When we came together

By Teresa Rehman

 

Do the mahila samitis of Assam matter anymore?

 

It is difficult to imagine that an Assamese mahila samiti, a women’s association, passed a resolution to have fixed meal timings at home, in order to ease the lives of women otherwise confined to the kitchen – that too, as far back as 1948. But that is just what took place in the immediate aftermath of Independence, when the mahila samiti in Tezpur – one of several in the province at the time – passed a resolution stating:

 

Nowadays in urban areas women without domestic help hardly have time to come out as she is preoccupied with the kitchen. However to participate in cultural activities one needs some leisure time. Considering these situations, this sabha (meeting) proposes that the following timetable should be accepted in all the towns of Assam as fixed meal times – Lunch 12 noon and dinner 10 pm. No meal should be served after one hour of the proposed time.

Meal preparation was also mandated in the resolution, again with an eye to freeing up women’s time:

 

It is also proposed that four times a week, the afternoon snacks could be an uncooked one so that women have leisure time. Thirdly to reduce spending a lot of time in the kitchen, we must include one dish in every meal that ideally requires no cooking or may be 

prepared quickly.

Predictably, the Tezpur resolution raised a public storm, with letters to the editor far and wide criticising the move. Meena Agarwala, a member of the samiti at the time, kept some of these newspaper cuttings, a collection of which were recently discovered in an old cupboard by her daughter. Says Hemjyoti Medhi, assistant professor at the department of English and foreign languages at Tezpur University, ‘Maybe this resolution could not be enforced in practical terms, but what is significant is that domestic work was equated with “labour” and this was a sweeping idea in Assam during that period.’

The first mahila samiti was established in Dibrugarh in 1915. These groups were formed as local associations in Assam’s urban centres and particularly picked up momentum during the 1920s. Ever since, the samiti movement has played a seminal role in women’s political mobilisation, in both colonial and postcolonial Assam. Medhi explains that although there were several mahila samitis active in the first and second decade of the 20th century in Assam, these were for the most part local organisations confined to discussions on education, culture and music among the elite bhadramahilas (‘respectable women’). The crucial break came in 1926 with the establishment of the Assam Mahila Samiti (AMS), and Chandraprabha Saikiani as its founding secretary. The stated objective of this larger group was ‘overall development of education, health and so on of the Assamese woman’.

One of the main objectives was to ‘rescue and rehabilitate widows, exploited, and socially outcast women and kidnapped girls’, with Saikiani herself the mother of a child born out of wedlock at the time, facing social ostracism. Taking up this and similarly controversial issues, the AMS’s actions led its members to court controversy on a regular basis. In 1934, for instance, the group intervened in the proposed marriage of a young girl to an older man in Guwahati. Given that this was five years after the passage of the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929, Samiti Secretary Rajabala Das issued a legal notice to the groom. This led to a massive public outcry, finally leading members of the local Congress party to get involved; ultimately, they were able to force the AMS to withdraw its notification. Even so, the group immediately formed a committee to mobilise people against child marriages, earning it the nickname of ‘biya bhanga’ (marriage-banning) samiti.

During the early years of the AMS, the large-scale mobilisation of women, including establishing some 200 primary-health units in villages, coincided with the Indian national movement. Mohandas K Gandhi’s call for khadi was immediately appropriated by the women of the AMS as a positive role in which women could contribute to the making of the new country. This renewed investment in spinning, weaving and handloom work brought a sense of dignity to the women of Assam and, ultimately, to women all over India.

Peripheral

Despite a strong start, the mahila samitis of Assam are generally thought to have deteriorated in importance over the past half-century. Today, some suggest that the NGO culture has changed the way that the samitis function. During the freedom struggle of the 1940s, for instance, there was a common bond of sisterhood and a holistic vision – a unity that might no longer exist. While there has also been a growth of small local-level mahila samitis, in reality these seem to function more like recreation clubs that organise social gatherings – a far cry from the politicised actions of past decades. For the most part, the movement is dominated by a few large NGO-like samitis.

‘The mahila samiti movement is practically non-existent now,’ says Aparna Mahanta, an academic at Dibrugarh University. ‘Earlier, it was voluntary social service by women from affluent backgrounds – it was a small sector with limited grants.’ The situation changed after the plans for women’s development were incorporated in the national-level five-yearly development plans, during the early 1950s. Whereas previously the samitis’ activities were planned by untrained women in their leisure time, the sector is now dominated by trained professionals working within NGOs.

