The 30 minutes spent in Akshar, while conducting the workshop for Class X, left me more fulfilled than 24 hours spent on most other days. The reasons were many but all connected to Akshar. The objective of the school—which is to place mentally sound and otherwise mentally and physically challenged students in the same space, the means used to fulfill their objective and the smiles on the faces of all the students is very refreshing.

The objective on 3 August was to carry out a simple exercise with the students. Bishan and I handed out a single printed sheet of a text titled the ‘Lotus’ by Aishwarya Subramaniam. The text was primarily about female infanticide, which is prevalent in India even today. Even though it is a crime, many families in the low rungs as well as the upper echelons of society practice it. Several reasons were stated by students which started off a very healthy debate between them.

After the passage was read out, the students were asked for their views on it and many questions were posed before them. On being asked if the child would have been killed if it was a boy, many shook their head and one did state that the girl child is often considered to be ominous to a family. Together with that a girl child implied that many expenses would have to be undertaken for her which included dowry.

This later led to a discussion on what the significance of dowry could be and whether the same is justified or was it simply a price paid for a commodity. A certain student stated that it could be an amount paid to the boy’s family, as they would have to take care of the girl. But after a further discussion on that, he was made to realize that ‘giving out of choice was fine but a demand for the same which would determine whether the marriage would take place or not’ was not only a grievous wrong but also punishable. A student even said that her relatives were asked to pay a dowry for her aunt’s wedding after all the arrangements for the marriage were over.

Does, dowry, if considered as a price paid for the bride, a proof of the discrimination in society between genders? Many hands were raised.

A certain boy aged 16 felt that not allowing his 13-yr old sister from travelling was justified as she was not responsible and it wasn’t safe for her. However, he felt that at the same age he was responsible enough to travel alone. A girl then said that only if he trusted his sister to be safe could he make her an independent individual.

The point was made. Discrimination starts off at a young age. It is prevalent in society and children from a tender age are able to realize that discrimination is carried out in their own families. Making them realize that discrimination in any form is wrong, is a long process and will take time, but knowing that the seed for thought has been planted in their young minds makes me feel happy that maybe, the ‘winds of change’ have started making a difference.

At the end of the session, when the boys who were a majority in the class were asked about who would raise a voice against their parents taking dowry, many raised their hands up in unison, making us feel that our objective of igniting ‘a new thinking so as to bring about a social change’ had started working out well.

— A report by Sharmila Nair,
Law graduate, Interned with PeaceWorks.