Any attempt to push women to secondary roles will miserably fail: Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan

Speaking at an international physiotherapy conference “Mangalore Physiocon 2022”, Mr. Khan said women now are providing leadership role in the knowledge society

“Women have a strong desire to learn and contribute towards development of the society and the country and any attempt by unseen forces to push them into secondary role will miserably fail,” said Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan in Mangaluru on Friday.

Speaking at an international physiotherapy conference “Mangalore Physiocon 2022”, Mr. Khan said women now are providing leadership role in the knowledge society. Gone are those days when women barely moved out without there being a male member of the family moving ahead.

“Unseen hands are at work to push these girls back and create disturbance. It’s unfortunate,” he said and added that the unseen hands will not succeed in their objective. “I am convinced that any attempt to push women into secondary role will miserably fail,” he said and added “Woman’s desire to learn and go ahead and contribute to the society and the country is very strong.”

The Kerala Governor said he is seeing more women graduating from the universities in Kerala. In the recent convocation he attended, Mr. Khan said he found 22 of the 23 gold winners in the Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University were girls. “The Vice-Chancellor told me that 76 % of students of the university were girls,” he said. Similarly, in the three earlier convocations he attended in the last five months, 73 % of medal winners and other students were girls.

Mr. Khan said there is a great transformation in his native town Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh where young girls barely moved out of their houses. “Now I see young girls cycle about seven kilometres (to their schools). Many girls also move in mass transport facilities,” he said.

Mr. Khan expressed his gratitude to Karnataka Government for opening good number of educational institutions in Dakshina Kannada and other parts of the State where students from Kerala are studying. “Our [Kerala] students have ardent desire to learn and they can reach any part of the world to get educated,” he said and  pointed out that largest number of students who returned from war torn Ukraine were from Kerala. Karnataka Health and Family Welfare Minister K. Sudhakar, Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences Vice-Chancellor M. K. Ramesh and Pro-Chancellor of Manipal Academy of Higher Education H. S. Ballal also spoke.