Women's Empowerment in India: Philosophical Perspectives

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About the Author Professor S. K. Singh was born in a small village- Lachhaminia, Madhepura (Bihar) on August 31, 1946. He finished his school education from Tribeniganj High School, Tribeniganj. He took his graduation and Master's degrees from Patna University, Patna and joined the post of lecturer in philosophy in 1967 in B.R Ambedkar Bihar University, Muzaffarpur. He was promoted to the post of Reader in 1980 and was appointed Professor of Philosophy in 1985.

Dozens of research papers and one book have been written by him. He was associated with teachers' movement of B.R. Ambedkar Bihar University, Muzaffarpur in capacity of President / General Secretary for about 20 years. He was also the Joint Secretary of Indian Philosophical Congress and Akhil Bhartiya Darshan Parishad. He was the first teacher of Philosophy from universities of Bihar to be elected as the General Secretary of the Indian Philosophical Congress in 1994 and served the causes of philosophy and teachers of philosophy for 15 years. In October 2009, Professor Singh was elected as the Senior Vice Chairman of the Congress. He was one of the key organisers in hosting the interim session of World Philosophy Congress for the first time on the soil of any Asian country in New Delhi from 15th to 18th December 2006. He participated and presented papers in three successive World Congress of Philosophy held in Boston(1998), Istanbul(2003) and Seoul (2008). He superannuated as Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy, B.R. Ambedkar Bihar University, Muzaffarpur on August 31, 2008 and was appointed as the Pro- Vice- Chancellor of Veer Kunwar Singh University, Ara on 26th June 2009. He also served this University as the acting Vice- Chancellor from November 20, 2009 to April 9, 2010. Presently, Professor Singh is the Pro- Vice-Chancellor of Kameshwar Singh Darbhanga Sanskrit University, Darbhanga.

Foreword It has come as an expansive deference of the Baba Saheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar Bihar University, Department of Philosophy to me in approximately 12 years old retirement as a teacher from its sister department of political science to have been asked to write the foreword to the anthology on Women's Empowerment in India: Philosophical Perspectives which it is scheduled to publish. The deference is expansive because I, a Political Science man having been mainly concerned with international politics, do not find myself deserving it. Yet I am humbly responding, taking this deference as a spiritual culmination of the affections continually showered on me for nearly half a century by about a score of brotherly and sisterly Philosophy Department colleagues-some having commanded my deference, some my friendship and some my elderly love. It has stirred me a little when one of them, decades ago, had invited me to contribute to their maiden Departmental venture, the Chintan. It stirred me again a couple of years back or so to be invited to write a piece for a souvenir edited for the Department by a class friend of mine and retired Head of it. It is stirring me for the third time now rather in a quaking way.

It does not embarrass me in any way to commence this Foreword at a note of personal high appreciation for Dr. Sachindra kumar Singh's academic stewardship of which this anthology is only one example, though, no doubt, both academically and socio- politically glittering. The anthology, treasuring the explorations of a somewhat massive national seminar on a very live and pertinent social issue of the day has as may be seen, very meaningfully fructified in a series of perspectives--philosophical, socio- philosophical, social-thought-traditional, ethical, existentialist, feminist and medico-technical. Some 46 academics explorers have joined the exercise and the produce of their collective toil is not only being academically disseminated but is also being transmitted to society to serve it in tackling one of its standing problems which has continued to be elusive and has been negatively making it evasively stayput.

The readership that the anthology may enlist on its publication will benefit quite a lot from its philosophic generalities regarding women's social positioning in this country, socio-philosophic insight on the past of the same as also in its current social and political realities, reminders regarding the relevant national social-thought traditions with their messages of pertinence and help today, the ethical imperatives underlined with reference to the gender discrimination problems, the existentialist sensitivity as found warranted, the feminist arousals perceived and the socio-medical remedies suggested against the heinous consequences of our social maladies ensuing from gender discrimination.

The anthology ought to be of great interest and help to the country's sensibly live and striving socio-political circles pushing forward the fight for, and mitigation of, gender sadism and discrimination rampantly continuing to incapacitate us as a national community.

It may and ought to be an anthology dear to the hearts of our educated and educating mothers, sisters, daughters and afflicted partners in our social strife for achieving gender equality.

