By TCN News,
Aligarh: Noted scholar and economist, Prof. Prabhat Patnaik said that discrimination level against women in India is “higher” than even the poorest Sub-Saharan countries in Africa. He was addressing a seminar on “Women of India: From Repression to Empowerment” organized by the Centre for Women Studies, Aligarh Muslim University.
Prof. Patnaik said that the ratio of female to male in India is very shocking and it only tops China in this regard. Patnaik said there were only 94 women per hundred men in India while even in Sub-Saharan Africa the ratio is 102 women per hundred men. He said that an atrocious practice of female foeticide in India is because of an age-old patriarchal structure of Indian society which brews injustices against women in India.
Prof. Shireen Moosvi addressing the seminar at Centre for Women's Studies
Prof. Patnaik said that capitalist development in India neither breaks the old “community” which provides the base for patriarchy and the caste system, nor creates, anywhere to the same degree, the basis for the formation of a new “community”. We have therefore a combination of khap panchayats on the one hand and a substantial lumpen-proletariat on the other. He said that the notion of women’s empowerment had been a part of the anti-colonial struggle, which received a setback because of both these phenomena.
Lt. Gen. Zameer Uddin Shah, Vice Chancellor said that empowerment of the women can only be brought with an expansion of education, change in mindset and execution of harsh punishment. He said that the sex ratio problem is not only limited to this country but it is also a problem of entire Asia. Shah said that historical beliefs and dowry are also among the main causes of violence against women.
Prof. Shireen Moosvi, Director, Advance Centre for Women’s Studies said that the whole nation has awakened, as never before, by the current unending spate of violence against women, to the question how far away women in India are from equality and empowerment.
Prof. Moosvi said that the urge of coercion has never been more grossly manifested than in the recent spate of statements from religious fanatics and reactionary die-hards that women should not carry mobiles, should not wear jeans, should not stir out at night, nor meet with non-relatives, etc. One wonders why the same demands are not made on men, from whose ranks, the guilty come, she exclaimed.
Prof. Prabhat Patnaik addressing the seminar at Centre for Women's Studies, AMU
Prof. Farhat Hasan, Convener of the Seminar gave a brief introduction of the seminar. He said that by organizing this conference, one of our concerns was to get scholars from across disciplines, in their specializations, and discuss the problems and issues in women’s empowerment.
Prof. Shabahat Husain, Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences welcomed the guest and said that the deliberations of the seminar will contribute to evolving a strategy for women empowerment.