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Report of
National workshop on
awareness creation and capacity building of women
Organised by:
Centre for Study of Society and Secularism & Gandhian
Institute of Studies, Varanasi
Date:
10th to 11th March 2012.
Venue
:
Maitri Bhawan, Bhelupur,
Varanasi.
Participants:
NGO activists, students and faculties from various parts
of UP.
The workshop organised in Varanasi was
attended by 55 participants from various districts of
UP, mostly from NGOs working for women empowerment. The
workshop began with the welcome speech by Dr. Muniza
Khan. Dr. Dipak Malik, Honourary Director, Gandhian
Institute
 of
Studies gave the introductory speech thereafter. He
explained the rationale and objectives of the workshop.
The first session on ‘Women’s Movement
in India’ was chaired by Mr. Sunil Sahasrabudhey. In his
introductory speech he focussed on the need for social
change towards a gender just society and how to go about
it. The resource person in this session, Ms. Meera Dutt
gave a detailed picture of women’s movements across the
world and India, its strengths and weaknesses. In her
lecture she covered the areas such as women’s wings in
political parties, caste conflict and women, role of
women in civil society movements etc.
The second session on ‘Caste Conflict
and Women’ was also chaired by Mr. Sunil Sahasrabudhey.
The first speaker, Ms. Jagriti Rahi opined that there
should be something similar like Mandal Commission, for
the betterment of women’s life in India. Women are at
the receiving end of caste conflicts in the country. The
second speaker Ms. Kusum Verma gave a detailed sketch of
what is going on in Khap panchayats in Haryana,
and honour killings taking place in other parts of
country as well. Fundamentally all these are against
women’s right to choose her partner. The society is
scared of young couples choosing their life partner
 irrespective
of caste and religion because, this has a power to
shaken the centuries old caste system. Hence inter-caste
marriage is a tool to break the caste barrier. The third
speaker Ms. Chitra Sahasrabudhey was sharing her view
that nowadays a new kind of caste system is emerging,
that is educated caste and illiterate caste, a lot of
social and political discrimination are taking place
around us on this basis. Women’s movements should
address the issue of caste conflict as well. During the
session there were paper presentations by Ms. Poonam and
Ms. Varuni Krishnan, students from Banaras Hindu
University.
The afternoon session on ‘Gender
Violence’ was chaired by Dr. Dipak Malik and the
resource person was Dr. Rooprekha Verma. She explained
the various dimensions of gender violence. Gender
violence is not just physical assault, but include all
kind of mental torturing as well. Talking to women’s
right doesn’t mean that men are having all the right or
there is no violence against men. Hence the women’s
movements should address the cause of women in a broader
socio-political perspective.
Dr. Qamarjahan chaired the fourth session
of the day on ‘Composite culture in Kashmir’. The
resource person Prof. A.K. Kaul explained the forms of
composite culture existing in Kashmir, its origin and
nature. The local culture of Kashmir has received
components from various cultures. The discussions
further developed in to insurgencies existing in Kashmir
today as the resource person had first hand
information’s regarding conflict in Kashmir.
 Evening
there was screening of a Pakistani film Bol,
which address the issue of women’s right and religion,
how religions is used by patriarchy to suppress women.
The story “based in Lahore, it takes place in the
house of a family of young girls and highlights the
challenges and confrontations they have with their
father, who continues to embody the contradictions of
many religious values, which in turn accentuates the
growing poverty, troubles and sufferings of the family.
The story focuses on Zainab, a daughter who always feels
compelled by her logical reasoning and sense of justice
to challenge the values her father holds dear. It’s an
emotional film, which looks at some serious issues
through the experiences of its characters.”
On the second day of the workshop there
were two sessions by Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer, ‘Communal
Conflict and its impact of women’ and ‘Role of Women in
Conflict’. He explained with examples from day to day
life, how religion is used for violence in the society
and discrimination against women. He was of the opinion
that conflict occurs not because of religion but
religion is misused for creating conflict by vested
interests. The religion have given lots or rights to
women, but even today the command over religious texts
and its interpretations are in the hands of a handful of
priest class, who have a patriarchal social
 outlook.
This leads to blaming religion for discriminations
against women.
The last session was a panel discussion
on ‘Women and Ethnic Violence: How much Does Gender
Count’. Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer, Prof. BN Juyal, Dr.
Dipak Malik, Mr. Sunil Sahsrabudhey and Prof. Qamarjahan
were the panellists. Gender based violence within the
ethnic violence, various aspects of gender violence, the
role of women’s movements in this regard etc were
discussed in detail. Prof. A.K Kaul delivered the
welcome speech and Dr. Muniza Khan gave vote of thanks.
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