Finding her feet - the first step towards gender equity in Bihar.

Rasheeda Bhagat

Winds of change are finally blowing through Bihar and a lot of credit for this is being given by political analysts, researchers and social scientists to a sincere attempt by the Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to put the State back on the road to development.

The Nitish government came to power in Bihar during end-2005 and in three and a half years there has been a positive change in the law and order situation in terms of kidnapping, extortion and so on. As Shaibal Gupta, Member Secretary of the Patna-based Asian Development and Research Institute puts it, “Nitish’s biggest contribution is that he has established the authority of the State… earlier criminal mafias were doing social mediation in lieu of the State. Now the State is establishing its authority and is able to successfully convict thousands of people.”

Without going into “the technical aspect” of whether the actual crime rates have come down or not, he says that with successful convictions taking place, “for the first time people are feeling that doing crime is not a very profitable proposition.”

The appointment of nearly two lakh primary school teachers under the Central Government’s Sarva Siksha Abhiyan programme is another major positive. “That such numbers could be appointed in Bihar without any corruption has become a very big issue here,” says Renu Ranjan, Head of Department, Sociology, Magadh Mahila College, Patna University.

Another change that people in Patna point out to you is that the city has become much safer for women, with criminal gangs being put on the backfoot. While earlier, after 8 p.m. it was difficult to find families on Patna’s streets, “now till 10 p.m. women freely move about, many of them even riding two-wheelers,” she says.

Also the Director of the Gender Knowledge Centre in her College, Renu works in many gender-related projects and says slowly the underprivileged women in Bihar are gaining confidence and coming into the mainstream. “Nitish’s biggest gift to Bihar’s women has been 50 per cent reservation for women in panchayats. This is a historic and very revolutionary step.”

She says that when they conduct training for women mukhyas (chiefs) “now of course many of them come along with their husbands. But we know that this is the beginning and they are taking a lot of interest.” Of course there are social tensions because the male panchayat chiefs feel a lot of resentment at losing their seats. “The other day we had a workshop on gender budgeting. Now this is a very complicated thing but the women are coming and taking interest; they are keen to understand what it will mean for women’s welfare and development and this is a very encouraging sign,” says Renu.

She adds that what is evident is that changes are slowly taking place and people are now demanding development. Both men and women “speak and understand the language of development. Earlier there was no hope; there was despair and they thought, ‘let any politician come or go, it makes no difference to our lives’. But that sentiment has changed now, and I would say that at least 30 per cent of the development meant for people is reaching them.”
Migrant labour

Another huge positive is the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). With 100 days of work in a year guaranteed to rural families, “a big and positive change that Bihar is seeing is that people who had left and migrated to other States in search of work are slowly coming back.”

She added that the beating and humiliation to which Bihari migrant workers have been subjected to in some States, particularly Maharashtra, and earlier Assam, has deeply hurt the people of the State. During a project on child labour in some blocks of Samastipur, she says people were saying, “if we are assured work for at least 100 days in a year, we can somehow manage for the whole year. We would like to stay in our own village; after all, why would anybody want to leave home and be subjected to cruelty and torture outside?”

Renu adds that not only many workers have returned, their families are also happy that they no longer run the risk of getting ‘bad diseases’. The women don’t “know or understand HIV/AIDS, but they do know that when their men leave home for long periods they return with bad diseases. So that is another plus factor.”

It is heartrending to hear many of their stories, says the professor. Workers have told her that anywhere or anytime a crime is committed, the migrant worker is the first suspect. The police reach the place where they have temporary homes and either beat them up to extract a confession or simply take them into custody.
Tough road ahead

But it is not as though everything is hunky dory. There are several tough battles ahead, says the woman who also runs an NGO called the Centre for Women’s Empowerment.

The plight of Muslim women in many parts of Bihar continues to be pathetic. “I have a project with some of these families and I find women from good homes have been deserted by their husbands, who leave them for other women. These women are managing the home with a paltry monthly income of Rs 600 or Rs 700.”

Making a strong pitch for a common law which will not allow Muslim men to ditch their wives without maintenance, Renu says she understands that “the mullahs will not allow this. But why are you politicians scared of them? Only for votes, right?”

She says the plight of even educated Muslim girls is sad. Her college offers a postgraduate diploma in Women and Child Welfare and Population Studies. “When we interview them for their inputs, they always request not to be quoted, because they are very scared. They say, “Ki madam, hum par bahut zulm karengey” (They will punish us severely).
Political lip service

Angry with politicians for only paying lip-service to women’s welfare, Renu challenges them to “ask us what is needed and we will tell them what to do to improve women’s status. We know how much they suffer. Take Phulwadi Sharif in Patna, and go to the poorer homes and you’ll see the pathetic lot of Muslim women. But no political party wants to improve their lot. If women are educated and start thinking the whole social structure will change.”

The problem, she says, is that if you scratch the surface you find that no political party really wants women’s empowerment. “I tell them, you tackle the Mullahs, or the pundits; after all, they are only human beings and not ferocious animals.”

With a smile she recalls that as young girls she and her sisters would recite Durga paath and stories from Mahabharat. “The pundit who came home said, ladki padh rahi hei tau ghar mei aag laga degi wherever she goes. But I insisted on doing so and my parents allowed me.”

After marriage she passed on this tradition to her new home. “Let us not forget that the priests are always after power… they say women will not sit in the havan. Show me where is such a thing written?”

Drawing a distinction between Hindu and Muslim girls, Renu says that while the Hindus have recognised the importance of education and send their girls to schools and colleges, “in poor Muslim homes girls continue to be pulled out of schools at puberty. And, do you know that in Patna many Muslim girls are studying only Urdu, and not Hindi or English? How far can Urdu take them? Forget the Taliban in Afghanistan or Pakistan, in our own country many Muslim girls are not allowed to even watch TV.”
Agent of change

She gives the example of a Muslim PG student of hers who is doing a diploma in women and child welfare. The course requires her to go out of Patna; she is married and her husband was wary of sending her out. “So I called him and said she is among 5 per cent in your community, and is an agent of change. Do you think by doing this work she will spoil your name? On the contrary she will make you proud of her. He said, ‘Madam you don’t understand, our society, etc’. So I told him I know everything; in your society there is also an elite group; they go all over the place and are in various professions.”

But eventually the teacher’s argument that he should give his wife some space and tell everybody in his community that wherever she went, it would be only with a group from the college, won the day. The icing on the cake, for him, was that she would also bring home some money — Rs 500 for every training session.

For Renu, each such battle won means that “once she gets trained, she will be able to get access to other girls in her community and give some training on adolescent health, HIV/AIDS, etc. That is a huge opportunity. It might take 10 or 15 years, but in this way we will be able to bring about some change.”

But, much more than religion, she concedes, it is poverty that is women’s biggest enemy. Or else there wouldn’t have been stories of “women selling their daughters in order to get seats on motorised boats during the Kosi tragedy. In Madhubani, the current was very strong and motorised boats were charging Rs 3,000-4,000 for safe passage. From where will the poor people get this kind of money? So, we hear, daughters were sold.”

Source : The Hindu Business Line