I loved India. I loved going, I loved living there, I loved living the culture, and meeting the people, and I will never regret my decision to go there. But I didn’t love everything about my experience there. Although everything I did and saw was eye-opening, there are things that I cannot be glad to have seen. Everything was not fun and exciting. There are times when my sheltered American self was absolutely shocked by the things I witnessed. There were times when my entire understanding of humanity was put into question. Some of the things I saw were awful. God’s children should not experience some of the things I witnessed. I have tried to write them down, but have not yet been able to describe the horror I felt.
But these things didn’t define my experience with India. They stand out in my mind because they are the exception. It is the little, everyday things…the things I wouldn’t usually bother to write about that really define my experience with India.
So! I will here attempt to share some of he things that DID define my stay…some things that ARE my experience with India. To me, India is so many things, I could list them forever, but let me begin with these few:
India is waking up in the morning to the rooster and trumpeter next door (who both seem to find it necessary to warm up their windpipes before the sun rises)
India is coming home and trying desperately (but failing) to avoid distracting the children scattered across the veranda as they study with Jeeva.
India is idli in the morning, thali in the afternoon, and dolsa at night, and sambar always.
India is wondering whether there are really elephants living in elephant mountain.
India is eternal stench.
India is groaning every night at 9, and every morning at 10 when the power goes out.
India is elbowing your way through the grouchy old ladies on the bus (who elbow much harder than you’ll ever be able)
India is uno on the veranda (with the ever-competitive Appa!).
India is cold bucket showers in the morning.
Hot. Sticky.
India is learning that lines mean nothing. You much learn to be aggressive!
India is learning that in Tamil, beehive is “Teiencurdu” (and India is learning how to properly pronounce it).
India is a part of my life that will always be a part of my life. It was not a simple experience or story that can be easily retold. It became a part of who I am. It melded into my life. It was entwined with the rest of my sum experiences. I am what I learned in India, and India, to me, is what I learned and who I became (and so much more).
Sunday, May 24, 2009
My Reason for Going...
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this study is to show that Indian youth recognize the importance of education, and the significance of education in levels of independence.
Decades ago the social sciences made a strong push for education reform in India. In the years since, India has made educational advances a goal, and the area has been largely ignored in the literature. Additionally, the available research focuses mainly on the country as a whole. The literature pool was in desperate need of qualitative research exploring individual experiences with and opinions on education. The country has recently reopened as an area of interest to social scientists, and the past two years have provided a new scholarly look at the country. My study not only provides a much-needed qualitative look, but also works with other research to provide a newer, fresher look at the role of education within the country.
The Indian youth see education as a means for independence and an appreciation for and value of independence. But how do they define independence (versus dependence)? What creates this independence? Is it good? Does it matter? What are the consequences? How does it affect the lives of the Indian youth?
BACKGROUND
Women in India are now beginning to educate themselves for the purpose of being more marketable for marriage (Kamat, 1976), as well as to prepare to be better wives and mothers.
A study in the mid-twentieth century summarized and explained by Nirmala, Cheng and Narain (2003) suggested a negative correlation between women’s education and the rate of infant mortality. A five-year schooling policy was implemented, requiring females to attain a minimum of five years of education. The goal was basic literacy and mathematic skills. This caused problems originally, because a poor female’s chances of marriage were hurt by education (the price of education takes away from money allotted to a dowry, and a more educated girl is expected to marry a more educated man, which union requires a larger dowry).
In Joshi, Gadgil, and Patil in their 1996 article Correlates of the Desired Family Size among Indian Communities the authors reiterate over and over that the father of the household pays for all expenses, including those related to the education of all within the home.
The government of India has made many constitutional provisions for various developmental programs. But results are still unsatisfactory.
India’s government takes an active role in encouraging education, particularly among the oppressed (scheduled castes and females). Article 45 of the national constitution offers free and compulsory education for all children through the age of fourteen. Article 46 focuses in more specifically on scheduled tribes and castes. Despite these changes, the drop-out rates, education attainment, and literacy rates are still most problematic among the tribal females. Loopholes continue to be found, and education is still withheld from many.
Regions largely influenced by Christian missionaries (Christian regions) show the most progress. They show the most progress in education, economy and health (Duary and Nabakumar, 2006).
