Status of Manipuri Meitei Pangal (Muslim) women & challenges ahead
- Part 2 -

Henna Tarannum Khan, M S Khan and M Ahmed *

Manipuri Meitei Pangal (Muslim) women Shopping for Id-ul-Fitr at Khwairamband Ima Keithel on July 17 2015 :: Pix - Shankar Khangembam

(c) Early marriage: Another factor which affects the education of a girl child is their early marriage. There are number of meritorious girls who could become a cream of society but married off at an early age. Thus, she discontinued her study. Early marriage not only reduces the education status of Muslim women, it also has a bad effect in overall development of the society.

The health of the girl who becomes a mother at an early age is badly affected. The maturity level of the mother is very less; thus it leads to broken marriages. The members of the family are more adding burden to the society. Before a girl is married off she should be at least 20 plus and a graduate in any discipline.

This will enable her to take on the huge responsibility of a successful mother and become a well respected member of the family and thus improve the status of women as a whole. It is not only the society, the parent, but the girl themselves should learn to say no to such social evil that is early marriage. It has to be initiated by them and supported by responsible civil society to change the mindset of the people.

The overall effect of early marriage should be highlighted and discussed in every possible forum to eradicate this tradition at the earliest.

(d) Economic backwardness: Another factor which affects the education of a girl is due to the economic backwardness of Manipuri Muslim as a whole. Thus the victim of economic backwardness of the parent is the education of the girl child. The number of children a parent has on average is three to four due to early marriage.

The education of girls takes a back stage comparing boys. In recent days, numbers of benefits have been declared for implementation under right to education under some relevant departments. But a lot more needs to be done. Schemes especially for the education of girl child including providing scholarships, total sponsorship for meritorious students could be initiated to improve their status.

(e) Unfriendly atmosphere: Mentioning about this factor there are problems like eve teasing and fear psychosis of the parents. Some stray boys just follow the girl students on their way to schools and colleges. There is fear psychosis to the parents of girl students because of unsafe environmental conditions. The parents do not want their children to send for higher study. These problems should be mitigated at the earliest.

(f) Lack of Institutions & Infrastructures: Lack of institutions and infrastructures affects both girls and boys but it affects girls more. The parents seldom send girls to faraway places for education due to threat to girls in the society. Numbers of girl students drop out from schools since the facilities for education are not available at appropriate places.

Projects for girls' education and providing infrastructure in Muslim concentrated areas should be initiated by the central and state government. There is not a single girl college in any Muslim concentrated areas in Manipur. It is high time we should have girls' school, colleges and ITI in mostly Muslim inhabited areas to improve their status of education. The recently inaugurated ITI at Lilong will be very useful.

As in other states, we need to have higher study centres at appropriate places in Manipur too. It will not only improve the status of women education. It will have an overall result in reducing the number of students going out of Manipur for education.

These are some of the main factors to hit hard regarding education in respect of Manipuri Muslims. Now let us discuss the social status of Manipuri Muslim Women.

Social Status:

Due to lack of education and the wrong concept in respect of role of women in the society the status of Muslim Women is very low. With the changes in the society, now we have some ladies in every field representing Manipuri Muslim. The social status of Manipuri Muslim Women can be judged from the report of MOBC- 2014. The sex ratio(985:1000) is very good; however, the number of female headed householders is 7.81% against 92.19 of the male headed household.

According to the result of 58th round of National sample survey the percentage of female headed household in respect of Manipur was estimated to be 10.09 as against 9.82 percent of all India. The percentage of female headed households of the Manipuri Muslims is less than the all India average as well as that of Manipur as a whole. The percentage of male worker is 60.29% and that of women worker is 39.71%.

Only 6.39% of female population are working as salaried/waged employee as against 21.65% of their male counterpart. Various factors are responsible for the low social status of Muslim women. Some of the important factors are discussed below.

Factors Responsible For Low Social Status of Manipuri Muslim Women

The major factors of the low social status of Manipuri Muslim women are as below.

(a) Male dominance: Muslims belong to patriarchal society. Due to wrong perception and aged old tradition of neglecting education of women, they could not assert themselves in the male dominated society. The influence of women in the respective families is restricted. Her views were not counted in taking major decisions.

In ancient times her participation at village level is nil except her role of cooking process for the marriage and religious functions. The scenario is now changing with increased number of educated ladies; her participation in social activities is increasing day by day. Within the limit of Islamic teaching a women can play a pivotal role in nation building. It is said that the managerial skills of women is far superior to male, thus, women could be a better manager.

Likewise, there are several professions where women can contribute. Thus Muslim society should provide friendly atmosphere for them to come out and participate in all the activities within the permissible limit of religion.

(b) Lack of education: Lack of education is major contributing factor for Muslim women to remain an un-important person in the society. Lack of education means lack of knowledge and without knowledge how can one acquire/support logical and reasonable views acceptable to everyone. Generally many mothers may be ignorant, thus, their son and daughter will consider them helpless. To take social responsibility we should have knowledge and wide variety of experience in various fields.

With lack of education the field of exposure of the Manipuri Muslim women is very limited. There are cases where the women have travelled once in lifetime out of her house during Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). That too is possible if she belongs to some well to do husband, otherwise, she would have stayed her whole life within villages or so.

With changing time the educational status of Manipuri Muslim women is improving day by day. Thus she is more and more relevant to the society. We now have few Professor, Doctor, Engineer and councilor among the Manipuri Muslim women. It is a well coming change. We all have a huge responsibility to improve this status by providing a right atmosphere for education of the girls.

to be contd...