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Onlynbk
Desanike Pedda Bewarse
Username: Onlynbk
Post Number: 7922
Registered: 03-2004
Posted From: 59.93.50.9
| | Posted on Friday, July 08, 2005 - 11:37 am: |    |
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Sree
Vooriki Bewarse
Username: Sree
Post Number: 4826
Registered: 08-2004
Posted From: 69.134.8.77
| | Posted on Friday, July 08, 2005 - 11:28 am: | |
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Naagaraja
Pilla Bewarse
Username: Naagaraja
Post Number: 409
Registered: 06-2005
Posted From: 129.33.49.251
| | Posted on Friday, July 08, 2005 - 10:41 am: | |
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Naagaraja
Pilla Bewarse
Username: Naagaraja
Post Number: 403
Registered: 06-2005
Posted From: 129.33.49.251
| | Posted on Friday, July 08, 2005 - 10:25 am: | |
PATNA: Both of them are Dalits, both activists and both look on politics as a powerful tool of empowerment. But Bihar's two nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize have one more thing in common - America!
While one is called America, the other has named her daughter America.
Like many in rural Bihar, scores of the poorest of the poor have named their children America because it symbolises power and might and a means of fighting back the upper castes.
It is a trend that started more than three decades ago as symbolised by 35-year-old America Devi who has been nominated from Bihar for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005 for her work on empowering disadvantaged sections of society.
Nominated along with her is Tiliya Devi, who has named her daughter after the US.
Both the women are from Madhubani district, home to dozens of Americas, young and old. Socially and economically underprivileged Dalits in these impoverished parts of India like to give this name because they are aware of what the country means in the global order and the power that it conjures.
They want to prove in their villages that their daughters are no less than the children of upper caste landlords, the two activists explained.
"There are dozens of women and girls by the name of America in our villages to mark our fight against oppressive and exploitative social order," said America Devi.
She is the first America in the region and was followed by a hundred others. Her grandfather's move to name her America, even though it was a time when there was a rival superpower in the form of the erstwhile Soviet Union, created a furore in the village.
"It created tension in the village because a Dalit dared to give her granddaughter a name like a powerful landlord. My grandfather was humiliated and asked by the landlord to change my name but he ignored the order," recalled America.
The revolt of sorts by her grandfather in Sohrai village encouraged others to name their daughters likewise as a sign of their defiance against a discriminatory social order.
Tiliya, 40, was one of them. "My daughter's name is also America," said the member of the panchayat committee of Madhuban district's Lakhnaur block proudly.
The two women, among the 92 Indian women of the 1,000 nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, belong to the Musahars caste, named so because they ate rats for survival.
From Musahar to America, and all it implies, the two women have come a long way.
Both have announced that they would contest elections. But while Tiliya says she is keen to contest the next assembly and parliamentary polls, America would rather begin from the panchayat polls.
The work of these Nobel-nominated extraordinary women includes fighting against powerful landlords for land rights of the Dalits, battling social evils like alcohol and working for the empowerment of poor, particularly landless women.
Beyond their work, both are doughty fighters in their personal lives as well. Tiliya, a mother of six, was ousted forcibly by her husband a few years ago for taking up the cause of Dalits. Undeterred, she set up the Lok Shakti group and helped settle dozens of Dalits on a 13-acre land she managed to free from the clutches of landlords.
Similarly, America freed a seven-acre pond from a powerful landlord and helped fishermen regain a crucial source of livelihood.
Tiliya and America's nomination is also significant because they are illiterate, landless farm labourers unlike all the others nominated.
Anti-war activists might have a lot to say, but there is one corner of India where America signifies courage and a determinedness to battle on.
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEO200 50705043027&Page=O&Title=This+is+India&Topic=0& |
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