From Chattel to Freewomen: Empowering India's Females
Marilyn K. Angelucci
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Dr. V. Mohini Giri, founder of the War Widows Association,
which provides education and job training for the socially
shunned widows of India.
Click image to enlarge.
When the tsunami of December 26, 2004, smashed mercilessly against the Indian coast, thousands were left dead and thousands more lost their loved ones and all their worldly possessions. Dr. V. Mohini Giri knew that help was available for the survivors, but still she could not rest. Before she realized it, she was on the road south, traveling, she said, "towards deluge and towards my sisters, who were waiting to be heard and consoled."
Reaching out to the needy and embracing the afflicted has been life's singular calling for this tireless Indian woman. Born into a family of prominent civil servants--at sixteen she married the son of the late Shri V.V. Giri, the former president of India--Giri experienced from a young age the privileges enjoyed by India's elite class. But rather than finding comfort in social prestige, she was increasingly troubled by the enormous social and economic disparities among India's vast population.
The grim plight of widows especially distressed her. With the end of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, thousands of widowed women were left to fend for themselves. Giri describes them as those in "living death." Each lost soldier left behind an average of five women without a means of livelihood, often with other dependents to care for. With the establishment of the War Widows Association in 1971 and the Guild of Service a year later, Giri committed herself to the care of the unfortunate women that a tradition-bound Indian society had determined to ignore.
Women and tradition
The desperate situation of such women is rooted in ancient customs and beliefs. In India, women are dependent beings, in and of themselves of no value. "Women get up first, sleep last, eat least, work twenty-four hours, and are not recognized at all," Giri says of their typical lot.
Their position and consequently their value depend wholly on the male to whom they are connected--a father, husband, or son. But once the male is gone, the women have no place in society and, consequently, no means to survive.
In traditional Hindu society, a widowed woman either commits suicide in order to accompany her husband into the afterlife or is placed in an ashram, or monastery, to live her final years in solitude, cared for by the community and priest of the temple. In some traditions, she will shave her head and dress in white. She is considered inauspicious and therefore avoided.
After the Indo-Pakistani War, Giri found herself surrounded by women who had nowhere to go and no one to care for them. Women who had spent their entire lives in the confines of their homes now had to provide for themselves and their children, with no education, skills, training, or even awareness of the outside world.
Challenged to help thousands of stigmatized women find a way to survive, Giri founded the War Widows Association, which introduced an unprecedented support system for a class of India's forgotten citizens. In addition to establishing cottage industries for war widows in rural areas, the association provided job training, hostels for children of widows, emergency shelters, and even interreligious and intercaste remarriages.
This revolutionary activism established Giri's reputation throughout India. "She is no longer recognized as the president's daughter-in-law," says Prabha Grover, founding vice president of the Social Outreach Foundation in Delhi. "Women feel elated when they meet her because they know she is fighting for their rights. When they are having problems, they say, 'Let's go see Mrs. Giri.' They just know something is going to come out of it."
What turned Mohini Giri's heart to the plight of the widow? At the age of nine, she lost her father to a stroke. He was vice chancellor of the Uttar Pradesh state university, and their family held a position of repute. Her mother was left with seven children ranging in age from one to thirteen. Although they had the means to survive, her mother, now bearing the stigma of widowhood, decided to take them all to an ashram to stay. This would prove to be a turning point in young Mohini's life.
One day, Mohini observed her mother searching desperately for someone to replace the lightbulb in their small room. Because her husband had always done that type of work, she was unable to manage this simple task herself. Seeing her mother helpless and unprepared to handle such a commonplace chore, Mohini began to understand the dilemma of the widow in Indian society. From that point, she determined never to allow herself or another woman to be reduced to such a humiliating position.
Lessons learned
Because Mohini's family belonged to the elite, their time in the ashram was short. The experience made a deep impression on the girl, however. Swami Shivananda, who has since become a renowned Hindu philosopher and teacher, took personal care of the family. He insisted that they serve and attend lepers and lower-caste people who came to the ashram for help. Being from the upper caste, Giri's family had never mixed with the lower castes and by no means would serve anyone from that part of society. But Shivananda included them naturally in his service work and insisted that Mohini go beyond her concepts and limitations. Feeding and caring for the untouchables exposed her to a new world of selfless service that would become the guiding ethos of her life.
The family left the ashram for New Delhi when her mother was given a job as a music producer. As her mother reintegrated herself into society, Mohini's opportunities also improved.
At eighteen, while attending university, because of her academic proficiency and extracurricular activities, Giri was invited to a special tea with the governor of the state, who happened also to be the chancellor of the university. Impressed with Giri's poise and self-command, the governor inquired about her background, and in the following days wrote to Mohini's mother to ask for her daughter to be his son's wife. Although arranged marriages are a tradition of Indian society, Mohini had no intention of marrying at such a young age. But again, her sensitivity to her mother's situation influenced her decision.
Dowry is a very important aspect of marriage in Indian tradition; the bigger the dowry, the "better" the husband and therefore, often, the brighter the woman's future. Because Mohini's mother was a widow and the family's finances precarious, her mother asked her to accept the governor's son, for without a dowry they had little chance of getting another good catch. Mohini agreed, not knowing then what a good catch he would turn out to be.
In 1969, the man who had chosen Mohini to be his son's bride, Varahagiri Venkata Giri, after a long public life that included governorships of three Indian states, became president of India. During the years of his presidency, 1969 to 1974, his faithful daughter-in-law was by his side, learning and observing the ways of public service.
This was a great advantage for Mohini, for, as she put it, "everyone listened to me." Also it was important that she had the support of her in-laws in going the way of a public life. So, following her heart's desire to help widows, she committed her life to service with the founding of the War Widows Association and then the Guild of Service.