The younger generation of tribal females is proving more literate than older females. Those in the teens and early twenties have much higher literacy rates than women in their forties and older. This progress has been attributed to interactions with non-tribal people and cultures (Rahman and Ansari, 2007).
Government and social sciences alike have discovered the great good that comes from, not just higher education, but most especially higher education for females. Of poverty, exploitation, low esteem, poor health, high mortality rates, and early marriage, only the level of the mother’s education has been shown to combat all these negative social conditions at once. Although the father’s education remains the primary factor in income, the mother’s education has more potential for over-all good. So much is the significance of a mother’s education, one state in India (Gujarat) has provided free education at all levels to females (Rani, 2007).
Additionally, one of the major factors in whether an Indian attends college is parental education. The level of education attained by the parents has even more sway than large monetary incentives. The level of the mother’s education is particularly significant (Mukheriee, 2008).
According to Devi and Uma in their article, Relationship Between Parental Perception about Family Environment and Adolescent’s Emotional Intelligence, “The personality of the child depends on parental love and affection and child rearing practices and interaction with them.” Developing autonomy in a warm relationship builds, among other things, higher academic achievement, higher self-esteem and better role-taking skills, as well as a greater tendency toward taking responsibility for decisions. The article defines “independence” as “…the extent to which family members are assertive and independently make their own decisions.” Once again, the mother’s role was particularly important in the development of these youth. The warmth, love, and attitudes of the mother significantly and positively correlate with higher emotional intelligence.
Southern Indian elites had good relations with British rule. At the same time as the rush of incoming British culture, Indian innovations, inventions, and aesthetic experimentations (also considered modern, but native to India) emerged. These became of lesser value with emergence of photography and British histories and literature. Soon, the appreciators of modern Indian culture came to be known as “Tamil devotees,” “eccentric,” and “off-modern,” which terms inferred “ostensibly modern, but not wholly in it or even of it.” Therefore, those things of international origin became the modern, while those emerging from the native culture were simply eccentric (Nair and Janaki, 2006).
METHODS
Upon arriving in India, I spent much time familiarizing myself with the area and attempting to get acquainted with the youth, from which population I would later draw my sample. I attended church, and introduced myself to the young adults there. I later came to perform many informal interviews and one long semi-formal interview with one such young adult whom I will refer to as Kumar.
I also visited an all-girls college campus on multiple occasions, and there met two college girls (we will call them Sathiya and Priya) with whom I conducted two semi-formal interviews.
The information drawn from these three participants makes up the majority of the data found in this research.
I took notes either during or shortly after each interview (whether informal or semi-formal). After conducting the semi-formal interviews, which were recorded, I returned home and transcribed the interviews.
During each interview, and throughout my experience with the young Indians, I made a great effort to bracket my experiences with and expectations of education. I worked to get at their definitions and meanings. It was my goal to discover a little more about how they saw life, education, independence and the like. I began the interviews with very general questions, such as the structure of their school-day, or their topic of study, and generally allowed them to direct the interview, while I guided them through follow-up questions on topics relevant to my research (such as “You say your parents chose your UG study. What did they choose?” or, when the girls said that India was changing, I asked what they thought was the greatest change). In this way, I hope that the themes which have emerged will be more representative of their thoughts, ideals, and beliefs than of my own.
DATA
It did not take long after I began interviews before an obvious theme of dependence and independence emerged. It was clear from very early on that all of the young adults with whom I spoke saw these (independence and dependence) as somehow related to education. As I looked further into this theme, I realized that these individuals saw education as a direct influence on levels of independence. (It is important here to mention that not all the education to which they refer is formal.)
Said my one male participant (let’s call him Kumar), “I will learn to make decisions. I will learn from the things that I did so that I can just make decisions from the first day of my married life.” Here Kumar expresses his desire to learn from life and experience. He felt that his family sheltered him and that he was incapable of learning important lessons on how to become independent. This same participant obviously already had a taste for independence, although he was just beginning his formal education. I wondered how this somewhat (culturally) rebellious spirit emerged. He made it clear to me that his desires were not normal. When I asked him how he became different, he said “Before I was baptized into the church…till twelfth grade, I was happy. I wasn’t worried, I didn’t care, I was so happy. After completing twelfth grade, I joined the church. At that time, these problems came, at that time I learned about agency, and I learned about the plan of salvation, I learned about all these things. So all these things guided my life and how I should be.” Although he denies that it was religion that inspired him to desire more independence, over and over in our interviews he seemed to be saying, in not so many words, that the church did teach him values that led to his desire for independence. Again citing a source for his desire for independence, he mentioned the Scarlet Pimpernel. “One character really impressed me when I was in my seventh grade, the Scarlet Pimpernel. He is very rebellious. So I was just impressed with that guy, and how I need to stand…I move by myself. I should not be moved by any other person.” Although Kumar said that he didn’t particularly think much about the scarlet pimpernel at the time he read the book, later in life, he drew from his memory of the book when realizing that he yearned for more independence.
