Ghutiarishorip, South 24 Parganas. I walk past a group of flower vendors and local saree men to enter a small tin house. The scanty electricity connection took a power cut the fifth time in a row for the day. The mother brought us cups of tea and biscuits to restore our energy back from the long journey.
It was a small village, and almost the entire crowd had gathered around us—some very suspicious of our whereabouts and motives, others with a very enthusiastic smile. I could sense an aura of celebration around the Halder family. I progressed forward with the greetings.
Soon, as the crowd scattered with the descending sun, two young girls scrounge up near our mat and heard attentively of what her father said, ‘boroder kotha‘. After that, the discussions got heated and lively through the active participation of the mother, father and the elder girl of the house.
Boroder kotha mostly constituted discussions on the national economy, the political circus and education. I moved towards the elder girl and asked, “Is this pandemic affecting your studies?”
Neema Halder, the 19-year old replied with a broken voice, “My family could only afford my education before the lockdown. During the COVID containment, my father lost his accountant job from the local doctor’s chamber, and he was forced to take up odd jobs like either lending a helping hand for the cable connectors or the cow milker. We have also lost all our land because of poor documentation. So, I was bound to work as house help for the Pradhan’s mansion, and now my fate destined me to this marriage.”
The pandemic had affected the lives of people from different walks of life. The COVID era mostly saw the introduction of online education and computer teaching. However, the supposed digital divide has now outputted into a social divide, mainly barring people from poor income households from the benefits of learning.
The burden of the economic crackdown has significantly affected the availability of food, health and livelihood to most people in our country. In a country where 70% are below the poverty line, the huge blow has ruffled lives of plenty in return for job losses, a day without meals, unsupervised health concerns.
In such a scenario, affording a smartphone or a laptop or 4G net connection for a Google Meet and Zoom classroom remains a luxury. Whereas, in the patriarchal set-up where the girl child is seen as a burden or a liability, the privileges of education are snatched away from her. If a smartphone is made available in a marginalized household, the boy child enjoys the facilities only.
Schools and colleges have started to reopen in other states of Maharashtra and Bangalore with regular assistance of COVID protocols, but the West Bengal Government has remained silent and ignorant to such a significant concern. However, there has been a loose talk on reconsideration of opening educational institutions after puja vacation.
Such uncertainties have made Sharmistha Sanyal, a Class 11 student, take her life for the repeated injustices she met. A young girl from a lower-class background has lost her parents to severe illness during the pandemic. She died by suicide because she could not afford a phone for her online courses, and her grandmother was hellbound to marry her off.
Recent reports from various private initiatives sparked off striking percentages of girl students, mostly from lower-middle and lower class backgrounds, to be victims of child marriage. Many girls have also been forced to take up child labour to continue their education and the degrading condition of her family.
There has not been proper induction of the government officials and police in such cases of grave concern. Various sociologists raised concerns that there has been an enormous rate of school and college dropouts, mostly among female students during the pandemic, and reopening cannot guarantee proper regulation of their education even then.
Schools and colleges have always been an open space to create communication channels and new friends who provide a wide outlook to the outer world. It has always been a channel to know about the greater world, be aware of their rights and opportunities, and get exposed. Most girl students opt for studying in distant institutions to escape their immediate environment. They develop a sense of independence and learn to think widely, away from superstitions and social stereotypes.
Regular interaction with peers and new teachers helps them in engaging with a healthy environment capable of their personal growth. Women are also known to take up part-time jobs during their study life, to financially facilitate their family and lessen the burden of their parents. Such an environment helps in mental and academic growth and becomes conscious of their national concerns through school activities like organizing functions, academic ventures, environmental days, and getting access to higher scopes.
Most of the students in government primary schools are from middle class or lower-middle-class families, and due to school closures, they are not getting mid-day meals and are gradually turning away from school and becoming more reluctant towards education. After a lot of corruption, some schools provide mid-day meal raw material every month, but whether it reaches the child’s family is still unidentified. As a result, the number of malnutrition has increased, and girls with the onset of menstruation and other health concerns have suffered periodically.
With the pandemic, students are trapped inside the four walls of repression assimilated in their households. More than the young boy, a girl child is occupied often with domestic work and family care, rendering her no time for her study courses. Most Indian households render an outlook that the boy will be the future breadwinner and leave him with the most time to focus on his academics and career, but women are hindered with early marriage. The social stereotype and financial burden both work hand in hand to channelize this outlook. The pandemic has increased the rarity of girl education, but pre-pandemic also bore bad educational opportunities and conditions for women.
The villages are also a place where caste is strictly monitored and controlled, and people from oppressed caste households are often discriminated against and isolated. Women from marginalized households have suffered discrimination more extensively, and the social hierarchy has restricted her opportunities further. Where only 8% of students from Tapasili jati and advasis have basic access to education, taking into account both offline and online courses, we can imagine the extent of hardships of women coming from that identity.
With the introduction of New Educational Policy 2020 facilitating more digital study formats, the central government passed the blueprint to assimilate educational benefits only to upper-class students and systematically push the marginalized communities backwards. The new syllabus introduced changes with deduction of Rabindranath Tagore’s literature, Sankha Ghosh’s poem, Mahasweta Devi, RK Narayan, and eliminated courses on farmers, workers, radical women liberation, and caste movements of historical significance.
As a result, there has been a significant upward trend in saffronization. Infiltration of Ramdev’s Ayurveda and Yogi’s Hindutva philosophy in place of natural sciences and technology courses shows clear motives of inducing backward ideologies, known to discriminate marginalized and dominate over poor and oppressed. Such nuances can heavily affect the already downtrodden situation of women education. Where education and schooling provided scope for free-thinking and liberation for women and marginalized genders, instances of such Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan infiltration raise a bigger question mark on the actual social, political and economic development of the country.
Schools and colleges have been virtualized for over two years now. The COVID situation has seen fluctuating trends, increasing gatherings and crowds in cinema halls and shopping malls, and participating in Ganesh Puja celebrations. The Durga Puja hype has also seen an upward trend with regular crowds at New Market, Gariahat Bazar and Dakshinapan. Yet, a question still lurks on the young minds of today- if the government can open doors of entertainment ventures, recreational hotspots, why is the question of education and development left unanswered?