A Staff Reporter
DIMAPUR, FEBRUARY 11
The need to understand and define women empowerment beyond the limited confines of political entitlement, and include social and cultural entitlements as well, was underscored here today at a seminar on gender politics.
Delivering the keynote address at the seminar on “Gender and politics: Rhetoric and applicability”, sponsored by the Indian Council of Social Science Research at ICFAI University, the former chairman of University Grants Commission (UGC) Prof. VN Rajasekharan Pillai said that empowerment could be achieved only when entitlements are extended beyond politics to “basic education, healthcare and awareness.” He reasoned that those entitlements were not exclusive to any gender but to “all human beings.” And that it was equally important to promote “awareness” through education.
Any academic texts, be it for schools or colleges, becomes irrelevant in the absence of appropriate social contexts, according to Pillai. In the case of Nagaland, he said, the academic texts must be based on the social context of Nagaland, even more so on the issue of gender rights.
He encouraged the state education board to incorporate “life experience”, within the Naga context, in its education system. “The syllabus or the curriculum represents on the skeletal structure of education.
“The flesh and blood to education must be provided through life experiences,” he shared. They should aim to promote an education system that helps students to “throw away prejudices because then only you can learn new things.”
Chief guest of the opening session, and parliamentary secretary for Higher and Technical Education, Deo Nukhu also shared that when it comes women empowerment “people understand only in terms of electoral politics.”
The aspect of involvement in decision making is often left in the backseat, he said. “And it is a fact that women are not adequately represented (in decision-making platforms).”
According to Nukhu, there are “ways to resolve” this issue instead of “men and women blaming each other.” He however did not elaborate further on the “ways (available) to resolve” the issue.
The parliamentary secretary hoped that “with or without reservation, women leaders will come up”, especially in municipal bodies.
A book, entitled “Education and Nation Building” authored by Col Dr VRK Prasad, the vice chancellor of ICFAI University was also released on the occasion. The book has been published by Heritage Publishing House.
The two-day seminar, with four sessions, is expected to hold discussions on “gender and the state, civil society and gender discourse, participation and representation/masculine and queer scholarship and gender and economy.”
