**Trigger warning: Harassment**
“I will be blamed for it!”
“Even if I did raise my voice and take any action, I would definitely get overpowered physically!”
Thanks to the Indian patriarchy, many girls are familiar with this terrible feeling of helplessness while getting verbally or physically harassed by their male peers. About 40% of parents have even acknowledged that their girl child had faced some sort of abuse in their school. And this is not limited to only schools! But, perhaps, the school is where it all begins.
With its numerous schemes like Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao and Kishori Shakti Yojana, etc., the government tried to change this mindset of victim-blaming of society, but there has been no difference! Why not empower the victim then?
So, in a new initiative, the Uttar Pradesh government has decided to introduce self-defence training in over 40,000 upper primary schools under the Mission Shakti program. Even the Rajasthan government has gone on to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which would ensure that around 5 lakh girl students would receive self-defence training in which the unutilised funds from the Nirbhaya Fund would be used.
But would these two programs resurrect female education from the crisis it has plunged into in these two states?
Often, it has been stressed that to enable children to learn to their full potential, they need to feel safe. In India, the girl child needs to feel safe from abuse and harassment. Uttar Pradesh has failed in providing this to female children by being the state with the highest cases of girl child abduction and kidnapping, published in NCRB’s Crime in India. This has resulted in Uttar Pradesh having a female literacy rate of only 59.26%. While Kerala, which has crimes against children rate of 2.7%, being one of the lowest, has a female literacy of 91%.
Thus, for the time being, this failure of the state machinery can be compensated by the introduction of self-defence training, which would help in making the girl child feel safe while going to schools as many of the rural girls have to travel a lot of distance in order to attend their school.
It would also help remove the hesitation that their parents have while sending them alone, as they would now be aware that their children are quite capable of braving any odd situation that comes their way. This would throw out the age-old notion that females need to be taken care of and are not quite competent to do so by themselves!
The benefits of self-defence training in a girl child’s education are not only limited to her safety but also helps in focussing the mind and de-escalating tense situations. These very traits are essential for character development, leading to a holistic educational experience for these girls.
Questions might be raised as to why only girls need to learn this training. Isn’t the government able enough to secure the safety of the girl child that now it feels she should be responsible for her own safety? And would introducing the girl child at this tender age to the dangers she might face dampen her very spirit with which she would have looked forward to attending her school? And would all of this impact her education in a negative way and inhibit her from freely exploring, as now the onus of her safety lies on her?
The questions do make sense, but one needs to realise that in a state like Rajasthan, where only 43% of women have seen the inside walls of a school, it is essential to support any and every intervention of the state government in uplifting female education, while also hoping that the government can ensure the girl child’s safety through its machinery, side by side.
The positive results of introducing self-defence training in schools would only arrive when the state governments efficiently implement this and are fully dedicated to ensuring its smooth functioning. If it does not end up being just another lip service, then self-defence training would help female children break all the shackles that were holding them back from accessing education.
The author is a Kaksha Correspondent as a part of writers’ training program under Kaksha Crisis.