January 22, 2025

The patriarchal society in India, dictated by law and prodded by the judiciary, is slowly accepting the choices being made by Gen Y and Z regarding relationships, marriage and bearing children. Recently, the Chennai High Court had directed the health officer and the registrar of births and deaths in Trichy Corporation to issue a birth certificate without the father’s name for a child who was born to a single mother by IUF process. Landlords, previously unwilling to give their property on rent to single mothers, are now more accommodating in these matters. More and more people are willing to accept that it is not necessary for a woman to marry or have a man by her side to raise a child. Society has also started to accept live-in relationships, although reluctantly.

But other institutions, like schools for example, are showing a distinct bias against single mothers. No school in Kolkata admitted Agnisnato, the four-year old son of filmmaker Anindita Sarbadhikari as he was born through IVF and his father’s name was not there in the birth certificate. At least nine top schools refused him admission, choosing instead to ask embarrassing personal questions to the filmmaker. She was left with no choice but to approach the West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights (WBCPCR), whose chairperson, Ananya Chakraborti, intervened to get him admitted to a school.

WBCPCR listed several dos and don’ts for schools. It said that the schools can ask the mother, among other things, about the time she would devote to her child and his education, name of a person other than herself to be contacted in an emergency and her profession and income. But it emphasized that schools cannot be judgmental about her decision to be a single mother, cannot question her ability to raise the child or other personal questions. In the end it boils down to the fact that schools are being judgmental and like others, they also think that a single mother will not be able to raise the child on her own. How then are they going to teach our children to be flexible in their thinking and accept changing mores in society?

For the law to be effective and judicial decisions to have their intended impact in changing society, other institutions must shed their discriminatory and fixed attitude and change with the times. It is also necessary for opinion makers such as teachers to keep themselves updated with changes in societal mores and judicial decisions. This will help them in being less judgmental about choices other people make. If all of us were to make the same choices, will we not become a country of robots? For a vibrant society, every person should be left to his or her own devices as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others. Every other person must learn to respect such choices, however unpalatable to him or her, as being the right of the person making them.