PROBLEMS OF INDIA

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLI, Issue 20340, 12 February 1936, Page 10

PROBLEMS OF INDIA

SOLUTION BY WOMEN The newly-emancipated young women of India will be the greatest influence in solving the problems confronting India in her new constitution, said Lord Meston, when speaking at a luncheon organised by the British and North American Luncheon Club in London. After referring to the modernisation of the cities he continued: —■ “Among all the social changes in India the most exxtraordinary and remarkable is the emancipation of the women. In my day no respectoble women was ever seen outside the inner quarters of her own home after she was seven yqars of age. Now they are pouring out in their thousands from behind purdah, demanding the same education as their brothers and asking for the same privileges, amusements and opportunities of seeing the world. One good thing will probably emerge. The Hindu-Mohammedan rivalry, always the bitterest pill to the British and Indian administrators, was very largely due to old prejudices and old traditions. The custodian of old prejudices in the ordinary household was very often some old woman who ruled the inside of the house with a rod of iron. "When that old woman goes, and the younger women come in, I think you will probably have the first move in the solution of the Hindu-Moham-medan problem, and I believe that problem will in time, and in this wav be considerably abated.” Lord Meston was for 35 years in the Indian Civil Service and has lately revisited India.