A new conversation on Prajnya’s Peace Blog

Will women, working together for environmental sanity, create conditions for peacebuilding in South Asia? The Peace Blog opens a debate. Take a look and join in!

Awed and Humbled: The First LifeStories Interview

Awed and Humbled

~Uma Vangal~

It was a pleasant Saturday and Swarna and I were doing a prelim interview of Vasantha ‘Perimma,’ our first woman in public life for the OHP of the PSW Initiative.

As I listened to her talk about Gandhi, Nehru, Annie Besant and Sarojini Naidu, I could almost imagine I was there listening to them speak. Mrs. Vasantha Ramakrishnan slowly went back in time to recall her memories, and I realized that we were in the presence of a historian, albeit an untrained one. As such her memories were intensely personal yet reflective of her times.

And on Tuesday, as my crew of 3 women began recording her interview for posterity, we were awed by her enormous contributions. We felt, as my AD put it, “We have achieved nothing in our lives when compared to her rich life.” And my camerawoman was so engrossed that at times we were unsure if she was filming or just listening in rapture. As for me, it was a humbling experience. Here was this wonderful lady, so animated, so dignified and so willing to sit patiently through two days of talking with us. A stretch of nearly 4 hours can put a strain on anyone and for someone at her age – it must have been quite tedious. But she never flagged, sitting upright energetically sharing her thoughts on a wide ranging array of subjects from non-violence to female foeticide. Her activities in as a child in Rangoon, her migrant experience, Emergency—were all narrated in an unassuming manner as also her participation in the Seva Dal, Bharat Scouts, Quit India and down the years to the present. Her reminiscences were so vivid that we were entranced. And what zest and penchant for detail.

She read enthusiastically from her vast collection of writings on diverse issues – Deepavali to rural items to domestic abuse. And as we reached the last few minutes to record the pictures and archival material we stumbled on some photographs of her saluting the flag and leading the march past on the historic occasion of India’s independence- Swarna and I felt a rush of excitement. What a gold mine we had stumbled upon! (To look at more photos, visit http://www.prajnyaarchives.org)

And when we wound up we felt truly humbled at her ready acceptance of all of into her family fold – and the picture we took with her will be a cherished one for the blog and for each of us, the whole experience was one to be cherished.

For us, it was long held dream come true to begin this oral history project. And the first one only whetted our appetite. To many more such wonderful memories as we continue with this effort!

LifeStories: First session!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above: Our first LifeStories meeting!

Below: Preparations for our visit

 

New beginning: LifeStories Project begins work

Quietly, in the shadow of the Prajnya 16 Days Campaign against Gender Violence, we began to work yesterday on the Prajnya Resource Centre on Women in Politics and Policy’s LifeStories Project.

The project comprises long, recorded interviews with women who have been involved in political movements, politics or policy work. They will be asked about their life, their experiences, their views and the changes they have witnessed.

Our first LifeStory documents the experiences and perspectives of Vasantha Ramakrishnan.

On Saturday, October 31, 2009, we visited Vasantha to brief her and get her consent for the interviews. We also used this opportunity to gather biographical detail which we will use towards our preparation for the recorded interviews. The recordings will take place over 2-3 sessions. We plan to store the raw footage, transcribe it and make it available to serious researchers. We also hope that during our visits we can gather photographs for our Visual Archive.

We are really excited to be finally doing this. LifeStories is one of our dream projects, and while we still don’t have any funding for it, we are getting started using our personal resources because we cannot wait any more. If you can think of people who should be featured in this project; if you have photographs that should be archived; if you can think of organizations that might fund this project… do get in touch and let us know!

Our excitement was not one-sided. Vasantha also had papers and photographs out and ready to share with us!

Put to sleep: Report on Female Foeticide in TN

From The New Indian Express, 19 October 2009, by Zubeda Hamid, a Friend of Prajnya: on the current status of female foeticide and infanticide in Madurai and adjoining districts in Tamil Nadu.

Put to sleep

For close to two decades, Madurai has been in the spotlight for the practices of female infanticide, and, more recently, female foeticide. With the constant media probing and pressure from various government wings and non-governmental organisations, villagers in the district are now hostile on the subject. “We don’t know anything; haven’t seen anything; and for all intents and purposes, it does not happen,” is the parroted line you get when form the villagers.

