LANGUAGE IN INDIA

GANDHI’S IDEOLOGY ON THE EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN

M. Jayamala, Ph.D.
J. Sheela, Ph.D.

WOMEN AT A DISADVANTAGE

Women's Burden

“Woman, I hold, is the personification of self sacrifice, but unfortunately today she does not realize what tremendous advantage she has over man” is the condition of women observed by Gandhi. According to Gandhi, both men and women are of equal rank, but they are not identical. They are a peerless pair, being supplementary to one another, each helping the other so that without the one the existence of the other cannot be conceived.

Throughout the history of India, women in India have been placed at disadvantageous position vis-à-vis Indian men. Despite changes in political governance and acceptance of democracy as the basis of Indian polity, position of women in India has been at a constant decline in the status and living conditions. Women have been subjected to various societal gender biases in terms of stereotyped notions and prejudices about their capacity, aspiration and so on.

INDIAN LANGUAGE AND ROLE OF WOMEN

Dr. Sankaranarayanan, a senior scholar in Indian linguistics, presents this argument:

Indian languages, both classical and current, exhibit certain markers that reveal the status accorded to women in the Indian society. Different people may interpret some of these markers differently, but the vocabulary nuances certainly show the status we accord to our women in our society. There is no Indian language that could be treated as an exception in this regard. Sometimes the enthusiasts and the traditionalists may claim that the status of women in the by-gone ages was equal to that of men, or that the women had great educational opportunities and that they excelled in many fields. While it is true that there were several women poets, statesmen and intellectuals in the past, the status accorded to women as a group was indeed inferior to that of men. We all desire to prove that we had a golden age in the past during which every thing was all right and milk and honey flowed. But the present reality could not come about in a day nor was it a degradation of the past. (http://www.languageinindia.com/sep2001/genderandlang.html)

Independent India has achieved many successes in science and technology, but there still exits many social evils like dowry harassments, molestation and discrimination of women in work places, etc.

In this article we would like to review Gandhian ideology on women’s emancipation, and present a critique of this ideology in relation to the current status of women.

The concept of self is the most important factor affecting the behaviour of women. Selfrealization of the potential of women was severely restricted in the pre-independence period due to various socio-cultural conditions and conditioning. There was an urgent need to make special efforts to enable women to become self-reliant, by positive and active interventions in the direction of confidence building in the cognitive, psychological, economic and political areas.

Girls with great expectations

• Cognitive empowerment involves an understanding of the subordinate conditions and their causes. It calls for knowledge and an understanding of the self, as well as the need to make choices, which may go against cultural and social expectations.
• Psychological empowerment is concerned with women’s feelings and the belief that they can change their situation themselves. As women are normally socialized to be submissive, to serve and let the men in their lives make all the decisions affecting them.
• Economic empowerment involves the ability of women to engage in income generating activities, which will give them an independent income.
• • Political empowerment entails the ability to analyse situation politically and also, mobilization for social change (Stromquist, 1993).

DOMESTIC SLAVERY OF WOMEN

According to Gandhi, “domestic slavery of women is a sample of our barbarism.” He was of the view that domestic work ought not to take the whole of a women’s time and they should be free from this drudgery of cooking. He advocated non-cooked food like fruits and vegetables as a part of the daily diet in the ashram too. Moreover, he took keen interest in his women colleagues and associates and devoted considerable time, energy and effort to understand women’s strengths, hopes and aspiration. He assigned them with specific tasks, with challenges that women themselves were apprehensive of fulfilling but the accomplishment of which infused them with a refreshing self-perception and generated self-confidence in them.

FAULTY EDUCATION OF WOMEN

Gandhi wrote that the education of women was as faulty as that of men. No thought had been given to the relations of men and women or to the place of women in Indian society. He said that woman is the companion of man, gifted with equal mental capacities. She has the right to participate to the very minutest detail in the activities of man and she has an equal right of freedom and liberty with him. She is entitled to a supreme place in her own sphere of activity as a man is in his. This ought to be a natural condition of things and not as a result only of learning to read and write. Just by the sheer force of a vicious custom, even the most ignorant and worthless men have been enjoying his superiority over women, which they do not deserve and ought not leave.

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