Womanhood is the most beautiful thing that can happen to any girl. It is a phase in which she blossoms into a mature and a confident individual. Womanhood turns a girl into a lady. It is the cruellest punishment for a girl to deny her womanhood and turn her into a sex slave by calling her the
servant of God-the Devadasi. A young girl is picked out either through lineage
or through her dancing skills or more blindly through her physical appearance
to become a devadasi. In the absence of a perceivable God, the mighty men assume
that stature. And that young girl becomes the servant of those few men.
James Hastings and Clarke Edinburg in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics,
point out that the most heinous of slavery is the sexual slavery in guise of religious freedom. In the name of God, these women tend to brutal men and their desires, who twist the
rules of the system at their will. Largely prevalent in the peninsular region of
India, the system is a blot on Hinduism as it originated out of it. It stands
as a perfect example of the misinterpretation of religion. The Karnataka state which had the highest number of devadasis in the
1980’s banned the system as a punishable offence in 1982. The state of Andhra Pradesh followed in
1986. According to the latest National Commission for Women (NCW) report there
are 22,944 Devadasis identified in Karnataka alone, even after 30 years of
implementing the ban on the system. It was Mallamma Yalawar who stood against
the system through her organisation Sabala (which means to empower), at an age
when most of her peers preferred watching cinema or spending time in the park.
She was 24 when she started.
The draconian system and its origin:
The earliest reference to Devadasi system is found in
Kalidasa’s Meghadootam. Mainly associated with singing, dancing and maintaining
the temple chores, the Devadasis came to be exploited after the Muslim invaders
from the north western borders destroyed the temple culture. Down south, the
Cholas encouraged the system of Devadasis. Over a period of time, it grew and
the local village headman was in charge instead of the King. He utilised the
system for his personal needs and the status quo stuck. The poor woman in the
village who having been denied educational and financial independence since
ages never really got to understand the change in stance. Traditionally men
always enjoyed upper strata in society who denied women their due and nobody
bothered about the imperfect system. But nature throws up people of grit, to
fight and change things which are imperfect.
Fresh from her start of Sabala, Mallamma was looking for
women’s causes that she can relate to and can give her best. There were many
areas in which women were neglected and had to be empowered. The devadasi
system was the cruellest and it got her immediate attention. She decided to
work for it. The district of Bijapur in the northern part of Karnataka was
identified to be one of the worst affected districts that had large uneducated
women practising the illegal system. She chose Indi taluqa (Block
headquarters). The women had psychologically accepted the practice and their
destiny when she first met them. She did not have a big team, nor did she
appear like a government officer. That made the women highly suspicious of her.
It was 1988 and her first visit to a Devadasi home did not yield much result.
But fighters don’t lose in the first round.
She went back to study the real problems that were affecting
the devadasi women other than their physical abuse. She learnt that the case of
physical abuse was not very strong because by now the devadasis had started
charging money for sex, which made the rich men less guilty. A thorough study
of the devadasis brought the real horrifying problem to the fore. The children
of the devadasis most often get abandoned by their mothers mainly due to the
guilt of not knowing who their father is. And due to the utter poverty that
they lead their lives in, they could not afford a child to up-bring These children most often
have low self esteem, view the society as their enemy and take to anti social
activities. This problem seemed larger than the original one. Mallamma was in
need of a team who could help her in the execution of her plans. Not many
people were willing to work for such a cause. Most of the women in the devadasi
community were from the scheduled castes. This made other women to step back
since it was viewed as a sin to talk or engage with a person below ones caste.
Fortunately a lady from Ranebennur (a town in Haveri district of Karnataka), named Savita joined her and they decided to
take the problem head on.
The brave work through fear and tread through difficulties
To gain initial acceptance, Mallamma and Savita first helped the women with
money that they could use for medicines and their daily needs. They began
making more field trips and convincing women that they deserve a better life
and have a better future. That hardly convinced them since being a devadasi
provided them a market to sell their bodies and earn money. That was the only
means to life they knew and could understand. Sensing a dead end here, Mallamma
and Savita worked on integrating the devadasi children who were treated below
par and were neglected. They engaged with the children aged 10-15. The girls
went back to their mother’s profession either by choice or by force. The boys
did menial jobs and got addicted to drugs and alcohol. On interacting with
them, a startling truth, having gone ignored all these years was exposed. The
children had to drop out of school for not having their father’s names clearly
known. A child had to register its father’s name during admission.
