04 Feb Girl child, caste dimension and empowerment scenario
Girl child, caste dimension and empowerment scenario- Today Current Affairs
The term “ girl- child” has been invoked in policy dialogues of the developing world since the 1990s to draw attention to a range of matters concerning girls. At the transnational position, its institutionalization can be dated to the Fourth World Conference on Women, 1995 at Beijing where, for the first time, girls’ issues plant an independent space of their own
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. How well is the Empowering going? The Hindu Analysis
The bare conjuration of “ girl- child” in public converse is a reference to a girl figure that has been successfully wrested from the clutches of tradition, family, and history. The girl- child is misleadingly imagined to be a formerly tyrannized group which, through timely intervention by the state, has been disenthralled. This becomes apparent when one looks at the story of Malala Yousafzai — the manner in which she was elevated and appropriated by Western media. In 2012, Yousafzai’s tale of frippery, in the face of Talibani stricture of her activism for girl- education, captured the attention of the Western world. In an moment, she surfaced as a third- world girl- icon and came a philanthropist of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. A new- plant seductiveness with issues pertaining to girl commission dominated the political center- stage from this point onwardsAccording to her, contemporary narratives around the girl produce homilies which are accessibly used by the West to present itself as the rescuer of girls from the wretched backwardness of the developing countries. The thrust on girl education and its donation in public and transnational policy conversations as a result to all “ girl” problems — beforehand marriage, femicide, mortal trafficking, violence, healthcare and menstrual hygiene, patriarchal socialisation within the family, etc, is one similar commonplace.
Sarada Balagopalan, in her digressive notice of the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) programme under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), discusses how girls from borderline communities in these domestic seminaries are anticipated to learn to make papads, fix, aseptic towels, learn embroidery, acclimatizing and tone- defense as part of their class called “ life chops.” The KGBV separated girl scholars from their families and community grounded on the notion that they’re innately accumulative. Since the girls would live within the academy demesne, they would be down from their families and thus isolated from the social pressures of early marriage. It was believed that domestic training would automatically break the problem of traveling long distances from home to academy, low registration and attendance, and also insure the safety of the girls. A close reading of the programme reveals how the state, through expressions of commission and progress, hides its patriarchal leanings and absolves itself from the responsibility of social metamorphosis. She draws attention to the “ increased surveillance of borderline girls” by the state, as girls’ educational status becomes an index of public development ― the academy space is misleadingly imagined to ramify girls from their family’s poverty/ tradition/ unsexed social anticipation. Education for girls is used as a commonplace to shift one’s aspect from the forenamed problems.
The Girl Child Active or Passive? The Hindu Analysis
Croll presuppositions that state programs which serve within the rubric of the girl child deny agency to girls and should thus be replaced with a girl- rights centric frame. According to her, the “ girl- child” perpetuates the notion of girls as victims, particularly for girls fromnon-hegemonic communities in the global South. For her, the frame of girl- child isn’t in alignment with the general trend around the world, which is inclined towards a language of rights. The use of “ girl child” strips girls of all openings to lay claim to being agential. In other words, she visualizes the converse around girl- child ( girls as victims) as negative to girl- rights ( girls as empowered).
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Still, in disagreement with her argument, this composition suggests that the girl- child as a order of analysis, should be dynamic and devoid of similar dichotomisation. The girl- child is positioned at the heart of all conversations pertaining to legal protections and rights of girls within South Asia. The converse on girls frequently oscillates between two poles ― the first kind of narrative shows how girls are victims of multiple cutting structures of power; whereas, the alternate kind of narrative focuses immensely on girls’ eclectic resistances to show how they aren’t “ amenable” or victims. The narrative of girls as victims can de-emphasize girls’agential action to bring about social metamorphosis. Whereas, the narrative of “ girl power” runs the threat of making unnoticeable their continuing sexual, political and socio-profitable vulnerability and marginalisation. How does one recite the story of girls to punctuate both their vulnerabilities as well as their resistances? It’s important that contemporary exploration doesn’t rush to claim that girls in India are either victims or empowered because such a narrative would be exclusive of the presence of borderline womanhoods and different surrounds girls in India come from.
Borderline Girlhood The Crossroad of Girlhood with Caste: Today Current Affairs
Borderline girlhood refers to indispensable accounts of girlhood which don’t find a voice in mainstream literature and the story of the girl. The story of the radical 14- time-old Mukta Salve, one of the first Dalit women/ girl pens, is the story of a girlhood borderline to the dominant converse. Muktabai was one of the first girls to admit an education under the Phule’s in 1850’s Pune. She’s known for her 1855 essay named “ Mang Maharachya Dukhvisayi”. The citation of Salve in a narrative of Dalit girlhood is definitive to punctuate the “ technologies of the tone” stationed by Dalit girls and women in the concession of their subjectivities. It’s important to understand the subversive character of Salve’s jotting, its intricate weaving of the particular with the political, and the eventuality it presents of a radical break from being generalizations of the girl- child.
In the wake of the reported rape and murder of a 9-year-old Dalit girl in south-west Delhi, the urgency of the hour eggs one to understand: (1) How is the girl-child conceptualised to exclude Dalit girlhood? and (2) Why is the narrative woven by the discourse on girl-child detrimental to the safety of Dalit girls? Contemporary literature in the field of girl studies wholly neglects the intersection of girlhood with caste which makes theorisation challenging. The two proposed questions should become the igniter of a more meaningful and politically empathetic discussion on the lives of Dalit girls. The reportage of the crime demonstrates sheer intransigence to acknowledge the fact that the girl victim’s caste background made her a target of gendered violence. Commentators on social media conveniently refer to her being a “girl-child” rather than a Dalit to dismiss the specificity of instances of caste violence against Dalit girls. This pushes public rhetoric into a pitfall which increases the probability of misidentifying caste-based violence as gender-based violence. Caste-based violence against Dalit girls manifests itself in gendered forms (caste rapes); the fact that Dalit girls are most vulnerable among an already marginalised group due to their caste location remains incontrovertible. Today Current Affairs.
The constitution of the girl-child, as previously discussed, alludes to why we are robbed of a language which can effectively capture the gravitas of this case. The Brahminical underpinnings of the genealogy of the girl-child present her (as in the Bhadralok imagination) as Khukurani (term of endearment for Bengali middle-class girls), who is on the path of growing up to become a Bhadramahila. Away from the drudgeries and degeneracy of the “common woman”―lower-caste/class women, “prostitutes,” “maid-servants,” the Bhadramahila was hailed as the “New Woman” by the emerging upper-caste middle classes of the 19th century . The genealogy of the girl-child is rooted in the history of the upper-caste girl bride and therefore is exclusive of the experiences of Dalit girlhood. One would have to radically challenge the manner in which the girl-child has been envisaged in public rhetoric and policy statements for it to become a more dynamic and inclusive entity.
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