BORN in Katna, I later studied in Kolkata’s elite La Martinere School. At the age of 16, I was married off to a wealthy 32-year old man. He beat me regularly. After eight years in this abusive marriage, I divorced my husband and gained custody of my two children. I spent two months in a shanty at Sealdah, before getting a job to work my way out of poverty.

Within a decade, I became a successful interior decorator but, in 1990, moved to Delhi and gave up my design work to do something more meaningful. With the help of a few friends I began working with street children around the Delhi railway station. During this period, I met Jugnu Ramaswamy, a journalist and filmmaker, also in search for something more. We began a partnership that created Street Survivors India (SSI), first in Delhi and then in Katna.

The story of SSI in Murshidabad is about taking on the ‘vast nothingness’ of a remote and backward area, with neither electricity nor infrastructure, and turning it into a hub for several initiatives. We have provided the residents with education and new livelihood options, while also giving women a chance to escape violence and this has visibly helped to develop the area.

SSI moved to Katna under difficult circumstances. The organization was originally formed in 1990 in Delhi to provide learning opportunities for working street children. But one fine day, Jagriti, our slum-based school that also served as a kitchen and night shelter, was literally swept off the roads in a government ‘cleanup drive’ to reclaim valuable commercial place.

Instead of giving up, Jugnu and I moved to Katna, in 1999, to pick up from where we had left. Katna is in the southwest part of Murshidabad district and is among the poorest areas of West Bengal. There were sociopolitical minefields to navigate right away. We were confronted with challenges like huge tracts of empty land, no electricity, and no infrastructure. There was no one to approach for our needs. Everything was a struggle, from buying land, setting up a place to live, establishing a school building and an office, to getting electricity. Combating this with pragmatism, we set about establishing ourselves in Katna.

 

Educationally backward, with limited economic opportunities and plagued by annual floods, the village has a population of around 2000 of which almost all are Muslims. In fact, this is one of India’s few Muslim majority districts with a Muslim population of 63.6% (Census 2001). Even though it was not the Muslim identity of the people, but the backwardness of Katna that brought SSI to the village, the organization soon learnt that it could not ignore issues of identity. The ubiquitous face of patriarchy manifested itself here in the form of ‘religion’, and the hold of local maulvis (religious leaders) was strong. Everything happened in the community in the name of religion. Anything one did that questioned the existing structures would be branded as anti-Islam and that affected its acceptance in the community.

My identity, in this case, was an advantage. Acceptance was somewhat easier for me as I was from the village, my father the only doctor from the village till date. I was alien, yet theirs and they couldn’t disown their blood; though I was equally easy about denying it when it threatened my personal choices.

In 2005, my husband, Jugnu Ramaswamy, passed away and some local maulvis wanted me to stop dressing in a particular way, and asked me to curb my mobility and work since I was a Muslim widow. I responded to this by saying that I had been married to a Hindu. All my life I have used my identity as a way to make my work easier as that is what matters the most to me.

There were other hindrances. Jugnu and I made the initial investment from our own money. This was big money for a small place, and led to wild speculations about SSI sources and its intent. Political parties got into the act: local party leaders demanded ‘payment’ to ‘allow’ SSI to work. The party even mobilized locals against SSI. Using ‘contacts’ at the highest levels of the ruling party in West Bengal, SSI was able to continue, but still faced constant run-ins with party cadres. I strategically joined electoral politics and contested local panchayat elections. This eased up the political tensions somewhat. As conditions began to stabilize, I gradually withdrew from party politics. But my brief stint with mainstream politics contributed to my profile. I have maintained a good relationship with the higher authorities in the district administration.

SSI has now grown large, working on education and women’s empowerment in an under-served, desperately poor corner of India. The approach is not welfare or charity based but is focused on building local capacities to take the work forward. SSI’s domestic violence work mounts a direct feminist challenge to patriarchy in the guise of religion, and enjoys wide support among Muslim women. A critical part of our gender based work is Stree Shakti, a community based domestic violence arbitration programme. The women’s livelihood initiative has grown into the ‘Katna’s Kantha’ label which retails in several metros with an annual turnover of more than a crore. SSI also runs a full-fledged high school for poor rural children known as Jagriti Public School.

 

Street Survivors India’s immediate concerns in 1999 were how to begin dismantling structures of poverty as well as be accepted by the community. Education stood out as an issue that was not only a vital need in the area, but one that was non-controversial, through which acceptance would be easier to come by. Jagriti, the name of SSI’s slum based school in Delhi, was reborn in Katna, this time working with underprivileged rural children. SSI began with a Bengali medium school for both boys and girls. This soon evolved into an English medium school that thrice received the ‘School that Cares’ award from the Kolkata newspaper, The Telegraph.

Currently CBSE affiliated, it ‘lays importance [on] English as a medium of learning because… our educated youth have grown to lack familiarity with any other language except Bengali. Absence of the language link with the rest of India has contributed much to a widespread inability to create productive alternatives for gainful self-employment’, as the school brochure puts it.

Jagriti Public School seeks to expose children to a multilingual environment, with opportunities for all-round development – games, theatre, music, arts and crafts are part of the learning process. The school calendar is linked to local agricultural cycles and holidays are scheduled to avoid conflict between work and study. Families in economic crisis are exempted from paying fees, and others are subsidized.

