Discuss the spatial patterns of female literacy in India in 2001 and bring out the reasons responsible for it.

Explanation

Overall literacy in India is approximately 65.4 per cent (2001) while female literacy is only 54.16 per cent. 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 rate across the states of India. There is a state like Bihar which has very low (47.53 per cent) literacy and there are states like Kerala and Mizoram which have literacy rates of 90.92 and 88.49 per cent respectively. Kerala is able to record the highest value in the HDI largely due to its impressive performance in achieving near hundred per cent literacy (90.92 per cent) in 2001. In a different scenario the states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Assam and Uttar Pradesh have very low literacy. For example, total literacy rate for Bihar was as low as 60.32 per cent during the same year. States showing higher total literacy rates have less gaps between the male and female literacy rates. For Kerala, it is 6.34 per cent, while it is 26.75 per cent in Bihar and 25.95 per cent in Madhya Pradesh. Apart from the spatial variations, percentage of literates in the rural areas and among the marginalised sections of our society such as females, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, agricultural labourers, etc. is very low. It is worth mentioning here that though, there has been improvement in the percentage of literates among the marginalised section yet the gap between the richer and the marginalised sections of the population has increased over the years.