Status of Manipuri Meitei Pangal (Muslim) women & challenges ahead
- Part 4 -

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

The Challenges Ahead

We have discussed the present status of Manipuri Muslim women and broadly find out the reasons behind it. Now we have to find out the ways and means to improve this status .The ways could be divided into a long time strategy based on well defined vision and short and immediate measures. Some of these steps are discussed here.

(a) Long Term Measures: These are the steps which will require a long time strategic planning and implementation over a period of three to five years. Some of the requirements are.

(i) Improving Education: The most important resource and unlimited one we have is the human resource. Providing quality education to our daughters will be able to change not only the status of the women but also the overall status of the whole society. How will we impart quality education to our girl needs to be workout. At present there is not a single women college in Muslim concentrated areas. We definitely need one good women college and women ITI with proper infrastructure including hostel facilities. A centre of higher education at appropriate place would be quite appropriate for the education of both men and women.

(ii) Provide incentives and awards: We should offer incentives and awards to encourage the women who have come out of bad situations and achieved success in life. There are numerous ladies in our community who had excelled in their respective fields. Professor Lalizan and Late Mazida Begum was the member of Women Commission of Manipur. Mrs. Sitara Begum and Mrs. Anuwari are prominent social activists. Various other young ladies are now participating in social issues.

Young students who had topped in various courses and competitions should be felicitated and encouraged. Recently Ms Mumtaz qualified in deputy conservator of forest competitive exam. Some years back we have had Salma Begum topping state MBBS entrance examination. We also have various gold medalists among our sisters. There are various groups working to encourage good performers. The prominent ones are MMOF, NEPSA, AMMPWA, IDO and AMU Alumni Association, Manipur.

(iii) Reservation, scholarship and loan: Since the disadvantages faced by the women of our society it is highly needed to provide immediate concessions in the form of more reservation in jobs and admission to educational institutes. We need to provide financial support to the needy in the form of scholarship so that not a single lady dropped out of school and colleges for not having money. We need to provide interest free loans to any women entrepreneurs who wish to start some self employment scheme.

(iv) Provide favorable environment: It is the responsibility of our civil society groups with the help of the government to facilitate favorable environment for our girls. No girl should feel unsafe to go to the school alone; no women should feel threatened while travelling to her work place. To provide such atmosphere strict law and enforcing the same with sanctity by the law enforcing body will be required. The mindset of the people needs to be changed. The requirement of guarding a girl when she is alone should not be there. If we have safe and peaceful environment it will be conducive for girls to motivate them to excel in every possible field.

(v) Expert Opinion: It is urgently required to carry out a thorough study by subject expert on the prevailing status of Muslim women. It should result in a vision document for the improvement. Experts can suggest fool-proof ways and means for changing the status of women in a time bound manner. Once the models are ready we should ensure it is followed in letter and spirit and our goal of changing the status of women is achieved. Input can be obtained from every angle but an expert study group can only find out real, achievable and concrete target.

Conclusion:

The status of Manipuri Muslim women is quite low comparing to the status of other women in the state and also to that of their male counterpart. This state of affairs is as a result of a long time tradition of wrong concept that women should remain indoors and should be obedient to her husband and do not require to participate in social activities.

With this belief and due to certain other social ills like early marriage, using a girl child as market vendor and unsafe environment leads to many a school dropout among the girl students. Thus the education of a girl child was neglected resulting in very low percentage of educated women. It is true that with less education, less knowledge and less exposure of women results in the low status of women only.

Women although contribute in a family by taking maximum responsibility of their household work but these were not productive and taken as a natural responsibility of the women. Right from the childhood she has been taught to carry out these activities.

With the changing of time, more and more women are educated. Numbers of qualified and educated women now has come out and started challenging the age old tradition. It is a good development, however, a lot more needs to be done. With an expert study team we can devise a long time and short and immediate measures for some more changes.

To provide quality education and empowerment it is appropriate to take up long term measures. Numbers of other activities will be required to achieve this. For example, to provide education we will require proper institution and infrastructure at appropriate places. For empowering we need to have proper training facilities. We may require a shopping complex in the form of famous Ema market in Muslim concentrated area may be at Lilong.

In fact a multistoried shopping complex including useful training centres, economic activities, medical facilities and any other social amenities centres can be constructed. This will not only provide opportunity to the women but also benefited the population at the surrounding constituencies.

As a short term measure, immediate realization and awareness of the backward status and awareness against the evils of society could be started by civil society. The women and girls who are coming out of such backward situation and excelling in respective area should be encouraged and felicitated. Scholarships and loans should be provided for education and self employment schemes for the girls.

By enacting strict law against violence against women and enforcing it with letter and spirit a sound environment should be created. These are some of the¬ measures which we can suggest, but long term vision document with a proper timeline in consultation with subject expert on the women issue is the need of the hour. Several NGO, including women organization are working towards it, but, we need to create professionally guided path to all these initiatives. Together we can bring the change.

Concluded...