Richa Paunikar
Pune
There is a family wedding on the anvil but Shabana is not happy. She is disturbed and depressed. There is nothing to be happy she says adding that the family is hunting for a groom for her brother’s daughter.
“She is too young to be married,” says Shabana who is unwilling to speak much about this. When prodded, Shabana says that at a tender age girls must get an education and enjoy school life. But instead, the poor girl are forced be marry someone who might be double their age. “ Same will be the case with my brother’s daughter. I can’t do much as it is a tradition in the village to marry off girls as soon as possible,” she says.
Shabana herself never went to school and instead accompanied her parents in the fields. Born in Nashik district she left to Dongargaon village near Nagpur with her parents. She came to Pune after being married at the age of 14.
“I wanted to attend school, but my parents had no money. I was helpless” she recalls with gloom in her eyes.
Her husband works as a Mistry who does temporary work whenever it is available. Now at the age of 24, Shabana has three children including a girl and two boys. “ Whatever my husband is earning is not enough even to feed the family. I realized that I have to do some work. Initially my husband didn’t allow me to step out of the house. But I was determined that I have to work if I want to educate my children” she says.
Physically abused by her in-laws, Shabana faced torture and continued living with the family for the sake of her children. “ Where to complain and to whom I should complain?” she says.
“ I have to work and have no scope for any complaints. My two kids go to a government school but I dream to educate them in an English medium school. But my husband’s salary goes into paying house rent and I have to work if want to educate my kids” she insists. Shabana works as a cleaner in an university and is also looking for more work. She says that she was never able to go to school, but her kids will definitely get education. Shabana insists that she wants her daughter to get a good education and stand on her own in her life. Education matters, she insists.
Girls in Schools
The National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) states that urban women are more educated than their rural counterparts. As per the survey, 27% of rural women have never attended school, compared with 13 percent of urban women. Twenty percent of women in rural areas have completed 12 or more years of schooling, compared with 39 percent in urban areas. The percentage of women and men who have completed secondary school or higher increases by wealth quintile; 6 percent of women and 10 percent of men in the lowest wealth quintile completed 12 or more years of schooling, compared with more than half of women (55%) and men (62%) in the highest wealth quintile.
Interestingly the survey reveals that the ideal family size declines with an increasing level of education among women. Women with no schooling consider 2.5 children to be ideal, compared with 1.8 children for women with 12 or more years of schooling.
Education is the solution
Shabana says that are hundreds of women like her who want to stop the vicious circle of child marriages and educate their girls. “ In urban areas, it is easy to convince the family members against marrying girls at a young age. In the village it is difficult” she adds.
Shabana says that once educated her daughter will be aware of her rights and no one will be able to exploit her.
The NFHS survey is in consonance with her feelings. Based on the reports of ever-married women age 18-49 of their experience of spousal violence, husbands who have completed 12 or more years of schooling are half as likely (21%) to commit physical, sexual, or emotional spousal violence as husbands with no schooling (43%). Women with husbands having the same education level as them are less likely (26%) to have experienced spousal violence than women in couples in which neither attended school (44%) or one or the other has more schooling.
Fatima and Shabana
In January this year Google Doodle celebrated Indian educator and feminist icon Fatima Sheikh, who is widely considered to be India’s first Muslim woman teacher. Alongside fellow pioneers and social reformers Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule, Sheikh co-founded the Indigenous Library in 1848, one of India’s first schools for girls.
Google wrote that Fatima Sheikh was born on 9 January 1831 in Pune and lived with her brother Usman. They opened their home to the Phules after Jyotirao’s father asked the couple to leave home if they wanted to educate “lower caste” children.
“ The Indigenous Library opened under the Sheikhs’ roof. Here, Savitribai Phule and Fatima Sheikh taught communities of marginalized Dalit and Muslim women and children who were denied education based on class, religion, or gender” Google adds.
Fatima went door-to-door to invite the downtrodden in her community to learn at the Indigenous Library and escape the rigidity of the Indian caste system. She met great resistance from the dominant classes who attempted to humiliate those involved in the Satyashodhak movement, but Sheikh and her allies persisted according the Google information.
Shabana and many like her might not be aware of Fatima’s struggle, but they are walking the same path laid by Fatima. The path of education will empower their kids to take control of their own lives.
( Richa Paunikar is SYMAJMC student at Vishwakarma University. Pictures: Google doodle and RBJ)
Beautifully written di