Non formal education and empowerment

Non-formal education is defined by Coomb and Ahmed (1974)³⁸ as any organized, systematic, educational activity carried on outside the framework of the formal system to provide selected types of learning to particular subgroups of the population, adults, as well as children. The research project investigated the role of various religious preachers on large population of the country. Every Indian child in their childhood listened to religious folk, mythological stories and religious scriptures. Religion is an integral part of child raising in India. These religious stories helped to socialize children, thus unconsciously religious principles become part and parcel of people’s personality. All the patriarchal rites, rituals, and values find their sources from ancient, religious Hindu text such as Vedas and Upnisheda.

37 Jana, 2016, 7

38 Coombs, Philip H. and Ahmed, Manzoor. “Attacking Rural Poverty: How Nonformal Education Can Help”.

(Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1974), quoted in quoted in Tuijnman, Albert, and Ann-Kristin Boström. "Changing notions of lifelong education and lifelong learning." International Review of Education 48, no. 1-2 (2002): 97.

The nation has long history of religious reformation by saints and Gurus. To name a few Swami Vivekananda, Swami Dayanand Saraswati reformed the society in spiritual and religious way.

Thus, Indian gurus have contributed positively to women empowerment during independence movement. In contemporary times, religion as an informal education is an important component due to rising fundamentalism and rightwing political party coming into power in the country.

In Indian family Gurus or saints are considered as a counselor or father figure.

Especially, in the age of technological revolution where virtual presence of any saint is sufficient to make an impact. Social media such as Youtube, Facebook to name a few can act as a tool to disseminate their preaching. Rise of shri shri Ravishankar, Jaggi Vasudev, Maa Amrutanandmayee are some of the Hindu saints who have large followers from all over the world. So, it is necessary to assess how these guru or saints impact women empowerment.

Religion plays a pivotal role in women’s life. According to Deprivation theory religion act as a safety valve for subordinate people be it ideological, political or social. Religion offers them material, emotional and social benefits (Charpentier 2010; Lewis 1989).

Kremer (2009) critically analyzed debate regarding Hindu priestess and their teachings.

she observed that some of the women priestess clearly uphold patriarchal values. These women priestess act passive rather than being a catalyst in social change. Though they can be very powerful medium for women empowerment, but they act as a representative of patriarchal values. But at the same time, the author analyzed two case studies of spiritual gurus namely Ananandmayi ma and Ammachi ma. These both spiritual gurus broke gender stereotypes and their teachings clearly sent message to challenge stereotypes. They empowered women through their teachings, actions and organization. Neither of two Gurus did support any patriarchal structure and gender stereotypes.

Charpentier (2010) in her book Indian Female Gurus in Contemporary Hinduism had analyzed seventy spiritual Gurus by observation and four as case studies from urban environment just like Pune. The spiritual female Gurus receive no special education, but their teachings are largely depending on scripture or spiritual text. For them, direct experience with sacred text is more important than other mediums such as education. It is to be noted that these sacred religious texts idealized good women as obedient, polite and confined with in four walls.

In ancient times, women are not allowed to go to pathshala (old school) and to learn religious scriptures. In contemporary times, the picture has reversed, and now Hindu religious Gurus are recognized by public. According to some female Gurus, as the author quoted “there is a widespread belief that women are able to increase their shakti through being exemplary pativratas within the framework of the strreedharma paradigm” (p 191-193) (shakti or sakti is female energy, pativratas are women who have been virtuous and followed all duties toward her husband and streedharma is the duty of an ideal woman). It simply means that female energy is increased only by following all duties toward her husband. Following such duties make one dear to God and path of salvation easier. Few female Gurus followed this framework and set an example of an ideal wife and mother. But in contemporary times, very few female Gurus consider this as an ideal. Thus, female Gurus do not advocate all gender stereotypes These are termed as women of symbol. But not all female Gurus follow gender stereotypes.

Some of them have even broke gender stereotypes. Therefore, it is interesting to know how women in general interpret these women of symbol.

Religion for Muslim is a way of living. For Muslim population, madarsa education is preferred over formal education. Though, according to some reports, in contemporary time, enrollment with madarsa has decreased (Amin 2013). But for female children still traditional education is preferred. Large parts of the Muslim population in India prefer to send their female children to Madarsa than schools for education (Ishtiyaque and Abuhurera 2014; Jhingra 2005).

The religious Madarsa centres put emphasis on theological education as opposed to modern technological education (Shazli and Asma 2015; Ishtiyaque and Abuhurera 2014; Jhingra 2005). The religious institution teaches or train the Muslim population to become ‘good Muslim’.

According to Yoginder Sikand (2009) in his article “Bridging Deen and Duniya: the

‘Modernization’ of Islamic Education in India” discussed history of religious education among Muslim in India. The author discussed that how after partition of India and Pakistan, post-independence jamat-i-islami, a socio-cultural organization decided to establish a separate primary school for Muslims with an aim to make them pious Muslim. Thus, Muslims in formal education till primary education learn religious and theological teachings but with modern touch. Ulemas (teachers) teach them Quran, Hadith, personal laws and customary laws with modern touch. Though the content of preaching is not explicitly discussed in the article because Quran is largely interpretive. But it is quite clear that in patriarchal social structure the personal laws are interpreted in a patriarchal way and among Muslim, informal education is institutionalized and widespread than formal education.

Like formal education, informal education, non-formal education literature reviews reveal that these educations have no doubt incorporated new values, values which can lead to social transformation and social change. But there is serious lacuna as this literature hardly throws light on impact of these on population at large. Formal and informal educations have re-institutionalized the patriarchal social structure. In case of non-formal education, two contrasting voices are put forth. There is a considerable research gap as content of this online Gurus, preachers, priestess and their impact on women have largely remained absent from research investigation.

The researcher collected the main study data through expert interview to discover a theory on unmarked reality based on experts’ interpretation and perception. To critically

analyze the interpreted and perceived reality, the EI data are illustrated by BNI and previous literature. Further, the emerged grounded theory is supported by extant cognitive concepts from the disciplines of sociology and psychology.

Chapter Three: Methodology