The story of gender empowerment in India is not a particularly happy one. Gender discrimination pervades all levels of society, women’s rights continue to be denied through social, cultural and political instruments which normalize their exploitation and commodification. Most girls suffer life-long vulnerability and face adverse consequences for non-compliance to social norms.
My experience of working in rural India suggests that the strongest factors working against women’s empowerment are rooted in their own family values and expectations, lack of education, and lack of economic independence. All these create a vicious cycle of subjugation that perpetuates through generations.
But through my work with Banglanatak dot com, a national NGO using culture for sustainable and inclusive community development, I have also encountered individuals who have fought to overcome these obstacles.
This article is based on the life of two such young underprivileged rural women from different regions of West Bengal whose life stories can inspire greater change and thus need to be told.
Mousumi Chaudhury’s Story: First Girl In Her Community To Join Chau Training
Women’s rights under the Constitution of India include equality, dignity, and freedom from discrimination. However, India’s progress towards ensuring these rights has been far from encouraging. Crimes and injustices against women are on the rise, and traditional institutions that have historically sanctioned the subordination of women remain as strong as ever.
At the same time, there are exceptional young women who have dared to live as they chose, and whose life stories can surely motivate other women to strive.
This article is the second in a series of three such stories of young underprivileged rural women from different regions of West Bengal who were supported by Banglanatak dot com, a national NGO using culture for sustainable and inclusive community development.
Mousumi Chaudhury, now 25 years old, was born in the remote Maldi village in Purulia to a family practising Chau.
Purulia Chau is a traditional martial arts-based masked dance form of Purulia. From a very young age, Mousumi had seen her father, Jagannath Chaudhury (a renowned Chau performer) and his team go out to perform overnight in local Chau-dance events. When they returned, they would discuss their performances, compare skill levels, and plan for upcoming shows. Mousumi did not understand much but liked listening to them.
Her grandfather would also tell her folk tales and mythological stories, the most common themes for Chau dance-dramas, which would transport the little girl into a world of unfettered imagination.
When she grew a little older, studying in class IV, her grandfather took her to watch a show for the first time where her father was performing. At night, amid a thick audience and dazzling floodlights, she excitedly waited for her father’s entry. When his name was announced two characters entered the arena – Lord Karthik and Lord Ganesha! They were dressed in godly attire and ornaments, and their huge masks with glittering headgears reinforced their divine presence.
Mousumi looked at them in awe having no idea where her father was, as she had believed until then that the Gods come down from heaven to perform at Chau drama and return to heaven after their performance! Once her grandfather explained to her, she was mesmerized by her father’s performance and fell in love with this age-old folk form. At home, she would often observe her father’s rehearsals and try out Chau steps on her own.
Once she insisted on washing her father’s Chau costume and came to know of the many parts of the outfit including the necessary embellishments and ornaments and their names. She was further drawn into the nuances of the form.
After a few years, Banglanatak dot com came to work in their village. When they initiated regular training workshops for young local boys to learn from community masters of the art form, Mousumi found her calling and became the first girl in her community ever to join Chau training. Following her example, a few other girls joined as well. Mousumi’s father supported her and taught the group giving equal attention to boys and girls.
Even though she had her parents’ support, the elders in the village did not welcome this shift in their tradition and insisted that girls should focus on their traditional roles. Such normative opinions instead of restricting her increased her determination to excel.
Her days became busier as she would balance school and studies, providing tuitions to smaller children, and practising Chau dance stringently, hoping to make it her career. More social hindrances and stigma arose as she started going out of the village to perform at events with the women’s group that she led.
In her words, “People believe that women are incapable of achieving their goals. As a woman, they wanted me to abandon such high aspirations, for I shall be unable to meet those. But my vision is different. I believe that women are not only capable of accomplishing daunting tasks but can also excel in them.”
Her dreams were boundless, and her courage took her forward. She finished college, started teaching Chau dance to women in other villages, and travelled beyond village boundaries with her identity as a Dancer to national and international events.
Her mother was happy but her father never expressed his happiness. Rather, he played the role of a teacher/ ‘Guru’ continuously pushing Mousumi to do better and excel in Chau dance. After becoming financially independent, she married a person of her choice.
Being a Classical dancer himself, her husband understands and supports her career and passion. She won the Grand Prize for Young Practitioner, as part of the 2019 Asia-Pacific Storytelling Contest by ICHCAP (The International Information and Networking Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage under the auspices of UNESCO).
However, not everything in her career has been rosy.
She had got an opportunity in 2017 to perform Chau dance in a Bollywood movie based on a Woman Chau dancer. It was special for her because she was the first woman to break the myth that Purulia Chau is essentially a male dance. The film crew had come to her village to shoot Mousumi and her women team’s performance, making the whole village proud, who had gathered to applaud her!
The scene constituted Mousumi performing and then opening her mask to reveal that she is a woman. When the movie was released and Mousumi went to watch it with her father, she found that after her dance as she takes off the mask, the person behind it is not her but the female star of the film.
Dismayed by this deception, she waited to find her name in the acknowledgements at the end of the movie, but there weren’t any. She felt humiliated and betrayed. This exploitation, however, could not put her down but made her stronger to reclaim her identity and rights as a professional Purulia Chau dancer.
