Study on Place of Women In the Indian Society and Views of College Girls a Case Study

The Indian society is an old society having a history of over 7000 years of culture and intermixing of many races, religions and cultures. It is a plural society which carries the identity of the cultural traits of the various religions and cultures intact and at the same time the features of a rich composite culture and a fairly strong national consciousness and unity. The Indian society has old, rigid and varied cultural traditions, customs, folkways and practices of the different cultures as well as the changing, modernising values as a consequence of the process of acculturation with the western society and culture and global contacts due to the advancements in knowledge, Information technology and global economic and cultural contacts in recent decades. While a lot of value change is fast taking place in our basically traditional and now modernising and futurising Indian society, it is a sociological fact that there are still so many cultural continuities from our ancient and medieval past and also there are several cultural discontinues both for the good and the bad of us today. Patriarchy has since the ancient history of India been the most dominating theme of our society and culture till today; the Indian women — whether they are Hindu women, Muslim women, Sikh women or Christian women in India have always been under the subjugation of the males and the traditions and have till late been victims of exploitation, backwardness,illiteracy and all sorts of discriminations and cultural,economic and political handicaps. They have beendeprived of their inherent dignity as human beings and of human rights all through the past several milleni.‘Women’s Rights’, ‘Women’s Empowerment’, ‘Women’sliberation’ and ‘Women’s Emancipation’, ‘Alternate Sex’etc. are very recent concepts which have sprung up inthe Indian society during the last two decades of the20th Century. Despite all spirited talk of these radicalconcepts in our traditional country in recent years,most of the Indian girls are still discriminated against ineducation and other matters, most of the women arestill exploited and deprived of their legitimate rights and suffer from all kind of injustices and indignities as wehave seen in the review of the writings and researcheson Indian women present study.

The Indian state and the Indian society legitimatelyexpect that higher education being imparted in colleges and universities and professional and vocationaleducation institutions should act as an effectiveinstrument of social change and enlightenment for theIndian women, their values should change for thebetter, they should modernise and also be able to face the future demands of the 21st Century bravely and

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efficiently. It is in this specific context of our society and that too at the cross-roads of the present and future that we have tried to discover what the actual feelings, beliefs, values, opinions, fears and hopes and over-all genuine perceptions of the colleges girls of the year 1999 who will spend all the rest of lives in the new millenium, are. How far have they already changed in their knowledge, self-esteem, perceptions, hopes and fears, and what is now going on in their minds and conscience?

We have tried to ascertain them by asking and motivating them to express incognito and in complete freedom. The following Table records the value-perceptions of our college girls in the sample about the status of women in the contemporary Indian society.

It is clear from the above Table that a majority of therespondents think that the women in India even today(in 2010) have an inferior status; as many as 64 percent have held this. Sixty-six per cent of therespondents have said that even today most of theIndian females — girls as well women — arediscriminated against by their parents in comparision to their brothers. Similarly, 72 per cent of them feel thatthe Indian women are still being denied their rights inour society, despite all talks of women’s rights beingheard throughout the length and breadth of India. Asmany as 57 per cent of the respondents have held that even today most of the employers do not treat theirwomen at par with the male employees; perhaps theyhave said so on the basis of their personal knowledgegained from their female relations, friend or others. But 27.5 per cent did not think so, and 15.5 per cent didnot comment on this point. It may be noted that 30 per cent respondents did not think that the Indian womenhave even now an inferior and miserable plight as ithas all along been in the last so many thousands years of our history. Women activists and women politicians have for someyears been agitating for getting 33 per centreservations for women in the Indian Parliament andLegislatrues. As many as 67 per cent of ourrespondents agree to this demand, but 23.5 per cent of the respondents did not agree to it and 9.25 did notexpress any view on this crucial matter, may be due to lack of their understanding of the implications there-of. As many as 37.78 per cent of the respondentsfeared that the demand of 33 per cent of seats in theParliament if materialised would benefit only thewomen of the upper castes, affluent families and those connected with politicians as close relations and thosehaving illicit relations with them; it will certainly not benefit the women of the SC, ST and OBCs and otherunder-privileged groups. On the other hand, morepercentage of our respondents —45 per cent - did nothave such an apprehension. It may be noted that 15.75per cent did not hold either of these views. Themajority of the respondents (59.75 per cent) believedthat there must be the same sort of 33 per centreservation for women in all jobs under the Central and State governments and semi-government and LocalBodies. A little less than one-third of the respondents(30.75) did not subscribe to this view, probablybecause they thought that it was impracticable andfraught with explosive consequences in thepredominantly male- dominated society and politicswhen even in the Indian Parliament in 1999 there areless than 9 per cent women Members. These responses of our respondents show-that haverealistic assessment of the existing social status of our

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women, and this is a good omen that these college girls have such realistic and sociologically correct assessment. We tried to further to probe into the matter and ascertain the values of the college girls on the closely related question of the Indian Women’s empowerment and emancipation which is being so vigorously talked about in the political economic and social spheres of our nation these days.

