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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday called for a social reform movement for gender equality and sought changes in society's attitude towards women to make India a better nation. "What we need in our country is a fundamental change in mindsets," Manmohan Singh said in an impassioned speech at the golden jubilee celebrations of the Lady Shri Ram College for Women, one of the country's top educational institutions, here. "We need a new social reform movement for gender equality and the empowerment of our women, a movement that changes society's attitude towards women." Reading from a prepared text, the prime minister told the staff and students of LSR, as the college is popularly known, that legislative and administrative initiatives alone were not enough to empower women. "These are necessary and important but surely not enough," he pointed out, underlining the need for a radical change in the way people thought of and also treated women. He admitted that a lot needed to be done in India for women. "We have to vastly improve female literacy. We have to increase enrolment of girls at school. We have to increase women's participation in the work force. We have to ensure equality of pay and provide supporting structures for mothers in work places. "We have to make our cities safe for girls and women of all ages. We have to make public places, public transport, our roads and parks, our offices and homes, safe for our women." The prime minister, speaking freely and frankly to an audience he said he was happy to be with, said he was "deeply distressed" by the rising crime against women. "What is most distressing is the casual approach that so many educated people take to the harassment of women. Governments cannot change social attitudes. People can and must and we need a massive national movement to lay emphasis on these values." He said the worst manifestation of gender discrimination was female foeticide, a social scourge born on the thinking that male child is more useful than a female child. "How can we call ourselves a civilized society if we can tolerate such a barbaric crime? This is not committed by the illiterate and impoverished. It is being committed, very often, in this very city, perhaps in this very neighbourhood. It is in the more developed districts and regions of our country that we find a higher incidence of this ghastly crime. This is both shocking and demeaning." The prime minister outlined the many policies his government had taken for women's empowerment but admitted: "We have a long way to go in fully realizing this idea." He went on: "What we are witnessing in our country is truly paradoxical. On the one hand, we do see women becoming more empowered and capable. We do see greater participation of women in all walks of life. "However, on the other hand, we see rising crimes against women. Our families worry about the lack of security for women. We worry about the safety of our mothers, our sisters, and our daughters... Make our cities a safer and more secure place for girls at college and women at work." Manmohan Singh recalled his academic years and underlined that he had strayed into politics by sheer accident. Manmohan Singh was on the governing body of LSR during his stint in Delhi University as professor at the Delhi School of Economics (1969-71). He also heaped lavish praise on LSR and its students. He also emphasized the glory of India. "Ours is a young nation but an ancient civilization... Today, as a young nation we must reach deep into our cultural and social inheritance and draw on our wisdom in responding to the challenges of the day, and of the future. "I wish your college many more years of service in the cause of our nation. I wish each one of you a lifetime of creativity and a life of adventure and enterprise. "Your college has served the country with great distinction for past 50 years. But I venture to think and I pray that the best is yet to come," he added, to thunderous applause.
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