Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

214 B. LAKSHMI
In Zoram Bharti: Book 7, while girls are depicted six times, the boys
are depicted as many as 13 times. In the poem Kaisa Jeevan Hamara (How
is Our Life), three girls along with a boy are shown in a garden, carrying
the message of togetherness. In another chapter titled Cherawlam (a Mizo
dance form), a group of eight girls is depicted dancing the bamboo-dance.
In a chapter, Sabun Ki Upyogita (The Utility of Soap), a woman is depicted
washing clothes, while the male figure bathes. In a poem, Dharti Pukar
Rahi Hai Sabko (The Earth is Calling All), two women are depicted gathering
the harvest, while a boy stands. Just one girl is shown amidst two boys,
all buying books from a man. Generally, boys are shown as going to school
to study, helping the elderly, dancing at Mimkut (a Mizo festival), hunting,
working in a laboratory, or playing football and cricket. In Zoram Bharti:
Book 8, not only are men and boys depicted more often than girls and
women, but they are also shown in more active roles like participating in
a march past, as being more aware of national duties, studying, climbing
trees and wielding the hoe. Girls are only shown studying, selling vegetables
and dancing at Chapcharkut (a Mizo festival).
An analysis of the educational knowledge as embodied in Zoram Bharti
exemplifies that education is nowhere near the ideals and goals with which
it was envisaged in the post-Independence era and after. The NPE, 1986
(Government of India: 1992) announced two decades earlier, and the subsequent
Programme of Action, 1992, emphasised that
Education will be used as an agent of basic change in the status of women
and in order to neutralise the accumulated distortions of the past, there
will be a well conceived edge in favour of women. The National Education
System will play a positive interventionist role in the empowerment of
women.
In actual practice, however, the policy reinforces the gender stereotypes
prevalent in the society. A casual visitor to the hilly landscapes of Mizoram
is bound to be impressed by the camaraderie between men and women,
and the visibility of women in all spheres of life—agriculture, vegetable
stalls, Church, Sunday school, et cetera. However, this visibility masks the
underlying power structures that govern the lives of women. The gender
values being transmitted in the curriculum and also by the school ethos
are in consonance with the societal values pertaining to gender.