by Manisha Gupta

In the early 1980s Mina Das's young cousin was murdered, a victim of her husband's brutality.

"She was only 19," Mina recalls, "the first woman graduate from our village; she had studied in a college in Calcutta. She was the first to set up a school for girls in our village, Baikunthapur. And one day, we heard that she had died of shock.

After the murder of her cousin, Mina committed herself to "a comprehensive leadership program for young boys and girls of our village, where they could relate to each other as peers. I wanted to break the dominant/subordinate role that boys and girls grow up learning. I wanted them to be equal partners who would question attitudes, argue with each other, criticize each other, be confident problem-solvers and take independent decisions."

A Race Against the Prevailing Culture

She was convinced that for change to come from within, Nishtha would have to give children new perspectives when they were still impressionable.

In the past village women had joined mahila mandals, women's councils set up by Nishtha, only when they found themselves under extreme duress. And while they were good at carrying out community chores, they lacked leadership skills.

"We needed young volunteers, unbeaten by life, who would grow up as leaders," Mina says.

Many young girls responded. "Didi (an affectionate form of "sister") showed us that we could be the leaders," a 14-year-old says. "All of us have to become leaders so we don't grow up to be submissive wives."

But girls do not grow up in a vacuum; the boys are always nearby. So Mina Das's program also sought to tap the energy of young boys who might otherwise squander their time in local gambling clubs or mooning over Hindi love songs.

The beginnings of the Nishtha youth program (Kishori/Kishore Bahini) were humble but dramatic. In 1991, Nishtha identified 25 girls under 18 from the 27 villages that had mahila mandals. The girls had demonstrated a willingness, and wanted more education. But it took time, and some nasty family fights, to convince their parents – especially their fathers – that their daughters had to go to school.

The force of Nishtha prevailed, and the girls went to school anyway, reporting in the evenings for village development work: repairing ponds, clearing clutter from public spaces, even shaming some of their elders into better personal hygiene.

Learning by Doing

The physical work improving village life filled the gap created when local governments failed to provide basic amenities, and soon the adults also became enthusiastic about fixing local problems locally, rather than waiting for the government. It is hard to hold a conversation with a young volunteer without hearing, "I have to take care of my village because nobody else will." Inspiring the same goals in the adults has brought a dramatic jump in rural living standards.

When the girls went to school, Nishtha paid their tuition, and today pays for more than 210 girls in eight high schools spread over 60 villages. Much of the money comes from Sahay, an Indian organization that provides support to grassroots organizations in West Bengal that work on child-related issues.

Now the network of young volunteers involved in village development has grown to 1,200; there are also 600 women volunteers, all supervised by 25 full-time Nishtha staff members and 40 part-timers.

But the focus remains on education, and especially freeing young women from the traditional subservience to men.

An illustration: In every village, at the base of the youth pyramid, is the core group, where children from nine months to three years waddle through basic training in personal hygiene, learn couplets, rhymes and numbers or just play. At the next rung, boys and girls 3 to 9 meet for more organized training in groups called ballika bahini. At the next layer, 9 to 18 years, the focus is on leadership skills. At the apex are the village mahila mandals.

A Challenge From a 10-Year-Old

Even the younger members have the courage – some would call it brazenness – to challenge tradition.

Tutun, who is 10 years old, confronts a group of cantankerous aunts and other women in his family who are trying to marry off his 15-year-old cousin. He issues this threat: "If my cousin is married off next fortnight, we'll send you to jail. Marriage of a girl younger that 18 years is illegal." (But it is also still very common in India.) The women, startled, wear concerned looks. He advises them to go to the mahila mandal, where they can learn more about the legal consequences of child marriage.

The teen-agers also help women in more practical ways, for example, by managing accounts for women who have put together small enterprises.

And they sometimes spread their mediation skills further. In the parched village of Baruipur, where Mina Das now lives, a battalion of 250 girls and boys marched to the fields of rich, hostile landholders who had refused to share the waters of the village pond, and began digging ditches to allow water to reach plots of other farmers. They were threatened by hired hoodlums, who said the mini-canals were cutting through fertile land.

Training is both hands-on and theoretical. While the volunteers take to their village activities, learning by dirtying their hands, they also meet once in a week at the Nishtha center to discuss the social and cultural history of their village and hear lessons on legal, health and women's issues.

Conversations Where There Had Been None

Most important, local officials – the District Magistrate, the Superintendent of Police, the chairman of the local bank – lead talks on the practical side of governance. This is crucial, because local institutions have historically isolated themselves from their communities, especially from women.

Women in most villages, for example, cringe with fear at the thought of mailing a letter at the post office, or they depend on husbands to take them to a doctor. And men place their thumbprints on papers they cannot read when the documents are thrust at them by local functionaries

None of this consciousness-raising has been easy. But still, more and more young women join Mina Das in a chorus of self-assertion, and the rewards for patience and boldness have been generous: Recognition and self-esteem.

"We were seen as stupid girls," says Gauri Sardar, 15. "Today all our elders talk to us with respect. I can post my letters and manage my mother's bank accounts. I can fight and win fights with my male friends."

Kaushik Nashkar, a student of the Julipiya High School, adds: "Sometimes I am seen as a hero by my friends in class. Many have invited me to their villages to start the program there. Once we walked 15 kilometers to protest adult disapproval of our program in my friends' village."

The easier relations between teen-age girls and boys are reflected in some of the funky sessions they now have: animated debates on the environment, parodies on patriarchal stolidity, dance dramas about "liberated" women and poster competitions to spread health awareness. The Nishtha style allows space for innocent buffoonery and practical jokes. "My daughters are growing up naturally because they are allowed to laugh aloud and have fun," says a woman selling vegetables in the market.

'See Here, Mr. Superintendent of Police'

And the young people are having a clear influence on local government.

An illustration: "The Superintendent of Police is always prompt about action whenever we report incidents of wife-beating," says Madhav Koyal, another student at the Julipiya High School and a member of the young girls' brigade in Omarpota. "Once my friend's father beat up his wife, abandoned his family and ran off to marry a second time. My friend came with his mother to us. We confronted his father at his second wife's home. He started throwing bricks at us. While we contained him, some of our friends rushed to the thana (police station). Soon there was a battalion of officials to arrest him. We even went and spoke with Magistrate Sahib. The court punished him soundly."

In contrast to the experiences nurtured by Nishtha, most young Indians today are a "lost, disillusioned and isolated constituency," according to Outlook, India's premier news weekly.

In February 1998, just before elections, Outlook surveyed 2,010 young people. The answers were startling: 50 percent said they did not respect or feel represented in any governmental process and 43 percent felt no political party represented them. More important, rural alienation has fed on extremist movements. The survey also disclosed disenchantment with the lack of jobs and access to basic amenities. Governmental correctives remain a chimera.

Thus, while the youth of Nishtha have reversed this trend in their area, the road ahead is arduous.

"It will take us very long to win male approval," Mina Das says. "So many times they have complained to local political parties and elected leaders against us. So many times we have found ourselves embroiled in charges of poisoning young children's minds.

The Successes of a 'Total Misfit'

"Despite all our efforts, we still hear of forced marriages of young girls. Attitudes cannot be changed in a hurry."

Money continues to be a huge worry, though Mina gets a small stipend from Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, an international group that has provided support more than 800 "social entrepreneurs" worldwide.

"I use oil in my hair and wear coarse saris, and I cannot speak English," Mina says. "This makes me a total misfit in the eyes of funding organizations. True, our volunteers largely subsidize our work, but we feel constant insecurity about our resources."

The children, however, continue to pave the way for the broadening of Nishtha's vision, brick by brick.