**I tried to put it all in one post... but it didn fit in well, so here's the first installment. you might wonder what i am trying to get at by the end.. but please wait til the next one...**
If we look back in time, to the days of Rajas and Maharajas,
we’ll find many women that stand strong. Then may it be Rani Lakshmibai or
Jijabai… not only were they well educated and adept to stand amongst strong men
(strong here implying by valour and stature) but they were also very
independent women, who took decisions that shaped not only the destinies of their
families but history as we know it.
Somewhere along time the trend reversed, women took a
backstep, and their role in society was diminished to merely home-makers (I am
not undermining the task of home-makers here, it is indeed a huge task). Men
earned the bread, women served it.
It is said education empowers you. In the pre-independence
era many prejudices plagued the society, one of them was the social inequality
faced by women. It is no wonder that pioneers like Dhondo Keshav Karve and
Mahatma Phule looked up to education to change the state affairs. Beginning
early on with widow remarriages, they moved towards bringing women out of their
homes, to light, to awareness, to education. The idea was to give them a voice,
or rather to make it stronger, to transform them from dependents to “independents”.
This movement took several years to bear
fruit, initially the women were apprehensive themselves, they had to first open
their minds to new ideas, to the possibilities of a better life, and then they
had to “convince” those that withheld them, to argue, struggle, to fight for
their right… right to education.
As a result of this movement… post-independence we saw women
in schools... primary education was the first step. Though the drop-out rate
was high…gradually the numbers increased and sustained. Today Graduate women
are a common sight.
What does education mean? The ability to read and write is literacy… it’s
a means towards education. When we say education empowers you… what does it do?
I’d say education gives you the power to believe in your dreams and make them
true, to believe in yourself and rise up to your true potential. And with power
comes freedom. The freedom to express, to build, to create… Education gives you
eyes to see yourself for what you are, neither an inferior, nor a superior…but
an equal.
I grew up to these ideas of education, freedom and equality
and in different magnitudes every educated woman does.
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