A woman's quest: How Disha gave Shekhawati women a new direction

One woman's quest for meaning and self-reliance is bringing hope and confidence to many others, writes Anjuli Bhargava

A bleak and harsh environment is part and parcel of life for anyone born in Rajasthan’s Shekhawati region. Temperatures soar in summer and drop in winter with gay abandon. Strong winds often fill your eyes with desert sand, leading inevitably to tears.

But what makes life harder for many women in the region is this: very few men are gainfully employed, choosing to live off their land and inheritance for as long as possible. Even when they have the land, many don’t farm much. In the wake of this joblessness, their main occupation becomes drinking on a daily basis — be it day or night. Illegal thekas abound. Farm work and daily household chores are primarily managed only by the women.

Then, when the family runs out of money, men often leave for the Gulf to find work, leaving the women and children behind. While this is not a formal separation, in effect it works out as one. Women live alone and a majority of children grow up fatherless. Since divorce is frowned upon, women remain in marriages that have actually ceased to exist. Many men start living with other women while out of the country and often father their children.

Amrita Chaudhury’s own story is not too different from this. Born in 1982 in a tiny village called Pacharu ki dhani in Sikar district in a farmer’s family,  Chaudhury was sent off to study and stay in a hostel at a fairly good girls school in a village nearby. The young girl enjoyed academics and performed well.
 

But when a good match and opportunity presented itself, her parents married her off when she was in Class 10, at the age of 14 to a 16-year-old boy from Churu district. Her in-laws started putting pressure on her to be at their house with her husband during her holidays. When she was to appear for her Class 12 examinations, she found herself pregnant with her first child —  a boy — and had to drop out.

After two years,  Chaudhury found herself pregnant yet again with twin girls. This didn’t go down too well with her in-laws who started taunting her for having produced two girls (only one survived though). An aunt of hers who was working with Urmul, an NGO working in the field of health and education in the region, got her a job with them in Bikaner. Chaudhury worked there for eight years, commuting up and down while her husband lived in the village. Her two children stayed with her mother. While working, she also did her bachelor degree in arts.

In 2006 — like many men in the village — her husband left for the Gulf to eke out a living. In 2008, Urmul went through its own problems and  Chaudhury left the job along with many of her colleagues. She and a few of her colleagues who had left Urmul on not the best terms decided that they would set up something bigger and better than Urmul — an institution that could help resolve some of the endemic problems faced in the region. 

After leaving her job, Chaudhury went back to live in her marital home but discord with her in-laws continued. So in 2008, she decided to put her children in a boarding school and took up a job with Piramal Healthcare in a tele-medicine project in the Shekhawati region starting with a salary of Rs 8,500 that rose to Rs 12,000 as she learnt the ropes. She was able to support herself and her two children on her own income. Her husband also supported her, although financially she didn’t need his support. At the same time, she and her husband noticed that her father-in-law had started to selling family land, spending the money on gambling, betting and the good life. Land that her husband and she felt legitimately belonged to them and their children. She and her husband put a stay on the sale of land, adding to the wrath of her in-laws. 

Despite the fact that her own personal problems showed no signs of abating,  Chaudhury did not lose sight of her goal. Disha was born in 2008 but it didn’t have a sharp purpose or direction at the start.  Chaudhury had noticed that a lot of the families had seen their men leaving for the Gulf region and the wives often led pretty wretched lives, facing poverty, loneliness and harassment from in-laws. Many times the women were abandoned. She realised that many families broke up because   there was no one to counsel them  or women continued in unhappy and, at times, abusive situations as they didn’t know how to get out of them. She wanted to give unbiased advise to the two parties and bring them together through counselling. And in cases where there was no solution, the NGO would support the women through advocacy. “I didn’t want these women to feel alone or isolated in any way,” says  Chaudhury.

But she realised that to actually help them out of their problems she needed to find them some livelihood. A lot of women in the area were good with their hands; stitching, sewing and working with fabrics. She and her colleagues came to Delhi, approached Dastkar, which works with craftspeople across India, and managed to get some orders.

Success didn’t come easy. New to urban markets, the women couldn’t fully understand colour, design and tastes and the first few years were tough for Disha, which initially took loans to meet the orders and struggled to pay them back. After four years of struggling and with the help of Laila Tyabji who took interest herself, Chaudhury and her organisation started to make some money. Every year, it almost doubled its turnover. And in 2017-18, the organisation was supporting 400 women — some earned up to Rs 10,000 a month — and its turnover reached Rs 10 million. Chaudhury and her colleagues who worked with no salary have started taking a small salary for the last four years. Chaudhury says that while the advocacy work has taken a slight backseat due to the increased focus on earnings, the fact that many women have tasted financial independence for the first time has helped them gain confidence to tackle their personal problems with a new gusto. Earlier, the women were often pushed around by the police and local authorities — they would not agree to meet them or register an First Information Report (FIR). Now, with the backing of Disha, the entire attitude of the bureaucracy has altered. “FIRs are registered in record time”, says Chaudhury.

Tyabji and her organisation Dastkar which helped Chaudhury find her feet says that when she first visited the Shekhawati region she found the only source of employment for most of these women was breaking stones all day in unbearable temperatures for road construction projects. Now, they have started working on Bandhini, tye and dye and their latest Shibori range of textiles is much the rage in urban areas. 

“There has been a remarkable change in Amrita herself”, adds Tyabji. Practically a mini-celebrity in the area, an acknowledgment of her contribution to society, Chaudhury’s daughter pays a reduced fee at her school. Chaudhury drives, works, manages her own life (her husband and she have in effect separated) and she seeks no help from anyone. She works incessantly to help women in her district find purpose and direction and leads by example. A woman in charge of her own destiny.