पुछा क्यूँ? जवाब था तुम लड़की हो इसलिये | यही से मेरा विद्रोह शुरू हुआ | निर्णय की स्वतंत्रता न होना कोई भी स्वतंत्रता न होना, यह स्थिति मानने को मन और बुद्धी दोनों ही तैयार नहीं थे | समाज और धर्म के नाम पर जो कहा जा रहा है उसका बस यही जवाब था कि ये चलता आ रहा है | फिर जब आगे पढ़ना भी रोक दिया गया | वह इसलिए कि आगे की पढ़ाई के लिए शहर जाना है, जो लड़कियों के लिए सही नहीं, फिर अब शादी कर दो तब तो और भी डर लगा कि बची-खुची स्वतन्त्रता भी गई और मजबूरी और बेबसी इतनी कि बस छटपटाहट भी मुश्किल | पिताजी की उदारता के बावजूद भी इन समस्याओं का सामना करना पड़ा क्योंकि समाज और परिवार की धारणाएँ बहुत मजबूत थी | तब मैंने यह तय किया कि मुझे यह सब नही सहना है | मैं ज़रूर लडूंगी, फिर इस लड़ाई कि खातिर मुझे घर छोड़ना पड़ा, जो कि जाहीर है आसान नहीं था | तब मैंने एक युवा संगठन के साथ खुद को जोड़ा जो सम्पूर्ण क्रान्ति के विचार को लेकर काम कर रहा था | छात्र युवा संघर्ष वाहिनी उस युवा संगठन का नाम था | ये सब आसान तो नहीं था लेकिन जब आन्दोलन से जुडी तो एक स्वतन्त्रता का एहसास हुआ | लेकिन मेरी समस्याएँ महिला होने से जुडी हुई थी, इसलिए वह एक केंद्रबिंदु जरुर था | लेकिन एक व्यापक विचारधारा तथा संगठन से जुड़ने की वजह से यह समझ भी बनी की ISOLATION में कुछ नही होता | फिर संगठन के FULL-TIMER के रूप में काम करते वक़्त आदिवासी क्षेत्रो में घूमकर वहा के सवालों को समझने की कोशिश की तथा वहां आंदोलनों में भी शामिल हुई | आसाम आन्दोलन के सन्दर्भ में संगठन द्वारा चलायी गई राष्ट्रीय संवाद प्रक्रिया में शामिल रही | दलित, महिला, विद्यार्थी, आदि क्षेत्रो में भी काम किया तथा संघर्ष वाहिनी के राष्ट्रीय संयोजक का पद भी संभाला |

१९८२ में जलगाँव शहर में मुस्लिम पंचायत ने एक फतवा जारी किया कि मुस्लिम महिलाओं पर सिनेमा देखने पर पाबंदी लगा दी गई है और कोई भी मुस्लिम महिला सिनेमा देखने के लिए सिनेमा घर जाती है तो उस पर जुर्माना लगाया जायेगा | उसके बाद भी वह सिनेमा देखती हुई पकड़ी गई तो उसे सामाजिक रूप से जलील किया जाएगा और इस पर कारवाई भी शुरू कर दी गई | मुस्लिम महिलाओं में इस बात को लेकर बहूत गुस्सा था | हम छात्र युवा संघर्ष वाहिनी के कार्यकर्ताओ ने इसको समझने की कोशिश करते हुए मुस्लिम महिलओं से मुहल्लों मुहल्लों में जा कर बात की | फिर खुले रूप से सवाल उठाने शुरू किये | उसके बाद हम पर दबाव आना शुरू हुआ लेकिन मुस्लिम महिलओ ने भी संगठित रुप में जवाब देना शुरू किया | इसी दौरान रेहाना नाम की महिला पर हमला कर दिया जिस में वह और उसका पति जख्मी हो गए | तब मुस्लिम महिला समिति ने आन्दोलन का निर्णय लिया और यह तय किया कि ८ मार्च विशव महिला दिवस के अवसर पर हम इसके खिलाफ सत्याग्रह करेंगे | इस आन्दोलन में हमारी भूमिका यह थी की फिल्मे देखना इतना ही हमारे आंदोलन का मकसद नहीं है बल्कि हम तानाशाही तथा हिंसा का विरोध करना चाहते हैं | महिलाए खुद अपने निर्णय ले सकती है | उस समिती में जिसमे महिलाएं है ही नहीं उसका निर्णय हम पर क्यों थोपा जा रहा है? हम किसी को अपना दुश्मन नहीं मानते लेकिन अपने अधिकार के लिए लड़ना चाहते है और हमारी मांग यह है कि स्वयंघोषित पंच कमिटी रद की जाये | गांधीवादी तरीके से हम ये आन्दोलन चलाना चाहते थे इसलिए मुस्लिम महिलाएं शांतिपूर्ण तरीके से अपना मार्च सिनेमा हॉल तक ले जाएंगी और घोषित करेंगी की सिनेमा बंदी हमने तोड़ दी है | इस भूमिका के तहत ८ मार्च १९८२ को एक जुलुस द्वारा मुस्लिम महिलाऐं सिनेमा हॉल की तरफ निकली | रस्ते में पथराव, दबाव का सामना करना पड़ा लेकिन अंततः हमने घोषित कर दिया की हमने सिनेमा बंदी तोड़ दी है | इस आन्दोलन की खबरें देश भर के अखबारों मे आई | टाइमस ऑफ़ इंडिया में एडिटोरिअल लिखा | अब हमारी दूसरी मांग थी कि पंच कमिटी रद की जाए | इसके बाद मुझे धमकिया दी जाने लगी क्यूंकि आन्दोलन का नेतृत्व मैंने किया था | मुझे पुलिस सुरक्षा दी गई, फिर महाराष्ट्र की विधान सभा में यह सवाल उठाया गया और महाराष्ट्र सरकार को पंच समिति पर बंदी लगानी पड़ी | इस तरह से यह आन्दोलन एक सफल मुकाम तक पहुंचा |

महिला आन्दोलन – जो १९७५ विश्व महिला वर्ष के बाद स्वतंत्र रुप में खड़ा हुआ था – उसमें कई संगठनों से सम्पर्क हुआ | उनके साथ जुड़ाव भी हुआ, जैसे मुंबई में नारी केंद्र या स्त्री मुक्ति सम्पर्क समिती, स्वाधार स्त्रीविमोचन ट्रस्ट आदि | और इसके अलावा जो भी इकठ्ठा मंच बने उसमे मैं शामिल रही | इस महिला आंदोलन का पहला दौर काफी उत्साह से भरा हुआ था | पितृसत्ता का रूप और गहराई समझना, अपने अनुभवों को उस से जोड़ना और इकठ्ठे लड़ाई लड़ना, एक दुसरे के साथ खड़े होने की भावना | इसका एक दौर जरूर था, लेकिन महिला आन्दोलन का अजेंडा, समझ, भारतीय सन्दर्भ, विशेषतौर पर महिला दासता, जाती व्यवस्था तथा अल्पसंख्यक समुदाय की महिलाओं के सवाल पर समझ की कमी रही | इसलिए इन तबकों की महिलाओं की भागीदारी नहीं बढ़ नहीं पाई | दूसरी तरफ १९८० के दशक में शाहबानो के रूप में मुस्लिम मूलतत्ववाद और रूपकुंवर सती का मसला, फिर लालकृष्ण अदवानि की रथयात्रा, बाबरी मस्जिद का हिन्दू मूलतत्व वादियों द्वारा विध्वंसन – इस सारे झंझावत में जिस तरह सभी आन्दोलन हिल गये, उसी तरह महिला आन्दोलन भी हिल गये | दूसरा आव्हान सामाजिक तथा राजनितिक आंदोलनों के एन.जी.ओ. करण का है जिसका समता, सामाजिक न्याय के लिए चलने वाले आंदोलानो पर गहरा असर पड़ा है | फिर भी अगर कहीं से उम्मीद की जा सकती तो वे महिला आन्दोलन है, बशर्ते पिछड़े वर्गों की भागीदारी, मूलतत्ववाद से लड़ने की ताकत, प्रतिबध्धता, इमानदारी, सेल्फ करेक्शन तकनीक आन्दोलन का चरित्र बने |

