Women Empowerment through Education: A Constitutional and Legal Analysis in India

The imbalanced sex ratio in India is responsible for discrimination of women in all aspects of life in India. There is a severe and deep-rooted division and discrimination based on sex and caste in the Indian social system. 1The framers of the Indian Constitution have built protective and affirmative provisions for the empowering of women. These protective clauses and provisions have enabled a shift in the positive direction to the inclusive development of women in India. Despite constitutional provisions and development policies for women in the post- independence period, women continue to be educationally, socially, economically and politically backward. The empowering of women socially, educationally, occupationally, politically and economically, and in the control over resources is part of the process. Several of the more advanced or progressive groups as well as women’s organizations have fought for the socio-economic structural changes of an egalitarian and socialist nature in the country. The lack of women’s representation in all the legislative bodies is a negation of democracy. The affirmative measures in the education, employment, economic and political domains of women’s activities or sectors should be considered as the most certain means of empowering women. A positive correlation between an improvement in social and economic status and an increased rate of participation of women has been well documented by researchers in India. That is the significance of women’s empowerment.