jeevika90

when I first came in contact with the siddis (Africans in India) in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka in 1983, I realised that they needed to be recognised by the government as a special group for affirmative action and preferably as a Scheduled Tribe and I initiated a proceess towards that which culminated in 2003 getting them recognised as a ST by the Indian government. I adopted Paulo Freire's methods of adult education in Kannada and worked out a full fledged programme of adult education, probably the best such effort in India. I adopted the same methodologies for remedial education for the bonded and other working children and developed a course of making even the illiterate children appear for the fifth standard just after four months. I have succeeded in building up a movement of dalits and bonded labourers and agricultural workers to fight against bonded labour. I have worked out an Action Plan to tackle bonded labour in Karnataka for the Karnataka government. I have developed effective methods of participatory trainings in social analysis and leadership. I am currently busy in developing a basic course in spoken English to achieve the competency to speak in English in just six days for the working children and educated dalit youth. I am part of movements like National Alliance of People's Movements, World social Forum/karnataka Social Forum, People's SAARC, Campaign Against Child Labour and such other movements that work towards greater equality and participation in public sphere.
The one place I retain fondenss is my own home-town or village, called Barkur. It is not exactly a village, but a conglomeration of villages. It is a place that is encircled by two small rivers going by the same name, Sitanadi, originating at two different points, encirlcling Barkur and joining together at its one edge and entering the sea three kilometres away. It has great historical memories. It was a seat of kings some thousand years back and even earlier. It is considerd the cultural capital of the undivided Dakshina kannada district similar to Hampi (Vijayanagara) being the cultural capital of Karnataka. One of the folklores of this histroical place gives witness to gender equality in this part of the world in ancient times, showing Barkur to be a place where matriarchy was practised for a long time even a few years after Independence in 1947 and also the kind heartedness of the ruler. The story goes like this: The kingdom had a great harbour and the king, Bhuthala Pandya loved navigation and had a fleet of big ships. He bulit a new ship. When it had to be let into the water, the god of the ship demanded human sacrifice. The king did not want to sacrifice any of subject's child and since he had seven sons, he asked his wife to allow him sacrifice one of them. The mother, in protest went with all the seven sons to her parents place. The king had one sister with only one son. Without being able to have a human sacrifice and get the ship into water, the king became sick and was bed ridden. The sister when she came to know about the cause of her brother's sickness, came to her brother and offfered her only son to be sacrificed for the sake of saving her brother's life. Inspite of strong protests by the king, the child was taken to be sacrificed; and as he was about be killed, the spirit of the ship declared that it was appeased by the great generosity of the mother and did'nt want any sacrifice.... The king in gratitude passed on the kingdom to his nephew. This is cited as the origin of matricarchy in Dakshina Kannada, where in one dominat community, the property was passed from mother to daughter and the husband after marriage went to reside in the house of the wife. I have witnessed these customs in my village. But, like globalisation, patriarchy has also spread its tentacles everywhere.
I want all practices of bonded and forced labour to be stopped as quickly as possible; all so called unskilled labour must be rewarded in a such a way that the dependants are able to lead a life of human dignity. Togehter with this I want the injustices on dalits and adivasis in India must be taken out at the earliest and all forms of discrimination and inequality done away with.
I gave up a career of academics to work for the poor in India. For one full year I lived with the Siddis in one of their villages in Uttara Kannada district, eating their food, living in their house and taking part in their life and activities as one of them. While with them, I started the process of getting them recognised as a scheduled tribe and for that collected economic, demographic, sociological, cultural and histroical data to write a monograph. I also started getting the community organised under one umbrlla organisation. I also initiated a process of adult education basd on Paulo Freire's method of conscientization. After that one year, I moved to another area where dalits were in a majority and again strated living with them in one of their villages; spent some months going for wage labour, digging wells and joining in farm labour seriously finding out if I could sustain myself on wage lablour. I also started learning the skills of stitching shoes to see if shoe making could give me a source of steady income as also it would make me fully identified with dalits. I also initiaited a process of raising awarenss to the dalits on the recently introducd Act on decentralisation of power (Panchayat Raj) in Karantaka through street theatre. Within a few weeks of carrying out street thatre, which was very much legal and within the stated objctives of the state, a social boycot was imposd on the dalits of the village where I stayed to make them send me away from their village. During the period, I was thrown out of the village and once being kicked by a so called 'high' caste fanatic youth. The police officer investigating the issue, asked me for the number of bonded labourers in the village. When I gave her a list of forty bonded labourers in that one village, she remarked that she then new why the 'high caste' people were against me. This incident made me to take the issue of bonded labour in a systematice way. Leaders of another village invited me to stay in their village. Again I stayed with dalits in that village for six years or so. From this village, all the 300 or so villages in Anekal taluk (sub-district) were surveyed for bonded labour; the data was computerised through the help of friends in a college in Bangalore, later analysed and a short report worked out; the data was then presented in the Legislature through a dalit leader in 1990. Simultaneously, bonded labourers were brought together in their villags for meetings and for organisation building; were given various trainings on social analysis, leadership, bonded labour abolition Act and so on. A group of dalit youth in the village and in the surrounging areas were motivated to volunteer to work for bonded labourers. Adult education on a massive scale was attempted in the entire taluk for three years from 1988 to 1990. In 1993 I moved to Bangalore and from there started to build up a movement on bonded labour at the state level. The first choice was to get the dalit movements in the state to take up the cause. When that did not materialise, the second option was to enthuse the NGOs in Karnataka through its umbrella organisation, FEVORD-K, in which I was an active member till then, to take up bonded labour all over Karnataka. When, even this attempt did not succeed that well, since a majority or almost all the NGOs in Karnataka then were not working with dalits or agricultural labour but were rather managed by non dalits, I developed an indpendent movement reaching out to the whole state. We organisd a state level convention on bonded lbaour gathering about 5000 bonded labourers in 1995, before which we had carrid out a survey in 48 out of the then 175 taluks in the sat representing all the regions of the state and identified nealry 20,000 bondd labourers and had made them to file affidavits to the deputy commiissioners for their release and rehabilitation. After 1995, the activities of lobbying and advocacy with the government on behalf of bonded labourers, organising and consicentising them in thir villages and taluks with street theatre, meetings and trainings were carried out regularly. A number of other activities were carried out in the succeeding years. Main among them are: tappping government schemes for the poor, unioninsing agricultural workers together with bonded labourers, building self help groups for savings and credit among women in the families of bonded labourers and agricultural workers, taking part in panchayat raj elections especially at Gram (village) panchayat level, running residential bridge courses to bonded and other working chilldren to mainstream them in government schools after one year, promoting herbal medicines, natural farming, taking up land disputes of dalits, taking up atrocities on women and dalits, promoting buddhist technique of concentrating on breathing (Vipassana) as an antidote to superstitions and so on.