Panjab University Chandigarh organised one day national seminar on the theme ‘Women Empowerment in Bharat Through Ages’ here today.

Chandigarh, April 20, 2019

 Dr. Ambedkar Centre, Panjab University Chandigarh organised
one day national seminar on the theme ‘Women Empowerment in Bharat
Through Ages’ here today.

Smt. Anarben Patel, Director , Gramshree -Women Empowerment,
Ahmedabad, Gujarat  provided inputs from her own life and ground
experiences and shared her experience how she moved into the
downtrodden sections and address to their needs and grievance. She
gave example of her mother who stood by her ideals and stopped a child
marriage even when it meant bycott from their own community. She
encouraged women to find the answer to the question, ‘Who Am I?’ The
answers needs to be found both in spiritual and physical world. She
reiterated her commitment to all women to help them find their
potential and identify themselves as themselves minus any family,
caste, community and other social identities.

She beseeched men to work in the ground and mentally accept the equal
status of women and not act as hindrance to women empowerment. She
acts the stereotypical segregation of men and women in various social
groups and denial of political participations at the ground level. She
concluded the talk with a message that women must move in society and
work hard to achieve their potential without getting entangled in
social barriers. She hoped the society must move towards finding the
answer to the question ‘what is right?’ from ‘who is right?’ to
achieve real harmony in the society.

Prof Raj Kumar, PU Vice Chancellor welcomed the dignitaries and
stressed that the real women empowerment can be achieved only through
deeply ingraining the idea of equality in mind. The same can be done
by bringing up our daughters with all intellectual and physical
capabilities ranging from education to equality at home. He stressed
that no nation or society can achieve real progress without bringing
half of its population at equal footing. He remarked that Dr Ambedkar
also wanted special attention to be given to the women of India and he
worked hard to achieve the same in his life through various legal
reforms. prof Raj Kumar also thanked His Excellency Sh. Satyadeo
Narain Ji, Hon’ble Governor of Haryana, for his able guidance to the
University.

Ms Heena Kumari, IRS  delivered her talk on defining the meaning of
Empowerment of Women and how women had significant role to play
throughout history giving various examples from Indian past. While
highlighting some features of matriachial society, she hoped that the
same can be adopted to some extent in Indian culture giving hope to
indian women who have otherwise displayed their worth in competitive
world.

Mr. Rajesh Bagga, Former Chairman SC Commission Punjab, highlighted
the vision of Dr. Ambedkar specially for women and shared his
experience in the ground and discussed how he had to convince the
husbands to first treat their wives at home equally before expecting
equality in social life. He gave the message that followers of Dr.
Ambedkar have the responsibility to replicate the ideals of Babasahib
who dreamt of strong country minus any distinction on the basis of
caste,creed and religion. He reiterated that breakers of law can not
be real Ambedkarites as Babsahib respected the education, law and
discipline.

Ms Alka Gauri, State Organiser, Panjab and Haryana Vivekananda Kendra
reminded audience if indian philosophy believed in soul which
undergoes through many circles of birth, then soul is genderless and
men and women are equal creation of nature with same consciouness.
Thus men and women  must respect each other both as equal and
compatible and the same has been enumerated by all sages of Indian
civilization.

Earlier, Prof Devinder Thakur , coordinator of the centre, introduced
the theme and thanked Vice Chancellor for providing all support to the
centre and assured that the centre will soon start a course and
fellowships to the needy students to disseminate  the ideals of Dr
Ambedkar.

Dr. Aditi Sharma conducted the session and Dr. Anil Thakur offered
the vote of thanks.

The session was attended by PU Fellows, Deans, Chairpersons, Faculty,
researchers  and students from many states across north India.