Thane village women script their version of Gandhigiri
Professor presents their success story against alcoholism at a meet on
Satyagraha in Durban
N Ganesh
Mumbai, october 1: On his return from South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi was
appalled to experience the ”evils of alcohol” in India.
”Several princes have been and are being ruined by liquor… the condition
of labour as a result of taking alcohol is also pitiable,” wrote the
Mahatma in his book Key to Health.
Taking a cue from this Gandhian ideology, women of a tribal village in Thane
started a movement in 2001 forcing their men to quit alcohol. And, after
five years of struggle, on the 100th anniversary of Satyagraha, their fight
against alcoholism was applauded by an international audience in Durban,
South Africa, at a conference on September 11.
Organised by the Durban Municipal Body and Gandhi Development Trust-its
secretary is Ela Gandhi, the granddaughter of the Mahatma-to commemorate the
100th anniversary of Satyagraha, the three-day event saw Nagesh Tekale, a
professor at the B N Bandodkar College of Science in Thane, narrating the
success story of the gutsy tribal women of Kaduchi Wadi, about 140 km from
Mumbai.
Of the 42 presentations made by 78 participating countries on the Fred
Crookes Sports Campus in Durban, the one on Kaduchi Wadi showcased Gandhi’s
staunch opposition to alcohol in village communities.
Home to about 150 families of the Kadu tribe, this small hamlet is set in
the picturesque Kasara Ghats of Mokhada Taluka in the Sahyadri mountains
with Vaitarna river snaking down the valley. Mokhada has abundance of water,
wood and it’s isolated, the basic requirements for brewing illicit liquor.
Kaduchi Wadi was no exception.
”Every household boasted of at least one drunkard and the 24 bootleggers
operating round-the-clock did not have any dearth of customers. Rampant
alcoholism among men took toll on the women folk,” Prof Tekale said, adding
that the village passageways used to be strewn with drunkards while street
fights and post drunken wife badgering were order of the day.
But, when the Mahila Artik Vikas Mahamandal (MAVIM), a state government
body, along with Bank of India introduced a rural savings scheme, the
revolution took its root. ”It was painful for women to realise that their
hard-earned money was being squandered by their husbands for buying liquor,’
‘ said Pravin Bansode of Navdrishti, the NGO that monitored the scheme.
He saw that the savings scheme would not have a chance if alcoholism
continued. Then started the gradual process of educating the women that they
could bring about a positive change in their lives by a collective effort
against alcoholism. ”The women were taken to villages in other parts of
Maharashtra where similar movements had taken place,” he said.
The inspired tribal women of Kaduchi Wadi took out a morcha to the Sarpanch’
s house and demanded liquor prohibition after which it was banned
immediately.
URL : http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=203448