Yesterday’s HT had a small piece on how the Tamilnadu chief minister Jayalalitha was distributing free bicycles to school children in rural areas of the state. This was to encourage them to continue school and not drop out – earlier it was found that girls from backward communities who had been given free bicycles under such a scheme actually went on to study after Class X, which is typically around the time that they drop out. The number of such girls who went on to complete schooling was then a record of sorts in the state. (I cannot find the link for this online – will post it here when I do)
Jayalalitha’s motives are suspect – all with an eye on the coming elections, say newspapers. I don’t care.
For women in rural India, learning to ride a bicycle is such a huge step in their struggle towards a better life. In ‘Everybody loves a good drought’, Sainath writes about this movement in the Pudukkottai district of Tamil nadu (one of the most backward districts of an otherwise prosperous state). Started by the Arivoli Iyakkam (the movement for education, literally translated as the movement for the light of intelligence) and encouraged by the district collector (a woman, naturally), the bicycle went on to signify for hundreds of women a sense of freedom and self worth. Something they had never experienced before.
(Source: Visible Work, Invisible Women – A photo exhibition by P. Sainath)
This song (translated from Tamil) – incidentally, written by a man – was on every woman’s lips in Pudukkottai in the early 1990s…
Learn to ride the cycle, sister,
Set in motion the wheel of life sister.
Cars, ships and planes are now piloted by women,
Those days are gone when the drivers were only men.
So learn to ride the cycle quickly,
And begin a new story.
Read more about the movement here under Women cycle to independence.
Similarly in urban India, I have always been struck by how quickly women across cities and towns have taken to the two wheeler moped or scooterette, as it is known. Women driving a car have always existed in India, but they belonged, and still do, to the “upper class”. But, for thousands of women dreaming of freedom and mobility, learning to ride a two wheeler has been somewhat like growing wings…
I don’t like Jayalalitha, with her head in the clouds……but she HAS been very determined to improve the rights and conditions of women (atleast, has done more than any other chief minister of any Indian state in recent memory). And the cycles for girl students scheme has been around in TN for a few years now. I remember reading an interview of some girl in TN talking about receiving a cycle some 3 years ago…..
She does do some things right…..
now, if only she wasn’t such a megalomaniac…
lovely post, charu. i like these images of women on cycles, scooters…
…and on the move!! š
Hi Charu
Interesting post, but it raises some questions.
Many of these girls probably have parents who might be poor but could probably afford a bicycle for daughters if they really had to pay for that. But these families didn’t do that. Is it because:
1. They don’t value their daughter’s education, since it won’t help the family income.
2. They underestimate the benefits of a bicycle in helping their daughter get an education.
3. They underestimate the value of an education.
4. They don’t want their daughter to have more opportunities than they had.
What seems troubling is, if this program socially beneficial, it is only because some really dysfunctional thinking is going on in these rural families, and not much is really happening to change that dysfunction.
Uma, as always š
Sunil, I dont like jayalalitha too but I have a grudging admiration for her – she is all sheer guts and seems to bounce back from anything. She usually comes up with populist measures but so long as it benefits someone, I really dont care if she gets mileage out of it!
Michael, a bicycle is a very expensive and unaffordable thing for these children and their parents – costing more than Rs.1500, it is more than many such families earn in a few months. I know this seems hard to believe but they are really poor – and a bicycle and is a very far-off priority, if at all.
I have seen and read that many of these families, esp in South india where I have seen for myself know the value of education – they believe it can save their children from getting into the same ignorance trap as themselves – and try their best to send children to school – but often, there is no school in the village or the village school has only till middle level and the kids have to walk to the next village many miles away – and this is when girls – or daughters – drop out – bicycles would make such a big difference in these cases.
True, when it comes to the crunch, in most families, the daughter’s education is stopped first, but there are many other factors invovled in it. This will take up a post in itself – maybe soon!
Vasanthi Devi, an educationalist who was the first vice-chancellor of Manonmaniam Sundaranar University (and is now the Chairperson of Tamil Nadu State Commission for Women) talks about her efforts to get the villagers nearby the university to buy a bicycle for their girls, and the confidence it gave the girls on learngin to bicycle. The bicyles are not only useful for going to school, but also to fetch water from nearby areas in dry villages. Fetching water invariably happens to be women’s task and the kilometers they have to walk each day makes it impossible for them to go to school or college.
Parents vs Govt. – who should make the bicycles available? I think a poor family always will look at better ways of spending that Rs. 1,500. It is well worth the money spent if the end result is considerably increased literacy rates. Since it is women who end up teaching their children basic education, the value of providing higher education to women is much more!
Badri, absolutely agree, I think one educated women (even high school level) in the family means more people in the family /village on the road to education – have seen this for myself.
and can I get Vasanthi Devi’s speech / interview anywhere? and btw, was the the principal of Ethiraj college a long time ago?
>the bicycle went on to signify for hundreds of women a sense of freedom and self worth. Something they had never experienced before.
Indeed. I can relate to that personally having heard from my mother how she grew up. She used to cycle to school from her village everyday and although she doesn’t put it in quite the same words as above, I can see that’s how she felt.
Charu
Excellent post. It will definately augur well for female literacy in TN, elections or no elections.
And speaking of bicycle, reminds me of my days with TCS, Chennai. Too impaitient to wait around for over-crowded PTC buses and to alleviate haggling with the rickshaw drivers over fares, I would ride my bicycle on Nungambakkam High road en route to work. When showing off that I was the coolest one in the company, to ride a bicycle to work, unlike anyone else, they correctly pointed out that the canteen boys rode to work on bicycles as well. That shut me up !!!
Sourin
youre so right!! i relate the cycle-freedom to something that happened to me…i spent a month staying home from work running my house cos mom wasnt well.. and there was this undercurrent of panic at times, like oh my god is this is the end of economic freedom, am i back to depending on someone else.. i now appreciate a wee bit more the kind of rut that poor and/or uneducated women are pushed into. *shudder* scary!!
Charu: Vasanti Devi’s conversations with Sundara Ramasamy, an accomplished Tamil writer, on a broad range of education related issues is in the form of a book – it is in Tamil (thamizhakaththil kalvi). Not sure if you read books in Tamil though. She talks about this issue in one of the chapters.
Badri, thanks – and I do read a lot of Tamil – but fiction mostly…
Selva, M. I can only imagine what it means to these rural women, who were bold enought on step on to a bicycle and learn to ride – with everyone else watching and waiting for them to fall – literally and otherwise too….
at some level, I can identify with this feeling of being ‘free’ too -related story : I thought of this story I read about a woman trapped in a husband, children routine – and she finds her space and freedom when she learns to swim… I remember feeling this way when I first learnt to swim too (not that I was feeling trapped anywhere!!)- just a couple of years ago – it can be so mcuh tougher learning as an adult, so many more inhibitions but the feeling is exhilarating…
Ladies Coupe, I think, the book was. Uma MD- remember?
Sourin, in the West, it is actually considered ultra cool to cycle – environment friendly and physical exercise together! I have read that Holland has thousands of regular cyclists… and in India, you are told that canteen boys ride bicycles :))
A cycle, or a pair of wings? I have worked on a few cycle brands, and let me tell you, a cycle is to the people in the villages, what a passport and H1B is for engineering students.
And it costs as much, proportionately.
Ravages, absolutely! and equally remote / inaccessible and aspirational, I think….
Charu
It was Ladies Coupe.
Neela
Thanks Neela (do I know you / your blog?), I dont remember anything else about the book now – just this bit about swimming which suddenly pops into my head sometimes…