Maharashtra textbook is sadly right, parents of 'ugly' women do have to shell out more dowry
Parents of "ugly" women have to shell out more dowry to get their daughters married. But why are we surprised?
In fact, the Maharashtra state education board has done a great service to humanity by admitting the truth — a textbook on Sociology for Class 12 says parents of “ugly” women (and also the handicapped) have to pay more dowry as finding grooms for such women is a difficult task.
The ugly truth that a faux-liberal India finds difficult to admit was being taught to students for three years (the book was first published in 2013) but came to national notice only now and we, as always, are outraging on social media.
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| Image: Twitter |
State education minister Vinod Tawde is right: "The content in the syllabus is old and the textbook has existed for the past three years. Politics and school syllabus should not be mixed."
Tawde feels the syllabus is framed by the education board and might have been aimed at highlighting a social issue.
There's is nothing to disagree with Tawde. He is right. The paragraph (from chapter 3 of the book) about which everyone is incensed not just highlights a social issue but also the "ugly" side of our culture and "rich" tradition. After all, we are still ready to take the bull of modernism by its horns in the name of preserving traditional practices. So, why not dowry?
And unlike some academicians who said the word "ugly" is sexist and the content (of the book) is “regressive” and “belongs to the dark ages”, that's not actually what has touched a raw nerve here.
It's neither dowry nor the fate of women. For women have been living with this reality for ages. Right from landing a job in corporate offices with very progressive outlook to getting married into modern families with traditional values, women have been living with the truth that "beauty" will always be a yardstick to determine her worth and existence.
And the word ugly is not sexist. If we abolish the word and its usage how would you define global and local leaders with twisted mindset and grab them by their white collars?
We are not simply ready to admit that the country of 1.25 billion people still has millions who are living in a dark age and putting up with regressive laws and customs. Why else none of the students (Class 12 students are by no means mere children) or their parents pointed this out or protested earlier? Why did none of our eminent sociologists and all those prestigious centres of social sciences bother to take a look into what is being taught to our children. After all, what were they researching on all these years?
Merely depending on social and traditional media to fight the battle for women and their ugly fate in India is certainly not going to rewrite chapters of national tradition (read pride).
And don't forget we have not even started talking about the rights of the disabled.