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Sometimes the word feminist scares people. For some people the word creates images of untraditional, upper-middle class women, lacking feminine qualities, who engage in useless debates influenced by western ideas that have little to do with lifestyles of Indian women. However, feminism, the movement to win political, economic, or social equality for women, is global and worldwide. It manifests itself in various places in the world in various forms. Participants in this movement can be rich or poor, educated or illiterate. The only thing they have in common is the belief that women are human beings and must be treated so by other human beings. During a recent trip to India, I heard an account of a rural grassroots feminist organization called Ghumusar Mahila Sangathan from one of their active advocates, Sandhya Nayak. The work of these women greatly inspired me and is worth sharing in a women's forum.

The state Orissa is geographically divided into agricultural coastal plains in the east and mountains and forests in the west where simple, close to earth, indigenous people of various tribes live. Way back in 1979, heinous atrocities, land grabbing by outsiders, sexual exploitation of innocent tribal women, and extortion of forest produces by non-tribal traders, stood as a challenge before the indigenous women living in the forests of Southern Orissa, India. From this challenge was born a spontaneous movement initiated and led by Mrs. Maka Nayak of Kandhamal district who believed in the women's power. In 1981, the women of the area formally organized under the name of Ghumusar Mahila Sangathan (GMS), to protest against injustice and inequality with a united voice. Now GMS has grown into a network of 15,000 rural tribal women belonging to 400 women's groups.

After India's independence, government institutions gradually opened in rural areas inhabited by indigenous people. Male officers from the developed coastal plains were posted in these government offices temporarily, usually for a period of two to three years. Because the tribal areas were undeveloped and lacked necessities of civilized lifestyle, the officers did not bring their families with them to their new posts. During their stay, some of them entered into bigamy by marrying innocent young tribal women. This did not cost them much and provided a solution to their lonliness and physical needs. Two or three years later, they would leave the area leaving the tribal wife and children without any support. This illegal and inhuman practice by government officials remained in the dark unknown to the public in the coastal plains. GMS's first achievement was to stop this illegal practice by exposing it and seeking justice.

After this achievement, GMS focused on issues relating to indigenous children's education. They noticed that even though the new schools in the tribal areas were opened for the indigenous people, most of their children dropped out by the second or third year. Only the children of the officers who came from the coastal plains did well in the schools. GMS was convinced that this was caused by the faulty educational system that was designed for the children of the coastal plains and did not take into account the language or lifestyle of the tribal children. Thus, most of what was taught was incomprehensible to the indigenous children and inapplicable to their lifestyle. Therefore, the indigenous children failed the tests and saw no reason to attend the schools. GMS started designing bilingual books and conducting early childhood and elementary classes with curriculum and teaching methodology that used themes and examples familiar to the tribal lifestyle. Dropout rates reduced.

Through organizing and networking, the tribal women are able to see the relationship between the multiple levels of oppression they experience as a consequence of their tribal status, gender, and poverty. They see a correlation between rise in alcohol consumption by men and their violence toward women, between women's lack of access to the forest resources and their poverty; between gender and sexual exploitation, between culture loss and identity crisis. GMS today focuses on many aspects of tribal women's problems: poverty, health and nutrition, economy, development, education, biodiversity, training and empowerment, violence against women, media attention, and participation in decision making. A GMS brochure lists the following as its objectives:

• To fight for the causes of women, to empower them to get back their rights to equality and justice.
• To foster growth and development of young children
• To ensure nutritional and health status of children
• To rehabilitate working children by providing them an alternative education
• To prohibit liquor as it increases violence and poverty
• To prevent cultural degeneration, identity crisis, and economic loss
• To organize training programs, seminars, workshops, village marches, and mass rallies on survival issues relating to land and forest, education and livelihood, society and culture.

To me, GMS is an example of the power of grassroots organizing and of women united even when they are poor and illiterate. GMS reminds one that feminism is not just a term reserved for the middle class college educated woman to debate about in her leisure. It is for women, rich or poor, literate or not, who believe that they have to say no to oppression in any form and assert that human rights are women's and children's rights too.

Credits

Saheli is an all-volunteer non-profit support and advocacy organization for Asian families in Austin, Texas. Saheli's mission is to help victims and survivors of domestic violence to heal, and empower them to make choices for a life free of abuse. We spread awareness of various forms of oppression against women and children through community outreach and education. We form a bridge between the Asian community and local services to cross the culture gap. Saheli's vision is to work toward preventing abuse in family relationships, to break the cycle of violence and pursue a cycle of peace. For more information about Saheli, visit www.main.org/saheli
To contact us call (512) 703-8745
or send e-mail to: saheli@usa.net

Opinions expressed in this column are those of the authors alone.

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