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O 231201Z MAR 09
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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 NEW DELHI 000544 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR SCA/INS AND EEB 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KWMN KDEM IN
 
SUBJECT: WOMEN IN INDIA: CHANGING CHOICES OF WOMEN IN INDIAN 
INSTITUIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING 
 
¶1. (U) Summary:  With each passing decade since 1950, increasing 
numbers of women in India enter into higher education, and the 
disciplines they are choosing to study have changed over time. 
While educational opportunities for women in India remain a study of 
contrasts, the women in four of Delhi's institutions of higher 
learning are developing the skills they need to enter the workforce 
or go on to postgraduate education; a choice they are increasingly 
making.  Although some of these women take the traditional route and 
opt for marriage over career, gone are the days when college was 
merely finishing school for marriage.  End Summary. 
 
 
Increasing Numbers of Indian Women in Higher Education 
----------------------- 
 
¶2. (U) Institutes of higher education in India consist of colleges, 
universities, institutions of national importance (such as Indian 
Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management and Indian 
Institutes of Science), autonomous institutions or "deemed 
universities" and research institutes.  The most recent education 
statistics from the Ministry of Human Resource Development, 
Department of Higher Education, for 2005-06, published in 2008, 
count the number of intuitions of higher learning nationwide at 
21,259.  The number of women enrolled these institutions has 
increased from 40,000 in 1950-51 to 5,491,818 in 2005-06.  In 
1950-51 women made up 10.9 of the student body compared to 38.34% in 
2005-06. 
 
Changing Disciplinary Choices for Women in India 
----------------------- 
 
¶3. (U) The disciplinary choices of Indian women have changed over 
time.  Karuna Chanana, Professor of Sociology of Education and 
Gender, retired from the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational 
Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, compiled statistics 
on the proportion of men and women students to total enrolment by 
gender and discipline from 1950-51 to 2005-06.  The statistics show 
that, while women have retained an interest in traditionally female 
disciplines such as education and arts, women have also been moving 
into disciplines that have been historically dominated by men.  For 
example, the percentage of women studying science has steadily 
increased each decade from a low of 7.1% in 1950-51 to 40% in 
2005-06.  A similar pattern has occurred in commerce (0.6% in 
1950-51 to 37.1% in 2005-06), engineering/tech (0.2% in 1950-51 to 
23.4% in 2005-06), law (2.1% in 1950-51 to 21.8% in 2005-06), and 
medicine (16.3% in 1950-51 to 46.7% in 2005-06). 
 
Education Opportunities for Women in India 
----------------------- 
 
¶4. (U) Nandita Singh, Reader, Department of Education, Punjab 
University, discusses the disparity in educational and employment 
opportunities for women in India in her 2008 article "Higher 
Education for Women in India-Choices and Challenges" published by 
the Forum on Public Policy in 2008.  According to Dr. Singh, poor 
and rural females have difficulty accessing educational 
opportunities which has led to a long standing, well documented 
gender gap.  The reasons for the disparities are a result of 
cultural, social, and economic factors.  She says that, while more 
families have begun to value girls as much as boys, there remain 
overwhelming cultural and economic reasons why female children do 
not receive the same medical, emotional and educational attention as 
males.  In many families, girls are seen as burdens, the bearers of 
exorbitant dowries who will eventually leave the family. 
Accordingly, less attention is paid to developing a female's 
potential and more to the essential goals of a female's life: 
matrimony and motherhood.  Thus, any education these girls receive 
will be in preparation of marriage. 
 
¶5. (U) Dr. Singh says educational opportunities for women are the 
highest in urban areas where there is an awareness of gender issues 
among the educated sections of society.  According to Dr. Singh, 
today the urban middle and upper classes take higher education for 
women for granted, although they may not view education as linked to 
a career.  Nevertheless, women in these urban centers have greater 
 
NEW DELHI 00000544  002 OF 003 
 
 
employment opportunities and are increasingly present in many former 
male bastions.  Today in India, women are pilots, heads of 
multi-national corporations, doctors, filmmakers, chefs, and 
engineers.  However, according to Dr. Singh, there is little reason 
to celebrate as the number of women who have been not been able to 
access education and employment opportunities far outweighs the 
number of women who have accessed them. 
 
