Event Description

On the account of birth and death anniversary of Chandraprabha Saikiani pioneer of women rights crusader in Assam on 16th March, 2018. Women Studies Centre had organised a talk on “Women Studies in Higher Education”. Retired Prof. Susheela Kaushik, one of the prominent political scien- tist of the nation was invited for the talk. Faculties, research scholars, students from all the disci- plines participated in the talk. The programme started with a poem recitation written by Saikiani herself named ‘Ahalya‘. The students did a recitation and recieved appreciation for their creative expression. Dr. Madhurima Goswami, Head of the CSCWS welcomed the Vice Chancellor (Prof. V.K. Jain) of Tezpur University and also the guest of honour Dr. Susheela Kaushik to the event. After floral tributes to women rights crusader Chandraprabha Saikiani by the honourable guest and the Vice-Chancellor, Sonali Boro, Research Assistant of the Centre felicitated the guest of honour. Prof. Vinod Kumar Jain released the book “The Northeast Indian Women: Issues of Displacement, Violence, Media and Law (2018)”. Chief Guest of the event Prof. Sushela Kaushik relaunched the Centre’s website. The programme started with the introductory speech of the Vice - Chancellor ad- dressing the issues of women empowerment that lies in the heart of sustainable war, also speaking on the importance of financial independence, mentioning the govt. Schemes (Ajivika) and (Mudra) for economic empowerment of women. Bornil Jonak Phukan, a student of CBCS course presented a brief account of Prof. Kaushik’s life and work. Prof. starting her struggle in the initial stages of setting up the Women Studies Centre in Delhi, she spoke about various perspectives of the people regarding participation of women in politics.

She emphasised on proper understanding of ‘Women Studies’ and urged not to use them as the focal point of community violence and ailments. She quotes, ‘All centres of Women Studies have turned up into islands of women’. She also spoke on marginalization of Women Studies and be- coming of ‘women’s’ studies. She highlighted the loopholes in the five year plans and said “women, we don’t want to be special, we just want to be the part of normal’. The biggest problem regarding women empowerment in the college and university is the authority. She quotes, ‘we as teachers must work towards sensitizing the mind of the youth, here right from the classrooms’. She also recalled on how Armaity Desai stood against pressure from the education minister to resign from the chair of UGC. In her lecture, main focus was gender mainstreaming in the social, political and institutional processes. She cited the example of matrilineage in Kerala where men have no role in property of the family. She further mentioned about the shortage of women in Haryana and how it has become one of the most violent states for women in India.

She concluded her speech emphasizing on giving importance to Women Studies rather than just confining it to the study of women as she believes it will limit the subject only to its outer shell. Dr. D.R. Gautam, Research Officer, Ambedkar Chair deliberated on the theme of women’s week (8th - 16th March, 2018). He also commented on how the students failed to understand the concept (Un- derstanding Gender) and hence could not express well on the matter. He stressed on teaching of the issues of gender and it’s ramification as a continuous process in the higher education system. At the end of the event, Dr. Madhurima Goswami (HOD, CSWSC) offered the vote of thanks.