Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Thursday applauded the Supreme Court judgment regarding “equitable, uniform assistance to women, irrespective of their religion,” thereby upholding the right of all married and divorced women, including Muslim women, to seek maintenance from their husbands.

He was speaking at an interaction with members of the FICCI-FLO Chennai Chapter at the vice president’s enclave.

He said India has taken several steps to empower women, including the enactment of a law to give 33 per cent reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies.

India will be really a developed nation when women’s empowerment takes place, woman power is unleashed and they can realize their potential, explore their talent, and see their dreams and aspirations coming true, Mr Dhankhar said.

India is defining women-led empowerment today, he said. How gratifying it was to see a tribal woman of humble beginnings to be the first citizen of this country, and be the President of this country, he said. The elevation of Mrs Droupadi Murmu to the position is a signal to the entire world, Mr Dhankhar said.

The Vice President said hand-holding is required for girls for two things – one, their education, and second, their skill development. “If you empower a girl, you cannot imagine what you are doing. Great. That will account for exponential, geometric growth of the society,” Mr Dhankhar said.

He told the FICCI-FLO members, “You therefore will have to introspect, be insightful, know of their problems, what is taken by us who are gifted by getting good quality education, good life, assured life, having no problem of food, housing, clothing. Look at the kind of suffering young talented girls face when they have to drop out from schools, colleges, for a lack of money.”

He asked the FLO members to exert influence in their families, in the corporates they are associated with and the people they know to focus on empowering girls in disadvantaged situations.

“To help girls close-by is good, but you have to reach out to the last mile. Once you do that, there will be hope generated in those minds that there is someone trying to handle us. And now all over the country, you have 20 chapters. The last one is Siliguri. It should have been before, now it is there. But make it a point, your chapters must be there in every state of the country, and every union territory,” the Vice President said.

He said the government had created a mechanism where women own affordable housing. This has been an unbelievable development. If there is a woman around who wants to do something, MUDRA loans are so easily available for them.

“But yet, much distance has to be traversed. There is still a strong headwind for the category of girls. Only yesterday you must have seen a great Supreme Court judgement. It is being debated on a public platform. The assistance has to be equitable, uniform for all, irrespective of their religion. That’s a big step,” the Vice President said.

He said “you are an elite class. You are a highly enabled class,” but there are many others, meritorious, with great potential, and they have great difficulty. They have to struggle. “If you choose to handhold even 100 girls, the impact will be very huge,” he said.

“There could be nothing more important in life by way of satisfaction and happiness to handhold a girl who aspires to a good education but cannot have it,” he said.

Women empowerment is nothing but basically economic empowerment, he said. “Under MUDRA Yojana, 69 per cent of 48 crore borrowers are women. 69 per cent. That’s about 28 crore women,” he said.