Although Kumar provided helpful insights, it was during one of my interviews with the girls, Murki and Gingly, that I finally understood the concept. We discussed the benefits of education, and they told me this:
Gingly: Education tells us what it’s like. We can meet very different people when we get an education. We can meet different people and different ways of life. But when we are not educated, we do not know what’s happening in the world. We are surrounded by four walls, that is all. So there is the difference.
Me: So when you’re educated, you see different ways of life, and you can think “Oh, that way is better.”
Murki: We can get an idea.
Gingly: If the parents are not educated, only they will do according to their parents.
Murki: Tradition
And suddenly it all made sense! This new generation sees the value in learning new things and new ways of life so they have something to compare to their own way. They want to see other version of reality in order to choose what they think is best. Often-times that comes through formal education, but from Gingly’s statement, we realize that even formal education is often simply another avenue for informal learning. She specifically points out that while getting an education we meet people, and can learn from them.
At this point, it’s important to define independence as it is being used by the participants. Their culture is vastly different from the culture of BYU, of America, and of much of the Western world in general, and we therefore tend to think in terms that do not directly translate. When I introduce my research to people here, they often automatically make the assumption that when I say they are striving toward independence, I am referring to financial independence. Although this would be a perfectly acceptable assumption to make if I were referring to females attaining an education in America, the youth in India have different goals in mind. At one point in my conversation with Murki and Gingly, I had been confused about something that had been said. I told them my understanding and asked for clarification. They said that I had reached my conclusions because I was independent, but in India they are dependent. This was toward the beginning of my research, as I was only beginning to notice the dependence/independence theme, and I asked them to please clarify. After generalizing India as being dependent and America as independent, they then defined the two for me in this way:
In India, from childhood, your parents take care of you. As a little child, they always make all your decisions. They make decisions about your school, all the way through college, when you finish college, and until you get married. Then when you are married, your husband and his parents make choices for you. They have always taken care of you, so you defer to them. They love you and they will make good choices for you. They are responsible for you. Then you have children of your own, and you make their choices, and your parents are still over you…it’s very involved. Sometimes they let you make choices, but you always have to go to them, and they always have to agree with your choices. You are obligated to have their permission.
In America, you make choices without your parents’ knowledge.
So dependence and independence are really about decision-making and involvement.
So now we know that independence, as used by the participants, means that ability to make one’s own decisions, and we know that they see it as an outcome of education and learning of all kinds. But is this good? Is it all right for these people to be independent? From their definition, it sounds like independence is a cultural form of respect. How, then, is education affecting this? Should they be striving toward independence?
Kumar, Murki, and Gingly think so. During one interview with the girls, I was asking about their society, and they mentioned that it was changing. I thought this was interesting and asked what they thought was the greatest change. They replied that education was the greatest change! I asked if the changing society was a good thing. They said that when the change is better than tradition, it’s good, and they will accept it, but when it is just different, they prefer the traditional way. They then used the examples of education and clothing. Education for females is a new idea, but it is good, so they like it. Changing clothing styles is not any better than tradition, it is only different, so they prefer their traditional dress. At one time, I asked directly if becoming educated was ok.
Murki: Yeah, it is good. We will not be dependent on husband. Like you, you will not depend on your husband. We can stand on our own two legs.
Me: Is that ok? Because you’re supposed to be dependent
Murki: It will be ok, because there will be a mutual understanding between husband and wife.
…and later in the conversation:
Gingly: If we are educated, it will show that we have some maturity.
Murki: We will have a mutual understanding also. Our husband will understand us better.