In functioning like NGOs, today’s large samitis tend to take on projects from national and international organisations, following agendas set by the donors and not necessarily taking up issues of importance to local women. Although earlier the women’s groups did engage in some government-funded work, this was undertaken based on donations and voluntary work. Today, most women in the samitis have become professionals, engaging in this work as their living, and thus the organisations can no longer survive simply on donations. Also, notes Medhi, ‘Earlier, though they might not have had professional training, the women had different levels of exposure. For instance, Chandraprabha Saikiani went for the Indian National Congress conference in Karachi during the early 1930s.’ Her travels from the east of the Subcontinent across to the West would have opened doors to a completely different world.

Veterans of the samiti movement say that the earlier approach remains relevant today. ‘With changing times, we have new emerging problems like trafficking of women, climate refugees, etc,’ says Joylakshmi Bora of the Assam Pradeshik Mahila Samiti. ‘Here, the government departments should try to rope in the expertise of the mahila samitis. We still command an appeal in the remote villages and the government should cash in on this. However, we need the support of the authorities to carry on our activities.’ In an earlier time, it would have been the mahila samitis that might have intervened in the turmoil that characterises present-day Assam. The insurgency and the continuing violence demands interventions in the shape of conflict resolution and mediation, but the mahila samitis of today might not be equal to the task.

As Assam’s mahila samitis have become increasingly peripheral to women’s lives, a group of Assamese women have started a project called ‘Memory, Movement and the Mahila Samiti in Assam’. As part of the project, a show recently opened at Tezpur University, where a range of memorabilia was on display, including newspaper cuttings and the 1948 ‘lunch’ resolution. The first phase of the project involved intense collaboration between the project team and the mahila samitis to collect and select documents to be digitally preserved. ‘Though many documents have been lost permanently, preliminary research led me to interesting documents scattered across various private collections and public archives in India,’ says Medhi, one of the project’s coordinators.

The work was inspired by the fact that many women involved in the samitis during their formative days are now elderly or have already passed away. Medhi recalls Swarnaprabha Mahanta, a mahila samiti worker, Congress leader and erstwhile minister, who died while the project was coming together. ‘I was first inspired by her life fading before my very eyes to record women’s memory,’ Medhi says. ‘We recorded an interview with her in a great hurry with hired marriage-video professionals from town, as she was leaving for Kolkata for treatment. The video quality is bad but her voice remains with us – she died a few months after our recording.’

Before the project, only a single historical overview of the movement was available, in the form of a slim volume written in 1961 by the founding secretary of the AMS, Chandraprabha Saikiani. The project is now trying to address that gap, by developing an archive of material of the mahila samiti for future research and inspiration. When the digital version of the audio-visual archive was formally handed over to representatives of the mahila samitis, Tezpur University Vice-chancellor Mihir Kanti Chaudhuri noted, ‘In order to understand the present-day problems of women, it is imperative to go back to the past when the women felt the need to come together.’
~
Teresa Rehman is a journalist and media consultant based in Northeast India.

 

 

Media Entrepreneur Loves Tracking non-resident Indians


Every year, thousands of Indians leave the country to re-locate in foreign lands. What is their motivation? How do they cope with the change? How do women in particular deal with the move and is it really as glamorous as it appears?

Young Bobbeeta Sarma was always curious to know how the large non resident Indian (NRI) community, especially women, made a life for themselves on foreign shores. But it wasn’t until one of her travels abroad a few years ago that this media entrepreneur and former ‘beauty queen’ from Assam finally got down to shooting a series of audio-visual travelogues. To start her project, she chose the most obvious subjects - NRIs from her home state. She did that because she wanted to take the world to the drawing rooms of Assamese people, many of whom harboured the dream of travelling abroad.

A trip to Toronto, Canada, to shoot a programme for the Assam Association in 2001 led to the series that Sarma called, Bidexot Apun Manuh or Loved Ones in a Foreign Land. For shooting the vignettes she teamed up with her TV producer husband, Chinmoy, and a colleague, Manas Adhikari. “We were a three-member team. Hiring technicians abroad is expensive so we did everything ourselves – right from research to make-up to sound and camera. It was like an adventure,” she recalls.

