The Margins of the Mainstream

Gandhiji encouraged the active participation of women in the nationalist campaign but conferred on them the image of traditional womanhood. The ideological framework draws a parallel structure in the Defence forces where women are encouraged into the central systems of the nation-state but are assigned a peripheral role in the mainstream activity. The woman has a virtual, marginalized centre under the protective guidance of the patriarchy. Inequality generates itself through socio-political attitudes and cultural institutions. In the nationalist discourse, the attribution of motherhood to the nation serves to construct the reproductive role of woman. Employment opportunities in the defence sector in India are a clear indicator of the sexual discrimination between men and women. The depiction of women in the armed forces of the nation is a reflection of the position women hold in Indian Society. The military system of the nation-state is an authentic platform to articulate the Indian woman’s identity. Discrimination of women in the forces is functionally defined by socio-cultural attitudes. In the exclusion of women from specific spheres such as combat unlike the American counterparts, the male construct evades being challenged. In contemporary politics too, the presence of few women MPs helps the male to marginalize women.

The Indian Defence Review article “Women in the Armed Forces: misconceptions and facts”(Vol 25.1 Jan-Mar 2010) states that the induction of women can be “disastrous” to the nation. The article further contains a reference to the idea that granting SSC to women has “achieved nothing except increase the load on maternity wards of military hospitals.” This implication of the reproductive role has denied access to an unbiased realization of women’s potential and prowess. Women are not allowed to transgress this male ideological construct. The dismissal of a woman officer after her charges of sexual harassment by male superior officers and the suicide of another female officer is an instance of how resistance is contained within the ideology of power. The question remains if it is the army that is still to cope with women as officers or the male ideological constructs. Amidst a lot of activists’ protests a male official withdrew his statement of not ‘needing’ female officers for the system. The construction of a woman’s identity is essentially a male construct and thereby a cultural construct.

Are reservation bills, preferential verdict all couched reassurances of a culturally instituted ideology that also practices combat exclusions? Perhaps the couched ideology gains visibility in the Indian navy tradition where women experience the virtual ‘centre’ as warships are named in feminine names. Further it is a woman who by tradition inaugurates the naming and commissioning of an Indian warship. Every woman who embarks an Indian naval warship is saluted but no woman is allowed on board a warship except on occasions like Families’ Day when identity as the spouse of a male officer permits her presence.

The nationalist concept of motherland as opposed to the fatherland of Europe has only served to construct the reproductive role of woman. Woman’s intellectual freedom and potential still remains chained to the male dominated discourse. Education is fundamentally perceived as an entry into advanced sectors of social and political life. But the educated woman still carries the ideological burden of the woman of the past. A woman‘s world is still determined by a patriarchal authoritative society. Even within the nationalist discourse, the woman holds a peripheral identity. Do women who defy male constructs and enter certain spheres pose a threat to man?

Will the male gaze continue to prevail on less rewarding insights even if women are intellectually stimulating equals. Nehru’s observation, “You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women” reminds us further that the defence system as a mirror image and microcosm of the nation-state needs to examine the ideological framework that decides preferential treatment. Are women denied autonomous access and equal opportunities because they are born unequal or culturally constructed unequal?

Education, Ethics and the Private Player

Recently there was a huge uproar that a political voice had forgotten postcolonial sense by inviting foreign private universities and by purging many an Indian private university. But are we not already enslaved by our native masters to be anxious about the return of colonial legacies? Commercialization has already monopolized the field of education in India. The entry of private players created a playground out of what was once a respected arena of the society and the nation-state. The advent of private universities (deemed and deemed to be) has ensured the exit of academic ethics and the blooming of a new ‘business’, education as business. Apart from the market stakes of education as business are the ethics and integrity of intellectuals in universities reduced to objects of mere market value? In spite of commercialization offering greener pastures as a strategy of economy, it has also converted a respected area into a market place.

 Teaching faculty have become marginalized, docile bodies and ethically silenced in the race for recognition, for upgradation and approval. We have regulatory bodies to govern the recognition, upgradation of stars, and approval of courses. However do we have an established regulatory body that makes private players accountable to ethical issues of faculty and students? If education is eroded in terms of ethics and values then it shall ultimately affect the quality of the citizens. Have intellectuals become pawns in the hands of a powerful few? The power could rest in vested interests; it could rest in ex-politicians who still can access systems of the nation-state from the coveted margins or the sideburns. Has academic freedom become the victim of a private system of funding and authority? Have private players reduced teaching, research and academia into objects of market value?

A revered, socially upheld value ridden institution of education that ensures future citizenship of the state has become a business organization run more by management methods than by intellectual, educational visions. If higher education run by private players is cross examined, are management techniques being applied to malign the ethical moral fiber of a dignified profession? Is the power source of private players locatable within themselves or within the malfunctioning of institutionalized systems? At most times the top position is held by someone whose genealogy is traceable to the political arena. How far are private players transparent in their intake, treatment and systematized procedures of teaching faculty? How many list doctorates for recognition and upgradation but houses its faculty in impoverished working areas and residential quarters? In the unrestricted intake, it is academic standards that are compromised in numbered appointments to match student teacher ratio. Do the infrastructure of private players upgrade the living conditions of faculty along with the upgradation to many a stars by various coveted committees? Are faculty valued beyond the returns of their market value? Are academicians of merit retained for merit or for recognition? Do private players work within ethical murkiness? If  for instance the scales weigh merit and the requirements for an inspection, do we have a system to see that merit does not get opaque under the application of management techniques?

Even if dynamic private players envision that the economic growth of the nation-state is sustained, the question remains if it is economic profit that is shared by a privileged few. Have private players, faculty and students become functionally owners, producer/laborers and consumers? The application of a market culture will deplete ethical accountability which is a significant element in higher education. The call of the hour is not panic attacks at the entry of foreign private players, but the native sons of the soil need to rethink the dangers that lurk in juxtaposing business and education as two sides of the same coin. The voices of intellectuals down the ages have been honored and constitute a major check upon the ethical framework of the nation-state. So if the power resources of knowledge are being allowed to perish as objects of market value in a playground of business players then what ails the ethical responsibility of the Indian Nation state that is still young and hungry for advancement?