In an interview with Kumar, he told me that he had just started working. As a college student, this is very unusual, because students are expected to be entirely financially independent on their parents. I asked if this (independent act) was good. He replied:
Yes, it’s better for learning. It’s better for making your independent choices. My mom doesn’t want me in the job. She told me she will pay for everything, but if she tells me, then I will be under her control… I need to be independent. So if I had been an independent kid, I would be in my second year of paleontology right now. But because I was dependent, I’m not in my paleontology. I’m in historical studies, first year, and I need to complete my BS, then I can enter into paleontology.
But what specific consequences come from being independent and making your own decisions without the help of parents, parents-in-law, or husbands? From my interviews, it is apparent that by far the most concern is with the ability to become good mothers and fathers, wives and husbands. Much of the desire for independence comes from the desire to have a good family life. Kumar said plain and simply “If I take decisions from now, I will be better husband and father.” Again, when I was asking Murki and Gingly whether independence was a good thing, they replied that it was good because “there will be a mutual understanding between husband and wife.”
Gingly: If we are educated, it will show that we have some maturity.
Murki: We will have a mutual understanding also. Our husband will understand us better.
These girls want to be on, at least more equal grounds with their husbands. They do not want to seem incompetent and therefore rely upon their husbands. They want their husbands to know that they are educated and can make decisions. And they expect that through education they will better understand their husbands. They want a more equal partnership. And this is good.
But it is not only relationships with husbands that concern these girls. They also expect to be better mothers because of education. Remember that the girls have already told us that parenting, if not changed by education, relies on tradition, but that through education, parents can discover new ways of upbringing. At one point, I asked the girls about different family relationships that they currently had, and then asked what relationship they wanted to have with their future daughters (in the context of education).
Murki: I wish for my child to study more, more, and more. I want her to get a good job, a good marriage. She should be free.
Gingly: Independent.
Murki: With her, I will be a friend. I will talk with them as a friend. We’ll give advice, we’ll lead…
Gingly: There are some parents like this because they are educated. Educated parents are like that.
CONCLUSION
Education, though not particularly formal education, brings independence. The government and the social sciences have recognized it for decades, and now the youth in India are recognizing it. Kumar learned from the church, he learned from literature. He saw other ways of life that he thought were better, and chose those. Murki and Gingly recognize the worth of learning other points of view. It is not always schooling which increases independence. It is learning. It is education. Through education, through learning, these individuals expect to be able to make decisions. They expect to be better fathers and mothers, husbands and wives. Independence is seen as good, and so they seek after it.
REFERENCES
Devi and Uma (2006). Relationship Between Parental Perception about family Environment and Adolescent’s Emotional Intelligence. Man in India. 86 (1-2) 155-162.
Duary and Nabakumar(2006). Gender Disability in the Education of Tribal Female in India. Man in India. 8 (3-4) 325-341.
Joshi, N.V., Gadgil, M., Patil, S. (1996). Correlates of the Desired Family Size among Indian Communities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of ISA. 93(13)6387-6392.
Kamat, A.R. (1976). Women’s Education and Social Change in India. Social Scientist. 5(1) 3-27.
Mukheriee (2008). Role of Parental Education in Schooling and Child Labour Decisions: urban India in the last decade. Social Indicators Research. 89(2)305-322.
Nair and Janaki (2006). Beyond exceptionalism: South Indian and the modern historical imagination. The Indian Economic and Social History Review. 43(3)323-347.
Nirmala, R., Cheng, K.M., Narain, K. (2003). Primary Schooling in China and India: Understanding How Socio-Contextual Factors Moderate the Role of the State. International Review of Education. 49(1/2) 153-176.
Rahman and Ansari (2007). Changing Trend in Tharu Tribe of Uttar Pradesh: a socio-economic and demographic picture. Man in India. 87 (3-4) 389-398.
Rani (2007). Girl’s Secondary Schooling Participation in India: barriesrs vs. state initiatives. Man in India. 87 (3-4)335-354.
The purpose of this study is to show that Indian youth recognize the importance of education, and the significance of education in levels of independence.
Decades ago the social sciences made a strong push for education reform in India. In the years since, India has made educational advances a goal, and the area has been largely ignored in the literature. Additionally, the available research focuses mainly on the country as a whole. The literature pool was in desperate need of qualitative research exploring individual experiences with and opinions on education. The country has recently reopened as an area of interest to social scientists, and the past two years have provided a new scholarly look at the country. My study not only provides a much-needed qualitative look, but also works with other research to provide a newer, fresher look at the role of education within the country.
