The crème de la crème among women in Tamil Nadu are getting ready for a silent revolution to be launched in schools and colleges in the State. Through personal interactions with girl students, they will drive home the role of Indian women who hitherto sustained families, communities, societies and the country itself.
The mission of these women evangelists, drawn from a cross section of the society which include professionals, entrepreneurs, teachers, scientists, corporate honchos, social activists and artists of eminence is to spread the message that the country has a wonderful track record in respecting women than anywhere else in the world.
“The Chennai conclave held on January 23 decided to set up chapters of Women’s Initiative all over the State. Women who excelled in various fields will lead these chapters and they will fan out to all educational institutions spreading the message that it is time for Indian women to come forward and play the crucial role in sustaining the nation’s family system,” Padma Subhramaniam, legendary danseuse and the brain behind the Swami Vivekananda 150 Women’s Initiative told The Pioneer. She said it was time India exported the values and women-centric ideology to the west rather than allowing the outdated and failed western concept of right-based society.
What made people like Subhramaniam to take this step was the kind of counselling given by modern schools in Chennai to parents of girl students. “Counsellors are advising mothers not to get panic if their school-going daughters get involved in pre-marital sex and become pregnant. Their view is that in this era of modernisation and liberalisation, these things are bound to happen. We are giving a free run to the westerners to import their failed ideology to our country,” she said.
Swamy Vivekananda whose 150th birth anniversary was observed during 2013-14 had great hope on Indian womanhood. “The Swamiji wanted Indian women to be the role models for the outside world. It is the confidence and trust he had for Indian woman which made us launch this initiative,” said Subhramaniam.
No less a person that K Santha, winner of the Ramon Magsaysay Prize for public service and a noted cancer specialist, is leading the initiative. “We want to send the message that empowerment of women does not mean the right to go to pubs in midnight and consuming alcohol. Empowerment of women will become a reality only through an understanding of what women are capable of. The women get empowered only when they get knowledge of their rights and and how to assert that rights,” said Santha.
She came down heavily on a section of society which belittles marriage. “Marriage is a sacred event. It cannot be treated casually as it is being done now,” said Santha.
Subhramaniam quoted from studies held by institutions like Goldman Sachs which proved that the global economic meltdown did not affect India because of strong inter-family bonds in the country. “The household savings by India women helped the sustainability of Indian economy. The Government is drawing from these funds to meet expenses for its infrastructural development programmes,” she said quoting from Goldman Sachs paper No 187 (2010).
Subhramaniam and Akhila Srinivasan, co-chairperson of SV150WI pointed out that the system of live-in relations and right- based life being followed by people in the USA have destroyed the family system in that country. “In the USA, the aged , infirms and invalids are being taken care of by the government which has made the treasury bankrupt. The US Government is borrowing heavily from market to meet the social security expenses,” said Srinivasan, who is also the managing director of Shriram life Insurance Company ltd.
The SV150 WI organisers are upset over the ever increasing figures of divorces reported from family courts under the Madras High Court. Dr lakshmi Vijayakumar, noted clinical psychologist and counsellor said the last decade saw divorce rate increasing by 50 per cent in Chennai city alone. “There was only one family court in Chennai ten years ago. Now there are six courts in Chennai alone,” said Dr Vijayakumar.
S Gurumurthy, chartered accountant and columnist, who advises the SV150WI, points out that the new generation is ignorant about the power of Indian family system and the role of women in sustaining families. “Ours have been a family oriented society from time immemorial. Women played the pivotal role in Indian families. It was their savings which took care of the family members. But the shift to right based economy, where no one is responsible to others in the familyhas led to the deterioration of families, society and nation,” said Gurumurthy.
According to Gurumurthy, who is also the research chair professor of legal Anthropology School at Sastra University, said in the US, where arranged marriages are anathema and their number less than a tenth, over half of the first marriages and two-thirds of the second marriages and three-fourths of the third ones end in divorce. “With the institution of conventional marriages and families disturbed, almost half of American families are ‘fatherless’, single parent or unwed households and 41 per cent of the children are born for unwed mothers. This is the end result of liberalism and womens lib movement ,” he said. He pointed out the book Fatherless America authored by David Blankenhorn to drive home the point that the USA is on the verge of an anarchy.
The women’s initiative is not just inter-personal discussions and briefings. School and college students in Tamil Nadu stand to make prize money to the tunes of `2 lakh from essay writing and oratorical competitions to be held on themes like Indian womanhood and role of women in saving the families.