Searching for meaning of ‘Azadi’ as India completes 78 years of Independence

 Every year in the month of August, Sahas Foundation launches a campaign exploring the gender stereotypes and discrimination faced by young women and girls in India. This month signifies a crucial historical moment –India after years of struggles and sacrifices became Independent country, freeing itself from the clutches of colonial rule of British Empire. While our country will be completing 78 years of Independence, there is always this thought lingering and nagging in my mind as to what does this independence means to me and for my fellow Indians especially the girls and women I work with in the rural areas?

With this thought, we at Sahas launched ‘Azadi campaign’ exploring the meaning of freedom for ourselves, remembering our roots and ideologies that facilitated the freedom struggle, learning about the social reformers and revolutionaries like Rabindranath Tagore, Baba Saheb Ambedkar, Jyotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule and then creating a safe space in the community for the girls to examine what ‘Azadi’ means to them.

After initiating the online campaign, we facilitated a workshop on ‘Azadi’ with Sahasi girls. The session started with brief introduction, agreements and poem ‘Where Mind is without fear’ by Rabindranath Tagore. This was followed by mind map on ‘Azadi’; few responses were –

‘To live freely’

‘I am able to go wherever I want to’

‘To be able to do things without any fear’

‘To be able to do things on my own, without listening to others or their instructions’

This was followed by storytelling session where the girls read out the stories of Baba Saheb Ambedkar, Savitribai Phule and Jyotiba Phule aloud. Few of things shared by girls –

‘We mustn’t discriminate people based on their caste or gender’

‘The social work is a challenging job, people will always oppose it’

‘Education is very important’

We as Sahas team could relate and resonate to each and every word from the story of Savitribai Phule, as even after so many years working on girls education and their rights is so challenging. We have been subjected to verbal abuse, gossips behind our backs, drunk men and boys have created unnecessary conflicts and despite our efforts the mothers still don’t allow girls to come to programs. It was equally amazing to see that even the girls affirmed that our journey is quite similar to the pioneer of feminism in India. We are honored to walk on the path laid by social reformers and feminist like Savitribai Phule.

The girls enjoyed and loved the poetry by Kamla Bhasin and this acted as an inspiration for them to write Azadi slogans –

‘Khulkar jeena, hawao mein udhna hai, yehi hamara nara hai’

‘Ladhkiya bhi ladhko ke sath kadam milakar chal sakti hai’

‘Hum ladhkiyo ka yeh hai kehna, anpadh banker kabhi na rehna’

‘Apni marzi se jeena aur kaam karna hai hamara adhikar’

‘Padhi likhi ladhki, roshni ghar ki’

‘Hamein kisi se darr kar nahi hai jeena, yehi hai nara hamara’

All of us had chocolates to celebrate Independence Day. We also organized race competition for children and young girls where they enjoyed a lot.

For us, Azadi also means inclusion, so we went to the house of young girl with disability, had brief conversation and provided her with a story book by Premchand. Then we went to the house of young boy with cerebral palsy who has been part of our program since last December. It was beautiful experience to see him all dressed up, clean shaven and arriving on wheel chair. We have been working so hard to arrange this for him so that he can access things and places without depending on others. Two of the Sahasi Girls read story of Baba Saheb Ambedkar. Slowly different members of his family joined in to listen to the story and engage in the conversation. His mother said that this is also given by god, we have to just go with it. Our facilitator interjected here because this line of thought can be dangerous, once we believe that this is all by god we look away from the discrimination and violence that people do based on different identities. Having a disability, or belonging to a particular caste, class or gender must not be license or used as tool by others to justify their acts of violence. This was strongly emphasized by one of our team members. Later, we celebrated Independence day by pining the flag and distributing chocolates.

At the same time, a woman with two girls arrived asking us to help her with their school fees. It is unfortunate that we were about to get her elder daughter admitted in nearby school but before that the family got her married. She was merely 14 years old. I asked the mother at what age she was married, she smiled and said she was about the same age as her daughter. I was angry, how could she do the same when she has lived a harrowing life herself. Unfortunately she showed no remorse, instead she laughed. One of our facilitator got frustrated and asked her as to what made her laugh? Like subjecting your daughter to the same miserable life as she has lived – does that seem like a joke? Why are daughters treated like garbage, if they are so disposable then you have no right to give them birth! These instances though make us feel bad but motivate us to keep working to protect and support the girls from early marriage.

With this Azadi campaign, our team stands strongly on the values of Baba Saheb Ambedkar, Savitribai Phule, Jyotiba Phule and the constitution of India. We are committed to building safer, inclusive society where people are not judged, discriminated or violated just because of who they are.