Jaipur was about camaraderie, warmth, intense fights, about personal and work relationships spilling into each other, generating at times unbearable levels of intensity. It was about meetings in Miss Prabhu and Miss Tarve’s home, both retired lecturers of Kanoria College. Miss Tarve was the large, gruff, lecturer of Hindi, with a thin tight plait. Miss Prabhu, in contrast was lean, tall, delicate, generous both in her hospitality and love of English literature. And it was only appropriate that it was in their home that meetings of all kinds involving people of different backgrounds and political persuasions took place. Feminists, Gandhians, leftists, writers, artists, researchers, retired lecturers, students, urban and rural based activists… and these were often overlapping identities for most of us. Organizational identities mattered little and there was a fluid criss-crossing across movements. As members of the women’s movement we were actively involved in ‘other’ struggles, not as allies but as an intrinsic part of those struggles. As a result, often the same lot of people would be working on a report on the communal riots in the city or strategising on protesting against incidents of sexual violence, or writing press notes on the struggle for minimum wages on famine relief works.

Being based in Jaipur and linked to SWRC (Social Work and Research Centre), Tilonia and Women’s Development Programme, a government sponsored rural women’s empowerment programme, popularly known as the Sathin programme (Sathin being the term for the village level facilitator) meant constantly moving between urban and rural contexts. And this was true not only for me but for many of the others in the women’s movement in Rajasthan. This is perhaps why there was this continuum between urban and rural activism, that was clearly evident during Bhanwari’s case.

Bhanwari, a Sathin I had worked with. Full of grace and elegance,whose dancing often had a hypnotic effect on me as her feet would break the  predictable rhythmic pattern, at any moment of her choice, as if they were holding time still between two beats. Many other images come to me – Bhanwari’s husband’s extreme nervousness as he braced himself for the medico legal procedures; Mita, a Delhi based lesbian feminist tying the shoe laces of a woman police officer during the rally in Jaipur; a sea of people from villages, cities, men, women all pushing and surging ahead to break the police cordon; Bhanwari’s, gaunt, erect, eyes clear and fierce, shouting out loud “ Izzat gayee kiske, Badri ki, Gyarsa ki”, thus seeking to shame the men who had raped her. The urban rural continuum was visible once again in support provided by Jaipur based activists, several of whom had worked with Bhanwari closely and knew her well. It was also visible in the way in which Bhanwari’s struggle was taken forward by urban feminists and lawyers from Jaipur and Delhi to lead up to the Vishakha guidelines related to sexual harassment at the workplace. Critical and even historic as these interventions were, many of us felt we were unable to provide Bhanwari the kind of support she needed in her day to day struggle in her village.

Being part of the women’s movement in Rajasthan for me in the eighties meant a blurring of many lines – between friendships and work, between organizational and movement identities, between urban and rural based activism.

I jump into the decade starting 2000 to share a glimpse from the 16 days of activism on violence against women in 2002, held in Delhi.

As a member of PRISM, a queer, feminist activist group, I was involved in raising the issue of lesbian suicides with autonomous womens’ organizations who were part of the campaign. In the previous four months, there had been several cases of lesbian suicides reported in the press. The response of the women’s groups was positive. They said ‘why don’t you raise the issue and we will support you’. We in turn asked of the women’s groups whether the issue of lesbian suicides was not intrinsic to the agenda of the women’s movement. It was this approach that was articulated in the leaflet that was then jointly brought out by PRISM and a number of organizations including womens’ groups.

The leaflet stated:

‘Apart from rape, sexual harassment, and bride burning, violence against women happens every time a woman is married against her will. It happens every time a woman feels guilty for wanting to be happy and every time that a woman must die because she is unacceptable to society. Lesbian suicides are a result of society’s attempt to restrict women’s choices and control their lives. We protest these Deaths as Violence Against All Women’

Many of us worked hard, along with artist and activist Sheeba Chachi, pouring over cardboards laid out on the floor to create huge, jet black, looming silhouettes (so large that it took endless rounds to figure out how to put them up) of the couples who had committed suicide as part of the event marking the culmination of the campaign. This story is important to share in a context in which the rights language has come to become part of the language many of us use, including as women’s groups. I appreciate the rights language for its focus on agency and accountability (and I maintain that it is a language and not a perspective since it can contain within it all manner of political perspectives). But I also fear that the rights language runs the danger of pushing us into an ‘us’ and ‘them’ framework which reinforces narrowly defined identity politics. Therefore, it was easier, for women’s groups to say they support the rights of lesbian women without struggling with the underlying political links between patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality. Stated more categorically, did the movement campaign against violence against all women or did it campaign only for those women who are attracted to men?

On a more positive note, I would like to end with a glimpse of the recent Indian Association of Women’s Studies Conference in Wardha in January 2011. Nirantar, a feminist organization that has been working on issues of gender and education since 1993, was part of co-ordinating a sub-theme entitled “Body Talk: Interrogating Boundaries and Hierarchies in Feminist Discourse”. The objective was to reflect on areas of silence, binaries and hegemonies that the women’s movement have subscribed to and/or strengthened. For me the rich discussions were proof that we in the women’s movement, perhaps more than any movement, are more than willing to be self-critical, perhaps with a dash of masochism (which also formed part of the discussions!). What also gave me hope was how if we stay rooted in experience we lessen the risk of the binaries of us and them,ours and theirs, pleasure and danger, urban and rural. In this case, it was the site of the body that enabled us to be rooted in this way. It also helped us see that addressing the margins is not only about inclusion as part of the liberal framework of rights but about allowing the margins to challenge and transform our existing frameworks and politics.

My involvement with the women’s movement began in 1989. The campaign against population control policies, anti-fertility vaccines and unethical clinical trials of hormonal contraceptives in the late 1980s and 1990s marked a watershed. Being associated with strong feminist organizations, I could actively participate in these campaigns. The women’s movement in India at that time was addressing issues of patriarchy, violence against women, poverty, livelihoods, sex selective abortions and population policies. Some of the women’s groups had their roots in the public health movement, civil liberties, Left parties and other movements associated with livelihoods and environmental issues.

Women’s and health rights activists had been raising questions about the safety of hormonal contraceptive technologies, the way in which clinical trials are conducted, collection of informed consent, and the family planning programme’s inadequate efforts towards women’s health in general. There was a strong protest against the inclusion of women in the healthcare system essentially as reproductive beings, with the exclusion of their other health needs. The target-based population control programme of the Indian government, with its emphasis on peddling dangerous contraceptives into women’s bodies, sparked discussions amongst those of us more inclined to engage with women’s health issues. In particular, it was the campaign against injectable contraceptives and implants that broadened my perspective, helping us make these connections, and lending fresh vigour and insight to our work.

The Depo campaign from 1992-94 was full of debates, confrontations and adventures. The fine line between coercion and choice, and the complicit role of many sections of society, were challenges that we were facing in campaigns against population policies and hormonal contraceptives. These continue to extend themselves to newer forms of medical and reproductive technologies in today’s context as well. We found ourselves confronting questions of choice, state policy and systemic violence, in ways both new and old. The medicalisation of poor women’s bodies was disguised in a language of ‘choice’ and ‘progress’, and was in turn masking the private profiteering of the big pharmaceutical companies, the gross neglect and under-development of the country’s social systems, and the violation of women’s rights to bodily integrity and health. We were all full of energy, and every single meeting was useful for our political growth. Personally, for me as an individual, the campaign enabled me to demystify deeply hierarchical and technical knowledge systems. There were many interesting debates, especially with the Drug Controller General of India and the Indian Council of Medical Research.

