/DEVELOPMENT BULLETIN 4/ INDIA: Women Sowing Seeds of Change

By Neena Bhandari Reprint | | Print |

Neena Bhandari

UDAIPUR, Mar 9 1996 (IPS) - For the eight women from villages in the Indian state of Rajasthan, who went to the UN Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW) in China last September, life will never be the same again.

Take Nappi Bai Pargi, who was elected first female ‘sarpanch’ (chief) of her village in the Udaipur district a few months after she returned from Beijing.

Her trip abroad has given her the confidence to “fight any issue”, says Nappi Bai – speaking in Mewari, the language spoken in the villages here and the only language she knows.

“When I got on the plane I couldn’t sit still. We hadn’t eaten for hours thinking we might throw up,” she recalls. “I couldn’t believe I was in a ‘chilgadi’ (plane). The only ones I had seen were those up in the sky above the fields at home.”

As village leader, Nappi Bai has already persuaded the government to sanction a water-harvesting project. Villagers still chuckle over the time she did the unthinkable and raised the issue of alcoholism before the male-dominated ‘panchayat’ (village council).

Rajasthan’s villages are conservative, and it is the only state in India which continues to defy the official ban on child marriage. Women are veiled, and patriarchy is the rule here.

It was not easy for Nappi Bai and the other women from Udaipur district to get family permission to go abroad. Most family members were openly discouraging and said a trip to faraway China would do neither them nor the village any good.

A woman who goes abroad will not return to the village, was the most common reaction. Says Pratapi Bai of Krakai village: “The people here believed that once we went, we wouldn’t come back. Some felt the organisers would sell us for a price.”

Yet the whole village turned out to greet them when they returned. Says Pratapi Bai: “Drums were beaten, and I was garlanded and cheered.”

Pratapi Bai was sent to China by a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that works with villagers in Udaipur district. Well-versed in traditional medicine, she can also fix broken and dislocated bones and treat sprains.

“I have improved my technique of treating uterus ailments after meeting with many tribal women in China,” she says. Laughingly, she recalls, that many of the “white” women bought her herbal medicines and called her doctor for her skill at treating headaches.

Pratapi Bai is training other village women in herbal medicine. She says she has brought back herbs from the Great Wall of China which she is growing in her garden. “India must, like China, introduce traditional medical systems in hospitals. We must take the old systems more seriously if we are to achieve the goal of health for all by the year 2000.”

International travel has widened horizons and worldviews of these villagers. For instance, they have discovered that environmental degradation is a universal problem, and that women like them all over the developing world have to walk for miles for water, fodder and fuelwood.

“We have learnt to look beyond our local problems. We understand the term ‘organisation’ and the power of united effort,” says Nappi Bai. “Now we will be able to place our problems before the government with ease.”

The villagers participated in the NGO Forum for Women ’95, a parallel nongovernmental gathering that attracted approximately 30,000 people, mostly women. Most women delegates attending the forum in Huairou, a recreation area 35 Km north of the Chinese capitol, did not even get a glimpse of the official venue of the conference in Beijing.

Asked if they were satisfied by the proceedings at the official UN conference, Bhanwar Dhabai said she was disturbed by the fact that “there was no consensus of opinion between the government and NGOs.”

Since their return, the eight Rajasthani women have been addressing meetings to share their experiences and to increase awareness about the need to protect the environment, raise literacy and empower women.

Tulsi Devi Jain, one of the delegates, had the impression from her trip that “the Chinese are very clean, abide by the law, the men and women are equal and they are not lazy. And they are all literate.” Tulsi Devi’s father-in-law is a village ‘sarpanch’, and she says that it is he who has encouraged her to work for the poor.

“I have realised how important female education is,” she declares. “If women have to create an equal place for themselves in society in this male-dominated planet, we have to fight from the lowest level.”

The seeds sown in Beijing are bearing fruit and a grassroots movement is gaining strength. “We are for equality, peace and friendship. We are trying to win over jealousy and envy, which are major impediments in development,” is the common refrain of the eight women who have returned from Beijing daring to dream of changing their village worlds.