 

Unfortunately, with limited seats and resources, Jagriti Public School could not reach many children in interior villages. So, SSI conceived of Shiksha Shakti Kendras (SSK’s) for students from Class V to XII in two blocks, Burwan and Khargram, to serve as a supplement to the formal schools. Funded by the Sir Dorabji and J.R.D. Tata Trust, four such centres – at Kuli, Khargram, Sherpur and Fatepur – have now been running for four years. Over 4500 children from 40 villages attend them and three centres have 50% girl students and one has 60% girls. The kendras provide support to poor students from government schools by holding daily remedial classes, providing textbooks and facilities for games, cultural activities and life skills development. Parents visit the centres, and teachers from the centres make home visits if necessary. Feedback from schoolteachers has been positive and there are requests from the schools to accommodate more students.

Building upon the positive experience of the Shiksha Shakti Kendras (SSK’s), another project, Doosra Dashak, will start in 2013. Under it, SSKs have been provided with 32 computers to impart computer literacy to students from Class V to Class XII at a cost of Rs 20 per month. The project has helped SSI to reach students from 40 villages.

 

Given my personal history as a violence survivor, gender based violence has always been a concern for SSI. In 2002, the organization began Stree Shakti, a community based informal arbitration programme, to provide women victims and survivors of violence access to justice. Women are now approaching Stree Shakti from other blocks of Murshidabad and also from the neighbouring districts of Nadia and Birbhum.

Women in Katna who were abused by their husbands, in-laws or even in their natal families had nowhere to complain other than to the male dominated local police station. The few cases that made it into the sluggish legal system took ages to resolve. Says SSI: ‘Women need safe spaces, empathetic ears to talk of their lives and problems; we tried to create that space.’ So, I did advocacy with the police till they allowed me to sit in the police station at appointed times during the week. I was the first person the women approached with their complaints. This experiment proved to be very popular. Eventually I moved it to the SSI’s office, with appropriate informal sanction from the state authorities.

The first knock at the door often starts at five or six in the morning and continues late into the night. The complaints relate to return of mehr after divorce, dowry demands, rape, wife beating, fights between wives of same men, men complaining about their wives not listening to them – the list is endless. Sometimes, when two parties are summoned, each arrives with their supporters to shout the opponents down! But most of the time a mutually agreeable resolution does emerge. Paramount for SSI is that any resolution must ensure protection and security for the aggrieved woman. A young girl of 19 years, deserted by her husband, says, ‘Without SSI, I would have died after being tortured by my in-laws.’ This popular arbitration forum and justice delivery system at the local block level now covers over 264 villages, conducting hearings thrice a week and issuing summons that are universally recognized and accepted. It has handled over 2000 cases since 2003.

Stree Shakti is self-funded. SSI charges a nominal fifty rupees from the women who approach us and find that they pay this willingly. If a woman is unable to pay, she is exempted. SSI believes in making projects self-reliant wherever possible. SSI feels that the economic empowerment of women is a necessary step for a long-term solution to domestic violence. We chose a path that simply built on a skill that women in the area already possessed, namely kantha.

 

Traditionally, kantha work involves women sewing together layers of old cloth, mostly saris, with intricate stitches. The thread is pulled out of the sari itself. Kantha also plays an important role in people’s lives and memories. It was the obvious choice in designing an income generating programme for the area’s women. The transition from the old sari kanthas to new ‘marketable’ designs, however, took time; market-ready quality parameters had to be learnt; the traditional sari length that was commercially unviable was replaced by various sizes of fabrics, which many artisans considered blasphemous. But they did gradually appreciate that the wonderful craft they took for granted could give them a livelihood, and that their skills could be further developed, a process that continues with regular training sessions with designers. Over time, what began as an empowering livelihood project for poor village women has developed into the label ‘Katna’s Kantha’ with an annual turnover of more than a crore. It represents the collective effort of 1500 women from 125 villages in Murshidabad and is sold in Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Bangalore and even abroad.

The earnings from this venture are pooled into Jagriti Public School to subsidize education for children of the women workers. Some of the women have developed leadership qualities; they now help in the administration, and function as SSI staff. One of them says, ‘When we look back to what we were, we cannot just recognize ourselves. I never commanded so much respect in my life. I never knew women could be respected and it all happened because of this work.’

 

Street Survivors India currently has 125 full time staff working in different capacities, but finding qualified human resource, especially teachers, to work in this remote part of West Bengal is one of our toughest challenges. People from Kolkata or other cities are simply unwilling to stay on. I don’t even look for qualified people in these areas now. I just want somebody with a bit of sensitivity, with the passion and zeal to contribute, but where are they? Dearth of good human resource also has implications for SSI’s internal leadership development. Another issue is the absence of NGO networks in Murshidabad. Without networking, I feel, we can neither do effective advocacy nor negotiate with government. For example, none of the NGOs in Murshidabad know what became of the minority development grants that came into the district after the Sachar Report.

SSI has battled both practical hurdles as well as prejudice for two decades to reach a position of some recognition. In 2010-11, it received the Social and Cultural Achievement Award from the Sanskriti Foundation. ‘Durga’s Court’ by Dheera Sujan is an award winning documentary that is based on the Stree Shakti initiative.

Importantly, the community in Katna has largely been supportive of their work. Choosing education as the first initiative and establishing a school was a strategic decision that has paid dividends. Even those who disapproved of SSI’s presence wanted their children to benefit from the school. But when it comes to the domestic violence arbitration programme, many men even today are wary, although something seems to prevent them from openly opposing it. Support to SSI from the administration has helped quell this instinctive patriarchal unease. More crucially, SSI is accepted because it provides real livelihood options to many people in the area. Women earn a livelihood through kantha work, men work with SSI as drivers or hostel superintendents or in other positions, and earn a decent wage. The best way to overcome challenges is to simply do the job. Once the show gets running, everyone knows you are here to deliver, to ensure change that is meaningful to the community’s life and context.