Question

Discuss the spatial patterns of female literacy in India in 2011 and bring out the reasons responsible for it.

Answer 1

Overall literacy in India is approximately 65.4 percent (2001) while female literacy is only 54.16 percent. Total literacy as well as female literacy is higher than the national average in most of the states from south India. There are wide regional disparities in literacy rates across the states of India. There is a state like Bihar which has very low (47.53 percent) literacy and there are states like Kerala and Mizoram which have literacy rates of 90.92 and 88.49 percent respectively.

Kerala is able to record the highest value in the HDI largely due to its impressive performance in achieving near hundred percent literacy (90.92 percent) in 2001. In a different scenario, the states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Assam, and Uttar Pradesh have very low literacy. For example, the total literacy rate for Bihar was as low as 60.32 percent during the same year. States showing higher total literacy rates have fewer gaps between the male and female literacy rates. For Kerala, it is 6.34 percent, while it is 26.75 percent in Bihar and 25.95 percent in Madhya Pradesh.

Apart from the spatial variations, the percentage of literates in the rural areas and among the marginalized sections of our society such as females, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, agricultural laborers, etc. is very low. It is worth mentioning here that though, there has been improvement in the percentage of literates among the marginalized section yet the gap between the richer and the marginalized sections of the population has increased over the years.