Anita’s Story: The Power of the Collective

Note: Names have been changed

The expressions of worry etched on every single face revealed the tension the situation presented. In a way, the concern reflected the solidarity the group had developed over the past three weeks. If one person was out, the play would not be the same; it wouldn’t retain its impact, its energy. Every single participant was essential. It was not just that the play could not go on. It could have gone on quite easily. It was, instead, that at the culmination of our month of hard work and practice, their collective glory in the performance of the drama in our own village was at risk of being torn apart. They were in this together.
Jagruti, (www.jagruti.org) a small rights-based NGO operating in rural villages of south India, had recruited high school students and a few odd ones from the village of Mangenkoppa to put together an educational street play on child marriage. Mangenkoppa, a small village of less than 3,000 people, is located in the mango growing heartland of Khanapur Taluk in Belgaum District in northern Karnataka. This is a region where child marriage, domestic violence, and school drop outs are normal, and oftentimes, encouraged within the communities.
The students came to the small Jagruti field office every day for three weeks. A group of youngsters, mostly teenagers, putting together a play was no piece of cake. They fought, they got distracted easily, and even got so fed up that they cancelled play practice. Slowly, however, with proper leadership from Jagruti and a growing feeling of camaraderie, they abandoned their household and farm duties, put aside their insecurities, and performed the play, Stop Child Marriage. What was once considered a drag became the highlight of their summer. They even achieved near-celebrity status, cycling through five villages and performing in each location. Most importantly, they were a team.

Interestingly, or inevitably, patriarchy, the very force driving child marriage, was also preventing them from being a team. Of course, patriarchy is not a ghost, a monster, a creeping conceptual shadow that haunts us during the night. While the concept of patriarchy is intangible and points to no singular culprit, its effects are very real, with manifestations in every corner of life. The last night of the performance of the play in their hometown, patriarchy reared its ugly head against the performance of Stop Child Marriage by the youth of Mangenakoppa.
Anita’s older brother put his foot down and did not allow her to participate in the play. Here are the facts: Anita is 23 years old. She was married at the age of 18, and then beaten up and thrown out of her husband’s home, pregnant and alone. Fortunately, her family took her back in to their home, where she now looks after all the household responsibilities and takes care of her 3 year old son. She also works for Jagruti and is the only member of her household with a reliable paycheck every month.
Her older brother, on the other hand, spends most of his time in Bangalore, working, although no one in his family knows quite what he does, nor do they see a single paise of what he earns. About a year ago, he borrowed Rs 1,000 from Anita, who had taken out the loan to buy a mixer for the home, and never paid it back. Anita, after asking for the money over and over again, is still paying his debt off. Despite this, he has the power and authority to tell Anita what she is allowed to do, and more frequently, what she is not allowed to do. Why is she and others in her house listening to her older brother?
The role of the male in village households is supreme and considered almost divine. To contradict a male in the household is close to sacrilege. Super Freakonomics authors put it aptly when saying that “giving birth to a baby boy [in India] is like giving birth to a 401(k) retirement fund”, while a baby girl “means relabeling the retirement fund a dowry fund”. The patriarchical system of the Indian family dictates that males of the household stay in their birth home and take care of the parents and the family property. Having more opportunities outside the home, they are generally the breadwinners, thereby considered the head of the household. Females move to their husband’s home where oftentimes their voices are silenced, her work and presence undervalued, and her wants and desires considered unimportant in either her husband’s or birth home. Even though Anita’s brother does not contribute to the family income, his mere ‘maleness’ makes him the jewel of the family. In him his parents have instilled the hope that they will be taken care of in their old age after a lifetime of back-breaking work. This means, unfortunately, that the pattern of patriarchy conspires to devalue the contribution that Anita makes to her family and continue supporting her brother’s lifestyle, which does little to benefit other members of the household.