The campaign itself saw many phases. Sometimes more groups used to join in, and sometimes there were fewer of us. In either case, enthusiasm and commitment were high, as the campaign itself was an exploration. Interacting with friends at AIDWA, Jagori and Saheli was, and continues to be, a learning experience. An incident that I remember particularly was when a group of us, frustrated with the DCGI’s refusal to give us an appointment for our repeated requests or return our calls, decided to gatecrash and gherao their office premises. Many in the media labeled our actions undemocratic. When we did attempt more ‘civil’ methods of dialogue, we were shut out; as such, we resorted to more ‘disobedient’ ways to voice our protest.

In a similar incident, we sought to participate in a meeting with Max Parma (the pharmacy company), but were refused and physically stopped. Left with no other alternative, we jumped over the wall and forced our way in. A photograph of my ‘unfeminine’ ways in action (I was jumping over a gate) appeared in the front pages of most newspapers the next day. Unsurprisingly, a section of the press accused us of not behaving like ‘dignified’ women. We were labeled anti-choice, anti-development, anti-technology and anti-feminine. We were also charged with sensationalism, when we felt quite frankly, like the subjects of sensationalism!

The positive outcome of our protest was that they were kept out of the Family Planning programmes but they are all over the market. There are many larger challenges before us that needed a constant reflection. On whose behalf were we speaking? Did we always represent the interests of the average Indian woman? How do we translate the findings from our grassroots work into political demands in an increasingly liberalized global economy? How do we influence policy design? What are the spaces available to us without getting ‘co-opted’ ?

These are questions from our collective work of eighteen years ago that are relevant to our work in any time and space. When I discuss feminist  activism today with my younger colleagues, their experiences seem both similar and dissimilar. According to Anjali, who is twenty six with four years of work behind her, not much has changed with regard to the perception of the women’s movement, as the trend of being labeled anti-women and anti-progress continues even today. This is especially true for feminists engaged in political questions that lie at the interface of public health and women’s rights. Anjali is an active participant in the campaign around the unethical nature of HPV vaccine trials in the country, and recounts being (mis) represented by the supporters of the vaccine as someone who is uncomfortable with issues of sexuality. She also points to what she sees as a shift today in the very nature of feminist activism, given a context where state hegemony is more entrenched and powerful than before. I do agree with her; the narrative and movement towards a certain type of development has buy-in from a vast and formidable range of players- state, non-state and super-state. These include big corporations and international donors, who exercise control over state and civil society alike. That there has been fragmentation is undeniable, and as such, the movement must re-invent itself, and mobilize, organize and link-up in ways that can respond to the changing times. Feminist activism, then or now, cannot be seen as a monolith, and feminist activists must ask of themselves and others many of the same questions. There has been some positive signs of some young feminists are starting to question the meaning of ‘choice’ and medicalisation of women’s bodies in the recent past. Though different contexts come with different compulsions, I would like to believe that commitment has not waned.  I hope that these discussions will lead to a renewed political understanding of women’s health.

Sarojini N, Sama Resource Group for Women and Health

April 18, 2011

On 6 December 1977, I joined the members of Swadeshi Hatya Kand to help families of dead workers by supplying them with food.

In 1978, I actively participated in the trade union movement to fight for the human rights of defense and other factory workers. I did some very interesting work with the women workers of Victoria Mill who were being harassed by their boss. I organized around 70 women, trained them to give speeches and to lead so that they could conduct the campaign on their own. The campaign achieved great success – the work pressure reduced by 4–5 hours, wages were increased by three rupees per day, and the sexually abusive boss got fired and was replaced by the leader of the campaign. I also organized women workers of the Algin No.2 Mill with low success, but the organization of workers of the Lakshmi Ratan Cotton Mill and Kanpur Textile Mill were quite successful despite our getting physically attacked by the mill owners. This way many campaigns for women workers’ rights took place.

In 1979, I started working towards providing basic amenities for women and in the process figured out that they did not have even basic rights. They were constantly subjected to rape, dowry, murder and other forms of mental and physical torture. I then formed an organization called Dahej Evam Balatkar Virodhi Manch (Forum against Rape and Dowry). Women were getting murdered or were burnt alive. I got many culprits arrested and punished and raised my voice for women’s rights by running various campaigns. I also tried to provide justice to the homeless who were constantly harassed by the police.

In 1980, a 14-year-old girl was rape by four people. I organized a public meeting and met the Senior Superintendent of Police who refused to help, but I fought for her right and helped get her justice. The rapists were arrested. This case was quite difficult but in the end I succeeded in getting her justice.

Similarly, Pushpa was burnt alive, campaign (parental house to in-laws house to poilce station), police was giving problem but I got justice for them (arrest)

maya, raped by 2 police men, protest against it and got justice (arrest and case)

*And 9 other campaigns against dowry and 5 for rape

*also campaigned in Agra (murder), Itawa (dowry/ got beaten up brutally), Gorakhpur, Banaras , Lucknow and gained a great success.
1981—28 February and 1 March—conference at Christ Church College, Kanpur people from 22 district participated and discussed about women human rights and formed mahila manch at state level origin. It is a big thing for women’s of Uttar Pradesh.

*And I addressed and presented a paper in national level workshop and conferences and I took active participation in student movement of Kanpur.

*Public toilet for 5000 slum people had 57 seats, got deconstructed and stayed there for 8 months, protested outside commissioner V.K. Dewan’s house and was arrested for 13 days with 32 women and after coming out of the jail again continued the protest till 6 months after which the construction began.

*Radha Jain got burnt for dowry, campaign against it with 42 lawyers and got justice (1979–81). Seventy cases attempted, 50 were successful.

1982: State level conference was organized and we formed sakhi kendra where we have shelter home, workshops, awareness training programme centre and library took place. And financial backing started by making lunch boxes in workshops of sakhi kendra and started selling to mill workers and distress women to provide them a alternative.

*Vandana Awasthi got shot dead by her husband then we organized campaign against that, they were very reputed person so 200 people helped me out with this movement and it took 15 days to the beginning of justice to arrest them.

1982: we came up with sakhi kendra, shelter home (zareeb chowki), library, workshop, awareness training programme centre.

1982–83: 80 cases related to women’s human rights attempted (55 successful)

1983: Police brutality on people, hunger strike in sit on for 8 days in Kanpur and 2 days in Agra.

*Held public courts against the violence on women’s.

1984: Hindu–sikh riots, work for rehabilitation, injured sikhs got justice and we also participated in this campaign actively.

*A historic campaign in Kanpur, Krishan Pratap Singh of Pali village, raped a lot of women in the most brutal way possible, killed a lot of people, brutally beat up people, forcefully took farms. Campaign against him, with 101 lawyers within 6 years. (during this period lot of murders happened, many attacks on me)(this campaign was not only for that particular person but also the whole mentality of the people who think its their right to do such crime and even people thought they are survive on the mercy of that family, that’s why this was a long fight, but in the end the campaign was successful.

1985: MKJ leather factory, administration beat up 46 women in such a way that there clothes got ripped, protest against it and got justice through ssp.

1984–86 :120 cases successful

1986: Bilkish Bano got killed by her in-laws, public meeting held in Bakengunj, body got buried out and re-checked, justice (I got attacked by criminals).
1987: Sadhu in Bithoor tortured his wife and after her death he made money of her body, saying that she gets alive at night. He got arrested. I fought till the success which took place after 35 days of sit on in Bithoor, Kanpur.

