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ravichaudhary
February 11th, 2003, 01:05 AM
Nurtured by love, this gurukul stands tall
By K. Kannan

NEW DELHI, JAN. 8. In 1945, Ms. Subhashini Devi, daughter of Bhagat Phool Singh -- one of the pioneers of Gurukul education in Haryana -- laid the foundation of a Kanya Gurukul at Khanpur near Sonepat as desired by her father. Despite all odds, the Gurukul pioneered the cause of women's education and reforms in an area where child marriage was still prevalent and widow re-marriage was taboo.

Nurtured by a mother's love, the institution stands tall among rural education institutes in the country and the 88-year-old Subhashini, who in 1976 was awarded the Padmashri for the pioneering work she has done, still toils to bring comfort to the 2000-odd girls studying there.

However, the institute has now become an arena of petty politicking with certain vested interests capturing it to suit their petty ends.

The Mahasabha which runs the institute has a ``stooge'' of the present Government as Vice-Chancellor. ``I have been like a mother to the Gurukul all these years and not an administrator,'' rues Subhashini.

Born into a peasant's family of Malik Jats, Ms. Subhashini dedicated her life to the Gurukul to fulfil her father's mission. ``I was serving as a teacher in a government school in Jind when my father asked me to leave my job and start an institution for girls coming from rural areas like the one he had started for boys. In 1934, I started the Gurukul in Jind which I shifted to Khanpur later,'' the 88-year-old educationist says.

Despite the many obstacles in her path, Ms. Subhashini moved ahead with an undaunting spirit to make the Gurukul the largest Centre of girls education in Northern India. ``Initially, parents were reluctant to educate their girls. We went from village to village championing the cause of girl's education''.

It was the villagers who helped her in raising funds to sustain the institution. ``From day one, we have been giving uniforms to girls besides giving them boarding and lodging facilities. All successive Chief Ministers of Haryana have also helped us greatly,'' Ms.
Subhashini says.


Such has been her commitment and dedication that it has inspired a young lecturer to do a doctoral thesis on her life and work. Dr. Nonica Dutta, who teaches in Delhi University's Miranda House, has recently completed a book on this woman educator of Haryana and it is in the process of getting published in England.

Ms. Subhashini has also done a great deal for women's rights and empowerment and inspired rural women to achieve a sense of independence. ``Girls used to be married off early in our area. we fought against it successfully. We also launched a successful movement against widows not being allowed to re-marry,'' the silent activist says.

It is this institution that is now caught in the quagmire of politics with Mr. Baljeet Singh, President of the Youth Wing of the INLD, declaring himself elected without any voting. ``Having fought for women's rights all her life, should I give in to such injustice?'' she asks.

http://www.hindu.com/2001/01/09/stories/14092184.htm

ravichaudhary
February 11th, 2003, 01:11 AM
For some negative comments by Nonica Dutta
below:

""
Consider the testimony of Subhashini, an 88-year-old Jat woman. She talks about the virtues of her Arya Samaj upbringing in rural Haryana. Educated at Kanya Gurukul Dehradun, in the 1920s, she committed herself to rural women's Arya Samaji education by establishing a Kanya Gurukul in Khanpur village in 1942.

Though exposed to Gandhi's nationalist struggle in the 1930s, she was principally committed to the notion of a Hinduised Jat identity.

She actively supported shuddhi (reconversion), sangathan (organisation), Ved-prachar (proselytisation) and cow-protection campaigns.

Many of her pupils and teachers remained brahmacharinis (celibate), for the purpose of serving the Hindu community and nurturing patriotism.

Central to Subhashini's worldview was her obsessive fear of Muslims. She trained her girls in self-defence techniques, including the use of arms, as protection against imaginary Muslim attacks.""

From the Hindu Online

Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 15, 2002 About -

Leader Page Articles Gujarat and majority women By Nonica Datta T

The participation of women activists in the movement in favour of Ram's temple in Ayodhya, and in Hindu right-wing organisations is an enduring legacy of the communalisation of Hindu women in colonial India.

