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From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Thu May 13 2010 - 00:05:42 EDT
India bans leather shoes in schools as 'vestige of colonial rule'
India is to ban schoolchildren from wearing leather shoes because they are
seen as a "vestige of British colonial rule."
Dean Nelson in New Delhi
Published: 10:05AM BST 05 May 2010
India bans leather shoes in schools as 'vestige of colonial rule'
Photo: REUTERS
Instead canvas plimsolls will replace uncomfortable and "environmentally
hazardous" leather shoes.
The move by the country's school boards follows a campaign by Maneka
Gandhi, Indira Gandhi's widowed daughter-in-law, who is now an member of
parliament for the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. She is one of India's
leading animal rights campaigners and a fierce opponent of slaughtering
cows, which are revered among Hindus.
India's Central Board of School Education and the Council for the Indian
School Certificate Examination has accepted her proposal.
Black leather shoes were introduced as mandatory items in Indian school
uniforms during British colonial rule and have continued unchallenged ever
since. Their widespread use has made schoolchildren the country's largest
consumers of leather products, according to the People for Animals (PFA)
campaign.
Sixteen schools in Madras have already banned leather footwear in response
to their campaign and protesters have since been lobbying schools in
Chandigarh, Punjab.
Now central government officials have backed the campaign following a
series of letters from Mrs Gandhi.
"This decision was forced on Indians by the British. It is a decision that
is not just unhealthy for children but environmentally very dangerous," she
wrote. Leather shoes do not absorb sweat, force children to change their
shoes during the day, and cause schoolchildren to have larger carbon
footprint, she said. They are also more expensive for parents.
Gerry Arathoon, Secretary of CISCE, has backed the campaign and said the
board believes leather shoes 'stink', gather dust, need regular cleaning
with 'toxic' polish, and that the tanneries they come from are a source of
disease for their workers.
Canvas shoes, by contrast, are easy to clean, comfortable, absorb sweat,
kind to cows and without colonial associations.