INTRODUCTION:

For centuries women were not treated equal to men in many ways. They were not allowed to own property, they did not have a Share in the property of their parents, they had no voting rights, and they had no freedom to choose their work or job and so on. The task of nation building requires the participation of all regardless of their race, ethnicity or gender in the creation of a strong state. The challenge of balancing between the need for unity and the recognition for diversity in the course of nation building is manifest not just in the interaction between Indian of different racial and ethnic backgrounds but also between the different genders. The appreciation of the need for gender equality has led to the enshrining of affirmative principles in India’s new Constitution to ensure the participation of women at all levels of national decision making. This important milestone provides the opportunity to reflect on the role of women in nation building and thus the education that women should receive in order to prepare them to effectively contribute to nation building. This paper reflects on this by addressing the questions: What makes woman “woman”?; and What type of education does she need so as to make that unique contribution to nation building that only she can make?

BACKGROUND:

We all know that before now everywhere, women are not given the chance to discover them to be what they want to be. With the freedom of the country she regained her lost position and reasserted her -equality with man. As she fought equally by the side of man for the freedom of the country, it is in the fitness of things that she must enjoy and equally share the fruits of freedom.

The general believe everywhere is that a woman’s place is in her husband’s home that is where they feel she can displace all the God given talent that she has there is this believe that she can’t be useful in any other place but there. So most culture believe training a woman those days, was just a waste of time and resources that why when a woman is educated up to the primary level she is asked to stop there while her brothers go further to the higher institution. And she is married off from there some parents even tell those women that want to be educated further to continue from their husbands houses while they bear him kids. And this men they get married to with they fear that the women will get to know more than they do now refuse to allow them continue even if they have promised to let them continue after they married them.

They can be traced back to ancient Hindu civilisation. Although some studies point to the equal status and rights that woman enjoyed in the Vedic period (2500 B.C. to 1500 B.C.), patriarchy seems to have been the norm throughout history. In the later Aryan period after 300 B.C., domination by the Brahmins (the priestly class), the growth of the caste system and other factors led to social decline. Child marriage became the norm, wives were expected to worship their husbands, barren women were thrown out of their homes and widows were not permitted to remarry. Many of these vicious customs are still observed in parts of the country. Other religions, like Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism or Islam, have questioned some of the practices in Hinduism, but, by and large, all religions have kept their women in varying stages of confinement and restrictions. About half the mankind consists of women but they count to be treated as second sex all over the world. It’s man’s world everywhere. She counts to be play second fiddle to man. Economically, socially sexually they have been born to obey, to carry out orders. As mother, wife and daughter-in fact, in any role she must have man’s protection and without him she is nothing. In India large no of women are still steeped in ignorance, superstition, poverty and disease in spite of democracy and independence. Muslim women in India as in many other countries are particularly in a difficult position; they have to suffer both veil and polygamy. Even in Great Britain which leads the world in liberal thought and education, women are discriminated against not only in entering certain professional but also in continuing to work after on grounds of domestic difficulties. This thing hurting every wise person. Times have changed, the pictures is no longer all that bleak.

THE BEGINNING OF CHANGES:

One of the fallouts of English education for the middle class during the colonial period was a change in attitude towards women. Through the Arya Samaj and the Brahmo Samaj, the Bengali middle class questioned the rigidity of brahminical Hinduism. Social reformers like Raja Rammohun Roy opposed sati or the practice of burning the widow on the husband's funeral pyre. The government abolished it in 1829. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's crusade for widows led to the Widow Remarriage Act of 1856. Several decades of agitation led to the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929 that stipulated 14 as the minimum age of marriage for a girl. Education of girls through formal schooling was another major concern. The All India Women's Education Conference held in Pune in 1927 became a leading organisation in the movement for social change. Women played a major role in the struggle for freedom from colonial rule. In 1917, the first women's delegation met the Secretary of State to demand women's political rights. The Indian National Congress supported the demand. In 1949 independent India gave them their due by enshrining in the Constitution the right of equality for women. Indian women have participated in large numbers in people's movements including those for land rights, environment, anti-price rise and anti-liquor agitations. In the past, women have been oppressed to a point where they were treated as a completely different species. They were in a country that seemed to be a dark tunnel with no hope, dreams, or sense of fulfillment. Now women have been given their natural birthrights, and they are now able to do everything males can do.

Women in India are beginning to follow the direction that the women of the Western world took more than eighty years ago; demanding treatment as human equals. However, it has become more and more evident as the revolution ages that Indian women may have to adapt the Western feminist method to their very traditional and religious culture. India has different complications that put the development of women in a completely altered context than their Western counterparts.Although the key targets remain similar: improvement of health care, education and job opportunities in order to gain equality between men and women in the various settings of public society, the workplace, the school yard and - possibly the most fundamental setting of all - the home. Women are striving to be independent on the equal level of men. The additional complexities that the women of India must also challenge are the caste system, the heavy religious customs, older and more traditional roles of the sexes, as well as the even stronger power that men hold in India. The status was at one time accepted, but with the Western women's revolution and perception, the role is slowly succeeding in its development through both independent groups of women and national and worldwide organizations based on the goal of gaining equality.

They all accomplished much, but a lot more has to be done; which requires the complete support from the other sex. No longer do women write books depicting their insecurities and injustices. Now women are writers of Pulitzer Prize winning works and teach aspiring male authors how to be the best they can be.

