Debashri Banerjee

The Downfall of Modern Indian Women Educational System Debashri Banerjee

India is culturally a rich country where gender difference is never welcomed till the Vedic age. But due to several foreign invasions, be it the Muslim invasion or the British invasion, women of India was forced to remain behind curtain just for ensuring their safety. From this age the bankruptcy of women empowerment has been seen all over India. Bengal is not at all an exception to it. However from the middle of the nineteenth century, i.e. the time of Bengal Renaissances, the effort of women empowerment was seen very prominent among the renowned thinkers of Bengal. At that due course of time Raja Rammohan Roy banned Sati Pratha [burning of the widows] in 1829 and Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar encouraged the establishment of Bidhava-Bibah or Widow Remarriage Act in 1856 with the help of employing new British laws. Except them there were several other activists and thinkers fully involved in making possible this huge and impossible looking endeavor, they were Raja Radhakanta Dev, Gourmohan Vidyalankar, Dirozio & his followers, Madanmohan Tarkalankar, Sree Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo etc. In this present article we will focus on the theories of women empowerment of just two of them i.e. Swami Vivekananda & Sri Aurobindo, essentially because they want to develop the mass appeal and to broaden mass consciousness that will slowly but gradually uplift the status of females in Bengali society instead of imposing external laws for banning them. They wanted to change the inner social attitude towards women which definitely have to convey some crucial massage towards even today's Indian society where women empowerment is still lacking.