Let us try to analyse the above data on the political values and opinions of the college girls in Haryana on the crucially important political issues of contemporary India: 1. The belief that students, and particularly girl students, must avoid entering politics and contacting political parties and corrupt politicians was held by 33.5 per cent girls, whereas 56.75 per cent of the respondents did not hold this belief. They did not see any such harm in involving themeselves with politicalparties and politicians. 2. It is very interesting to note that the majority ofthe girls believed that Indian students must indeedparticipate in politics to get citizenship training andpush out illiterate and semi-literates, unprincipledpoliticians and save the nation. Only 11.25 per cent ofthe respondents disagreed with this value statement. 3. It is surprising to discover that 85.25 per centcollege girls in our sample agreed that almost allpoliticians in today’s India are self-seeking and mainlyafter grabbing power, positions of influence, illiciteconomic gains and exploiting the country. Only 8.5per cent respondents did not have this view. 4. The value statement that all those who go in forpolitics do not in reality have the ideals of serving theIndian masses in their minds and hearts was approvedby as many 68 per cent of the respondents; 18.25 percent disagreed with it, while 13.75 per cent did notreact. 5. The belief that the Indian voters themsevles areresponsible for our corrupt political leaders for the“people get the leaders they deserve”, was held byabout 63.75 per cent respondents, while a little morethan one fourth (27.75 per cent) did not subscribe tothis view and 8.5 per cent chose not to comment either way. 6. The belief that Indian politics has become moreand more criminalized in the 1990s and this trend isincreasing fast has been held by 85.75 per cent of therespondents. 7. The respondents were asked to react to thisstatement: ‘The fact that almost all the accused in theHawala and so many other scandals have been freedand corrupt politicians (like Sukh Ram, P. V.Narasimha Rao and the host of others) have not yetbeen sent to jail only shows that our law-enforcing andjudicial institutions are really unable to root out out corruption, which has become the dominant feature ofmodern Indian politics. As many as 82, 75 per cent ofthe respondents agreed with this statement, only 4 per cent respondents disagreed with it, and 13.25 per centabstained from recording their views. This clearlyshows that the majority of the respondents felt deeplyfrustrated with the judiciary’s incapability to curb thecrimes and corruption in present day life. 8. As many 92 per cent of the respondents heldthe view that politics without principles is not onlyimproper but dangerous for India.

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9. As many as 65.5 per cent of the respondents accepted the view that the era of coalition governments in India in the 1990s has made the Central Government weak, ineffective and instable, while 9.5 per cent respondents did not, subscribe to this view.

That the President Naraynan’s reported suggestion to the Chief Justice of India in 1998 to consider giving due representation to SC, ST and other Backward Classes in appointment of judges to Supreme Court was proper, only 24.75 per cent respondents agreed with it while the majority (46.75 per cent) disagreed with it. As many as 28.5 per cent respondents did not give reply. This shows that the majority of the college girls believed that the President’s recommendation to the chief Justice of India in favour of the SC, ST and OBCs was improper. Merit alone should be the criterion for appointment of judges in the High Courts and Supreme Court and reservations will bring down the credibility of the judiciary. As many as 72.5 per cent of the respondents agreed with this value statement, whereas 11.2 per cent disagreed with it and 12.5 per cent did not express their view.

1. Atreya, J.S. (1988) conducted a study of teachers’ values and job satisfaction in relation to their teaching effectiveness at degree college level. It was a thesis in Education. 2. Bajpai, Amita (1991) conducted an experimental study of an educational intervention curriculum for value- development. 3. Banua, K. (1991) conducted a study of values of college students in Nagaland in relation to their self- concept. 4. Bhaduri, J. (1989) studied the effect of feedback in improving personality, desirable behaviours, values and teachers’ perception among secondary and senior secondary school students. 5. Bhattacharya, Ira (1991) conducted a comparative study of the values of some secondary school girls differing in age and in socio-economic and cultural status. 6. Chaturvedi, R.D. (1988) conducted a study of the personality factors, value orientation and age as correlates of attitudes towards social change. This was a thesis in Psychology. 7. Chaudhari Pratima K. (1988) conducted astudy of the changing values among young women. Itwas a thesis in Sociology. 8. Chawda, J.P. (1991) conducted a study of theeducational thoughts of Dolarai Mankad and theirimplementation. 9. Chhaganlal, N.M. (1991) conducted a study ofthe values, adjustment, attitude towards teachingprofession and academic achievement of teacherschildren as compared to non-teachers’ children. 10. Chikara, B.D. (1991) studied effects ofstrategies for inculcation of democratic values amongadolescents in relation to introversion-extroversion andvalue-related behaviour types. 11. Chowhan, Sarita (1991) studied values, self-concept, creativity and anxiety among professionalcollege students. 12. Christian, J.S. (1991) conducted a study of theteaching of population education in Class V. 13. Dadu, P. (1992) conducted a study ofpersonality, values and religious attitudes of urban and rural males and females. 14. Diwan, D.K.(1991) conducted a study of thepredictors of academic achievement of studentteachers in terms of attitudes, participation and humanvalues. 15. Dubey, R. (1992) conducted a critical study ofthe concept and implementation of value education inIndia at school level from 1947 to 1986. 16. Gupta, A. (1989) studied the effect of familyattachment on personal values, creativity andeducational achievement of the girls of small and bigfamilies. This was a thesis in Education.