"I DO not find anything wrong here" was the reaction of a young middle-class gynaecologist who drove through the roads of Ahmedabad littered with bodies burning all around. She was not stirred by the brutal savagery to which she was a witness on the first day of the Gujarat carnage. She was indifferent to the public brutalisation of Muslim women. Yet, her perception was not unusual. Many Gujarati Hindu women in fact shared it; they showed little inclination to soothe the pain of the victims and survivors. In fact, many of them either remained silent on the rape of Muslim women or justified it. Above all, many women were actively involved in looting, arson and destruction. Surely, their endorsement of the recent genocide is a testimony to their growing communal consciousness. And yet, one shudders to think how, why and to what extent has the Hindu woman become so communalised. Today's communalised woman in Gujarat, and her ilk elsewhere, is produced by her forerunner in colonial India. With the strengthening of Brahmanic Hinduism and orthodox traditions, the Hindu woman's role within the family and community was redefined in the late 19th century.

Hindu reformist organisations prescribed new rules for the role and status of women. Religio-communitarian forces and tenets shaped the everyday life of Hindu women, belonging to diverse caste and class backgrounds. In the process, women strengthened their position as mothers, daughters, wives, reformers, and professionals. With their limited access to political circles and institutional structures, they came to acquire a new position within the Hindu family and society. Their experience, shared by Hindu men, contributed to the growth of sectarian identities and Hindu nationalisms. Women's participation in communal movements in contemporary India is widely recognised. However, little is known about women in localities who fortified caste identities, promoted communal tendencies, and forged their identities within a religio-communitarian context in colonial India.


Consider the testimony of Subhashini, an 88-year-old Jat woman. She talks about the virtues of her Arya Samaj upbringing in rural Haryana. Educated at Kanya Gurukul Dehradun, in the 1920s, she committed herself to rural women's Arya Samaji education by establishing a Kanya Gurukul in Khanpur village in 1942.

Though exposed to Gandhi's nationalist struggle in the 1930s, she was principally committed to the notion of a Hinduised Jat identity.

She actively supported shuddhi (reconversion), sangathan (organisation), Ved-prachar (proselytisation) and cow-protection campaigns.

Many of her pupils and teachers remained brahmacharinis (celibate), for the purpose of serving the Hindu community and nurturing patriotism.

Central to Subhashini's worldview was her obsessive fear of Muslims. She trained her girls in self-defence techniques, including the use of arms, as protection against imaginary Muslim attacks.

She emphasised the threat of Hindu women's abduction by Muslims, but justified the reality of Muslim women being abducted by Jat men in the 1930s and 1940s.

She celebrated Partition violence as a providential moment in which the Hindu Jats wiped out Muslims from her part of Punjab (now Haryana).

The Partition was a final resolution of a long-standing conflict between her Jat community and Muslims. Her land was cleansed of the Muslims' presence. Her fear of Muslim menace vanished. She and her pupils felt safe, secure and liberated, and their sense of Jat identity fused with a supra-Hindu identity in the aftermath of India's partition.

But Subhashini was not alone in holding such beliefs. There were many women like her, in other parts of the country, who were active agents of a Hindu communitarian agenda and anti-Muslim sentiments. It was primarily through their adherence to religious orthodoxies that they came to occupy a respectable position within the Hindu family, community and society. This sort of space was neither available to women participating in anti-colonial nationalist struggles, nor to those subscribing to radical, secular traditions. Hindu communal organisations and leaders supported women's anxieties against Muslims, and co-opted their concerns into the broader Hindutva movement. Women's agency was a critical factor in the shaping of a Hindu identity.

