The Revolution That Never Stopped

In 1896, when Dhondo Keshav Karve founded the Maharshi Karve Stree Shikshan Samstha (MKSSS) in Pune, the idea of educating women was not merely unconventional but an act of social rebellion. Karve’s radical yet simple conviction was by educating a woman, you altered not merely an individual life but the destiny of generations. More than 125 years later, that conviction has expanded. Social Mobility Today, MKSSS encompasses more than 65 institutions, ranging from schools and engineering...

min read

In 1896, when Dhondo Keshav Karve founded the Maharshi Karve Stree Shikshan Samstha (MKSSS) in Pune, the idea of educating women was not merely unconventional but an act of social rebellion. Karve’s radical yet simple conviction was by educating a woman, you altered not merely an individual life but the destiny of generations. More than 125 years later, that conviction has expanded. Social Mobility Today, MKSSS encompasses more than 65 institutions, ranging from schools and engineering colleges to vocational training centres, nursing institutes, hostels for working women and teacher-training academies. Yet its significance lies not in the scale of its infrastructure but in the philosophy that binds it together. It views education not as a degree to be acquired but as an instrument of economic independence, dignity and social mobility. The organisation understood long before policymakers did that educational inequality begins early. Its network of pre-primary, primary and higher secondary schools spread across Pune, Satara and Wai, focuses particularly on girls from rural backgrounds, while its English-medium schools seek to equip students with the confidence and skills demanded by an increasingly competitive world. Education here is conceived not merely as classroom instruction but as character formation. Its commitment extends even to communities that often remain invisible in discussions of educational reform. The tribal Ashram School at Kamshet provides quality education to tribal boys and girls, with enrolment steadily rising over the years. In regions where educational access has historically been patchy, such institutions often represent the only bridge between marginalisation and opportunity. MKSSS has deliberately diversified beyond conventional disciplines. It operates institutions specialising in architecture, management, fashion technology, nursing, computer applications, arts and sciences. Its greatest milestone came in 1991 with the establishment of Cummins College of Engineering for Women - the first all-women engineering college in India - created with support from the Cummins Diesel India Foundation. At a time when engineering classrooms were overwhelmingly male, the college quietly demonstrated that talent required opportunity, not permission. That philosophy has become even more relevant in an economy increasingly shaped by technology and specialised skills. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than at the Manilal Nanavati Vocational Training Institute (MNVTI), established in 1995. Long before “skill development” became fashionable government vocabulary, MNVTI recognised that employability depended on practical competence as much as academic qualifications. The institute offers industry-oriented programmes spanning computer technology, interior design, fashion design, cosmetology, hospitality and culinary arts, alongside online courses that extend its reach into remote areas. Students benefit from workshops, industrial visits, entrepreneurship projects and placement assistance, ensuring that education translates into livelihoods rather than certificates gathering dust. Safe hostel accommodation enables young women from distant regions to pursue education without compromising security, a factor often overlooked in discussions about female participation in higher education. Statistics alone, however, rarely capture institutional impact. Consider the story of Pavitra Gowda. Married immediately after completing Class 10, she returned to her parental home with a young daughter after enduring domestic abuse. With little education and mounting financial pressures, domestic work became her only source of income. Recognising both her predicament and her potential, MNVTI waived its qualification requirements and admitted her to a one-year cosmetology course. Today she owns three salons in Pune. Her transformation illustrates what genuine empowerment looks like. MKSSS complements these efforts with teacher-training institutes, a skill development centre, a women’s studies centre and even an old-age home, reflecting an understanding that social reform cannot be confined to classrooms alone. It requires ecosystems that nurture women at every stage of life. Yet institutions of this kind face an enduring paradox. Their social value is immense, but their financial resources are often fragile. Government assistance covers only part of the costs. Much of their work continues because individuals and philanthropists believe that investing in education yields the highest social returns imaginable. India often celebrates unicorns and startup founders as symbols of national progress. But the country’s real transformation has always depended on quieter revolutions taking place inside classrooms where girls acquire confidence, skills and independence. Maharshi Karve planted the seed of one such revolution in 1896. More than a century later, MKSSS continues to demonstrate that the finest monument to a visionary is not a statue or a memorial, but an institution that continues changing lives long after its founder has gone. (The writer is a retired naval aviation officer and a defence and geopolitical analyst. Views personal.)

Selective Memory

Correspondent
5 hours ago
2 min read

The decision by censors to withhold the Diljit Dosanjh-starrer Satluj from Indian audiences scarcely forty-eight hours after its release has elevated the film into a political cause. The controversy is now about how India chooses to remember one of the bloodiest chapters in its post-Independence history, and whether memory can survive when it becomes selective.

The film chronicles the work of Jaswant Singh Khalra (played by Indian-American singer Dosanjh), the activist who investigated allegations of thousands of unlawful killings and secret cremations during Punjab’s counter-insurgency campaign. Drawing upon municipal cremation records from Amritsar, Majitha and Tarn Taran, Khalra had claimed that large numbers of unidentified bodies had been cremated without due process. His own abduction and murder by policemen in 1995 remain among the darkest stains on the state’s record. That state excesses occurred is beyond dispute.

Yet, neither should the opposite distortion become acceptable. Punjab’s tragedy did not begin with police excesses. It began with an insurgency that sought to replace constitutional politics with the gun. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, militants transformed Punjab into a landscape governed by fear. The Hindu community was a particular target of the separatists. Civilians, journalists, teachers, public servants and political leaders became targets. Music, cultural expression and even the national anthem were denounced. The campaign was profoundly totalitarian in instinct. More than 11,000 civilians lost their lives.

The men who ultimately defeated the insurgency were hardly outsiders; Chief Minister Beant Singh, assassinated in a suicide bombing, was a Sikh. So was K.P.S. Gill, the police chief whose methods remain deeply contested but whose campaign broke the back of militancy. Their legacy, like Khalra's, belongs to Punjab's history. To elevate one while erasing the other is historical reduction.

That is why Satluj has generated such polarised reactions. Its defenders see a necessary reckoning with abuses committed by the state. Its critics argue that it presents an incomplete account by marginalising the terror that created the extraordinary circumstances in which those abuses occurred. History is rarely served well by narratives that divide participants neatly into heroes and villains.

There is an added political irony. The Congress presided over much of the period in question, while the Bharatiya Janata Party had little role in the conduct of Punjab’s counter-insurgency. Yet contemporary politics has inverted those associations, turning historical memory into another battlefield of partisan identity.

Punjab deserves better than competing mythologies. A mature democracy must possess the confidence to acknowledge both the crimes of terrorists and the excesses of the state that defeated them. Justice demands accountability for unlawful killings. It equally demands remembrance of the thousands murdered by those who sought to carve Khalistan out of blood and intimidation. Memory that honours only one set of victims is not remembrance but politics masquerading as history.