A look at the figures though, is disturbing. The ideal sex ratio is 952 female births to every 1,000 male ones. In the past eight years, the figure for the district (rural) has ranged from 878 in 2001 to 923 in 2006, both far below normal.

Infant deaths too seem biased on the side of females. In 2001, the district saw 678 female infant deaths while the figure for males was 570.

Though the numbers have dropped over the years, female infant deaths remain higher than those of males.

In 2006, there were 403 female infant deaths and 374 male ones.

“The statistics themselves show that there are fewer female babies than male ones. Even taking into account the usual infant deaths, the figures are below average,’’ says M Jeeva, a State committee member of the Campaign Against Sex Related Abortion.

Figures from the Deputy Director Health Services, however, show that the sex ratio at birth for the district (rural) was 962 in 2007-08 and 969 in 2008-09.

This indicates that the district does not have an infanticide/foeticide problem at all. And yet, seven months ago, there was a report of a woman who had killed and buried her baby daughter in Usilampatti.

The trend, says Jeeva, has shifted from infanticide to foeticide in the last decade, at least in the more urban parts of the district. “Infanticide still exists in some villages but it is much lesser than it was 20 years ago and far more hidden.

With the burgeoning of scan centres across the district, abortion after detecting the sex of the baby is the current practice. There is nothing to stop a couple from determining the sex of the baby at an unscrupulous clinic and then having it aborted privately,’’ he says.

Sex determination is forbidden under the Pre-conception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act 2002.

The district has 196 registered ultrasound clinics.

All of the registered clinics are supposed to submit monthly reports to the health authorities.

In 2007-08, the number of clinics submitting reports began at 90 and did not exceed 125.

Father Antony Samy is the director of the Claretian Mercy Home in Azhagusirai, a village about 25 km from Madurai. The home takes in babies left behind in the cradle baby scheme as well as other abandoned or surrendered babies. Of the 30 babies they have at present, only five are boys, two of whom are handicapped.

According to Fr. Anthony, foeticide has not yet penetrated to the villages. “Even to get to a primary health centre, villagers in Azhagusirai have to travel around 12 km. They neither know about scanning nor can they afford it,’’ he says.

Infanticide, according to him, has gone down considerably but still exists in some pockets. “Two decades ago when we first started work here they would kill even the first female baby. Now they accept the first two female infants but do not want a third,’’ he claims. The practice, according to him, was prevalent amongst the Kallar community, who are primarily agricultural labourers. “It is not so much a desire to do away with females as an ove r – whelming desire to give birth to a male. A male equates both not having to give dowry and receiving dowry when he gets married, which, as these families are joint, is a source of income,’’ he said.

Where mother turns monster

Lush green paddy fields and the quaint streams gushing alongside make the rural pockets of Theni district a blessed landscape. But the scourge of female infanticide continues in these areas. With the civilized world outside having forgotten all about it after an initial uproar, when the practice came under media scanner long a g o, many baby girls do not get to live for more than three days here.

Prevalent in Changalpatti, Dhadicherry and Varthanadu blocks , the baby girls are given the death sentence by the father or any other patriarch with the mother or grandmother executing it rather silently. In many households of the local caste Hindu community, bringing up a girl is still seen as a burden.

The milky sap of Calotropis plant comes handy for the women, who smear it on the lips of the infant or apply it on the breasts of the feeding mother.

That, however, happens to girls whose mothers and grandmothers are kindhearted. The alternative method is to fill the mouth of the infant with coarse paddy grains and let the child choke to death.

After the death, they bury the baby under their makeshift washroom sheds and cover it with a huge stone slabs on which they wash clothes.

Once the deed is done, some women members go into mourning too. Besides crying for the dead, they go through the rites like having a bath and partaking a feast of country chicken curry and Mutton fry. Thangamma (name changed). a woman married at 18 and is now 31, has killed six of her daughters and says: “I don’t want the girl to suffer like me, it is better she goes early like this than live to suffer.” Another 29-year-old woman, who killed her third daughter, says, “This is a day’s trouble. If she lives, it is a lifetime of trouble.” Nagarajan(37) says, “ This our traditional training, we are used to it.” M Jeeva from Development Organisation for Women, who has been fighting against female infanticide for over 15 years says: “The main reason for this practice is that women in this community do not have any dignity. Dowry and the attended expenses on ‘sirru’ that the girl’s parents have to bear during marriage prompt them to indulge in this practice.”