They short-listed a few families and flew around the world from time-to-time to record the interviews. From the United States and the UK to France, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium and Switzerland in Europe, to South East Asia and the Pacific, Sarma met up women and men from diverse backgrounds and interviewed them in various settings. She wanted the interactions to be candid so the team shot in kitchens, dining rooms, living rooms, in parks and, on one occasion, even in a moving car. “We stayed with the people whom we wanted to feature in order to be able to provide an insight into their lives,” she says.

It was while living in their homes that Sarma discovered that life for expats is far from easy. And yet all of them have one thing in common – they are resilient and quick learners. The first thing most do – women in particular – in a new place is to learn how to drive. “If you cannot move around on your own, you are stranded and isolated, especially in countries like the US where public transport is almost non-existent except in the big cities,” says Sarma. Many also become efficient housekeepers, expertly using gadgets like the dishwasher, lawn mower and vacuum cleaner. “There are no maids at one’s beck and call in the West, although many people do get in help once or twice a week to help in the housecleaning, if they can afford it.”

Battling extreme weather conditions is another challenge. Living in cold climes particularly has a negative psychological effect on some. “I met a woman from North England who lived by the sea and she would pine for sunshine. When the grey spells would stretch for weeks together, she would become increasingly depressed,” Sarma relates. But what people miss the most is the comfort of a large family. “They feel terrible when often they are unable to make it back home during crucial times - like an illness or death in the family,” adds Sarma.

Yet, despite all these difficulties, most of them have done well for themselves. Some have achieved super success in their careers, while others are doing their bit, albeit in more modest ways. Sarma caught up with the UK-based TV host of Mridula’s Kitchen, Mridula Bajlekar. Although she is not a trained cookery expert, Bajlekar had a passion for cooking which she developed into a rewarding career. Besides the show, she has also written several books on Indian food. Another success story from Britain that Sarma has featured is Rita Payne, an Assamese woman who became the news editor of BBC’s Asia Today programme.

But while everyone has not achieved Bajlekar’s or Payne’s level of fame, there are those who are part of pioneering ventures, inspired by their roots. Like Arunachal Pradesh native Phool Pau and her husband, Wooli, who have collaborated to run a firm, Bambootech, in Nuremberg, Germany. They design eco-homes which are creating quite a stir. The idea struck Wooli when he visited Phool Pau’s family home in Arunachal. He was fascinated by the fact that the house was built on bamboo silts (chang-ghar). Inspired by these environment friendly houses, he invented a technique through which he scientifically treated and designed the bamboo in such way that the structures they create are even stronger than traditional ones.

While Sarma, a former history student who has also worked as a child actor in films and regional language soaps, went about meeting different women across the globe and learning about their lives, she also talked to them about local lifestyles. “We talked about urban sanitation, civic amenities, and so on. They also pointed to the professionalism of the work culture there.” Making this series has been enriching at two very different levels for Sarma. First, it was a challenge to film with such a small team, but they had a great time despite the rough patches. “We were on our toes most of the time, planning much in advance according to a pre-determined time table. But despite our best efforts, there were times when things went awry. We would, for instance, miss a train by seconds, largely because of all the paraphernalia - including the camera and tripod – that the three of us would have to lug around. It used to get real tough at times.”

The second benefit was an opportunity to get to know the expats from her state, many of whom have tried to keep close ties with their roots. Assamese settled abroad are largely professionals – doctors, engineers and software professionals. “We do not have rich businessmen who could invest and contribute to the development of our state, like Gujarat or Punjab. But they can contribute with their experience and technical expertise,” she says.

She particularly enjoyed her interactions with the emerging second generation of Assamese. Many countries have a multicultural population, so while these young people have grown up in a westernized environment, they are still interested in learning traditional folk dances and songs. Sarma recalls meeting Harvard student Rima Rajbonshi who has taught Bihu (an Assamese folk dance) to her batch mates - mostly Chinese and American - although she has herself never seen a real Bihu performance.

Today, Bidexot Apun Manuh has become every Assamese’s window to the world, thanks to the national broadcaster, Doordarshan, beaming it across the state as a series for seven years running. “I wanted to show this travelogue on TV and in 2001 Doordarshan came forward. This way the programme was able to reach out to even those who live in the interiors of the State,” she says.

Sarma is always delighted when strangers – not only in towns but villages –walk up to her and talk about the show. She smiles as she recalls an occasion when an old woman came up, hugged me and thanked me for having brought the world closer to her. “That’s my reward,” she says.

By Teresa Rehman

(Women’s Feature Service)