- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
A SMALL government primary school in the southern Indian state of Kerala started gender-neutral uniforms for its students three years ago and in doing so, it has set up a trend in the entire state which is nothing short of a revolution.
According to a report by The Observer, The Guardian, the UK, the primary school in Valayanchiranga in Kerala’s Ernakulam district introduced knee-length shorts for both its boy and girl students. Only the colours differ with the girls wearing cargo green and the boys teal blue.
The students are happy with the move. One of them, Sivananda Mahesh, 10, told The Observer, “I feel very thrilled and comfortable with the uniform. It’s quite distinct from that of my friends studying in nearby schools. I can play well with this dress.”
Inspired by the unique model started by Valayanchiranga model, more than a dozen schools in Kerala – India’s most literate state – have also shifted to gender-neutral uniforms and the state’s ruling Communist Party (Kerala is India’s only Communist-ruled state) has backed the trend to be implemented across the state.
A number of women’s rights groups have also welcomed the idea of unisex uniforms, saying it will help in reducing the gender gap. Despite the fact that Kerala is India’s most literate state, its men are more educated than its women who continue to experience patriarchal prejudices.
But there are also voices that are opposed to the idea. A section of Muslim organisations in the state have accused the schools of imposing western dresses on their children and not permitting the girls the right to wear what they consider ideal feminine clothes.
Last month, the Muslim Coordination Committee in Balussery, a town in Kozhikode district in northern Kerala, organised a protest rally after a local secondary school started a unisex uniform for boys and girls.
Prominent Muslim bodies in the state warned its government against enforcing gender-neutral uniforms saying it would be un-Islamic if their girls are made to wear trousers.
Twenty-six per cent of Kerala’s population is Muslim.
But what made the Valayanchirangara school make the move? According to The Observer report, Benoy Peter, the former head of the parent-teacher association, saw the girls having difficulties in playing with skirts. The school then roped in a local fashion designer Vidya Mukunda to make a gender-neutral uniform with an appealing “style and elegance”.
The school, which has more than 750 students who are mainly from Christian and Muslim communities, said only one parent protested against the uniform but after its benefits were explained, the only resistance also got dropped.
“When the idea came up, we were worried about the reaction of parents who prefer their girls’ wearing skirts. But we were able to implement it easily and without any protests,” KA Usha, the school’s former headteacher, told the news outlet.
She said the uniform not only saw a marked improvement in performance of the pupils but even the parents were eager to send their children to the school as it “evoked a lot of goodwill”.
The school did not stop with the uniforms. It has started its own gender-neutral textbooks that are meant to sensitise the children to gender equality from a young age.
“We made our books with teachers writing the content and a former student doing the drawings. The books carry images of women driving vehicles and men cooking in the kitchen. The books convey the message that no job or task is gender-specific,” Usha said.
The school has even designed a new logo showing a girl and a boy to bolster the message of gender equality.
After the successes of Valayanchirangara primary school, Kerala’s education minister V Sivankutty said he was determined to see unisex uniforms rolled out across the state.
“We are anticipating similar attempts at every educational institution in the state. On its part, the state government is committed to promoting gender equality in education and other fields,” he said.
However, the protesters were not convinced. Jafer Neroth, a leader of the Islamic organisation Sunny Students’ Federation who was leading the protests in Balussery, said the uniforms were “political tools”.
“The government is helping the implementation of liberal ideologies on students and without consultation with religious leaders. Biologically, men and women are different, and it is the denial of diversity,” he said.
The minister was unfazed. He resistance from some Muslim groups would not halt the government’s plans to make gender-neutral uniforms the norm in Kerala.
