Read the following passage carefully.
1. An ancient Sanskrit saying says, woman is the home and the home is the basis of society. It is as we build our homes that we can build our country. If the home is inadequate—either inadequate in material goods and necessities or inadequate in the sort of friendly, loving atmosphere that every child needs to grow and develop— then that country cannot have harmony and no country which does not have harmony can grow in any direction at all.
2. That is why women’s education is almost more important than the education of boys and men. We—and by ‘we’ I do not mean only we in India but all the world— have neglected women education. It is fairly recent. Of course, not to you but when I was a child, the story of early days of women’s education in England, for instance, was very f current. Everybody remembered what had happened in the early days,
3. I remember what used to happen here. I still remember the days when living in old Delhi even as a small child of seven or eight. I had to go out in a doli if I left the house. We just did not walk. Girls did not walk in the streets. First, you had your sari with which you covered your head, then you had another shawl or something with which you covered your hand and all the body, then you had a white shawl, with which everything was covered again although your face was open fortunately. Then you were in the doli, which again was covered by another cloth. And this was in a family or community which did not observe purdah of any kind at all. In fact, all our social functions always were mixed functions but this was the atmosphere of the city and of the country.
4. Now, we have got education and there is a debate all over the country whether this education is adequate to the needs of society or the needs of our young people. I am one of those who always believe that education needs a thorough overhauling. But at the same time, I think that everything in our education is not bad, that even the present education has produced very fine men and women, specially scientists and experts in different fields, who are in great demand all over the world and even in the most i affluent countries. Many of our young people leave us and go abroad because they get higher salaries, they get better conditions of work.
5. But it is not all a one-sided business because there are many who are persuaded and cajoled to go even when they are reluctant. We know of first class students, especially in medicine or nuclear energy for instance, they are approached long before they have passed out and offered all kinds of inducements to go out. Now, that shows that people do consider that they have a standard of knowledge and capability which will be useful anywhere in the world.
6. So, that is why I say that there is something worthwhile. It also shows that our own ancient philosophy has taught us that nothing in life is entirely bad or entirely good. Everything is somewhat of a mixture and it depends on us and our capability how we can extract the good, how we can make use of what is around us. There are people who through observation can learn from anything that is around them. There are others who can be surrounded by the most fascinating people, the most wonderful books, and other things and who yet remain quite closed in and they are unable to take anything from this wealth around them.
I. Answer the following questions by choosing the most appropriate option:
(a) If there is no harmony then:
1. children suffer.
2. there can be no direction for national growth.
3. women remain miserable.
4. homelife remains unsatisfactory.
(b) Indira Gandhi recalls the example of women covered in layers of clothing to point out:
1. women were not allowed to walk in streets.
2. women were overprotected.
3. it was very cold in Delhi.
4. women’s freedom had been restricted severely.
II. Answer the following questions as briefly as possible.
(a) How do women contribute to the growth of a country?
(b) What is good about our education system?
(c) What is the debate about education?
(d) What according to the narrator has the ancient philosophy taught us?
(e) What is the type of people that the narrator mentions in the passage?
(f) Our country requires a large number of talented young people like doctors engineers. Then why do young and talented people go abroad?
III. Find words from the passage which are similar in meaning to the following.
(a) Incentives (para 5)
(b) to persuade with gentle persuasion (para 5)