The Indian youth see education as a means for independence and an appreciation for and value of independence. But how do they define independence (versus dependence)? What creates this independence? Is it good? Does it matter? What are the consequences? How does it affect the lives of the Indian youth?
BACKGROUND
Women in India are now beginning to educate themselves for the purpose of being more marketable for marriage (Kamat, 1976), as well as to prepare to be better wives and mothers.
A study in the mid-twentieth century summarized and explained by Nirmala, Cheng and Narain (2003) suggested a negative correlation between women’s education and the rate of infant mortality. A five-year schooling policy was implemented, requiring females to attain a minimum of five years of education. The goal was basic literacy and mathematic skills. This caused problems originally, because a poor female’s chances of marriage were hurt by education (the price of education takes away from money allotted to a dowry, and a more educated girl is expected to marry a more educated man, which union requires a larger dowry).
In Joshi, Gadgil, and Patil in their 1996 article Correlates of the Desired Family Size among Indian Communities the authors reiterate over and over that the father of the household pays for all expenses, including those related to the education of all within the home.
The government of India has made many constitutional provisions for various developmental programs. But results are still unsatisfactory.
India’s government takes an active role in encouraging education, particularly among the oppressed (scheduled castes and females). Article 45 of the national constitution offers free and compulsory education for all children through the age of fourteen. Article 46 focuses in more specifically on scheduled tribes and castes. Despite these changes, the drop-out rates, education attainment, and literacy rates are still most problematic among the tribal females. Loopholes continue to be found, and education is still withheld from many.
Regions largely influenced by Christian missionaries (Christian regions) show the most progress. They show the most progress in education, economy and health (Duary and Nabakumar, 2006).
The younger generation of tribal females is proving more literate than older females. Those in the teens and early twenties have much higher literacy rates than women in their forties and older. This progress has been attributed to interactions with non-tribal people and cultures (Rahman and Ansari, 2007).
Government and social sciences alike have discovered the great good that comes from, not just higher education, but most especially higher education for females. Of poverty, exploitation, low esteem, poor health, high mortality rates, and early marriage, only the level of the mother’s education has been shown to combat all these negative social conditions at once. Although the father’s education remains the primary factor in income, the mother’s education has more potential for over-all good. So much is the significance of a mother’s education, one state in India (Gujarat) has provided free education at all levels to females (Rani, 2007).
Additionally, one of the major factors in whether an Indian attends college is parental education. The level of education attained by the parents has even more sway than large monetary incentives. The level of the mother’s education is particularly significant (Mukheriee, 2008).
According to Devi and Uma in their article, Relationship Between Parental Perception about Family Environment and Adolescent’s Emotional Intelligence, “The personality of the child depends on parental love and affection and child rearing practices and interaction with them.” Developing autonomy in a warm relationship builds, among other things, higher academic achievement, higher self-esteem and better role-taking skills, as well as a greater tendency toward taking responsibility for decisions. The article defines “independence” as “…the extent to which family members are assertive and independently make their own decisions.” Once again, the mother’s role was particularly important in the development of these youth. The warmth, love, and attitudes of the mother significantly and positively correlate with higher emotional intelligence.
Southern Indian elites had good relations with British rule. At the same time as the rush of incoming British culture, Indian innovations, inventions, and aesthetic experimentations (also considered modern, but native to India) emerged. These became of lesser value with emergence of photography and British histories and literature. Soon, the appreciators of modern Indian culture came to be known as “Tamil devotees,” “eccentric,” and “off-modern,” which terms inferred “ostensibly modern, but not wholly in it or even of it.” Therefore, those things of international origin became the modern, while those emerging from the native culture were simply eccentric (Nair and Janaki, 2006).
METHODS
Upon arriving in India, I spent much time familiarizing myself with the area and attempting to get acquainted with the youth, from which population I would later draw my sample. I attended church, and introduced myself to the young adults there. I later came to perform many informal interviews and one long semi-formal interview with one such young adult whom I will refer to as Kumar.
I also visited an all-girls college campus on multiple occasions, and there met two college girls (we will call them Sathiya and Priya) with whom I conducted two semi-formal interviews.