Cradle Baby Scheme brings new hope

In Uthankarai block of Krishnagiri district, quarry workers think that sending their baby girls straight to God is better than giving them for adoption. The women, for whom, apart from arduous physical labour, sexual abuse is also part of their life, do not want their daughters to go through the same problems they face in their daily lives.

In Reddipetti and Chenappanayakanur village in Uthankarai, female literacy rate is only 20 per cent. Also, the school drop out rate among females in this area is very high.

Karunamurthy of Help for Education and Learning project, an NGO, has been working among the women in Uthankarai for some time now. “The male-female sex ratio is dropping here. A study undertaken by Campaign Against Sex-selection Abortion (CASA) in Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri districts in 2005 has found that there were only 826 females per 1,000 males,” he says.

In other parts of Krishnagiri district, female infanticide is common among caste Hindus.

Kesavaraj from the Association for Rural and Community Development says, “ Things here have improved now. Some 15 years the situation was very different. The Cradle Baby Scheme has brought in this change. Still, the mindset that a girl child is a burden to the family prevails here. They generally allow the first two children to survive. But if the third child is also a girl, she will not be allowed to survive, instead will be put to sleep.” The reason cited for such practices are dowry. Apart from the traditional demands for various things, a motorbike for the groom is a new phenomenon in this locality.

Even educated town dwellers indulge in it here

Dharmapuri district, with its unique problems of prolonged drought, migrant labour and domestic violence, also has a tradition of female infanticide, according to the studies done by Development, Education and Environment Protection Society (DEEPS), a non-governmental organisation (NGO).

The blocks where the practice of female infanticide still exists are Thenakaram, Nallampalli, Karimangalam and Thalakodu.

Shankar from DEEPS says, “ Dowry is one major cause”.

He says that some people who had come and settled down here from Salem district in the past 15 years have made a unbecoming influence on the local population, whose members are now vying with them in giving more dowry, thus raising the bar.

“This practice is not confined only to the rural parts. Even the educated living in the town quietly indulge in this practice,” observe Shankar of DEEPS.

According to 2001 census in Dharmapuri, the female-male sex ration is 887 females to 1,000 males in below 6 years category.

In the region known for temporary migration, it is common for pregnant women to leave for work elsewhere and come back without the child. Though they cite fever and other illness for the child’s death, most of them are cases of female infanticide.

Engendering History: Roundtable featuring Dr. S. Anandhi

The July 11th edition of our Women’s History Roundtable Series featured Dr. S. Anandhi from the Madras Institute of Development Studies. The title of her talk was ‘Engendering History: Experiences of Writing Nonbrahmin Women’s History.’

 

Dr. Anandhi’s presentation was absorbing and thought-provoking. It served as a wonderful, brief introduction to historiography and the various debates and perspectives that have shaped it over time. Yet, it was not pedantic or jargon-loaded and we were all able to follow along easily.

Anandhi said even archives were now far more democratic in what they included. She introduced us to the evolution of ‘oral history’ as a practice and its emergence as an important historical source. She pointed out that conventional history does not bypass archives as its primary source.

The question of people’s agency is a core one that has prompted this exploration of new tools, borrowed from elsewhere. Historians relied on archives which maintained official documents, but they do not map individual or community agency. For that, oral history and life-stories are the main resource. Historians have to figure out how to use them, how to find a teleological narrative in stories that may not be recalled in a linear fashion. Moreover, life-stories tend to be located in the domestic sphere, which while important, may not offer much help in terms of making a connection to public events.

She pointed out from her own research experience that women’s experiences–private and public, good and bad–did find a place in some old newspapers but not in others. Literature, diaries and newspaper contributions were alternative resources she used.

In the course of her talk, Anandhi mentioned work by a number of leading historians, expanding Prajnya’s reading list manifold. (FYI: We maintain an Amazon wishlist dedicated to this Initiative, and if you are a resident Indian citizen, you can make a contribution to our library!) 

The discussion centered around the limits of oral history and interdisciplinarity. How can you use oral history for periods where nobody is alive any more? How can oral history fill in all perspectives? We also pondered the balance between borrowing tools from other disciplines and adopting a vague research design that met no discipline’s rigourous standards. Anandhi stressed the importance of casting the research question, based on disciplinary knowledge and from within the interests of a discipline.

