A parents' forum objects to the trivialisation of a housewife's role
ONLY sustained objections can overrule negative attitudes. Armed with this belief, the Parents' Forum for Meaningful Education has added one more cause in their five-year-old judicial battle against the education system. Now, the Forum's tireless legal struggle against the defects in the examination format under the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has it fighting for the dignity of the Indian housewife!
"Deeply hurt" by the CBSE lawyer's alleged description of the Forum as nothing more than a "group of five or six housewives", the Forum, on September 2, submitted an application before the Delhi High Court demanding that the Board apologise not only to it but also to the court and the women of India. Unable to stomach this allegedly dismissive description flung at them during the last hearing on the case, the women in the Forum are determined to educate the educators on the significant role played by the mother and the wife. As the application avers: "The said remark is offensive to the role of women, including that as a mother, casting poor reflection on their indispensable contribution to human societies, nation-building and education."
"How can an education system get away with believing that a bunch of useless housewives can only be wasting their time? Are they challenging our bonafides as petitioners because low-status housewives aren't supposed to move courts?" fulminates the Forum's president, Kusum Jain.
Recalling the hearing where the alleged utterance was made, Jain says the gravity of the humiliation seemed to lose significance in the focused arguments being presented in the courtroom. This, even as the Forum's counsel made a vigorous objection to the comment. "It was then that we decided to make our objections more legal. Such attitudes shouldn't dare voice themselves in courts," Jain says.
Ploughing through the Board's huge Manual of Rules and Regulations, she arrives at the clause that promises "to promote the physical and moral well-being of students", and observes: "What morality will a system that harbours such a wrong attitude against women inculcate in its students?"
The irate Forum has already dashed off letters of vehement protest to the prime minister, the human resource development minister and the minister of state for law. The angry missives ask the ministers to ensure that equality to women graduates from being a fundamental right to a functional clause in the governance of the country. All candidates seeking government jobs, the letter says, should be tested for a right attitude towards women—working in offices and homes. The Forum has also penned a pamphlet called
About Us 'Housewives' which it plans to circulate widely. It sketches the achievements of the registered body—with over 250 enrolled members all over the country—since its inception in 1992 when a few harried parents got together to discuss how their children had suffered under a defective examination system. Seminars, meetings with ministers and bureaucrats, surveys in schools, recommendations to committees, protracted legal proceedings—the members have campaigned continuously through the years, the pamphlet says. And concludes: "Our children are future generations that we raise in our homes. Nobody has the right to berate the dignity of the housewife and deny her right to seek justice by ridiculing her role as a homemaker."
But isn't the Forum's latest grouse against the CBSE leading it astray from its committed struggle for students to feminist fervour? "Certainly not," says Forum member Kamlesh Nigam. "As concerned citizens—we housewives can be that too—we will challenge all that is wrong, whether education systems or uneducated attitudes." Dr Manjari Gopal, educational psychologist at the Delhi University and Forum member, agrees. "Inherent biases have to be fought. And certainly those that derogate the status of woman as worker, mother or wife."
More militantly vociferous, Sandhya Sharma, general secretary of the Housewives' Federation of India, feels that nothing short of angry agitations can correct the situation. "It's become fashionable to debunk the contribution of women who stay at home and cater physically, mentally and emotionally to their families without a single day off. It's as if women are being pushed into double and triple roles. Working at home won't suffice. Nor will just working in office. She has to work at home and in office to be taken seriously."
On a more legal note, the Forum's lawyer P.S. Sharda observes that the court is supposed to guarantee not only the right to audience but also the right to dignity. "And any comment suggesting that even one housewife's plea is less significant or credible than that of a thousand professional women or men infringes on the right to dignity. This, when world semantics are changing and the housewife is being called housemanager."
CBSE counsel Dr A.N. Singhvi, who has been named in the application as having uttered the alleged statement, meanwhile, is yet to receive official intimation regarding the application. The advocate says: "I have not seen, heard or read the application. Moreover, the case is subjudice and it would be inapposite for me to comment on its merits. However, when we receive a notice we will file a reply."
Till then the objection will do its rounds. In the courtroom. In the office of ministers. And in minds.