The information drawn from these three participants makes up the majority of the data found in this research.
I took notes either during or shortly after each interview (whether informal or semi-formal). After conducting the semi-formal interviews, which were recorded, I returned home and transcribed the interviews.
During each interview, and throughout my experience with the young Indians, I made a great effort to bracket my experiences with and expectations of education. I worked to get at their definitions and meanings. It was my goal to discover a little more about how they saw life, education, independence and the like. I began the interviews with very general questions, such as the structure of their school-day, or their topic of study, and generally allowed them to direct the interview, while I guided them through follow-up questions on topics relevant to my research (such as “You say your parents chose your UG study. What did they choose?” or, when the girls said that India was changing, I asked what they thought was the greatest change). In this way, I hope that the themes which have emerged will be more representative of their thoughts, ideals, and beliefs than of my own.
DATA
It did not take long after I began interviews before an obvious theme of dependence and independence emerged. It was clear from very early on that all of the young adults with whom I spoke saw these (independence and dependence) as somehow related to education. As I looked further into this theme, I realized that these individuals saw education as a direct influence on levels of independence. (It is important here to mention that not all the education to which they refer is formal.)
Said my one male participant (let’s call him Kumar), “I will learn to make decisions. I will learn from the things that I did so that I can just make decisions from the first day of my married life.” Here Kumar expresses his desire to learn from life and experience. He felt that his family sheltered him and that he was incapable of learning important lessons on how to become independent. This same participant obviously already had a taste for independence, although he was just beginning his formal education. I wondered how this somewhat (culturally) rebellious spirit emerged. He made it clear to me that his desires were not normal. When I asked him how he became different, he said “Before I was baptized into the church…till twelfth grade, I was happy. I wasn’t worried, I didn’t care, I was so happy. After completing twelfth grade, I joined the church. At that time, these problems came, at that time I learned about agency, and I learned about the plan of salvation, I learned about all these things. So all these things guided my life and how I should be.” Although he denies that it was religion that inspired him to desire more independence, over and over in our interviews he seemed to be saying, in not so many words, that the church did teach him values that led to his desire for independence. Again citing a source for his desire for independence, he mentioned the Scarlet Pimpernel. “One character really impressed me when I was in my seventh grade, the Scarlet Pimpernel. He is very rebellious. So I was just impressed with that guy, and how I need to stand…I move by myself. I should not be moved by any other person.” Although Kumar said that he didn’t particularly think much about the scarlet pimpernel at the time he read the book, later in life, he drew from his memory of the book when realizing that he yearned for more independence.
Although Kumar provided helpful insights, it was during one of my interviews with the girls, Murki and Gingly, that I finally understood the concept. We discussed the benefits of education, and they told me this:
Gingly: Education tells us what it’s like. We can meet very different people when we get an education. We can meet different people and different ways of life. But when we are not educated, we do not know what’s happening in the world. We are surrounded by four walls, that is all. So there is the difference.
Me: So when you’re educated, you see different ways of life, and you can think “Oh, that way is better.”
Murki: We can get an idea.
Gingly: If the parents are not educated, only they will do according to their parents.
Murki: Tradition
And suddenly it all made sense! This new generation sees the value in learning new things and new ways of life so they have something to compare to their own way. They want to see other version of reality in order to choose what they think is best. Often-times that comes through formal education, but from Gingly’s statement, we realize that even formal education is often simply another avenue for informal learning. She specifically points out that while getting an education we meet people, and can learn from them.
At this point, it’s important to define independence as it is being used by the participants. Their culture is vastly different from the culture of BYU, of America, and of much of the Western world in general, and we therefore tend to think in terms that do not directly translate. When I introduce my research to people here, they often automatically make the assumption that when I say they are striving toward independence, I am referring to financial independence. Although this would be a perfectly acceptable assumption to make if I were referring to females attaining an education in America, the youth in India have different goals in mind. At one point in my conversation with Murki and Gingly, I had been confused about something that had been said. I told them my understanding and asked for clarification. They said that I had reached my conclusions because I was independent, but in India they are dependent. This was toward the beginning of my research, as I was only beginning to notice the dependence/independence theme, and I asked them to please clarify. After generalizing India as being dependent and America as independent, they then defined the two for me in this way:
In India, from childhood, your parents take care of you. As a little child, they always make all your decisions. They make decisions about your school, all the way through college, when you finish college, and until you get married. Then when you are married, your husband and his parents make choices for you. They have always taken care of you, so you defer to them. They love you and they will make good choices for you. They are responsible for you. Then you have children of your own, and you make their choices, and your parents are still over you…it’s very involved. Sometimes they let you make choices, but you always have to go to them, and they always have to agree with your choices. You are obligated to have their permission.