*Pilko farma, leather factory and 2 very important workshops was organized by me for different labour women’s of Kanpur to aware them for their rights.
*Sati Pratha(where women’s were forced to burnt with their husband’s deadbody and called holy. And that time same event held called Devrala sati kand and I had run a campaign against it.
*We ran a movement against alcohol.
1988: I took active participation in organizing the Rashtriya Naari Mukti Sangharsh conference held in Patna.
*Three sisters committed suicide because of being a girl, a daughter being neglected, dowry. So we organized street plays and raised a conference against a patriarchal values in family, we have started discussion on domestic violence.
1987–90: 200 cases successful.

From 1987–94 many important state level campaign was help for women’s human right, and to form a women’s human rights defender in U.P. where there were no women’s organization there I searched people and established an organization and where there were organization but not took part actively there I brought unity among them.

1991: Forceful prostitution of wife for money, fought against it and caught 6 major people of town.
*And in U.P. I raised voice for violence against women, women’s legal and political rights by campaigns and Uttarakhand also included later. And during these 412 cases were successfully dealed by me. During this we made 27 women’s stand in the election of Nagar Nigam as a corporater among which 15 were runner.
From 1994–95: Fourth world women conference which held in Beijing (China), for its preparation I co-ordinated with member of the different organization’s and I went with more then 200 women’s in conference.

1987–90: 200 cases successful.

From 1987–94 many important state level campaign was help for women’s human right, and to form a women’s human rights defender in U.P. where there were no women’s organization there I searched people and established an organization and where there were organization but not took part actively there I brought unity among them.

1991: Forcefully prostitution of wife for money, fought against it and caught 6 major people of town.
*And in U.P. I raised voice for violence against women, women’s legal and political rights by campaigns and Uttarakhand also included later. And during these 412 cases were successfully dealt by me. During this made 27 women’s stand in the election of nagar nigam as a corporater among which 15 were runner.
1889–90: active participation in Hindu–Muslim riots and we had run a campaign for saccularism, newly married girl bride was beaten up and was thrown in the street in a nude condition. Criminals were rich, I fought against them and it was difficult but I gained success after 6 days.
1991–92: we fought against a charitable hospital which had turned into business hospital, I got success
6 December: Babri Masjid was broken up big campaign against communalism all over U.P. this year our organization became broad. We made documentary film named Pagalpan ke Khilaaf (against madness).
From 1994–95: fourth world women conference which held in Beijing (China), for its preparation I co-ordinated with member of the different organization’s and I went with more then 200 women’s in conference.
*joined SAF factory labour campaign.
*campaign against the new economic policy in U.P.
1998– currently: acid attack cases in total till now

2001:16 april— riots between Hindu and Muslim— police got brutal and started killing freely, we established a fact finding team after a lot of research (Delhi judge Rajendra Sachhar, Prebhat Joshi-journalist, and other reporters) we fought against those cops and got them suspended with the help of CM. (People killed also got compensation)–justice as Shrivastav was called to Kanpur  (19–29 March).
2001: Women was group raped in a village, and in Unnawo, Raamrati was raped and killed brutally and his husband was beaten up, Amnesty International helped us in this matter and all 7 culprits got arrested and file a case against him also.

2002: a girl got brutally murdered because of dowry in Jhansi, we protested against it till the culprits got arrested.

2002: 400 organization were with us and working in collaboration.

2003: guy raped and killed three children and we protested, but police denied, when he got caught red handed in fourth then police took action.

2003: alcohol license were sold for very cheap (Rs 100)(even for kids) , we did a campaign against Mayawati’s party, and they had to take it back.

2003: brother burnt his sister for money, we took her out in burning condition and couldn’t save her, her brother ran away, we got him arrested.

2004: in Bombay world social forum, in which we presented street plays and talks based on human rights (protest and awareness rallies are always held time to time by all creative means).

2005: a high tension wire did a lot of damage in a village, we did a meeting with the DM, and got them compensation.

2005: campaign against women eve teasing and rape in trains and public transports

2005–10: several campaigns run by Sakhi Kendra for establishing good governance in target slums, for gender equality, against female foeticide, for proper implementation of PWDV Act, PCPNDT Act, effective implementation of State Women Policy in U.P. and M.P. as well as its formulation in Jharkhand, Uttaranchal and Chhattisgarh.

Soon I was to find myself in Sau Quarters, a West Delhi tenement colony, working on the socio-economic status of Balmiki women, a sub caste of the North Indian caste of Bhangis or sweepers and scavengers. As I was by then gradually ‘getting into’ women’s studies, Towards Equality and Ester Boserup’s Woman’s Role in Economic Development provided plenty of material for reflection and anxiety. And of course, the days in the field brought home the lived reality behind the written word. Not unexpectedly, many heoretical premises were tested and discarded. In particular, I found that in my fieldwork situation at least, it was a myth to assume that mechanisation and development would deprive women of employment: at the subsistence level, women would work at anything. At the end of my fieldwork, when I felt that I had enough material for an in-depth study of a section of working class women and to question certain preconceptions,
I published Poverty and Women’s Work – A Study of Sweeper Women in Delhi.

What, however, did not come through in my published work was the dilemma I faced while in the field, and the consequent mental and conceptual calisthenics I had to hastily perform. Problems arose primarily because of my construction of a different reality on the basis of certain presuppositions; though I had pre-tested my interview schedule, obviously what I considered relevant and important was not always similarly viewed by my respondents. I learnt much from those I interviewed; I also had to accept that often enough, well-intentioned researchers like me knew little about urban congestion, of how families are bound to shacks and huts in what the middle class considers to be abject squalor. Proximity to jobs and their kin and friendship networks are of vital importance, leading individuals and groups to resist re-location. I also did not know that women hesitated to use public latrines after dark: it would never have crossed my mind that these are the chosen venues for rape and molestation. I did not ask the women questions on domestic violence, alcoholism or family planning. In part, I was asked not to talk about the recent, much-hated sterilisation drive. But in fact, I did not know how to ask many other questions as well. In any case, in 1975, I was hardly aware that wife-beating and abuse is a part of daily family life among large segments of the female population all over the world. I had to wait till 1990 to hear at firsthand about this horror in women’s lives.

When, at the end of the fieldwork I told my respondents that they had been of considerable help to me, Shanta, who had become quite a friend, said ‘Bibiji aap to apni kitab likhenge, pur hamara kya hoga?’ (Bibiji, you will write your book, but what will happen to us?). I had no honest answer to give her, just as I had not really been able to deal with the persistent question of many women, ‘Bibiji hamey issey kya milega?’ (Bibiji, what will we get out of this?). My dilemma is of course not something unique: many a field worker is faced with similar situations where questions regarding one’s role keep cropping up. Such questions inevitably set up a chain of thought, a process of
introspection: is one in fact exploiting one’s respondents by taking up their time? Does not the process of questioning, sooner or later, sow the seeds of doubt in the minds of one’s informants? For instance, how did my constant harping on the issue of how much responsibility men actually took within the home, affect women who had internalized exploitation as their fate? Or for that matter, was I justified in asking probing questions on relationships with the natal home and how often women visited their families? Was I right in asking those at the subsistence level what kind of consumer goods they owned?

