Turning defeat into victory

NEW DELHI: They live in houses which have no electricity, water supply, or sanitary arrangements. They have come from different parts of the country, to tell their stories.

They speak in diverse languages, and sometimes do not understand one another’s words, but tell the same tale: of defeat turned into victory.

At a National Consultation to Disseminate on Empowering Urban Communities on Accessing Basic Services and Entitlements, women from four cities met in Delhi last week under the aegis of the Centre of Advocacy and Research (CFAR) to share their experiences in getting what the Constitution of India has promised to every citizen: water, food and shelter.

Many of them have spent the major portions of their lives within the walls of their homes, hidden behind a ghunghat or a burkha.

But the winds of change blew strong, and lifted the veils from their faces and turned their submissive acceptance of life in impossible conditions into a crusade for a better standard of living.

Take the story of Kadar Bi. Her strong body and powerful voice do not tell you about the trails she has seen in the 50 or so years of her existence.

A victim of alcoholism, she lost a husband and a son to drink, and her early years as a wife were marked with midnight brawls and beatings, and nights that went without food. Life could have defeated someone like her, but the movement for empowerment started by CFAR managed to reach out to her wounded psyche and give it a new reason to live.

In her own words

“We are Muslims, we are also very poor people, and it does not help at all that we have so many children. Our earning per family is 70 to 80 per day, and my husband, like many other men, would spend 50 of that in drink and give 20 to me for food and everything else we needed.

“Besides that, we would be beaten. I have been beaten, and we women have watched men pull their wives by the hair into the middle of the street and thrash them mercilessly. If we tried to intervene, it was of no use.”

With help from the coordinators of CFAR , the women of her basti formed a Mahila Manch, and decided ‘to set the men right.’

They decided that a counselling class for the men as well as their families would be effective.

The 20-strong Mahila Manch approached the Legal Advisory Centre and imposed on the judge there the need for intervention to change their lifestyle. The judge, impressed by the zeal of women who lived their lives in purdah, allotted a lady lawyer who would visit the slum every week. “We met every Thursday, and the lawyer would come every Sunday,” Kadar Bi explains.

“We would try and mediate cases every Thursday and pass on the difficult ones to the lawyer when she came by.”

Wanting to extend the efficacy of the counselling, the Manch planned a meting where the judge was invited, as well as the police for protection. “We got a number of people from the slums to attend and impressed on the youth their need to be part of the event,” Kadar bi recounts.

Today, the Manch has undertaken ration card holder surveys to ferret out bogus cards, and the men have started attending the counselling classes and know that the law will protect their women should they need that help.

Women from the Samarth Mahila Manch in Pune recount similar stories of victory over liquor; only in their case, inaction by the authorities forced the women to destroy the drinking stills. Domestic counselling and street plays have ensured that the problem is tackled at home level.

Action has been forced from officials who do not care by invoking RTI, and leading morchas, making video films, writing endless letters.

It does not matter which city these stories are from.

The fact is that they have proved to women who had no voice in their own homes, that working for positive change, gives them a collective voice in the community.

It also gives them self respect.

We have learnt to work closely with the officials, and even with some of the media, they say. Colonies nearby say, when you want something done, go to the women, they get things done, says a member of the Jagriti Mahila Manch, Jaipur.

“It is a beginning, but we have much to be done,” another woman adds. “We still need to be effective beyond our narrow circles.”

But the way has been paved. Unlettered, they have managed to use powerful tools like the RTI and appeals to get what is their right: the right to a decent life.

ssaran@dnaindia.net