. Democracy is privileged upon equal rights and personal freedom that does not infringe upon the freedom of fellow citizens.  Theocracy is a state ruled by religious authority and subject to (authentic) religious dicta. Democracy is a state ruled by people through their elected representatives and  deals with temporal issues and steers clear of spiritual matters. Each has its area of jurisdiction and the two do not trespass into each other’s territory. Only when the aberrations take place-like withholding of personal rights and freedom in the name of unproven tradition, the legal wing of the government is constitutionally justified to pronounce its verdict. The unfortunate thing that had marred the divine aura of Sabarimala deity , Lord Aiyappa, was the descent of democracy and theocracy into mobocracy.  One shudders a similar mob frenzy with reference to the temple to be built for the Maryada purusha Lord Ram that threatens to wreck our democracy and its judiciary. Are we in danger of veering towards a mobocratic state, abdicating state control oflaw and order to the people?

 Let politicians wake up to the danger  when the fire of  mob fury takes over, their own position and functioning will become untenable. Let us work to preserve the constitutionally sanctioned democracy and not barter it for temporal electoral gains.