When I sat down to write, many images continued to run through my mind. I saw Bimla’s anguish and Mayavati’s cynicism as well as little Sharda’s excitement as she prepared for a longed-for day in school. I was not always sure of what I should write about the lives of the women I had spent days with: while I knew that any act of telling is interpretive in nature, I was nonetheless anxious to be as ‘true’ to my respondents’ reality as possible. I used the women’s own words wherever possible, knowing all along that the moral overtones of a field worker’s intervention and probing have implications of self-analysis, of raising consciousness among a group which has little hope of escaping from the bondage of their lives. The resultant frustration and anger are in this case the direct responsibility of the field worker who becomes an agent of exploitation. I do not think that I have ever been able to answer my own doubts on this sensitive point of relationships across social classes. I soon realized that the conversion of experience into expression is never easy and I came back from the field much chastened.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that my world view completely changed after this study and by the end of the nineteen-seventies, I was ready to say with conviction that I was a part of the Indian women’s movement. In the years that followed, my research at the Centre for Women’s Development Studies ranged from a study of upper middle-class Bengali women and their writings, another fieldwork-based study on violence against women – when my earlier study on Balmiki women found greater salience—women’s health and finally, the visual documentary on women. All through these years, I was working first on Samya Shakti and then its successor, the Indian Journal of Gender Studies, my editorial judgement deeply coloured by years of researching inequalities and women’s increasing ability to assert their rights. In other words, though at times I feel quite unequivocally that the Indian women’s movement today has lost much of the punch that characterized it in the heady years of twenty years ago, deep down I know that come what may, I have changed irrevocably from the ingénue that ventured into Sau Quarters in 1975.

Malavika Karlekar is the Editor, Indian Journal of Gender Studies and Consultant, Centre for Women’s Development Studies (CWDS), New Delhi.

We met and found resonance and solidarity with other women at places like Manushi (a women’s magazine) and Saheli (a women’s collective). It was the early 80s and news of brides being burnt for dowry extortion had become commonplace. We took to the streets, literally, with political theatre on the issue of dowry and that of custodial rape. Creating and performing plays like Om Swaha in residential colonies and outside government offices during lunch-breaks. While we performed, we’d sometimes see women in the audience begin to cry and we’d know that we had touched a raw nerve and we would connect with their particular struggle. It became increasingly clear, though, that it was not enough to engage with crises on individual struggles alone. The norms that validate prevailing practices, the larger systemic reality of patriarchy had to be challenged as well.

It was also inevitable then to begin working on other issues as one often nested in the other. With issues of health, for example, came issues of women’s sexuality. I began working in the squatter settlements and resettlement colonies of Delhi. Working with recent rural migrants, I gained an awareness of the deep divides of class and caste, and of the economic aspects of women’s lives, not just as housewives but also at the bottom rung of the work-force. To earn a living, I looked for work on aspects such as health, non-formal education, ’empowerment’ of women, aspects that you want to see change in. But I found Delhi, and our small efforts in this huge city, entirely overwhelming. There was also a yearning for a deeper and more immediate connectedness with people embedded in, not uprooted from, their landscapes.

In 1987, I moved to Rajasthan, first Jaipur then Ajmer, to work with a state-run womens’ development programme on issues of women’s health and sexuality. This work connected us to rural women across several districts, and it was such work in villages that made me feel more connected. It was the late 80’s and there was a prolonged drought situation in Rajasthan. Under famine-relief, there was a food-for-work programme, where women were given work on the condition that they had themselves sterilized. While our mandate was to make available information on sexuality and reproduction, we stood with the women against coercive sterilization, and were, predictably, kicked out of the programme along with all those who had protested.

We had undertaken, along with numerous Sathins (village level functionaries) of this programme, to create information on aspects of women’s sexuality and health. Eighty women got together to create a pictorial story-book with minimal text that brought together the local idiom of art, a scientific perspective and a political understanding of women’s sexuality, reproductive biology and gender politics. We called it the lal kitab or the red-book. Our reward was to see this book go on to be adapted and translated into many languages, and used extensively in India and elsewhere.

In five years though, my life seemed to be ready to take the next step. However deeply engaged I was in the various issues while in Rajasthan, it was, at one level, an engagement in abstraction, in that, political consequences were not quite the same for me as for the local people. I was always in a sense an ‘outsider’, speaking with and working with people to change their situation. I wanted really to engage as a citizen on issues that affected my life as well and that was more organically connected to a particular landscape and its future. My ‘political’ needed to become more ‘personal’ again, not just at an individual scale but at a larger, collective, community scale. With stakes that were also my own.

In 1992, when my son was six months old, I moved to live in a village in a remote mountain area in the state of Uttarakhand, near the borders with Nepal and Tibet. I now live on a 4 acre farm here, in a village called Sarmoli, in an area called Munsiari. Among other things, I farm the land for food and, like other farmers in mountain areas, am dependent on forests for cycling nutrients through livestock. It has been almost 20 years now and I am not so much an ‘outsider’ any more. I was the elected head of our village forest council (Van Panchayat) for seven years, and have been actively involved with issues that interface with forests, people’s livelihoods and conservation. My engagement is increasingly at the collective, community and regional levels now.

I work here with a local women’s collective that we call Maati (earth). We work to strengthen women’s livelihoods, be they from agriculture, wool handicrafts or nature-tourism related work. Collective citizen-intervention in cases of violence against women remains as much of a need here, as in urban areas. Our group synergizes with a larger state-wide women’s forum called the Uttarakahand Mahila Manch, on state-level policy issues that affect women’s lives. Uttarakhand is a relatively new state and it is presently on over-drive on the ‘project of development’. There are plans underway for hundreds of hydro-power projects to dam every river in multiple places. This is in order to export electricity from the state. Should this be allowed to happen, it will effectively snuff-out our rivers and all life in them, apart from causing serious displacement of rural people from their homes, their land and their forests. The question we raise here is ‘whose development at whose cost?’

Where do I see the women’s movement in India heading? I see it growing in rural India and in the smaller towns across the country. While issues such as sexuality, legal battles, policy interventions and women’s representation in the political mainstream remain the concerns of urban women, it is the increased involvement in local self-government and determining the kind of ‘development’ they need, that are increasingly the concerns of women in rural areas. Working for change almost always faces resistance from the established order and it can often seem that being a part of the women’s movement involves going from one fight to another. But for me, it is the old movement song that sums it up:  ‘लड रहें है इस लिये कि प्यार जग में जी सके…’ (we fight, so that love may live on this earth…)

Malika Virdi  is AID Saathi, Van Panchayat Sarpanch & Social Activist

My involvement with the women’s movement began at the National Conference of Autonomous Women’s Groups in Calicut, in 1991. It was a massive culture shock to get so much of the movement in one go! But it gave me the opportunity to get acquainted with a range of issues, perspectives and, most importantly, women. As a young feminist, I could think of no better way to plunge into the complex maze that is the women’s movement.

My journey has continued with my involvement with Jagori, a feminist resource centre in Delhi- first as a young activist, then as its coordinator taking forward a vision and being part of the transition of leadership. Jagori was a small group of 7–8 women when I joined in 1991 and it has grown into a mature organisation of over 20 people, engaging in a wide range of activities.

I have engaged in a range of issues, over the past 20 years, relating to different forms of violence against women and denial of rights. One of my most vivid memories of activism was the “mashaal march” that we took out on  March 8, 1992 which began with a play in Sarojini Nagar market, a march from there to AIIMS circle (there used to be a traffic light there) where we shouted slogans and sang for over an hour. The exhilaration of being out and claiming the night, however brief, remains in my memory.

Working within the movement gave me the opportunity to bring together my passion for research and activism and over the years this has continued with sustained work on women’s experiences of the city – first through research on migrant women and then through the lens of women’s inclusion and their right to the city.

Over the past 6 years, my work has built upon this research and I have tried to engage with the issue of women’s right to the city from the entry point of women’s safety. This has been an exciting journey and has reached out to a large number of actors whom I did not previously engage with. I felt the need to move out of comfortable circles of people who think like us to engaging with others who need to be part of the solution of creating a safer and a more inclusive city. This work has also a lot of resonance around the world with growing urbanisation and its accompanying opportunities and challenges for women and girls, especially from more vulnerable groups. So the opportunity to make that linkage has also led to more learning.

