Respect for Women and Social Norm

Prof E. Bijoykumar Singh *

Protest at Manipur University Gate on 24 December 2012
Pix : Students of Manipur University

The crux of the recent public outburst was disrespect of women. It is not the first time nor will be the last. It is not that women are not discriminated against nor is it that women enjoy an exalted status in our society. Daily there are reports of injustice against women and one is not sure how many of the victims have got justice, however late it may have been. This time the outbursts which used to be localised became state-wide, more precisely valley wide and got mixed up with other issues.

In economics many a times we say other things remaining the same to get our result but other things don't remain unchanged. Everything is interrelated and trying to isolate anything will require tremendous self restraint and introspection. Despite everything Mr Livingstone was a Naga. His identity as a Naga overshadowed his identity as the perpetrator of the crime. In fact, he has many more identities. The question is -can we separate out his multiple identities? If not, can we be taught to do so? A related question is - can respect for women become a social norm?

The innumerable sad stories of women show that respect for women is not a social norm. Had it been a social norm, such incidents would have been rare. Social norms are behaviour accepted by the society to which we are conditioned. Social norms are customary rules of behaviour that coordinate our interactions with others. It governs property rights, contracts, bargains, forms of communication and concepts of justice. If you do not conform to social norm you are not accepted socially. We do not question social norms. We rather follow them.

The punctuality of Japanese is a social norm. Getting more and more busier with spiritual matters as we grow older is also a social norm. Driving on the left hand side of the road and shaking hands when we are introduced to each other are examples of social norm. Trying to earn as much rent as possible from one's official position is our social norm. Riding a bike is a social norm of our youth. Very few would dare to deviate from the social norm. Some social norms may not be consistent with democracy. If respect for women becomes a social norm such incidents would be rare.

The question is- how can we develop a social norm? The answer is a mixed one. While we have seen many social norms emerging we are not very confident of the dynamics of social norm. In a recent lecture while trying to explain the non economic factors behind economic growth, Prof Kaushik Basu asked us to guess the identity of a country whose population were described by westerners as notorious for irregularity and absolute lack of sense of time two hundred years ago. Few could imagine that it was Japan which is now synonymous with punctuality. It shows that punctuality has developed as a social norm.

Nearer home another example is no smoking in public places. Few could imagine that our smokers would ever agree to give it up in public places. Through a long and sustained campaign against smoking its evil effects sank in the psyche of the smokers and now not smoking in public places has become a social norm. We are never punctual yet you will see how punctual we are if you ever attend any function of Sri Sathya Sai organisation. Every function begins and ends right on time.

Another severely tested social norm is telling the truth. Though we are taught from the very beginning that we should tell the truth always and the legend "Satyameva Jayate" exhorts us to tell the truth, very few of us accept it as a social norm. Agreeing with this dictum and actually doing the opposite have become the social norm. We will say without batting our eyelid corruption is a beast yet we will not mind being a little corrupt. We even argue that it is embedded even in our daily prayers.

We love dichotomy. The shopkeeper who joins protest marches against corruption, threat to our territorial integrity would merrily overcharge his customers taking full advantage of a blockade. It is quite different from the story of Dharmabyadha, the butcher who was the most religious person. The teachers who neglect their students in their extension work and for that matter anyone not attending to his prime duty is no different.

Recently I attended a seminar on "life and works" of Shri M. Koireng Singh, the first elected CM of Manipur who can be rightly called an architect of modern Manipur. He led Manipur when giants also were leading India flush from the recently won freedom from the British. Here was a leader whose life could be aptly said to be his message. Sacrifice was his motto. Today our leaders are very different and think in a totally different plane. They look at politics as another investment. In fact the quantum of investment has become so high that the genuine social workers shy away from committing themselves in electoral politics. Even Mahatma Gandhi would have felt like Rip Van Winkle in today's politics. We have perfected the art of ruling by division.

The issue is - how respect for women can be made a social norm. The short term response should be to ensure that our law enforcing agencies do their duties to scare the would-be criminals. The long term answer lies in education. We respect equals. It reminds me of Martin Feldstein who said in a recent seminar "if I am asked to identify the three most important factors for sustainable growth, I will say firstly education, secondly education and finally education. The fourth, I should say, is also education."

The content of education is as important as investment in education.Through a properly developed curriculum the children can be gradually taught that women are in no way inferior to men. This can best be done by studying the lives of successful women in all walks of life. That they have achieved as much as the men despite all constraints make them even stronger. This is part of what we loosely call value education. To me value education basically means teaching the students the do's and don'ts necessary for a harmonious society. Respect for fellow beings includes respect for women.

During our school days in Manipur there used to be a paper called moral science teaching us the do's and don'ts. It used to be taught as an additional subject which needed only a pass mark. Today we realise that in our mad rush for so called excellence we have abandoned the humane aspect of education. What explains the increasing neglect and abandonment of old people by their children for whom they had spent their lifetime and put in their best? Americans have reconciled themselves with the reality that they are most likely to spend their last years in nursing homes away from their families. There nursing homes are old age homes and there is an endless queue for admission. We have not come to that stage yet one cannot miss the fact that economics is pushing us in that direction.

In fact, the key to many of our current problems is value education. Without it development will never become inclusive and continue to be inhumane. No technology is going to help us. Teaching indeed is a very serious profession.