I have no doubt at all that by publishing this highly valuable anthology, the Department of Philosophy of this University will earn a good deal of academic and social esteem for itself and for the university of which it is an apexual structure.

Introduction This anthology is a wrap-up of the 46 papers, which the 3-day National Seminar on Women's Empowerment in India, sponsored by the Indian Council of Philosophical Research (New Delhi) and conducted by the B.R. Ambedkar Bihar University (Muzaffarpur) Department of Philosophy, in March 2002, could solicit.

The Introduction is aimed at underlining the sense that the seminar could develop on the matter with what may be viewed as a bunch of 'Philosophical Perspectives. Those perspectives have been identified and have further been categorized as parts of the anthology. One of the parts needs to be doubly sub-categorized. Some liberty has been taken in adopting the yardstick for identifying and categorizing these perspectives and the same is based on the understanding that women's empowerment is meant to improve their social lot against prevailing deprivations and discriminations so as to capacitate them to acquire social equality and social freedom of choice and action with, of course, commensurate responsibility also on their part as the co-efficient of that equality and freedom.

Of the 46 papers, 32 were in English and 14 in Hindi. The anthology has avoided attaching significance to the bilinguality of communication since it is concerned only with the various philosophical perspectives they convey.

In all, 7 main categories of 'perspectives' have been identified as reflected in the papers (taken as articles for this anthology). Accordingly, the anthology has been organized in terms of 7 parts: I. General Philosophical Perspectives, II. Socio-Philosophical Perspectives, III. Social Thought Perspectives, IV. Ethical Perspectives, V. Existentialist Perspectives, VI. Feminist Perspectives and, finally, VII. Medico-Technical Perspectives. The category of 'Socio-Philosophical Perspectives' (Part II) needed being sub-categorized at two layers: at the first layer, with reference to India's 'Social Past' (Section-2) and its social 'Contemporaneity' (Section-ii) and, at the second layer, 'Contemporaneity' had to be sub-categorized further with reference to 'Social Problems' (II-ii- a) and 'Political Issues' (II-ii-b).

The category of 'General Philosophical Perspectives' (Part I) embeds generalities of approaches and opinions borne in 13 of the articles. In her article, Abha Singh holds the view that women's empowerment in India can be real and substantive only if they set their own agenda for development. Tandra Patnaik, in hers, looks at women's empowerment as intrinsic and, essentially, a matter of their self-growth. On the other hand, S.N. Chaudhary takes that empowerment as just a real extension of social values like liberty and justice to them. Banking on the Marxist perspective, R.K. Singh posits that women's empowerment is likely to materialize really only if women are liberated as an exploited social class. Believing that this country's ancient past presented a much happier state of affairs for its women, C.D. Jha has no hesitation in striking a note of pessimism on the ongoing efforts for empowering them. To R.K. Sinha, redemption appears lying in men and women, the two sides of social life, supplementing each other. Decline in women's status n this country, according to V.S. Singh, owed considerably to foreign invasions and what the Indian women need today is education, lessons in practical morality and socio- political awakening. Holding that the Indian women's social position in the ancient past was dignified, Navin Kumar's remedial line is similar to Singh's. Shail Kumari asserts in her article that notwithstanding the ongoing global efforts to empower women, in India, they have first to wage a struggle to bring about changes in their own attitudes. Alok Tandon focuses on a series of desired efforts political, socio- structural, cultural and religious, if women in India are to get empowered. Drawing inspiration from what he sees as man-woman partnership model of women's social status in ancient India, Rajeshwar Singh takes an interesting philosophical position that, there being a man within every woman and the vice-versa, it would be women's highest fulfillment if every woman discovered the man within herself. Holding a somewhat different view, H.S. Singh, is inclined to believe that there has always been a gender discrimination in society irrespective of lofty claims to the contrary and, according to him, it is only through their own awakening that Indian women can change men's mentality for the sake of their own empowerment. In the thirteenth article, that being the last one of part I, in almost a similar vein, Rajeeva Kumar spots the male-female sex difference lying at the root of gender discrimination prevailing in society and accounting for women being used as a commodity.

**Contents and Sample Pages**