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In the first part of the life, a female is supposed to handle the domestic works in terms of assisting her mother while her brothers have the liberty to go to school, to play, to spend their life to be the ‘elite’ of the next generation. It’s again the girls who are supposed to leave their study on the mid-way of schooling without completing their school education because of assisting in domestic works; or to take care of their younger brothers and sisters; or because of the lame excuse of distance from school, as their social mobility is always less than that of the boys.
Female children are most unwanted in the family as still the practice of ‘Dahej’ (dowry) during marriage is being practiced in most parts of Haryana. In the later part of life, after marriage, a female is automatically assigned the works at ‘sasural’ (in-laws’ house) and her life cycle also follows the same direction regardless of what she has already experienced at her own house. It’s surprising and at the same time pathetic that many of the rural females are bound to bear painful married life; tolerating all sorts of misbehaviour from drunken husbands, etc., as they don’t have any other alternative to survive. Because most of the rural females are generally deprived from their due property rights; usually at the time of marriage, they sign the bond giving the consent to their brothers to possess all parental properties.
In such a situation, when five girls in a rural society oppose a child marriage and save them from the ‘jaws of marriage’, we must consider it as a revolutionary change in the society. It’s ‘revolutionary’ in comparison to the other changes in Haryana society. In respect of child marriage, selling, drop out etc. the traditions are being changed, although slowly, but from one generation to the other, the changes are remarkable. The rate of child marriage is much less. At the village level, the awareness of literacy has increased the enrolment of children, especially girls in the schools. There are drop out cases, but the level of education of drop out cases is generally higher than the previous one; e.g., previously there were more drop outs among girls after primary education whereas nowadays there are more drop out cases after 8th or 10th standard of education. This trend is reflected through the number of literates, semi-literates and illiterates among the females.
In the villages of Haryana, the number of illiterates and semi-literates are decreasing from the older generation to the younger generation. The social evil which is still dominating the Haryana society is the practice of ‘dowry’ in marriage; although, brides are going to be ‘rare’ and few in terms of their number because of the continuous trend towards a decrease in the number of females in terms of the sex ratio.
These girls are all from very ordinary families and are still confused whether they will get the parental permission to study after 12th class, as the college is far from their own village. They take active part in the literacy campaign and associated programmes conducted by Uthaan Saksharta Samiti, Karnal. In fact, such exposures through ‘kalajathas’, etc. as a part of the literacy programme has provided them the impetus of such a courageous job. Still they have lack of social mobility and exposure to the outer enlightened world. They dream for a better future, but don’t know how to achieve that. I feel lucky to meet them at their village, to spend some days with all these bright girls; but I was feeling guilty as I couldn’t give them any assurance for a better and bright future, despite being a member of the privileged section of the society.
I wish the revolutionary spirit of all of these brave girls will help to achieve their destinies and their spirit will make its way towards the social movement to remove the social evils associated with the females who are ultimately the silent servers of this society.
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SASWATI PAIK
Saswati Paik, completed Post graduation in Geography in 1996 and went through Research Training Programme in Centre for Studies in Social Sciences (CSSSC, Kolkata, India) under Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR). She completed M.Phil in Geography from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi in 2000. Now she is about to finish her Ph.D. in Geography from the same university. She has several articles, published in magazines and newspapers and has presented numerous research papers in workshops, seminars and conferences of university, national and international levels. She has actively participated in various training programmes and workshops related to her academic field. She has work experience of about 6 years. She has worked in ‘GISdevelopment’, the monthly magazine published from Noida (India). She has worked as Researcher in State Resource Centre, Haryana (India) and as Faculty in Hamdard Education Society, New Delhi (India). She was associated with Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) and as a part of her job profile, has worked as a member of the editorial team of ‘i4d’, the monthly magazine published by CSDMS, Noida (India). She has also occasionally contributed write-ups to the magazine, some of those are available at their website www.i4donline.net.
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