The Women of Four Delhi Institutions of Higher Education 
----------------------- 
 
¶6. (U) The Lady Shri Ram College for Women and Miranda House, part 
of the Delhi University system, are top tier women's colleges in 
India and both have student bodies in excess of two thousand 
students.  Women who have attended these colleges often turn out to 
be leaders in their field.  For example, Miranda House alumnae 
include Sheila Dikshit, the Chief Minister of Delhi, and Mira Nair, 
Filmmaker, while Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for 
Democracy in Myanmar is a graduate of Lady Shri Ram.  Kamla Nehru, 
also a women's college that is part of Delhi University, while 
respected, is not at the same level as the two above colleges. 
Approximately one thousand six hundred women make up Kamla Nehru's 
student body.  Jamia Millia Islamia, established by Muslim 
nationalists as a secular coeducational university, is highly 
regarded and a number of foreign dignitaries have visited it over 
the years (Marshal Tito in 1954, King Zahir Shah of Afghanistan in 
1955, Crown Prince Faisal of Saudi Arabia, and King Reza Shah 
Pehlavi of Iran in 1956).  Its student body, men and women, numbers 
above ten thousand. 
 
¶7. (SBU) Econoff spoke to the principals of Lady Shri Ram, Miranda 
House, Kamla Nehru, and the Dean of Social Work at Jamia Millia 
Islamia about the makeup of their female student body.  According to 
these educators, their students come from all over India and include 
a percentage of women from the scheduled tribe/scheduled caste 
populations as required by law.  The educators described their 
students as hard workers with parents who supported their decision 
to study, otherwise the students never would have made it to 
tertiary education in the first place.  They also said most of their 
students were economically middle class or higher, regardless of 
caste.  They added that the students who had the hardest time 
adjusting to life at their institutions, and needed the most help, 
were the poorest students, again, regardless of caste.  As a result, 
the institutions adopted measures, like special study groups, to 
help these students adjust as quickly as possible. 
 
Changing Attitudes, Opportunities, and Choices 
----------------------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) When asked if the educators had noticed any changes in 
their students in recent years, all four said that today the 
majority of women at their institutions saw their bachelor's degrees 
as stepping stones to a job or to continued education.  Previously, 
though there had always been exceptions, college was something women 
did to prepare themselves for marriage or for work that would not 
take too much time away from marriage, like teaching.  Though the 
educators said some students still made the choice to forgo a 
profession in favor of marriage, the number had decreased.  They 
said this had to do with economic reasons as much as it did for a 
desire for self satisfaction and independence.  Dr. Meenakshi 
Gopinath, the Principal of Lady Shri Ram College told Econoff that 
only one student in her graduating class had said she was choosing 
marriage over career or further studies.  Dr. Gopinath said she had 
expected a few more of her students to make a similar choice and 
believed her students' choices were indicative of the changes in 
Indian society. 
 
¶9. (SBU) Dr. Meenakshi Gopinath and Dr. Prabibha Jolly, Miranda 
House's Principal, said another difference in their past and present 
students, was that their current students were filled with hope. 
They saw their futures as filled with opportunities, not 
limitations.  Their current students believed that they could change 
things in a way that previous students had not, and further believed 
they could do anything they wanted.  The two Principals found their 
students' optimism inspiring though they expressed to Econoff that 
the realities of India's patriarchal society combined with the 
 
NEW DELHI 00000544  003 OF 003 
 
 
difficulties associated with achieving high aspirational goals would 
likely limit what some of their students were in fact able to 
achieve.  Dr. Anjali Gandhi, Dean of Social Sciences at Jamia Millia 
Islamia, said a change she noted was the parents of her students, 
while still holding sway over what their children studied, 
encouraged their daughters to get the best education they could. 
This was especially true of mothers who recognized education was the 
means to a better life for their daughters.  Dr. Minoti Ghatterjee, 
Principal of Kamala Nehru College, presented a less rosy picture of 
her students' beliefs.  Dr. Chatterjee said her students still felt 
the weight of India's patriarchal society and some of them felt that 
males received better treatment and had more opportunities than they 
did.  Dr. Chatterjee did believe, however, that her students had 
more opportunities than female students had 10 years ago. 
 
¶10. (SBU) Another change the educators observed was increasing 
numbers of their female students striving to get through their 
educations faster so they could enter the workforce sooner.  As a 
result, classes that were geared toward a profession were becoming 
more popular like finance, journalism, and human resource 
management.    The educators also stated that while opportunities 
for their students had improved, they did not believe all women in 
India fared as well.  They also believed it was their job to help 
shape their students into the type of women that could succeed in a 
society that, despite increasing opportunities, remained patriarchal 
and fraught with challenges.  The educators felt that they were 
succeeding in this goal, as evidenced by their students placement in 
jobs or advancement to postgraduate education and then employment, 
but their work was far from over. 
 
¶11. Comment: (U) More Indian women are accessing higher education 
than ever before and they are choosing to study subjects that were 
once male bastions.  A gender gap still exists, but for those women 
who make it to tertiary institutions like Lady Shri Ram, Miranda 
House, Jamia Millia Islamia and Kamla Nehru, they can obtain the 
skills necessary to access the opportunities such education 
provides.  College for women in these schools is not merely a 
staging ground before marriage but a path to independence and a 
better life. 
 
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