If there was no clarity on father’s name, most schools even the ones which were
state run refused admission. Their mothers simply could not tell their children
who their father is, with certainty.
Mallamma was dumbstruck at the rule of law. The father's name shouldn't become an impediment in the child's education, she thought. To get the mother’s name included in the
admission forms for schools, she did a massive state level campaign and
approached a dozen other organisations working in the same field to get ideas.
She took it up till the state secretariat (the Vidhana Soudha) in Karnataka.
Finally after years of struggle she created a consortium of NGOs and submitted
a memorandum to the then women and child development minister of Karnataka
Smt. Leeladevi Prasad. The minister responded to the call quickly and got state
cabinet approval for having to include the mother’s name in the school
admission forms. That was a massive success for her efforts.
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| A group of Devadasi women at a SHG session Picture courtesy: Google Images. |
The introduction of the mother’s name in admission forms gave a huge boost in the enrolment of Devadasi children in elementary schools. Sabala encouraged the Devadasis to file their first customer’s name as the father’s name for their children. This awareness made them more potent in facing threats by the local muscle men who till now dictated terms. More children began to get associated with their mothers and talking to them about health and hygiene. They started to implement what was taught to them in their schools and made their often illiterate mothers know about their learning. In a way, for the devadasis their children became their teachers. That was their resurrection.
Self Help Groups (SHGs) and community centres were formed in order for local devadasi women to interact and talk to Sabala on a common platform. This made the village strong men to take notice and object to Mallamma's work. Every year the men in the village bring in a new girl and dedicate her to the system. Savita came to know of it and ventured there alone without informing Mallamma. They both had done ample amount of independent field trips by now. So Savita went there confidently and wanted to do some talking with the village headman who had masterminded the dedication ceremony. But she was in for a shock when she went to the village. The Sarpanch asked his men to take her away and lock her in a house until everything gets done. There were no ubiquitous mobile phones, no means to communicate. She had to stay locked up for 1 whole day. She was released after the innocent girl was taken away as a devadasi. She returned and narrated the entire story to Mallamma. The next thing she knew- Mallamma was in the office of the Superintendent of Police, Bijapur. She gave a complaint and asked for police cover to her employees. That made her popular in the local media. The police promptly did its job and arrested the village Sarpach. This made her and the organisation to be feared by the local goondas and to be respected by the helpless Devadasis.
Dealing with the HIV AIDS monster
In the early 1990’s, the dreaded HIV AIDS was at its peak in
India. Mainly due to lack of awareness and unsafe sexual practices, it was
estimated that by the end of the century there will be 10 crore AIDS patients
in India. Karnataka was at a focal point because the state had reported highest
number of cases in the country. Juvenile HIV AIDS was among the rise. The
children were being abandoned by the society due to the fear associated with the
disease. People were under an impression that it was an air borne disease. Lot
of misconceptions surrounded the general public. Sabala was at the forefront
again fighting, lending its complete support to the state government in
creating awareness among the public. The cause was attributed to the Devadasis
in the region who mostly followed unhealthy sexual practices, often under the
influence of alcohol. Sabala worked for the cause and created awareness. They
spoke about their future, the future for their own children and planted a seed
of hope in those women who had lived in a drought of faith.
The objective of an NGO is to fill the gap between the
government and the people and to see to it that the government’s welfare schemes
reach the right audience. In an era where negativity has filled all our prime
time news and despair our morning newspapers, I thought remembering the work of
Sabala on AIDS day would prove to be the right refresher for all of us. If we as a country have made December 1 to be less scary, the tribute goes to organisations like Sabala who went out there and played their part to perfection.
For all of us eating pop corn on the couch- Happy AIDS Day!
