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BHOPAL, INDIA, July 1, 2003: After completing her class 12 examination, Deepti is now training at the Manju Sanskar Kendra to be an “ideal wife” to a boy she has only seen once. Six days a week, Deepti attends sermons at the Kendra, an institution set up to train women to surrender to the more powerful in the family — in this case, the husband and in laws. Aildas Hemnani, the Kendra’s head, coaches his students in a room that doubles as a prayer hall in a Sindhi-dominated residential area on the outskirts of Bhopal. A retired Madhya Pradesh government employee, Hemnani’s idea to set up this unique institution evolved during a discussion with Sant Hridayaram, who is highly revered by the Sindhis. “I was distressed by the constant bickering among families all around me. At times, it led to divorce. I told Sant Hridayaram that families are breaking up because girls nowadays have too much ego. Parents don’t have time to train their daughters properly. Girls must shed their egos to build a happy family. Sant Hridayaram suggested I start a training course.” Women’s groups first heard of the Kendra two years ago when a local newspaper published a feature on it. “All they teach is subjugation,” says Kumud Singh, secretary of the Bhopal district committee of the National Federation of Indian Women. Singh feels that boys should also be coached. “Training and restraining boys is necessary. If men learn to respect women, half the problems families face would be solved.” Hemnani says he would like to coach would-be husbands as well. “I wanted to train boys, too, but nobody is interested,” he said. He has also created a course that would train women to be ideal mothers-in-law, but, like the course for boys that too didn’t take off.

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