This volume is an outcome of three decades of deliberations on girls and girlhoods by the women’s rights organizations in India.

In the general euphoria over benefits of 45% of our population being youth, gender implications of this phenomenon are often ignored. Majority of girls in India continue to remain unwanted and uncared for. Discrimination against girls begins from home and gets extended to schools, community, economy and society at large. Among deprived sections of society, it gets accentuated due to limited resources coupled with historical legacy of son-preference. Girlhood is mediated by many factors and there is no single monolithic girlhood.

Vacha is a women’s group involved in social research and action. Vacha started with a women’s library and since has developed several programmes dealing with research and training, a children’s centre, and a cultural centre. The library maintains a collection on women’s issues. Since most available written material on women’s issues is in English, Vacha also collects, creates, and disseminates cultural resources such as songs, skits, audio and video material concerning women’s rights. Vacha decided to hold a symposium on “Girls and Girlhoods at Threshold of Youth & Gender” in November, 08 in collaboration with SNDT women’s University.

The symposium aimed to focus on girlhoods, generate information about them and create a platform for groups and individuals concerned about the issues. It naturally included girls themselves. Girls from different locations were invited, together with scholars and practitioners, to make presentations and to celebrate girlhood. Girls are strong survivors in our society. The symposium celebrated their power, strength and creativity in foyer and quadrangle events and during debates on declining child sex ratio and other crucial concerns of girls such as health & education, child labour, trafficking, disability, media portrayal (In advertisements, television and cinema, violence, institutionalization of “problem” girls, mobilization of girls, social security for empowerment of girls by the state and NGOs and legal provisions. Important papers presented followed by and discussions at the symposium are included in this volume.

This very well-educated volume is the outcome of in-depth deliberations on girls and girlhoods by scholars and representatives of women’s organizations. It has contributions by Sonal Shukla and Pradnya Sawargaonkar, Vibhuti Patel, Cynthia Stephen, Daksha Dave, Prabha Tirmare, Dolly Sunny, Rekha Talmaki, Prerna Sharma, Krishna Chandra Pradhan, Indira Rani and Dr. N. Komali Saloni, Sunita Parmar, Pratima Dave Shastri, Mira K. Desai, Amrit Ganger, Shalini Mathur, Mukta, Rohini Kashikar Sudhakar, Parul Sheth, Ruby Ojha and Vijay Hiremath. Here scholars and practitioners have met to discuss and analyze the issues pertaining to the girls and girlhood. Their presentations, in Vibhuti Patel’s words celebrate girlhood and girls’ strength as girls are strong survivors in our society. At the same time they draw our attention to declining child sex ratio and other crucial concerns of girls such as health & education, child labour, trafficking, disability, media portrayal (in advertisements, television and cinema), violence, efforts made by the state and NGOs and relevant legal provisions and policy statements.

Majority of girls in India continue to remain unwanted and uncared for. Sonal Shukla and Pradnya Sawargaonkar in their article “The Adolescent Girl in India” show that girls in India face systematic disadvantage over a range of human development indicators including health, education, nutrition, labour force participation, burden of household tasks and trafficking. Vibhuti Patel in her article, “Education & Health of Girl Child in Urban India” reveals that in India, compared to their male counterparts, girls are statistically less in number, less educated, less healthy and are more vulnerable to neglect, exploitation and abuse.
Gender adversely affects the education of girls, as the data and statistics in the book show. Lack of education robs women and girls of self confidence, self esteem and opportunities to live a meaningful life. Children are exploited in home based industry and agriculture and become victims of rape, forced prostitution and sexual assaults. Their rights demand special attention in the frame work of human rights.

There is no specific national policy focusing on girls, their development and empowerment. Girlhood has not become important focus in academic studies and in social movements except as specific problem areas such as reproductive health, education or trafficking. This volume will certainly generate debates on the issue.
We need to understand this issue in the larger context of our democracy. Giving fundamental rights and passing of some laws including the much awaited bill for reservation of seats for women will not solve the problem by themselves. What is required is constant challenging of inequalities around us, conscious formulation of positive ideology and practice for reconstruction of equality.

We need to focus our attention to the question as to the kind of people we wish to be. Democracy is not just about voting in elections and choosing a government. It is also about deciding what kind of country we wish to be. We must have vision for that. That vision must have the principles of equality, equal opportunities, social justice, freedom and a sense of belonging to the society. The state must guarantee basic security and social justice to all its citizens, especially women so that they can develop their capacities, and can contribute to the nation’s development as equal citizens, and can fight against exploitation and vulnerability. The issue of girls’ development is of crucial importance in this context.

Women’s organizations, citizens’ organizations will have to work for the betterment of girls. Women will have to develop new strategies for betterment of this neglected group and gender issues within it. And every woman will have to be aware of her own strength. In the words of Maya Angelou, “A woman should have a feeling of control over her destiny”.

After participating in a meeting of women over Sarda Bill, Raihana Tyabji wrote to Gandhiji that they were glad that Gandhiji upheld the age of 18 for marriage for girls. But she was distressed to see the general feeling of the society to view women as ‘the weaker sex’. When she wrote to Gandhiji about it, his response was, “I do not need to be a girl to be wild over man’s atrocities towards woman. I am uncompromising in the matter of woman’s rights. In my opinion she should labour under no legal disability not suffered by man. I should treat the daughters and sons on a footing of perfect equality. That he wrote in Young India, 17-10-1929. This is 2010. Still we are far from putting daughters and sons on the same footing of equality.

I will conclude with, “The Woman,” a poem from the volume of Hebrew poetry. It is written by Yehudit Kaffri and translated by Tsipi Keller. I think it reflects feeling of us who are present here:

…This exaggerated woman
wasn’t pruned right
she sprouts all sorts of
odd branches
water roots
cries of thirst.
…Remove her from the
scenery,
say the superintendents of
nature,
she spoils the line,
the water budget of half a
neighborhood
is wasted on her
even a river wouldn’t be
enough for her.
It doesn’t matter, someone says,
in one of the driest summers
I saw several small birds
hiding in the shade of those odd branches of hers,
it was the only shade in the whole area…

Yes, friends, women have grown and will continue to grow, in different ways. Many more birds will find shelter in our branches. My best wishes to Vacha and its director Sonal Shukla and to Vibhuti Patel, the editor of the book for all their activities.

Dr. Usha Thakkar