Challenges and Historical Context of Women’s Participation in India
From Vedic Equality to Modern Disparity: The Journey of Indian Women’s Status
Underestimated Contributions: Barriers to Women’s Education and Participation in India
Unveiling the Past and Present: The Role and Status of Women in Indian Society
Author : Mohan A.K. Department of Social Science University of Mysore
The women in our country constitute 48 per cent of the total population of which 43.88 lakh women are engaged in the organized sector and 17.77 lakh in the private sector (Singh, 2001). Women play a vital role in the development of the country, but their contribution is neglected and underestimated. The Indian society is male dominated and all the decisions are taken by the male. Opportunity for education, employment, participation in public affairs is very less for women. Even though the Constitution guarantees free primary schooling to everyone up to 14 years of age, very few females attend school. Only about 39 per cent of all women in India actually attend primary schools. There are several reasons why families choose not to educate their daughters. One reason is that parents get nothing in return for educating their daughters. Another reason is that all the females in a household have the responsibility of the housework. So even though education does not financially burden the family, it costs them the time she spends at school when she could be doing household chores. In addition, even if a woman is educated, especially in the poorer regions, there is no hope for a job. The majority of the jobs women perform are agricultural or domestic in nature which does not require a formal education. Another reason girls are not educated is because families are required to supply a chaste daughter to the family of her future husband. With two-thirds of the teachers in India being men and the students are also predominately male, putting a daughter in school, surrounded by males all day could pose a possible threat to their virginity (Sharma and Bakshi, 2009).
Introduction
Historians tell us that during the early Vedic period women enjoyed a position of high status and esteem. They had the same educational and social opportunities as men. There were many educated women in those days, though most of them belonged to families of eminent scholars and received their education at home or Ashramas. But around 200 BC, Manu, the architect of the Hindu caste system retrograded the status of women to a position inferior to that of men. The Rig Veda, written sometime around 180 BC or so, however accepted women as equals of men in matter of participation in debates, performance of religious rituals and also other temporal affairs of social life. Efforts to educate women were made, but they generally belonged to high families, and received education in residential schools and became scholars. It was around 500 BC that Mahatma Buddha also advocated education and emancipation of the women. In due course, however, the gradual lowering of the status of women was witnessed, as the renowned Hindu scholar and philosopher Shankarcharya, who lived during 788 to 820 AD, opposed female education. This was an unfortunate development, because, the elite among men, who wielded considerable power, exercised total subjugation, adverse casteism, and domination over the common people—the poor and the simpletons, both men and women—for their perverted and selfish ends. During the subsequent eras of the Rajput rulers, the slave dynasty kings, and the Mughul emperors women were subjected to abject deprivation and humiliating subjugation. The Muslim religious heads prescribed ‘purdah’ and the system of ‘Harem’ or ‘Zenana’ for women. It was during the above period that the practice of Sati, which was originally a voluntary act of self-immolation by a widow on the funeral pyre of her deceased husband, developed in to an extremely inhuman and barbaric practice (Noatay, 2007).