The Indian society is now proud of outstanding women achievers like Kalpana Chawla, Sania Mirza, Barkha Dutt, Shabana Azmi and many more. In a society where it was once unheard of for women to even be educated, women take up the majority of grade school teachers, and many more have blossomed into college professors with Ph D's and MD's. As women kept making these advancements to individualism, people have taken notice, and now women are considered better contenders for many jobs, men no longer have the full control they once fabricated.

CONTRIBUTION OF WOMEN IN NATION BUILDING:

When our countrymen were struggling and fighting to attain the freedom, the women folk also fought shoulders to shoulders and whole heartedly supported the struggling freedom fighters. During India's struggle for freedom, the position of women took a favorable turn. After India became independent it was realized by most of the national leaders including Nehru. Gandhi. Dr. Rajendra Prasad that emancipation of Women is necessary and also realized that so long as the conditions of women were not improved, and granted equal status with men, India could not progress. The role of women in the freedom struggle cannot be undermined. Sarojini Naidu. Mira Ben, Suchita Kapalani. Vinay Laxmi Pandit. Anina AsafAli, all played very crucial and enthusiastic role in the struggle for attaining freedom. Women constitute approximately 40% population of a nation. If she is given the task for the development of the country she can make a wonder. She is more dedicated, more hard working, more sincere, more devoted to the cause. Many social evils like; dowry, illiteracy among the females, killing of girl child in the womb, ignoring the hygienic values, polio etc. can well be tackled by the active involvement of the women.

Many women have proved themselves, dynamic, vibrant, sincere, and perfecting many fields. Smt. Indira Gandhi. Sirimao Bhandemaike, Chandrika Kumaratunga, Goldamir, Margaret Thatcher. Vijaya Laxmi Pundit. Super cop Kiran Bedi have proved themselves in all manners better than their male counterpart. These names made both the society and the women folk proud of them. The myth that certain fields were only meant for men has been proved wrong by women. Modem women in the present age occupy top rank and attained immense success in all the fields such as politics, police, administration, medicine, services etc. Mother Teresa, P.T .Usha, Mrs. Mohsina Kidwai. Mrs. SubuLaxmi, Mrs. Sushma Swaraj, the great environmentalist and social activist Medha Patekar and Promilla Kalhan, Mrs. KiranBedi, Kalpana Chawla, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi have become well recognised names in their respective fields.

Today the educated women have come out of their inferiority complex and are shouldering all kinds of responsibilities, as Managers. Officers, TV and Radio news-readers, Pilots, Ministers, Anchors, Musicians, Clerks, Stenographers. Ministers, Prime Ministers and whatnot? There are veteran MPs and Ministers in the centre and the State, Ms. Mayawati, Ms. Jayalalitha, Mrs. Sushma Swaraj. Ms. Mamta Bannerjee, Mrs. Rabri Devi. Uma Bharti. Mrs. Vijaya Raje Scindhiya have proved to be the astute Politicians.The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Act passed in 1992. lay upon the women of our country more responsibilities in accelerating the development of the country. These amendments provide 33% reservation for women in the Panchayat Raj. Women elected to Panchayatand Municipal Councils, because of the reservation. have started asserting themselves. Now the women in local governments are taking the basic issues as water, health facilities, family planning, polio eradication, more seriously, more sincerely. Now they can play better role in the development of their area of operation whether village or municipality, which in turn will result into the overall development of the State and the country as a whole.

Women are more dedicated and devoted to their duties and have much patience and politeness than man by nature. There is no doubt that women had played very important role in the national building, but the man is still not in favor of giving them the given due powers. The example is that the women's reservation bill lor 30% reservation in State Assemblies and Parliament has not been made the law so far. The bill was introduced several times since 1996 but couldn't take shape of an Act so far. The empowerment of women by itself cannot place women on equal footing with men. the need of hour is the change of social attitudes towards women. Many social evils, like dowry, illiteracy among women, infanticide of female child. elimination of girls foetus, are required to be fully rooted out. The crime against women like, eve teasing, rape. are to be dealt with strongest hand though several measures but half-hearted are being taken by the government in this direction, yet a change of social attitude and honesty, on the part of politicians, is must to make the women participate in the nation building at grass root level,

"Rightly" said by Dr. Rajendra Prasad.- "our women have a very great pan to play in the progress of our country the mental and physical contact of women with life is much more lasting and comprehensive than that of men ".

What can't be done by a women? If the men can help in the national building, the women can do much better! Women is no less creature than that of men. Women, undoubtedly, can play a very important role in the betterment of the nation if men give them chance.

CONCLUSION:

Due to early trends in feminism, the perception that woman is what she can do, still lingers in society. The early feminists had to struggle against discriminatory laws and socio-cultural attitudes that were founded on the supposition that women were inferior to men. In a bid to counter this, women fought for the right to do all that men could do as a means of proving equality. On the basis of such a view, it has been concluded that women in the 21st century have made important inroads in the quest for equality. To support this, evidence is sought to show that most women today enjoy at least in theory equal rights of participation in social and political life, The new roles of women are regarded a part of who she is. Understood in this sense, woman’s nature is regarded as a reality that is changing as her roles change with time.

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Received on 11.03.2013 Modified on 01.04.2013

Int. J. Ad. Social Sciences 1(1): July –Sept. 2013; Page 10-12