Aparajita Gogoi among world’s top 100 women
LONDON,
March 8: Five Indian women, including high-profile author Arundhati Roy
and rights activist Jayshree Satpute, figure in the list of 100 of the
world’s most inspirational women prepared by The Guardian. The list also
has a fair sprinkling of women of Indian origin like PepsiCo chief
Indra Nooyi and director Mira Nair.
The five Indian women who have made it to the exclusive group are
Booker Prize winner Roy; Satpute, a human rights advocate working to
help poor women in India at risk of dying in childbirth; ecofeminist
Vandana Shiva; Aparajita Gogoi, who is coordinator of the White Ribbon
Alliance for Safe Motherhood in India and Sampat Pal Devi, leader of an
all-women vigilante force called Gulabi Gang. The Guardian released the
list on March 8, being celebrated as International Women’s Day.
Roy, who authored The God of Small Things and calls herself a
“natural born feminist”, is described as one of India’s most important
polemicists.
The Guardian report said that she has not published a second novel
and has instead shone the spotlight on the dark side of the
subcontinent.
Sampat Pal Devi, who leads the Gulabi gang in northern India, is listed in the
section of activists and campaigners.
The all-women force dressed in pink saris wields bamboo sticks. One
day she saw a man beating his wife in India’s Uttar Pradesh State and
she begged him to stop. He didn’t. She returned the next day with a
group of women and beat him like he had beaten his wife. The Gulabi gang
had been formed, the report said.
She has a list of criminal charges against her but the number of gang
members is growing. It now has around 20,000 members. “Village society
in India is loaded against women,” she says.
Shiva, a renowned name in global circles who believes feminism and
environmentalism are inseparable, is quoted as saying: “Women who
produce for their families and communities are treated as
‘non-productive’ and economically inactive. The devaluation of women’s
work, and of work done in sustainable economies, is the natural outcome
of a system constructed by capitalist patriarchy. This is how
globalization destroys local economies and destruction itself is counted
as growth.”
Indian-origin filmmaker Mira Nair is there in the list. She made The
Namesake, Amelia and Monsoon Wedding and her movie Salaam Bombay won
awards at Cannes, and led to her setting up a children’s charity. She
went on to become the first woman to win the Golden Lion at the Venice
film festival.
In the field of business, Indian-origin PepsiCo chief Indra Nooyi
finds mention. Nooyi is keen to help women up the business ladder, the
media report said.
“If you are a woman and especially a person of colour, there are two
strikes against you,” Indra Nooyi had said. “Immigrant, person of
colour, and woman, three strikes against you ... So I would work extra
hard at it. More hours, yes. More sacrifices and trade-offs, yes. That
has been the journey.”
She grew up in what she calls a “humble middle-class” environment in
South India and worked hard to reach a paypacket of $10.66 million last
year.
Another Indian-origin woman on the list is Pragna Patel, founding
member of Southall Black Sisters, which the media report described as a
landmark organization in the history of black and Asian feminism.
The charity campaigns for and offers practical support to women escaping
domestic violence and forced marriages.
Britain-based Jasvinder Sanghera, director of Karma Nirvana, which is
a charity helping victims of forced marriages and ‘honour’ violence,
also finds mention in the list.
She had run away from home at 15 to avoid a forced marriage and set
up the charity after her elder sister, who was afraid of her abusive
husband and killed herself in 1987. IANS
(The Sentinel, 09.03.2011)
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