Their agency worked subtly, and, at times, invisibly. Their agency drew boundaries between Hindus and Muslims in ways in which the homes of Hindus were closed to Muslims and their touch was seen as polluting. Their agency functioned in a way that they could not transcend or cross their family and caste-community boundaries to identify with their Muslim counterparts. Instead, they often identified themselves as vulnerable Hindu women threatened by the `sexually predatory Muslim male'.

This stereotyping justified Hindus' violence against Muslims, for communal riots were often triggered by rumours of the sexual assault of Hindu women by Muslim men in pre-Independence India. Today, the BJP draws on the same exclusivist language. The imaginary suspicion of the Muslim as an aggressor and a sexual predator continues to haunt the Hindu nationalist's psyche. Little wonder then that the Sangh Parivar has now circulated rumours about the abduction of Hindu and Adivasi women by Muslim men to mobilise diverse communities to attack Muslims, and to extend its base in rural and urban areas in Gujarat.

The participation of women activists in the movement in favour of Ram's temple in Ayodhya, and in Hindu right-wing organisations is an enduring legacy of the communalisation of Hindu women in colonial India. Indeed, the brahmacharinis of the past are turned into the sanyasins and sadhvis of today. This explains the prominent BJP women leaders' indifference to the rape and humiliation of Muslim women, and their refusal to take a gender-sensitive stand on the State Government's brutal attitude and the calculated inaction of the police forces in Gujarat. The Gujarat carnage demonstrates the most horrifying divide between the majority and minority women — the majority women have emerged as tormentors, while the minority women appear as vulnerable victims. Everyday reactions of many ordinary Hindu women show how they, like their predecessors, continue to identify with majoritarianism, rather than empathise with the sorrow, fear and insecurity of minority women.

This explains the refusal of the young gynaecologist and many like her to join the angst of the `other' in Gujarat. What they want is a `Hinduised society', what they desire is a sense of `Gujaratiness' deriving from an aggressive Hindu identity. Surely, most of them derive their ideological sustenance from their communalist inheritance. The BJP will continue to take advantage of their moorings. It is time that such women discarded their communal baggage, evaluated their historical legacy, and spoke the language of courage, sanity and personal freedom.

If they change the way they think, they may blur the boundaries between Hindu and Muslim women — us and them — and forge a new kind of `us'.

(The writer teaches History at Miranda House, University of Delhi)

http://www.hinduonnet.com/2002/06/15/stories/2002061501511000.htm

urmiladuhan
February 11th, 2003, 01:50 AM
Ravi Chaudhary (Feb 10, 2003 02:41 p.m.):
For some negative comments by Nonica Dutta
below:

""
Consider the testimony of Subhashini, an 88-year-old Jat woman. She talks about the virtues of her Arya Samaj upbringing in rural Haryana. Educated at Kanya Gurukul Dehradun, in the 1920s, she committed herself to rural women's Arya Samaji education by establishing a Kanya Gurukul in Khanpur village in 1942.

Though exposed to Gandhi's nationalist struggle in the 1930s, she was principally committed to the notion of a Hinduised Jat identity.

She actively supported shuddhi (reconversion), sangathan (organisation), Ved-prachar (proselytisation) and cow-protection campaigns.

Many of her pupils and teachers remained brahmacharinis (celibate), for the purpose of serving the Hindu community and nurturing patriotism.

Central to Subhashini's worldview was her obsessive fear of Muslims. She trained her girls in self-defence techniques, including the use of arms, as protection against imaginary Muslim attacks.""

From the Hindu Online

Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 15, 2002 About -

Leader Page Articles Gujarat and majority women By Nonica Datta T

The participation of women activists in the movement in favour of Ram's temple in Ayodhya, and in Hindu right-wing organisations is an enduring legacy of the communalisation of Hindu women in colonial India.

