Bengaluru (Karnataka): The burgeoning city of Bengaluru has gained such huge advancement in recent years that gave it another name of ‘Silicon Valley of India’ for being IT hub. However, gender equality and women’s status amelioration seems to be a distant dream for the illuminating megacity. Data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in December 2017 highlights big leap from 3109 cases of crime against women in 2015 to 3412 in 2016, unveils The Times of India, December 2017; upon witnessing rise of barely 9 cases in preceding calendar year. Santulan-The Gender Equality program of Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan (DJJS), under the stewardship of His Holiness Shri Ashutosh Maharaj Ji, realizes the need of the hour, and is thus, carrying out a rigorous campaign in the urban city to educate the educated in gender perspective. The foresight is to create awareness amongst women to perceive education as one of the components, and not the sole component, of holistic women empowerment.
Prejudicial attitude of society majorly contributes to denial of justice and equality to women, exacerbating status of women. Either it results in crimes like sex selective abortions, or survivors get no choice but to battle deep-rooted cultural stigma and bias from society. Santulan, with the approach to raise societal consciousness by invoking innate energy of soul, is carrying out women empowerment and gender sensitization workshops under above mentioned campaign in a city like Bengaluru that observes severe violence against women (VAW) in guise of being called as educated city. These workshops are organized on varied themes viz. capacity building, character building, grooming etc. in order to motivate women to realize their worth, exercise their rights and be enlightened spiritually to regain their lost footing.
Activities in these workshops involve devotional songs and bhajans highlighting women’s glory, engaging games & puzzles to ascertain the gravity of gender discrimination in mind-sets of participants, and hence, counsel them accordingly, sensitizing exhibition with display of slogans and messages to respect women and value girl child, and edifying discourses emphasizing on importance of education along with mentioning the fact that educational empowerment solely fails to empower women holistically. The genesis behind the ever-worsening situation, i.e. declining values, gender stereotyping, objectification of women in media, etc. is also highlighted through group discussions, wherein participants share their experiences of equality deprivation & subjugation imposition. Awareness creating tools like traditional dance performances, thought provoking skits showcasing the gender based discrimination & violence, irrespective of impeccable contribution of women in various social spheres.
Santulan teams are working insistently across India with zealous women workforce to ensure that the vision of His Holiness to carve vedic women of 21st century is realized and womanhood blooms at its best.
Here are some snapshots of multifarious initiatives taken by the Bengaluru center of DJJS in regard to uplift and alleviation of women in the city…