Interestingly, Anita, too, did not want to participate in the play in front of everyone. She admitted that she feared the backlash from society that her performance might produce. Being a once married woman, she carries the burden of her ex-husband’s betrayal everywhere she goes and in whatever she does. She has internalized the village gossip that says her life is over as it is not proper for once married women to re-marry. In her mind, why should she feed malicious village gossip by performing in a play with high schoolers? It is much easier and safer to choose not to participate and thereby, escape the daggers of wagging tongues.
Her defeatist attitude is fed by the lack of opportunities available to her to regain dignity in the eyes of society. The social stigma of being a battered and rejected wife remains with Anita, even though she has returned to live with her parents and works as a community organizer. This fear of ‘gossip’, that ‘people might talk’, when a woman stands up for herself or her values prevent women from entering and participating in the public sphere.

So what is the solution to ameliorate this all-pervasive mentality that oppresses women at every step of their lives? One answer is developing a feeling of solidarity, that the well-being of one is essential to the well-being of all. That evening, the youngsters of Stop Child Marriage were shocked, outraged, and upset at the thought of continuing the play without Anita. ‘She’s in the best scene, we can’t cut her out’, ‘at this point, everyone is irreplaceable’, the participants murmured with their foreheads creased with concern. When Anita’s brother decided to intervene, a crowd had already gathered in anticipation of the youths’ performance. It was getting quite late and they were getting restless. The street play crew was beginning to get anxious that their friends and neighbors would leave without witnessing the fruit of the youths’ work. No, they decided with finality, they wouldn’t let Anita’s brother get in the way of their hard work and excitement.

The evening proved to be a victory. All of the participants of the street play crowded into Anita’s tiny home, surrounding Anita’s brother. Many others also came immediately to support the participants and Anita’s involvement in the play. In the end, an elderly woman succeeded in roundly berating Anita’s older brother for ruining the evening for the play participants and for the community.
Some days after the play, Anita’s older brother was overheard praising Anita’s performance. Anita, too, was surprised when she suffered no backlash for her decision to participate in Stop Child Marriage. She said that even though she was so nervous before the play, she felt more confident after the performance, especially with the support of her team and Jagruti. The fight inside her home ended up being a victory for the street play as well as for resistance against oppressive mentalities. The play was a big hit, but most of all, the process of collective action proved to be an effective means to the path towards breaking the shackles of patriarchy.

Mornings in Ukkali

The rooster crows about a half an hour before the sun actually rises, and I somewhat resent it every morning for being so unpunctual. In romanticized versions of country life, the rooster is supposed to crow exactly at the crack of dawn, but this rooster seems to be in a slightly different time zone.

I am in a haze at this point in the early morning, not able to remain sleeping, but unable to pry my eyes open without discomfort, rubbing out the sleep sand. My neck feels stiff, and my knees are sore, for apparently no reason at all. I’ve been having strange, disturbing dreams lately, and try to shake the unpleasantness created by my subconscious during the night.

Allah ho Akbar breaks the stillness of the early morning. The voice is deep, clear, and slightly out of tune, but the effect is beautiful, the rich tenor tones reaching out like tree branches to the sky. Some days it mixes with the bhajans from the temple, clashing at first, then resulting in a strange, somewhat eerie harmony. Each time, I get goosebumps.

I open my eyes to the sound of soft swooshes of the broom from downstairs and the voices of people calling to each other below. It’s still dark. The clanging of the aluminum and steel pots climbs up from the ground to the top floor of the Hanamshetti’s home, where I sleep, protected from the chilly breeze, dogs, and dust. The sounds from below translate into images; I imagine Roopa’s mother squatting in front of her corrugated tin roof home, scrubbing her rice pot with gravel, and Roopa searching for her school uniform all the while hefting her little baby brother on her hip. The thut thut thutting of Anita Akka making rotis for her sister’s lunch in the fields and the slushing of water spilling out of plastic pots balanced on women’s hips remind me that I got it easy.

I finally manage to shrug off my covers and peek outside my window. Women are busy as ever, chopping firewood, putting rangoli in the entrances of their homes, or preparing food for a long day working in the fields. I can see the red sun beginning to peer shyly over the coconut and tamarind tree horizon, making it look a bit like a cantaloupe rind. A sleepy fog hangs lightly over the village, like a protective blanket. As it ascends higher, the sun gets braver, its brightness spilling color into the town. The fog dissipates, replaced by smoke from cracks in tin roofs and dust picked up by the wheels of tums tums and ox carts.I pull my sweater off and fold up my sheets, then head downstairs to start my day.