This was an excellent presentation and the post here does not begin to do it justice. The talk was so interesting, our notes are sketchy! We hope that Dr. Anandhi will find Prajnya’s projects interesting enough to take a leading role in shaping them and holding their outcomes to the highest professional standards.

A small graduation ceremony

Prajnya’s had a lucky summer for finding enthusiastic young team-members.

Earlier in the summer, two Anna University students got in touch with us, seeking internships for one month. S. Swarnalakshmi and M.D. Maheswari completed every task we gave them promptly and thoroughly, to our great delight. We have actually been unable to keep pace with them, and one of their projects a compendium of Tamil Nadu women representatives at different administrative levels, remains to be formatted into a ready reckoner. We are delighted that in spite of our delays, they want to still be involved with our work.

We held a small ‘graduation’ celebration for them at our usual meeting-place, the cafe at Crossword Bookstore, and here are some photographs.

We also want to take this opportunity to recognize Hamsini Ravi’s research assistance on a small review of ‘girl child’ related campaigns in India and Ragini Rangarajan’s work (evident in this blog) on new women MPs and surveying Chennai history departments. We hope to continue to work with them as well, although both study outside Chennai.

Press clipping: Roundtable Session 3

New Indian Express, Chennai, June 16, 2009, Expresso, page 2

Pleasures and Perils of Intimate Ethnography: Women’s History Roundtable 3

Dr. MD Muthukumaraswamy of the National Folklore Support Centre, Chennai, was the third speaker in Prajnya PSW’s Women’s History Roundtable Series on June 13, 2009. The title of his talk ‘Collecting Personal Narratives: Pleasures and Perils of Intimate Ethnography’ presaged a very interesting presentation.

M.D.Muthukumaraswamy is the founder director of National Folklore Support Centre since 1997. He holds a double masters in English Literature and Philosophy. His PhD (1996) is on “Semiotic Analysis of Bharathakoothu Performances: A study in Theatrical Communication”. He is currently pursuing D.Philos in University of Oslo on “Social Imaginaries of  Divine: Selves, Spaces and Simulation in Kanchipuram.”  He was an Assistant Professor of Folklore 19987 to 1994,  and Folklore Consultant for the Ford Foundation’s New Delhi office 1994 to 1997. His publications include works in Tamil and English.

Dr. Muthukumaraswamy started by saying that following the classification of Tamil Sangam literature, he likes to classify narratives into ‘Agam’ and ‘Puram,’ broadly signifying personal/private/inner sphere and public/outer sphere respectively. Women’s narratives fall into the first category for the most part, in his view. Discourses about ethnography were largely discourses about ethics and ethics is about aesthetics and philosophy,  he posited as a preface to his talk, which explored the ethical, methodological and personal challenges of conducting ethnographic research.

Drawing on his field research experiences, Dr. Muthukumaraswamy underscored the importance of the researcher bringing something to the table as a way of building confidence with those whose lives are the subject of research.  If the researcher does not share something, the research respondent/informant is unlikely to do so. Once there is trust, there is a second dilemma for the researcher: how much of the narrative shared may be shared with the outside world which is the researcher’s own target audience? In his research, Dr. Muthukumaraswamy has come to depend on gathering several narratives to study the content and meaning of the common elements of the narrative structures rather than the content of individual narratives.

Descriptions of actual research decision-making, processes and conversations were very illuminating.

The discussion drew the speaker out on other issues: how to build confidence? what did he actually do while recording conversations? how are informants prepared for the end-use of the information they share? how to balance the importance given to transparency with regard to the researcher’s own background and process and the need to keep the subject in question front and centre? how to ‘give back’ to the community being researched?

The third Roundtable was held on the day after Lakshmi Krishnamurti passed away. We had always intended to start our Oral History work with her. But that is not to be and it serves to remind us not to dilly-dally over this work, waiting for the perfect funding and the perfect moment. Lakshmi Krishnamurti, social activist and freedom-fighter, RIP and thank you for the difference you made to India.

Women MPs in 15th Lok Sabha: Profiles by Prajnya PSW

Ragini Rangarajan, a Prajnya volunteer, has prepared profiles of the 58 women who have been elected to the 15th Lok Sabha in May 2009. The profiles include basic biographical and contact information, as well as a little bit about the interests and accomplishments of these women. Links to other information are included, and we invite you to submit new links and other information through the comments section.