Much has changed in the women’s movement over the past 20 years. Some say it has become professionalised, and depoliticised. To an extent, it is true that the women’s movement has, today, become more a set of organisations who are engaging with institutions and the state in a collaborative and not only (or largely) confrontational manner. This change can be seen partly as de-radicalising, but maybe it is a natural progression with any movement, which begins by challenging institutions but at some point moves to engaging with the same institutions to try and bring about sustained change. We may have lost something along the way but when I see the issues still confronting us, the possibility for radical ideas and engagement never goes away.

I think it was in 1980 that we had gathered at Karol Bagh, in Delhi, on March 8 and an attractive exhibition had been clipped on to a string tied on trees. Then, there was Om Swaha—a street play on dowry deaths that was taken around the city and performed in many localities where killings were getting reported from.

Saheli also put up an exhibition- Aurat Ka Chamatkar, to increase understanding on matters related to reproduction, contraception and child birth etc., We took it far and wide including to other cities like Kanpur.

By 1983 we were so charged up about alternate means of communication that we had organized a festival— Kriti, to share ideas nationally in which women belonging to different groups came from all over the country to share, exchange and learn from each other through activities like poster-making, printing, singing, street plays and creative writing. In all, there were about 183 of us, staying at Aurobindo Ashram working and sharing and dancing through the week.

Our demonstrations, those days, used to be equally dramatic with the Bhopal disaster being protested by activists covered in white sheets. But that was an era when the streets and boat club were all open for collective expression.

1984 was a really bad year with communal riots taking place in many parts of the country and not many willing to name the perpetrators- the Khooni Panja of Cong(I). I still remember walking in a march in East Delhi with police surrounding the marchers in equal numbers. Our street play which we took around at the time was called, Ready to Run if the Going Got Rough.

Sati in Deorala made, I think, one of the largest protests by women, where even with a very well exercised body, I found it difficult to run from end to end coordinating the march along with others.

March 8 would also be a big event. Practices would go on and it was time to make new placards and banners. I still remember the beautiful Saheli banner presented by Sabla Sangh that had the three women in appliqué denoting our collective along with the name. Another one, made in the 80s, was a replica of New York garment worker’s March of 1890—the footsteps leaving the shackle behind.

Before the computerized printed placards made their appearance, each placard was an act of art whether done by the “A” team or the “B” team (latter couldn’t draw for nuts). Then there were menials who could only buy and glue things (which would include me).

But I was good at tracing, cogging and adapting and we borrowed freely including a visual which someone had already borrowed from one no less than Picasso. This one was on the passage of hormones through breast milk on to infants, when mothers were put on injectable contraceptives. “The corporations poisoned our rivers, our earth and now our milk…”

Nothing deterred us from making a play on any subject and supplementing it with an exhibition. We had one on population control and the politics of it; another on Norplant, a contraceptive that we were opposing. Then, by way of safe contraception, we had the diaphragm which turned into an umbrella and prevented the woman from getting drenched from a shower of sperms.

If we look at the totality of visuals, nothing seems to have been left out. Imperialism represented by a white man adorning a tall hat, to custodial rape with the capital ‘A’ made up of legs of a man in uniform, to fundamentalist influences on women’s life with the purdah representing the oppressed collectivity.

But what captured my eye was something with humour in it— whether it was the picture of Pimmy and Elizabeth (elegant ladies with beautiful grey hair and very polished appearance) climbing over the gate of Max Pharma in our campaign against Depo Provera or a tiny sticker with a boy and a girl peeking into their underpants and saying “Oh! That explains the difference in our salaries”, or the plain sticker “Good girls go to heaven bad girls go everywhere.”

My interaction with technology also changed. I remember in 1988 spending the night with Nalini at Allied Printers where our souvenir was being printed for release the next evening. From the times of letter presses and blocks that would take a week to do we were moving into computerized desktop publishing. Suddenly in the middle of the night the production guys yelled that two pages were going waste and both of us quickly drew a collage of our old newsletters and the work was done by a camera. Then, I think, technology somewhere overtook the painstaking work, with cut, paste, clean enhance and I do not know what! Whereas it made it easy to share things the rate of production got out of hand and each item individually lost its value.

I continue in the movement with the hope of reaching out for the stars. That has been more than half my life. I feel as strongly about each injustice and constantly question my own work. I have never made any great sacrifices financially and never got caught in situations endangering me. So I have really no grouse and will continue to run till my legs give up (as they are prone to and I am a much fallen woman by now).

In a sense, the 1970s (and early 80s) was a significant decade for me, both for personal and political reasons: I had moved to Delhi after marriage and soon joined Delhi University for a two year Masters course in Philosophy. I also had my first child couple of years later. It was around this time that a crucial political event took place that altered our lives; Emergency had been declared in India leading to great political and civil unrest all over the country; we, as citizens, were suddenly stripped of our fundamental, democratic rights and civil liberties. The following two years, until Emergency was lifted, were a turbulent, tumultuous period marked by a sustained campaign and struggle that took me and many of my contemporaries in its fold. In my case, it was also because, in a strange way, it had affected my own family. This is when my journey as an activist had begun and I became part of the organized political struggle. This is also a period when I joined the National Labour Institute that gave me an exposure to issues of land and the lives of landless agricultural labour, ‘bonded labour’ and it’s social and economic implications. In 1980, I joined the Centre for Women’s Development Studies (CWDS) and a year later, the Delhi unit of All India Democratic Women’s Association. Research and activism had come together in interesting ways and the link between the two was strengthened with the launch of the Indian Association of Women’s Studies, bringing together researchers and activists from different parts of the country.

My work with AIDWA as an activist and my travel to different parts of the country as a researcher brought me in close touch with women’s working and living conditions both in rural and urban settings; in their homes, farms, factories and sweatshops, in situations of domestic, caste, class, political and communal violence. When I look back I do believe that it is their life experience, their lived reality, their resolve and resilience in the face of adversity that has had a profound and enduring influence on me; this active engagement with marginalized women has decidedly sharpened my Marxist understanding and perspective as well as my feminist and political sensibilities.

AIDWA’s understanding that women’s oppression/exploitation had to be seen and dealt with at three main structural levels of gender, class and citizenship along with the struggle for democracy, equality and women’s emancipation underlined its approach to many of the campaigns, be it on the issue of matrimonial disputes, domestic violence, rape, dowry, women’s rights to an equal wage, communalism, the uniform civil code, the rights of women as members of a minority community and the rights of women to political participation. It was around these issues that some of the most militant and sustained struggles and campaigns were carried out that also resulted in certain path-breaking changes/amendments in the criminal justice system (such as the Rape and Dowry law, the Domestic Violence Bill as well as the Muslim Women’s Bill).

I remember how in the early 80s we would go door-to-door in selected localities to look for women who were being harassed for dowry or were victims of domestic violence but within a short period of time, the situation had changed and women were coming out to share their predicament. The net had been cast, as it were, by women who were ready for battle. I also remember how, in the late 70s and early 80s, small numbers of women would meet at each other’s homes to debate some of these issues and come out on the streets determined to ‘change the system’; how some of us would also bring our small children along who helped us make colourful posters and placards! These efforts brought forth, what is referred to as the ‘voluntary women’s groups/organisations’ and the ‘party based women’s organisations’, including AIDWA. Today, a more inclusive phrase is used to describe the same; the seven sisters!  The united women’s movement and its varied struggles have laid the foundation for the ‘culture of political resistance’ and res(v)olution. Just as more issues are added to the list, so have the number of women increased manifold, in terms of their active participation in the movement—demanding equality and a life of dignity in all spheres of life; social, economic and political.