Guild of Service
Now a twenty-seven-million-member organization, the Guild of Service has visibly relieved the sufferings of India's marginalized women. Among its many projects are homes for destitute women, vocational training for the elderly, literacy camps, health camps, and self-help programs. In addition, it has a street children's project with educational facilities, working women's hostel, and family counseling, to name just a few of the many projects being tackled by the guild with Giri firmly holding the reins.
One of the guild's most courageous projects is the education of female members of the Panchayat, or village council. In 1992, the seventy-third amendment to the Indian Constitution gave women the right to 33 percent of Panchayat seats, which meant that one million Indian women suddenly were sitting on village councils.
Considering traditional Indian attitudes toward women, this position had little meaning. Women were taught since childhood to do only what they were told to do. Those who were elected basically functioned as puppets of their husbands or fathers. The Guild of Service took up the task of training these women to apply leadership skills in a hostile, patriarchal environment, a truly courageous endeavor.
Through various activities, the Guild of Service is empowering these female Panchayat members to be key agents of the political, social, and economic development of their own blocks, villages, and homes. "It is a great feeling of satisfaction to see women stand on their own," Giri says. And that is what this training does: It allows women to stand independently and to use the power given them by their nation's constitution. Through this work, Indian society is being substantially changed for the better.
Giri is particularly concerned about the children of Kashmir and the home the guild has established for women and children in Srinagar, the capital of Indian-administered Kashmir. Kashmir is a dangerous region, and these children have suffered greatly. On a trip to New Delhi that Giri organized, the children were amazed by the sights and sounds of India's capital.
She makes it her responsibility to expose the disadvantaged to things they ordinarily wouldn't experience--like a trip to the capital, education, clean clothes, and a sense of dignity. At the same time, she tries to expose the privileged elite to the people and places that they wouldn't choose to see, in order to open their eyes and their hearts to those in need. An exchange program between the rich and poor is part of every project taken on by the guild.
Giri is clear about her own motivation: her faith in one God, who is the supreme power. "Not for name, fame, or money," she says, "but for my own satisfaction, my own sense of well-being."
Faith and tradition
"Wrong interpretations of religion have caused a great deal of havoc," Giri believes. "So instead of religion being a unifying force, sometimes it becomes a dividing force. But a proper understanding will make you tolerant. You will respect the equal status of women. Because people don't have a good understanding, they become fundamentalists. A proper understanding of religion will make you a true global citizen. Part of what I'm doing is to stress a proper understanding of religion."
Among Indian Muslims, she says, the tradition of talaq, according to which a man can divorce his wife by pronouncing "I divorce you" three times, is misunderstood. "I recently attended the marriage of eighteen Muslim girls, and I stressed that talaq is not true Islam. In fact, there has to be a month period between each divorce declaration so there is time to reflect. Also, the girl has the same right. Finally, there are many cases where the boy promises a certain amount but doesn't actually provide it. Hindus have a similar term, kanya dan, meaning you're 'donating' your daughter. We're saying that the scriptures don't say that at all."
She is also clear about the responsibility of the privileged class. In India, 20 percent of the population owns 80 percent of the wealth. Giri subscribes to the philosophy that from those to whom much is given, much is expected. It is the responsibility of the privileged to help the marginalized, and she knows well that each has resources needed by the other. Thus she has created a network to allow people to be transformed by the experience of giving. This networking started when she was in the president's house and had an open door to the powerful people of India. She used this opportunity not to advance herself but to encourage others to use their power for the betterment of the poor.
Giri is not afraid to prick someone's conscience, no matter what the person's position or status. When asked if it is sometimes too difficult when people are always asking for help, she replies, "People come with an expectation, and we should do what we can. We have many resources that they don't have. When they come, they believe I can do something, so I should fulfill their expectations."
Recently, in the southeastern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh she visited fishermen who lost their families and their livelihood in the tsunami. But when she speaks about meeting these survivors, she doesn't dwell on the devastation but rather on their faith, pride, and dignity. Because they didn't want her help, she helped them understand that they could help themselves.
"They have faith in God, a different kind of faith that gives them strength and power," she says. She sees this greatness in the poorest of the poor and helps them form groups for mutual support because, she says, "There is strength in togetherness."
Despite her strength, Giri does have moments of despair. "When I see the slums," she confides, "I get overwhelmed to see people giving birth, uneducated, with no food. But what can we do? It is people's fundamental right to bear children." And so she continues to work, to educate, to empower people to deal with the life they have undertaken.
"I was called a mother at the age of eleven," she remembers, "so I pray to God that I can have the strength to be a mother." There are thousands of women in India, young and old, who call her "Mama," and this is her greatest reward.
A life of service
In her four decades of committed work, Giri has received seven honorary doctorates. She lives with an urgency and feeling that life is not long enough to do all the things that need to be done. When asked what legacy she would like to leave behind, she says, "I want to see a strong, vibrant Indian nation, where women share equal rights and positions." In India, the women's movement is working to set aside 33 percent of seats in the national parliament for women. But Giri says that actually it should be 50 percent, because women represent half of the population.
Dr. V. Mohini Giri is bringing hope, pride and justice to India's mothers, daughters, and sisters by giving a voice to the voiceless. "Women can no longer be subjugated," she says with passion. "We have found our voices, we have found our wings. And we are going to fly."
©2005 World & I: Innovative Approaches to Peace
Marilyn K. Angelucci is president of the Afghanistan chapter
of the Women's Federation for World Peace. She has been living
in New Delhi for the last eight years working with Afghan
refugees.
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