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Book Review
TELUGU
Crusader for women’s rights
SAROJINI PREMCHAND
BHARATA MAHILA UDYAMAM — Manugada-Poratam: Brinda Karat; Translated by B. Bhaskar; Prajasakthi Book House, 1-1-187, Chikkadpally, Hyderabad-500020. Rs. 80.
NOT AN arm-chair ideologue, Brinda Karat with her extensive on-the-field experience presents a realistic picture of poor and working-class women. She joined the Communist Party when she was 23 and worked as the general secretary of All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) from 1993 to 2004.
The wage earning days of the landless are less than 50 in a year; they are not paid full wages and women even less. Manual labour is tortuous for these women, their strength depleted by malnutrition and childbirth. In addition, they face gender-related violence and atrocities. Karat is candid enough to admit that the situation is not different in societies under socialist rule. She says it is time for the Left to go beyond economic reforms and encompass other factors causing degeneration of all classes of people.
Arguing for women’s reservation bill, she says women in large numbers, both liberals and leftists fought for independence. But in 1952 elections male members from these families were given tickets. There were only 22 women among the 499 elected members of Parliament.
When globalisation and liberal economic policies are causing such devastation to millions of women, women’s movements have to take a new direction and enter upon a united struggle, she strongly feels. She has no patience for the feminists who level their guns at man-woman relations as the cause of all women’s problems.
Personal reminiscences revealing Brinda’s girlish heart, her joys and tears, and her dreams to be a theatre artist come as a pleasant surprise.
A sane voice from the political arena of grandiloquence.
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