At the end, I must not miss out on writing a few words about what I believe has had a fundamental influence on me and shaped me and my interests/sensibilities; my family!  I grew up in Hyderabad with my parents and five siblings; an elder sister and four brothers (two of them no more). My father was a professor of Philosophy and my mother a political/social activist. He was a founding member of the communist movement in Hyderabad (Comrades Association) as well as the trade union movement (1939–43) in the erstwhile State of Hyderabad. He was later also actively involved in the Telangana Armed Struggle (1947–48) led by the Communist Party of India.  We heard stories in our childhood of how my mother was his comrade and ‘courier’ during this period, particularly when he was ‘underground’ for long stretches of time.

Having rejected religious orthodoxy early on and with the kind of radical political engagement, my parents provided us with a progressive and secular environment; formal, higher education was a priority along with an extensive exposure to political debates/discussions as well as to both Urdu and English literature. I remember our home being an ‘adda’ for poets, artists, workers and activists.

When I chose to get married (at an early age of 18!), I was simply advised that it should not in any manner interfere with my studies and interests as well as any career choices that I would later make, or for that matter, in the making of my Self; marriage is not an end-in-itself I was told. However, that is not the sole reason that I opted out of it after 25 years! Just as I grew up seeing my parents combine their work, home and (political) activism and listening to their enriching, interesting stories, I try to continue the ‘tradition’ with my two daughters and three grandchildren….

First a little bit about me and my engagement with development and feminist activism. I was born in 1946 in a small village in Punjab, now in Pakistan. My mother had gone there for a wedding. I often wonder if this chance birth in Pakistan has anything to do with my passion for South Asian cooperation and solidarity and my work in South Asia for the last three decades.

Soon after finishing my studies, I joined Seva Mandir, an NGO based in Udaipur. There was this desire to do something for the motherland and to do it with the most marginalized groups. While working with the Adivasi and Dalit communities I was better educated about the harsh realities of life of the (extra) ordinary people in India. It was also about this time that I recieved my first conscious lessons about the working of patriarchy in our society. So, I was sort of a social worker before I became a conscious feminist. I was about 25 then. I am 65 today. In these 40 years, I have continued to work on issues related to development, women’s empowerment, human rights, democracy, peace, communal harmony etc. After working for four years directly with communities in Rajasthan, I went on to work mainly on capacity building and networking in Asia and more particularly in South Asia. I did this work through the FAO for 27 years and since 2004 I do the same work through Sangat, a South Asian Feminist Network located in and supported by Jagori, Delhi.

My work with FAO brought me to Delhi in 1979 and, almost immediately, I became a part of the feminist groups and campaigns which were emerging in Delhi at that time. Although I was a full timer of FAO, I found ample time and opportunity to work with women’s groups and NGOs. Fortunately, I was able to link my UN work to my engagement with NGOs and women’s groups. I was part of the groups in Delhi who founded Jagori, Ankur, Committee on the Portrayal of Women in the Media, and Kali for Women.

This was also the time when I became a mother. My daughter, Meeto, was born in 1978 and my son, Jeet, in 1980. It is difficult for me to imagine today how I juggled my motherhood, full time UN work with a lot of travel in South Asia and my feminist /activist work.

Communication became a part of my life and work soon after I joined Seva Mandir. My work in rural Rajasthan demanded that I write for newspapers and magazines. Together with my friend, later husband and now ex-husband, Baljit Malik, I wrote articles in English for many national newspapers including Everyman’s, a paper inspired by Jai Prakash Narayan and edited by Ajit Bhattacharji. I also wrote a regular column in Hindi for Rajasthan Patrika. About half of what I wrote then was on gender. The rest of the articles were on issues related to the poverty, education, corruption etc. in the villages I was working in.

Around 1979–80 I wrote my first feminist song ‘Tod tod kay bandhanon ko dekho bahnain aati hain’ during a South Asian course in Bangladesh which I had organized. This song went on to become a ‘feminist anthem’ in the words of my friend, Sonal Shukla, of Vacha, Mumbai.

Around the same time I wrote children’s rhymes for my children. I had to do this because I found most of the existing rhymes to be sexist or quite stupid. My rhymes were illustrated by one of our best cartoonists, Mickey Patel, and were published as a book entitled Dhammak Dham by UNICEF, New Delhi. Most of these rhymes challenged gender stereotypes and norms and encouraged boys and men to participate in household work and upbringing of children.

Ulti Sulti Meeto was the next book based on a long poem about a bindaas daughter who was sometimes good and sometimes not so good. She had the freedom to be both. This book was published by Kali for Women and the daughters and sons of many of my younger feminist friends grew up on these books.

During the same time in Delhi, I was part of the street theater group which produced and performed the dowry play Om Swaha.
On every International Women’s Day, and around every campaign, new songs emerged through me. I didn’t quite write these songs. The songs were in the air. I just picked them up and wove them into a song. As soon as they were written, they were sung by all of us. These songs came from the movement and went back to the movement.

Once we had enough tried and tested songs, I gathered a group of women, rehearsed with them for a day, hired a studio and Jagori produced and distributed the cassettes. The money we spent on production was soon recovered through sales. We produced eight cassettes and later put them all in one CD. Accompanying the cassettes was a song book with all the lyrics. These songs have been sung all over North India, in Pakistan and sometimes also in Nepal. Some of the songs have been translated into Bangla and Nepali.
It was a conscious decision to use our own voices for these cassettes and to keep them simple. I was, perhaps, the worst singer in the group but I was not excluded. The others who sang for these cassettes were Jaya Shrivastava, Abha Bhaiya, Runu Chakravarti, Vidya Rao, Vidya Shah, Manisha Chowdhri, Lolly Ramdas, and Srilata Swaminathan.

Somehow, I have always felt the need for humour in our movements. I feel our struggles are going to be very long and tiring and therefore, we cannot approach them with serious faces. We have to enjoy the journey towards our goals. What better way to do that than to laugh our way forward. This is why there is humour and cheekiness in many of the songs I have written. Around 2005, on the occasion of Jagori’s twentieth Anniversary I put together a book of jokes related to gender entitled Laughing Matters. Both in the songs and in the joke book, I laugh, also, at us. We can really not take ourselves too seriously. Some humility is called for.

The Need for Communication Skills
It was obvious that communication was the most important part of our feminist and development activism. We had to constantly find effective and creative ways to communicate. This communication had to be two-way. We learnt from the local people, situations and we tried to communicate our perspectives and messages. Our challenge was to get through to all kinds of and large numbers of people. We found songs and street theatre to be effective. These media could involve others, create energy, touch both their minds and hearts and facilitate a dialogue. For us the basic conceptions of our activist and development work had been changing. Development was no longer conceived of in evangelical terms where a group of people who have prior ‘knowledge’ set out to change the majority who have been denied this ‘enlightenment’. It was now being conceived of more in terms of enabling people to explore avenues of self-expression and eliminating dependency; which alone could lead them through a process of consciousness-raising
Hence, we did not want to depend on expert communicators/consultants for getting our messages across. We were, in a way, challenging the divide between singers and non-singers, media experts and media targets. It was this thinking that unleashed a lot of creativity and the excitement related to it. I owe all my creativity to this thinking and to our movements.

A Creativity Mela in Delhi
Around 1980 many of us from different groups got together and organized Kriti, or a Creativity Mela. Over 120 women from different parts of India participated in this five day excitement which was held in the Aurobindo Ashram in Delhi. Here we shared, learnt and taught how to write songs and poetry, how to make posters and street plays.

Since I knew nothing about posters, I joined the poster-making workshop run by Chandralekha, the well-known dancer and choreographer, who was at that time in her activist phase. Along with her friends Sadanand Menon and Dashrath Patel Chandra, she had started Skills in Madras, an organization to teach communication skills to activists. For many years Chandra faced sedition charges for her activist work and finally won the case.

