As a young Indian woman, who will face the ballot-box for the first time next year, I see a trend in Indian politics and governance that I feel the need to challenge—the lack of political power given to women in the government. Statistically, four prominent Indian parties have female heads and only 11% of the Parliamentary representatives in the Upper House are women. 66 women represent the 497 million daughters, mothers, wives, sisters, businesswomen and students of this country and India ranks in bottom 20 countries for female representation in the Parliament. If I were to adopt the role of a leader, I would adopt the role of an educationist because I firmly believe that girls need to be given an education that can empower them to effectively participate in the political sphere.
The sheer quantity of Indians that need to be educated often poses as a barrier for the quality of education they are given.In the same bracket falls political education for women and girls. There is almost no attention paid to political literacy for women, not in high school education nor in university level education because it has never been deemed important for women to be educated in leadership skills.Despite the fact that the Government of India had introduced the National Mission of Empowerment of Women in 2014 with the wide target of female empowerment in education, there has been no progress made in the sphere of political emancipation for women. Similarly, the voices of female Members of Parliament in policymaking has been isolated and fractured at best. As an educationist, I believe transforming the quality and content of education that girls receive in their high schools is instrumental in ensuring that they not only become active participants in national governance, but also conscious voters with a larger impact.
The first step to ensuring better political education is redesigning the curriculum. I remember from my own Civics lessons in Grade 10 that a formal education is not necessary to be an elected member of Parliament and while that might have been appropriate when India’s Constitution was framed in 1947 after centuries of colonialism and illiteracy, I believe it is necessary in today’s context. Redesigning the curriculum to ensure that all high school students receive a significant amount of knowledge that pertains to governance, democracy, how to exercise voting rights and leadership are essential and more so in the case of girls, whose access to such learning fades after they graduate from high school.
The second phase in using education to transform women’s political involvement is to provide them with a platform where they can interact, collaborate with other conscious women and build strategies to increase female involvement in governance. Looking at the statistics, 65% of female voters turned up to vote in the 2012 elections but large turnout does not automatically translate to electoral power—most of the female voters are not aware of the candidates, what they stand for and what changes they want to make. I want to provide adult women voters with an educational platform where they can interact with speakers, teachers, activists and other such individuals who can give them different perspectives about the political scenario in India and help them develop their own opinions. When it comes to the education of adult women, the conventional approach of classrooms and books does not work because they have outgrown the age where traditional learning effectively works for them. Therefore, it is important to create an interactive system for them so that they can learn in an environment that nurtures them, instead of intimidating them.
As an educator, I believe that if women and girls are given good political education, it can help them empower themselves while overcoming malnourishment, dowry, illiteracy, financial dependence and lack of maternal healthcare because they will be able to find their own voices. I believe this education will help at the grass root levels too, where women must be able to take part in the Panchayati Raj, which translates to a rural system of governance where every village elects a council of members to administer the village on a daily basis. When women are given the power to emancipate themselves politically through education and when we finally start producing female leaders who are capable of representing their own gender, democracy can show signs of success. When women step out from the shadow of the sari, only then will I stop asking, “Where are the women?”