MADHYA PRADESH: Her four-and-half-year-old grandson is not the only one who calls her ‘Naani’ (maternal granny); for the countless women inmates and their children in Indore jails too, 59-year-old Vinita Tiwari is the most-lovable ‘Didi’ and ‘Naani’.
An Indore-based social activist, Vinita is on a mission to change the lives of women and their children embroiled in conflict, inhabiting prison cells.
Back in 1997, her NGO Manu Memorial Shikshan Samiti worked with street children in dire need of aid, running a school for them in Indore.
A few years later, while tying Rakhis on wrists of inmates as part of a Raksha Bandhan function at the Indore Mandaliya Jail (present Indore district jail) she broke into tears when she witnessed the agony of the women inmates and their children living with them inside jails.
In India, female prisoners are allowed to keep their children with them in prison until they turn six years old. After that, the children may be placed in boarding schools or with other relatives if the mother consents.
“I was in tears when I saw the pain of the women inmates who lived with their small kids inside the jail. The children didn’t know anything about the outside world; many of them had not even seen stars and the moon on the night sky. They only came out with mothers during the day. This was the time in 2002 when I decided to dedicate my life for their well-being,” Vinita recalls.
Her perseverance and timely help by the jail department saw her succeed in starting the pre-primary school named Kanha inside the Indore Mandaliya Jail in 2006. Now, malnutrition had taken root among many of these kids, which propelled Tiwari to work with the women and child development department to provide nutritious diet with dedicated Anganwadi facility for the children in 2009-10.
The same school continued operating at Indore Central Jail after convicted women inmates were shifted there. But Vinita’s association with women inmates didn’t stay confined to their children only.
Barwani Central Jail superintendent Shephali Tiwari, posted as superintendent of Indore District Jail in 2013-14, fondly recalls Vinita’s contributions. “A highly educated woman from New Delhi who married an African national was pushed into drug peddling by her brother-in-law and arrested later. She was convicted and imprisoned.
One day both her children (an older son and younger daughter) were seen weeping outside the Indore district jail gate, as they had been abandoned by their relatives and had nowhere else to go. I contacted Vinita Tiwari and entrusted both of them to her.
She took their care like her own children and got them enrolled into a premier missionary school. Had Vinita Ji not come to their help, I shudder to think what would have happened to them,” says the prison officer.
But they were not the only ones who were rescued and rehabilitated by Vinita Tiwari. Back in 2010, a woman who was serving jail term for murdering her husband was concerned about the well-being of her three children, who were living with her sister-in-law.
“When we reached Betma, we were shocked to find that three children were in a state worse than her jailed mother had apprehended. While the daughter was on the brink of being forced into prostitution, the two sons had been forced to work as child labourers.
They were rescued and brought to a shelter home where we focused on their rehabilitation,” Vinita says. But her work is beyond rehabilitation; it is about nurturing. This has prompted her to start small libraries at some 12-15 jails across the state, including Narsinghpur, Barwani and Indore central jails, besides others.
Nurturing creativity
Associated with the Indore Lekhika Sangh, a women writers association, Vinita has also recognised and nurtured the creative potential in women inmates and promoted them. In 2010, her efforts led to the publication of a collection of poems by a woman serving jail term for a triple-murder, perhaps the first-ever by a woman inmate to be published in India.