In our workshop we were taught screen printing so that we could not only design but also print our own posters. Learning to make posters was most challenging for me since I cannot draw at all. I discovered that although I could not draw, I was pretty good at envisaging posters and creating slogans for them. To celebrate the spirit of feminist solidarity we were discovering, creating and enjoying, I made a very simple poster ‘Ek Aur Ek Gyarah’ or ‘One plus one is eleven’ in this workshop.

Learning Poster-making Skills and Forging Partnerships across South Asia
Encouraged by the success of Kriti in making activists learn communication skills, I organized three more poster-making workshops. They were all for women from different countries of South Asia. In 1984 we did a workshop in Skills Chennai with Chandralekha, Sada and their team, in 1986 in Koitta, Bangladesh with Lalarukh from Lahore and in 1988 in Hendala outside Colombo, Sri Lanka with Chandralekha and Sheba Chhachhi.
Here I would like to share sections from the report Sadanand Menon helped us write on the poster-making workshop held at Skills, Chennai. We learnt that as a primary vehicle of visual communication, dealing with symbols, images and visual metaphors and the subconscious affinities of color, the poster can effectively reach out to a large audience and give open-ended messages for generating a dialogue. The activist communicator has to be conscious that in no way is a dialogue shut out, and that communication does not become one-way as a result of the media creating a barrier.

The Skills team who handled the poster workshop began by asking us to try and recollect all the visual messages we consume daily through posters and hoardings. It was quite clear from the quantum of our collective memory that even without being conscious of it, we were absorbing a large amount of visual trash. The participants felt that advertisements for films, products and services as well as for tom-tomming government programmes were the main functions of posters. These were exclusively used by industrial and commercial interests, political parties, religious organizations and trade unions. In retrospect it was self-evident that only a very small number of people who were resourceful and organized and had enormous vested interests, got down to using this powerful medium.

We were helped to realize that as in other fields, poster-making had also become the monopoly of specialists and experts and ultimately all the messages and visuals that flood our lives were only an expression of a very small number of people and were, thus, totally non-democratic.
Chandralekha and Sadanand talked of the need to demystify this media and to make it accessible to a larger number of people. Towards this, the Skills group had evolved certain processes of printing to enable even those with limited resources to experiment with it. These were processes that did not require sophisticated technology or involve training.

After a preliminary general discussion, participants began identifying themes for posters which could also be useful for educational work in their own particular areas. Among the many ideas were – unity is strength; the evils of dowry; official mal-administration; the attack on nature; the need for universal education; human development over material development; the need for organizing women; unpaid and unrecognized women’s labour; fighting exploitation is the main aim of development, etc.

Each of these themes and ideas was discussed in the group, which helped everyone to focus sharply on the issues concerned, to rethink, to sharpen their analysis and develop the idea further. The participants were then set the task of visualizing these ideas through sketches. During the discussions, some of the principles of poster-making were explored. This became an interesting way for us to learn, as most of the time we felt we were arriving at conclusions ourselves through our own practical experience, and not because we had been ‘taught’.

Some reflections on poster-making
All of us learnt that visual thinking is the main aspect of poster-making. We must think conceptually, and in symbols and images. All verbal ideas have to be converted into visual images with minimum use of words. While speaking and writing can be expansive and elaborate, when working with visual forms the effort should be to deal with the essentials, and compress and condense the message till it becomes so compact and tight that it has no choice other than to explode. For this the most important and central aspect of the message has to be isolated and stated directly without unnecessary decoration. The images and symbols used need to have a certain universality in order to be broadly understood and accepted.

The printing was done in a small green-room off the main stage. Because of all the anxiety and excitement which accompanied the actual printing of each poster, this room was spontaneously called the ‘labour room’. When her poster was being printed, S was shouting; ‘Come every one! Help us – our child is being born.’ The atmosphere of tension and expectation was quite like that at childbirth. Will everything turn out okay? Will the colours look good? Will we be quick enough to prevent the screen from drying? Will we manage without smudging? Will it be worth all our effort? Some of us, like K were so nervous that when her poster was printed she could only stand and watch while others printed it for her.

Printing was, again, a group activity. One person poured the color, a second pulled the squeegee, a third fed the paper, and a fourth lifted the screen and took out the printed poster, a fifth, sixth and seventh ran up and down placing the printed posters in long, neat rows to dry them. Thirty copies of each poster were printed to enable each participant to take a full set with her. Throughout the day, as one by one all the ten posters were printed, the large stage floor became a mosaic and collage of changing colours and patterns and messages of the printed posters.

The first print of every poster was greeted with much shouting and rejoicing and celebration. Those who had worked the most on that particular poster were hugged and congratulated. There was a whole round of shaking hands that, sometimes, almost brought the printing to a standstill.
The workshop site now resembled a mini printing factory. But it was a factory with a difference. We felt that we were in a factory where the artists were also the workers and the workers were the owners of the product. There was no alienation. This was a new experience, a new insight. We wondered why more factories, more work places could not be like this.

All of us experienced the pain, joy and excitement of taking a task to its logical conclusion, of crating something and seeing the final results. The whole experience was so absorbing that no one felt tired. Four participants who had traveled in a bus on two previous nights and had spent a hectic day sight-seeing and then worked virtually the whole day to see their posters through said: ‘Today we understand the joy of creativity. We felt the energy and were proud of the ten posters we had produced so quickly. We lost no time in putting them up on the walls of the main meeting place and this served as a reminder of our capabilities and in turn, constantly radiated energy back to us.

It was in this workshop that I made the poster Meri biwi kaam nahin karti or my wife does not work, on women’s unpaid and unrecognized labor. I was delighted when Kali for Women printed many of the posters created in this workshop as postcards and distributed them widely.

The principles of poster-making I learnt from Sadanand and Chandra helped me tremendously and I went on to conceive and make many new posters which were published and distributed by Jagori. However, since I am neither an illustrator nor a designer, I needed partners to make new posters and I was lucky to always find them.

Using black and white photos, I made a set of nine posters in Hindi, Urdu and English on the girl child based on nine verses of my song desh main beti agar be-aabroo nashaad hai, dil pe rakh ke haath kahiye desh kya aazaad hai.
After that I made a set of posters on women’s political participation and empowerment, again using photographs and lines from my songs or new slogans. Around 2001, Bindia Thapar and I joined hands and we made new posters for campaigns we were involved in. The main themes of our posters have been violence against women, women’s education and empowerment, human rights, South Asian solidarity.

Another medium I have been creating and using is banners. In the past we used really boring banners. Suddenly we thought of making colorful banners with both slogans and illustrations. Once again, Bindia and I partnered to create these banners and we found a wonderful man named Satindar, who is a magician in implementing our designs. Sangat banners now decorate and energize many campaigns, conferences, courses.

I am really grateful to all our movements, specially the women’s movement, for bringing out my creativity, for giving me amazing partners and friends and for continuing to keep me busy. I cannot imagine my life without these movements. HAMAARAY AANDOLAN ZINDABAD.

However, I must share relate my feeling that the togetherness, cooperation and energy we felt in those early years is much less today in cities like Delhi. Our groups got registered, started getting funding, employing full timers. This was of course good for the work but it also made us bureaucratic and separated us from other organizations. We started spending more time writing project proposal and reports than being on the streets connecting with people or forging partnerships with other groups. In fact as funding became scarce, women’s groups became competitors for the same funds. As a result of mainstreaming gender we got absorbed in the neo-liberal paradigm and its methods of functioning. Today many of our programmes are more about individualized empowerment than about building collective strength.
I am convinced that gender equality, justice and peace cannot be achieved without challenging the greed based neo-liberal economic order. In my opinion this paradigm is responsible for the resurgence of patriarchies, for increasing insecurities, conflicts and wars. So we feminists have a long way to go if we want to achieve equality, justice and peace.