http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/all-the-behenjis-women/449795/
All the behenji’s women Posted: Apr 22, 2009 at 0140 hrs Piyasree Dasgupta profiles four Dalit women who were present at Mayawati’s rally in Kolkata. Each and every one of them alleges discrimination. They say things have improved but want behenji as the next PM Janki Bibi The 23-year-old mother of two from Bansberia, Bibi has little access beyond the confines of her home. “I am not allowed to work. It is very difficult to get water in our locality. People maintain distance when we try to fetch water from other localities where people from higher castes live,” she says. Incidents when her husband faces discrimination are not rare either, she says. “I have heard that babus don’t step out of their room or verandah to pay him. They don’t want to touch him,” she adds. Her husband is a labourer in a jute mill in the vicinity. “My children have still not started to go to school. I hope they are not discriminated against when they do,” she says. Janki doesn’t know much about behenji except the fact that she promises a country where they are treated with ‘respect’. “My husband says so,” she adds. Sujata Dutta The 37-year-old president of BSP’s Uluberia wing, Dutta joined the party three years ago. She says that she wants to work for the Muslims and Dalits. For this very reason, she formed a committee which built a school — Ambedkar Academy — at her village Kashmul. “I have seen a lot of people from my caste dropping out of schools because of poverty. Several others found it difficult to study amid upper caste teachers and students who humiliated them,” says Dutta. “I teach students about the works of Dr Ambedkar, Dr Iqbal, Nazrul Islam, Jogendranath Mondol and others like them,” adds Dutta. Her husband is a fisherman but her 13-year-old son goes to school. “I hope that he can continue his education without any problem,” she says. Dutta wants Mayawati to become the prime minister because she wants a government that “understood” their problems. “Nobody is doing us a favour by reserving seats. They are giving us what we have been denied all these years. At least if Mayawati wins, we will be known as the rajar jaat (the king’s tribe),” sums up Dutta. Bichitra Biswas A resident of Janai in Hooghly district, sixty-year-old Biswas had seen caste discrimination from very close quarters, something she thanks God her children didn’t face. Parimal Biswas, her son, is a teacher in a government school in Bhagabatipur and is contesting the Lok Sabha elections for BSP from the Arambagh constituency. “I had lost my parents at a very young age and was brought up by my two elder brothers in North 24 Paraganas. My brothers used to work on land owned by others. It was difficult to get work on lands owned by higher castes as the owners were averse to have any physical contact with us,” she remembers. “Those were very bad times. In fact education was a distant possibility,” she adds. A mother of four sons now, she agrees that things have improved. But she believes there is a long way to go. Kajoli Biswas Once a bidi worker before her deteriorating health forced her to quit, 35-year-old Kajoli Biswas of Janai says she never had to face the trauma of being an untouchable. But she still has many problems to tackle, which has more to do with political power games, than her caste. “Our panchayat is dominated by the Trinamool Congress. If you don’t patronize the party, your family will not get work,” says Biswas. “Even when you have all the required documents, it takes ages to procure a Scheduled Caste certificate,” she adds. Several men of her family, who have been working in cold storages, mills and factories around her village for years on contractual basis, are suddenly being denied work because they don’t owe allegiance to the parties, which dominate the area, she says. Her village falls in Serampore constituency, which was won by the CPM last time. Though her family owns 12 cottahs of land and lives in a two-storey building, her husband at times work on land of others, too. “If Mayawati becomes prime minister, these problems will be taken care,” feels Biswas, whose two sons attend school. ------------------------------------ ---- INFORMATION OVERLOAD? Get all ZESTCaste mails sent out in a span of 24 hours in a single mail. Subscribe to the daily digest version by sending a blank mail to [email protected], OR, if you have a Yahoo! Id, change your settings at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/join/ PARTICIPATE:- On this list you can share caste news, discuss caste issues and network with like-minded anti-caste people from across India and the world. Just write to [email protected] TELL FRIENDS TO SIGN UP:- If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTCaste by sending a blank mail to [email protected] OR, if you have a Yahoo! 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