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Women
Tribal Woman Rises
to Conquer in Karnataka Village
by Sujit Chakraborty
The story of Janakamma is one of the many tales of societal change that
have been told and retold in India's southern states.
Despite being an illiterate, the 45-year-old tribal woman proved how
education can lead to women's empowerment, which in turn can act as a
catalyst for the most backward of societies.
"Janakamma went from door-to-door pleading with politicians,
bureaucrats, ministers and influential people to force the government to
set up a secondary school at Abbalathi," said Parimeala, district
programme coordinator of the Karnataka Mahila Samakhya (KMS), a society
for women's equality.
Abbalathi is a tribal-dominated backward village about 80 km north of
the Mysore district headquarters in Karnataka.
"She managed to persuade the government to set up the lone residential
school at Abbalathi, securing education for the children of 200 forsaken
tribal families," Parimeala told a team of visiting mediapersons.
Janakamma became a star not only in Abbalathi but also in the entire
state. She was elected as a panchayat member and recently, in
recognition of her tireless social work, she was invited by Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh to attend the Republic Day programme in New
Delhi.
"The work of this illiterate tribal woman was not known to anyone five
years back, before she came in touch with the Karnataka Mahila Samakhya,
a registered society set up in 1989 for the empowerment of women through
education," added Parimeala.
She said that Janakamma was now intervening in various traditional
tribal superstitions like witchcraft, and was involved in several social
issues like inter-caste marriages and dowry-related problems.
The KMS has been implementing the Mahila Samakhya Programme (MSP),
initiated by the union ministry of human resource development in
1987-89, to translate the goals of the new educational policy of 1986
that is to play a positive, interventionist role in bringing equality
for women.
The MSP was launched as a pilot project in 10 districts of Karnataka,
Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh in 1989 with Dutch assistance. The project was
later extended to Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Uttaranchal, Bihar, Jharkhand
and Assam.
Parimeala and KMS resource person Savita said that their society is now
working with 60,000 women, mostly underprivileged, in about 1,900
villages in 12 of Karnataka's 27 districts.
The KMS is also working with about 7,500 'kishoris' (adolescent girls)
to impart education in life skills.
"Besides education, the KMS has been imparting training on computer and
technical skill development, education about basic legal matters, health
awareness and counselling to increase family income," said Savita.
The KMS leaders said that "with the aim of providing legal awareness,
counselling and resolving family disputes, Nari Adalat (women court) has
been formed from the village to the taluka (district) level".
Not only Janakamma, but also many other neo-literate women in rural
Karnataka came forward through the KMS and are now taking an active role
in solving societal issues and evil practices besides improving the
quality of life of distressed women and children.
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