A veil of a time

As soon as they joined the self-help groups,the first step they took was to face the world. For some of the members of the SHGs—each group has 10 to 20 women members—shunning the veil was that first step towards empowerment; some have even resumed their studies.

Kamlesh Rani of Banwali village in Fatehabad says when she joined a group of 14 women in 2000,she was “only a matriculate”,but later completed her class XII. “Initially,my family was upset with me. But they came around,” she says.

Kamlesh was also the resource person for a project by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation that was launched for women’s empowerment in Haryana in 2004-05.

Forty-four-year-old Somvati Ellora of Balsamand village in Hisar,on the Haryana-Rajasthan border,married when she was in her early teens and wore a veil till she joined a self-help group in 2001. Like Kamlesh,the class VIII dropout did her matriculation after that. “But first of all,I discarded the veil,” she says,adjusting her sunglasses while talking about her feat of derring-do.

To start with,each woman in Somvati’s group—they make organic pesticides and manure—contributed Rs 20. Today,they have a corpus of Rs 2 lakh,which they lend at the rate of 1 or 2 per cent. “Till a few years ago,I did not have the money to pay my children’s school fee and today my daughter is pursuing her MSc and my son his MBA. Now,I even lend money to my husband,” she says.

Somvati,who was given the Nari Shakti Award by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda,has deputed members of her group to different departments to understand government schemes and ensure their proper implementation. “We want the money to reach the real beneficiaries and not line the pockets of officials. Besides,we also liaison with protection officers to stop domestic violence and child marriage,” she says.

Somvati’s confidence is unmistakable and the shunning of the veil helped in no small measure.

“Throwing away the veil has given me an identity. Today,even if you write my name on a postcard and send it to my village it will reach me. My family is known in the area by my name,” she says.

Sitting next to her is another veil-shunner,Chanderkala of Bewal village in Mahendergarh. Till a few years ago,Chanderkala would nudge her husband whenever someone asked her name,but the petite woman now holds training camps and motivational classes for women. “I am president of a federation of 36 self-help groups in 21 villages,” she says of her clout.

Earlier,even literate women had to live behind veils. Meera Rani of Badopal village in Fatehabad says though she was a graduate when she got married,her life was no different from that of an unlettered woman in the neighbourhood. “After I joined the group in 2004,the first thing I did was remove the head veil. Today,I am in charge of self-help groups in 22 villages,” she beams.

Tarawati,from Tasroli village in Ambala,who leads a group of women who work on phulkaris,(the embroidered shawls and head scarfs that are sold at Delhi Haat and Surajkund,besides other markets of the capital and Haryana) says shunning the veil was an upshot of the community forestry project. “Mobilising women,forging market linkages and attending training camps cannot be done by faceless women,” she says.

Sarpanch Vidya Devi,whose group makes organic manure through vermicomposting,says,“After we joined the group,we realised that the veil was a hurdle for women willing to step out of their homes.”

With their newly-acquired confidence,women are also bringing their wayward men on track. Vidya Devi once led a squad of women to ransack a liquor vend in her village. “Theke ka tin humne phaad diya (I tore apart the tin-shed of the vend) and broke the bottles,” she says animatedly. And what did she do to the men? “A drunkard is half-dead,so we spared them,” she says and her friends erupt in loud guffaws.

Somvati too had forced authorities to shift a liquor vend two km away from their village in Hisar’s Rawalwas Kalan. “We had to do this as the men had started selling household goods to buy liquor,” she says.

Dr Amarinder Kaur,Chief Conservator of Forests and the person behind the forest conservation project,says when they started constituting the groups,they had not imagined that the veil,so well-entrenched in the social psyche,would fall so soon. “These women have become the new opinion leaders. Earlier,they would be harassed by money-lenders. But today,they have made a huge corpus with savings from different income-generating activities and help each other with loans,” she says.