"I DO not find anything wrong here" was the reaction of a young middle-class gynaecologist who drove through the roads of Ahmedabad littered with bodies burning all around. She was not stirred by the brutal savagery to which she was a witness on the first day of the Gujarat carnage. She was indifferent to the public brutalisation of Muslim women. Yet, her perception was not unusual. Many Gujarati Hindu women in fact shared it; they showed little inclination to soothe the pain of the victims and survivors. In fact, many of them either remained silent on the rape of Muslim women or justified it. Above all, many women were actively involved in looting, arson and destruction. Surely, their endorsement of the recent genocide is a testimony to their growing communal consciousness. And yet, one shudders to think how, why and to what extent has the Hindu woman become so communalised. Today's communalised woman in Gujarat, and her ilk elsewhere, is produced by her forerunner in colonial India. With the strengthening of Brahmanic Hinduism and orthodox traditions, the Hindu woman's role within the family and community was redefined in the late 19th century.

Hindu reformist organisations prescribed new rules for the role and status of women. Religio-communitarian forces and tenets shaped the everyday life of Hindu women, belonging to diverse caste and class backgrounds. In the process, women strengthened their position as mothers, daughters, wives, reformers, and professionals. With their limited access to political circles and institutional structures, they came to acquire a new position within the Hindu family and society. Their experience, shared by Hindu men, contributed to the growth of sectarian identities and Hindu nationalisms. Women's participation in communal movements in contemporary India is widely recognised. However, little is known about women in localities who fortified caste identities, promoted communal tendencies, and forged their identities within a religio-communitarian context in colonial India.


Consider the testimony of Subhashini, an 88-year-old Jat woman. She talks about the virtues of her Arya Samaj upbringing in rural Haryana. Educated at Kanya Gurukul Dehradun, in the 1920s, she committed herself to rural women's Arya Samaji education by establishing a Kanya Gurukul in Khanpur village in 1942.

Though exposed to Gandhi's nationalist struggle in the 1930s, she was principally committed to the notion of a Hinduised Jat identity.

She actively supported shuddhi (reconversion), sangathan (organisation), Ved-prachar (proselytisation) and cow-protection campaigns.

Many of her pupils and teachers remained brahmacharinis (celibate), for the purpose of serving the Hindu community and nurturing patriotism.

Central to Subhashini's worldview was her obsessive fear of Muslims. She trained her girls in self-defence techniques, including the use of arms, as protection against imaginary Muslim attacks.

She emphasised the threat of Hindu women's abduction by Muslims, but justified the reality of Muslim women being abducted by Jat men in the 1930s and 1940s.

She celebrated Partition violence as a providential moment in which the Hindu Jats wiped out Muslims from her part of Punjab (now Haryana).

The Partition was a final resolution of a long-standing conflict between her Jat community and Muslims. Her land was cleansed of the Muslims' presence. Her fear of Muslim menace vanished. She and her pupils felt safe, secure and liberated, and their sense of Jat identity fused with a supra-Hindu identity in the aftermath of India's partition.

But Subhashini was not alone in holding such beliefs. There were many women like her, in other parts of the country, who were active agents of a Hindu communitarian agenda and anti-Muslim sentiments. It was primarily through their adherence to religious orthodoxies that they came to occupy a respectable position within the Hindu family, community and society. This sort of space was neither available to women participating in anti-colonial nationalist struggles, nor to those subscribing to radical, secular traditions. Hindu communal organisations and leaders supported women's anxieties against Muslims, and co-opted their concerns into the broader Hindutva movement. Women's agency was a critical factor in the shaping of a Hindu identity.

Their agency worked subtly, and, at times, invisibly. Their agency drew boundaries between Hindus and Muslims in ways in which the homes of Hindus were closed to Muslims and their touch was seen as polluting. Their agency functioned in a way that they could not transcend or cross their family and caste-community boundaries to identify with their Muslim counterparts. Instead, they often identified themselves as vulnerable Hindu women threatened by the `sexually predatory Muslim male'.

