National seminar on theme 'Women Empowerment in Bharat Through Ages'

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 boycott 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. SatyadeoNarain 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 DevinderThakur , 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.