She has been a source of strength inspiring other girls to take charge of their own lives. She is currently planning to do higher studies on the history and evolution of Chau dance at Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University in Purulia, where she also occasionally teaches as a part-time teacher. She hopes to establish an academic course on Chau for all interested learners and build opportunities to access knowledge and training by other aspiring girls.
Story Of Lutfa Sultana
Women in rural India indicates that young girls are mainly pushed into a life of exploitation and suffering by their own families fraught with fear of social stigma and ostracism if they do not comply with the normative frameworks of patriarchy. However, there are still exceptional women who refuse to follow the socially permissible path and break free from misogyny, by their own worth.
This story is the third in a series on three young underprivileged rural women from different regions of West Bengal who were supported by Banglanatak dot com, a national NGO using culture for sustainable and inclusive community development.
Lutfa Sultana aka Rini was born in a rural Muslim family, where from an early age she saw her mother Lovely being ill-treated, especially after her father suffered brain damage and lost his job.
Eventually, Lovely was thrown out by her family, and she returned to her parents’ village Nanoor in Birbhum district of West Bengal with her three daughters. Rini started growing up with her mother, sisters and grandmother. Their traditional skill was making Kantha (a centuries-old tradition of patchwork stitching to make quilts for daily use in eastern India, which evolved into an embroidery craft).
Rini’s grandmother would finish one piece of Kantha quilt overnight in the light of an oil lamp and sell those to local agents at very nominal prices. Lovely also made Katha for selling, but due to lack of regular markets and demands, she took up tailoring work which she believed would give more consistent income and earned rupees 10-20 per day.
Rini started learning handiwork from her grandmother and became extremely good at it. Her grandmother also motivated Rini to study. Although illiterate herself, she would take Rini to her maternal home where the younger generations were getting an education, to motivate Rini to do the same. She would also borrow books from various people or children studying in private schools and bring those for Rini to read and learn from.
Though both her mother and grandmother always emphasized the importance of education for a good life, Rini could not silently watch them suffer, and to reduce their economic burden, she took up Kantha assignments secretly. She would work in school after classes to finish orders. For a whole month’s work, she earned only Rs 80/- which she gave to her mother to buy her schoolbooks and pay for her education.
Though her mother was happy, she did not like Rini’s education being compromised. But Rini was determined and assured her family that she would do both with equal commitment and not neglect her education. As her Kantha work was exquisite, her mother agreed to bring small orders for her when available. When she was sixteen, there was an attempt to marry her, but she rejected the idea and refused the proposals.
Days passed with grit and courage until it was time for Rini’s elder sister to be married. Her dowry required significant loans and pawning whatever gold they had. To address their dwindling finances, Lovely decided to sell her kidney and made her daughter her guardian in the paperwork. Rini, then in her teens, could not come to terms with such an extreme step but endured the pain silently.
During this time, Lovely got an opportunity for the first time from the local government to attend a handicraft fair in Goa. She went with her Kantha work upon the insistence of the local officials. This marked a turning point in their lives as she earned a considerable profit there. She felt convinced that she could take their traditional Kantha work forward to earn a living and repay all her loans.
It was around this time that Banglanatak dot com intervened, offering workshops and market outreach to the Kantha artists, and Lovely grabbed the opportunity. Rini, studying in high school at the time, insisted on showing her work to the NGO’s design team. With some reluctance, they decided to give Rini one small sampling work without much hope but were pleasantly surprised. Rini started receiving orders from urban markets and gradually built her own network.
Her first trip to Kolkata was like a dream and there was no turning back. She has since gone to NIFT to teach and has travelled internationally to showcase her work. Throughout her college and graduation studies, she continued her Kantha work and grew as a young entrepreneur helping her mother in her business. Her creative skills along with her education gave her an edge over others to establish herself in the market, and she has been earning an average of Rs 20,000 per month.
“The kanthas I sew are not just pieces of cloth. They are my dreams and aspirations sewn together. When I look back at my journey, I feel proud of my success and the respect that I have earned for myself and my mother. Women always go through several hurdles, but I think that our determination and effort can help us survive. It is our courage which helps us sail through,” shared Rini.
Today, Rini is married to a family who encourages her to work, aspire and dream. However, she has also been the victim of cynicism and social stigma when she stepped out of her village for exhibitions for the first time. Many tried to shatter her morale, but her mother supported her and told her not to pay attention to what others are saying but to move forward confidently. At the age of 27, she is financially independent, an entrepreneur and thinking of building her own exclusive brand.
Rini feels grateful for her mother’s selfless dedication towards preparing her for a happy future. Lovely is a proud mother today who always narrates Rini’s journey to success.
“I never wanted my daughter to go through the hardships of life that I had to face. I made sure that she went to school and college. I am a proud mother today because my daughter is promoting the heritage of our community- Kantha with such elan. She is not only good at her craft but a social entrepreneur providing income opportunities to several other women. At times, I feel she is everything that my younger self wanted to be but couldn’t be due to the circumstances. Today, I live my dreams through her,” shared a proud Lovely.
Rini’s determination, courage and ability to think have led her to unprecedented success today. Her life story not only shows her own indomitable spirit but also illustrates how cultural rootedness builds self-confidence and self-esteem leading to independent identity development, a thread that she shares with the two other women whose stories have been published earlier.
This article has been written by Madhura Dutta from West Bengal for Charkha Features.