This stereotyping justified Hindus' violence against Muslims, for communal riots were often triggered by rumours of the sexual assault of Hindu women by Muslim men in pre-Independence India. Today, the BJP draws on the same exclusivist language. The imaginary suspicion of the Muslim as an aggressor and a sexual predator continues to haunt the Hindu nationalist's psyche. Little wonder then that the Sangh Parivar has now circulated rumours about the abduction of Hindu and Adivasi women by Muslim men to mobilise diverse communities to attack Muslims, and to extend its base in rural and urban areas in Gujarat.

The participation of women activists in the movement in favour of Ram's temple in Ayodhya, and in Hindu right-wing organisations is an enduring legacy of the communalisation of Hindu women in colonial India. Indeed, the brahmacharinis of the past are turned into the sanyasins and sadhvis of today. This explains the prominent BJP women leaders' indifference to the rape and humiliation of Muslim women, and their refusal to take a gender-sensitive stand on the State Government's brutal attitude and the calculated inaction of the police forces in Gujarat. The Gujarat carnage demonstrates the most horrifying divide between the majority and minority women — the majority women have emerged as tormentors, while the minority women appear as vulnerable victims. Everyday reactions of many ordinary Hindu women show how they, like their predecessors, continue to identify with majoritarianism, rather than empathise with the sorrow, fear and insecurity of minority women.

This explains the refusal of the young gynaecologist and many like her to join the angst of the `other' in Gujarat. What they want is a `Hinduised society', what they desire is a sense of `Gujaratiness' deriving from an aggressive Hindu identity. Surely, most of them derive their ideological sustenance from their communalist inheritance. The BJP will continue to take advantage of their moorings. It is time that such women discarded their communal baggage, evaluated their historical legacy, and spoke the language of courage, sanity and personal freedom.

If they change the way they think, they may blur the boundaries between Hindu and Muslim women — us and them — and forge a new kind of `us'.

(The writer teaches History at Miranda House, University of Delhi)

http://www.hinduonnet.com/2002/06/15/stories/2002061501511000.htm

********************
Subhashini Malik needs to defend herself against malicious reports constructed on the basis of what the writer thinks is going on inside Ms. Maliks head. Who does she (writer) think she is- a psychoanalyst!!!!. I would try to find Ms. Maliks contact address/ e mail and mail this article to her.
She would know the best as to how to deal with the writer.
**********************

ravichaudhary
February 11th, 2003, 06:07 AM
Urmila Duhan (Feb 10, 2003 03:20 p.m.):
[quote]Ravi Chaudhary (Feb 10, 2003 02:41 p.m.):
********************
Subhashini Malik needs to defend herself against malicious reports constructed on the basis of what the writer thinks is going on inside Ms. Maliks head. Who does she (writer) think she is- a psychoanalyst!!!!. I would try to find Ms. Maliks contact address/ e mail and mail this article to her.
She would know the best as to how to deal with the writer.
**********************


Urmila,

I am going to to shift all Nonica Datta material to the Nonica Datta Thread


Let us keep this thread for Subhashini Devi

Ravi

rsdalal
February 11th, 2003, 08:08 PM
even if you take her (Dutta's ) words on this. Still I do not find anything wrong doing in Smt Subhashini Devis work. Is there anything wrong in
--- Traning womens for self defence
--- what is wrong in hating muslims, after knowing their past 100 year of history in India and world. If somebody still takes seculiar view on this, I feel he is not doing justice to his/her next generations.
--- Sudhi sangthan
--- In heling/uniting jat community against the muslim agressors

I personally feel that in Haryana and Delhi our ancestors have done good job during partition. Otherwise in rest of the country you riots every now and then.

ravichaudhary
February 11th, 2003, 10:30 PM
[quote]Ranvir Singh Dalal (Feb 11, 2003 09:38 a.m.):
even if you take her (Dutta's ) words on this. Still I do not find anything wrong doing in Smt Subhashini Devis work. Is there anything wrong in

My response to this on the Nonica Datta thread in the history and current affairs section.

Ravi