In America, you make choices without your parents’ knowledge.
So dependence and independence are really about decision-making and involvement.
So now we know that independence, as used by the participants, means that ability to make one’s own decisions, and we know that they see it as an outcome of education and learning of all kinds. But is this good? Is it all right for these people to be independent? From their definition, it sounds like independence is a cultural form of respect. How, then, is education affecting this? Should they be striving toward independence?
Kumar, Murki, and Gingly think so. During one interview with the girls, I was asking about their society, and they mentioned that it was changing. I thought this was interesting and asked what they thought was the greatest change. They replied that education was the greatest change! I asked if the changing society was a good thing. They said that when the change is better than tradition, it’s good, and they will accept it, but when it is just different, they prefer the traditional way. They then used the examples of education and clothing. Education for females is a new idea, but it is good, so they like it. Changing clothing styles is not any better than tradition, it is only different, so they prefer their traditional dress. At one time, I asked directly if becoming educated was ok.
Murki: Yeah, it is good. We will not be dependent on husband. Like you, you will not depend on your husband. We can stand on our own two legs.
Me: Is that ok? Because you’re supposed to be dependent
Murki: It will be ok, because there will be a mutual understanding between husband and wife.
…and later in the conversation:
Gingly: If we are educated, it will show that we have some maturity.
Murki: We will have a mutual understanding also. Our husband will understand us better.
In an interview with Kumar, he told me that he had just started working. As a college student, this is very unusual, because students are expected to be entirely financially independent on their parents. I asked if this (independent act) was good. He replied:
Yes, it’s better for learning. It’s better for making your independent choices. My mom doesn’t want me in the job. She told me she will pay for everything, but if she tells me, then I will be under her control… I need to be independent. So if I had been an independent kid, I would be in my second year of paleontology right now. But because I was dependent, I’m not in my paleontology. I’m in historical studies, first year, and I need to complete my BS, then I can enter into paleontology.
But what specific consequences come from being independent and making your own decisions without the help of parents, parents-in-law, or husbands? From my interviews, it is apparent that by far the most concern is with the ability to become good mothers and fathers, wives and husbands. Much of the desire for independence comes from the desire to have a good family life. Kumar said plain and simply “If I take decisions from now, I will be better husband and father.” Again, when I was asking Murki and Gingly whether independence was a good thing, they replied that it was good because “there will be a mutual understanding between husband and wife.”
Gingly: If we are educated, it will show that we have some maturity.
Murki: We will have a mutual understanding also. Our husband will understand us better.
These girls want to be on, at least more equal grounds with their husbands. They do not want to seem incompetent and therefore rely upon their husbands. They want their husbands to know that they are educated and can make decisions. And they expect that through education they will better understand their husbands. They want a more equal partnership. And this is good.
But it is not only relationships with husbands that concern these girls. They also expect to be better mothers because of education. Remember that the girls have already told us that parenting, if not changed by education, relies on tradition, but that through education, parents can discover new ways of upbringing. At one point, I asked the girls about different family relationships that they currently had, and then asked what relationship they wanted to have with their future daughters (in the context of education).
Murki: I wish for my child to study more, more, and more. I want her to get a good job, a good marriage. She should be free.
Gingly: Independent.
Murki: With her, I will be a friend. I will talk with them as a friend. We’ll give advice, we’ll lead…
Gingly: There are some parents like this because they are educated. Educated parents are like that.
CONCLUSION
Education, though not particularly formal education, brings independence. The government and the social sciences have recognized it for decades, and now the youth in India are recognizing it. Kumar learned from the church, he learned from literature. He saw other ways of life that he thought were better, and chose those. Murki and Gingly recognize the worth of learning other points of view. It is not always schooling which increases independence. It is learning. It is education. Through education, through learning, these individuals expect to be able to make decisions. They expect to be better fathers and mothers, husbands and wives. Independence is seen as good, and so they seek after it.
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