CHENNAI: The New Indian Express office in Ambattur had an unusual visitor on Tuesday. Seventy-year-old Mohinder Kaur from obscure Dhoot Kalan village in distant Punjab was all brimstone and fire, when she held forth - in a mixture of her native lingo and Hindi - how her visit to the city was part of a countrywide literacy yatra to spread awareness that education lay at the root of women empowerment.
Brush aside her rustic appearance in a crumpled salwar kameez and you will find Kaur has all the bona fides to speak on the issue: she has been the sarpanch of Dhoot Kalan Gram Mandal in Hoshiarpur district ever since she was elected to the post in 1983. She has encouraged women in her mandal to use utilise grants sanctioned by the State government to start their own businesses, including setting up tent houses, renting crockery and other items for weddings.
Her long innings as sarpanch, however, made Kaur realise that though the Panchayati Raj system introduced reservation for women in local bodies, ensuring that they had a say in governance at the grassroots, a lot left to be desired. “Since the women sarpanches are illiterates, the real power lies in the hands of the men in the family,” she says. “The situation is better in Punjab compared to states such as Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, where women are still very backward,” she adds. Proudly proclaiming that she was “ninth pass”, Kaur says she decided to travel the length and breath of India not only to spread awareness about the need to educate women to bring about their real empowerment, but also to study the situation in other states.
While she has just arrived from Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, she has visited 23 states so far - starting from the Andamans in 1993 - and Nepal and Bhutan. Intermittently going back to her native village and her farming family, Kaur stays in local gurdwaras and uses voluntary donations to fund her travels. She fondly recalls her meeting with senior politicians, including Congress president Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi. Ask her whether she has ever been overcome by lack of knowledge of the local language or fear of being in strange people and places and Kaur retorts: “Indian women are not weak.”