- Wednesday, April 24, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUGS), located in Bengaluru in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, has come under the scanner for allegedly using derogatory language against women in an examination question paper.
The incident happened last week and a picture of the exam paper went viral online, inviting people’s wrath.
In the ‘Kayachikitsa’ (internal medicine) paper for the fourth-year Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) examination which was held on June 15, the examinees were asked to write an essay on ‘Stree as a Vajikarana Dravya’ or ‘Women as an aphrodisiac item’.
EVERYONE PLZ see this theory question
asked for Final Year Bachelor’s in Ayurveda degreeQuestion is write short essay on
“Woman as an Aphrodisiac item”In the next tweets, I will show the textbook which students of Ayurveda are made to study and the answer to this question… pic.twitter.com/jTsz7DVzIw
— TheLiverDoc (@theliverdr) June 16, 2022
…this is the answer that students are studying in their Bachelor’s degree, instead of progressive, scientific facts that are to be useful for community and humanity
Chapter teaches how to objectify women into aphrodisiac ‘items’ and ‘baby making factories’ pic.twitter.com/cXpmAir5V5
— TheLiverDoc (@theliverdr) June 16, 2022
This is the textbook from which students learn Kayacikitsa (or Internal Medicine of Ayurveda) – it is Government approved, prepared according to syllabus by Central Council for Indian Medicine
Are we teaching our young students the way of ‘rape culture’ by objectifying women? pic.twitter.com/sAVWIZCA0T
— TheLiverDoc (@theliverdr) June 16, 2022
The question received a backlash online for being misogynistic. A Twitter user, who posted the question paper online, also highlighted excerpts of BAMS textbooks where women have been described as “aphrodisiac items” and “baby-making factories”. The user also shared a picture of the textbook from which students learn about ‘Kayachikitsa’.
The university authorities responded to the controversy saying the question paper was set based on the syllabus which has been approved by the Indian government.
“These are things taught in the textbook and are one of the methods of treatment. The university has no authority over adding or removing the contents of the textbook as it was set by the Central Council for Indian Medicine,” Ramakrishna Reddy, registrar (evaluation) of RGUHS, was quoted as saying by a leading Indian newspaper.
‘Misogynistic’ contents in examination papers are not new in India. Last year, the English question paper of CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) Class 10 created a row by including a passage that held women’s independence as the main reason for a variety of “social and family problems”.
It said “wives stopped obeying their husbands” and that was the main reason for children and servants becoming indisciplined.
The question paper even asked students to comment on the tone of the passage with one of the options being “Writer is a male chauvinist pig”.
The passage was removed from the paper by the board following the uproar.
