Leading from behind her veil Janka Dixit Coming from a male-dominated region has not stopped Janka Dixit from rising above odds to earn the support of all the village women. Urdmau Village | Nowgong Block | Chhatapur District 36
Constantly watched and monitored makes one nervous and that’s bad enough, but imagine being steadily observed by armed men! It is not surprising to see every man carry rifles on his shoulder in the Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh. Yes, fear - is all the women of Urdmau village, Nowgong Block feel and Janka Dixit, the Sarpanch (elected village leader) was no exception. Women in brightly coloured sarees covered from head to toe gather at the village meeting place. They would murmur behind their ghunghat (veil) but shy away when asked to speak up louder. The Urdmau women sat with their faces covered for the entire time and would never speak if the men of the village were around. The only way to tell this story was if they would open up! “But the ghunghat is tradition,” some village men object. Then, after plenty of convincing, the women are moved into a room for a closed-door discussion. “We are so relieved that we can meet and talk,” Yasodha Devi, Panchayat Member smiles as she reveals her face, “The men never allow us to speak our mind.” All the women agree, and thus unravelled the story of the Urdmau village woman Sarpanch who enjoys the support of the entire community of women. It is a well-known fact that the Bundelkhand region in Madhya Pradesh has some of the lowest levels of per capita income and human development in the country. Literacy levels are poor, especially among women, and people are divided in the name of caste and culture. The villagers rely primarily on the subsistence of rain-fed single crop agriculture mostly consisting of wheat, gram and oil seeds, and / or smallscale livestock production for their livelihood. Rural areas are mostly fragmentation of family land holdings and human pressures on the existing natural resource base have rendered the villages almost barren. Rapid decline of the forest cover has reduced traditional sources of fuel and food, and combined with limited rainfall and lack of fresh water resources, has lead to low levels of agricultural productivity. And so in villages like Urdmau, many families are no longer able to meet their subsistence needs. “This has lead to temporary and long-term migration of men in search of alternative sources of livelihood,” Ramavatar Gangule, Urdmau Village Secretary tells me. Coming from this background is the woman Sarpanch - Janka Dixit. She is the first woman Sarpanch to show the way for an elected all-women panchayat team from the most backward part of Madhya Pradesh. “This is the first year of my fiveyear term,” smiles Janka, “and I’ve only just begun to take stock of the situation.” But this statement only comes from humility. In fact, Janka along with her 20- member team, after having spent hours of deliberation on how to solve the water Janka Dixit, the Sarpanch who enjoys the support of the entire community of women, addressing issues at a village meeting. crisis in the village, did erect ten hand-pumps in Urdmau plus a 40-litre capacity water tank! “The tank is about two kilometres outside the village and we’ve dug a 50-foot bore well to reach water,” Janka shares. “We now supply to the households in batches for about one hour every day.” Throughout most of the year the residents of Bundelkhand experience acute scarcity of water for agricultural and domestic use and Urdmau is no different. Water sources are often seasonal and women have the tedious task of fetching drinkable water. “We have to walk at least two kilometres to the nearest water source every day,” laments Yasodha Devi, “and sometimes more than ten times to carry home just enough water for our household to function.” “The first thing I did was to buy a motor to pump water to the households,” Janka confirms. “We run the motor for about four-five hours every day to enable all families to fill water.” Janka adds that due to voltage fluctuations and power cuts, the panchayat 37
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