Daughters of Rajasthan
Yash M Vyas sat with Mohini Gupta, writer at Shift, to put in words his recent lived experience in Rajasthan.
I recently travelled to Mandalgarh and Jahazpur in Rajasthan on a documentary assignment which has become one of the most important pieces of work I've done so far. A historically rich and culturally colourful state partly bordering Pakistan in the northwestern region of India, Rajasthan marked the beginning of my journey as a photographer, traveler and perhaps a thinker. This place keeps drawing me back, this trip marked my fourth.
The brief was simple - documenting the work for the NGO 'Educate Girls', I was to follow the lives of three young girls and capture their journey in education through images. What I saw made me feel sad, infuriated as well as grateful for the opportunities my sister and I have had.
My driven and talented younger sister challenges me and my thoughts everyday. Living with her has made me vividly aware that there should be no difference between what women and men are allowed to be, whether it be socially, economically or politically. We're born with the same capabilities to excel. So why should there be a difference when an opportunity arises?
I love to garden, my mind draws an analogy with plants. Imagine two saplings - both budding and growing but one is watered daily and the other every four or five days (if lucky). It really wouldn't take long for the one being ignored to wilt away and for the other to grow big and beautiful. Sad if you ask me.. they both had the capacity to bloom. If children were saplings and opportunities were water, wouldn't it be easy for us to agree that all saplings deserve the same nurturing?
Recently while I was thinking about the bizarre-ness of saying 'Girl Child', as opposed to just 'child', it hit me that the need to qualify the word 'child' by gender evidently exists out of necessity. Without it, we might miss the importance of attending to problems uniquely experienced by young girls, which need urgent attention.
According to the 2011 Census, Rajasthan's male literacy rate is 79.19%, a whole 27.07% higher than the female literary rate which is a devastatingly low 52.12%. Gender discrimination seems to play a large role in why this is reality.
Girls are often considered a burden on their families. Viewed as 'marriageable' by the age of twelve, girls are seen as temporary responsibilities who leave when they get married. In the process of bringing them up to be good wives, their families become oblivious to their needs such as an education, preferring to spend their resources on boys who will supposedly be the breadwinners of the family.
Serving over 21,000 schools across Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, Educate Girls is one platform amongst the many today that work hard to change this. On assignment, I followed a day in the life of Priyanka, Narbda and Leela, three girls who have in some way been touched by the actions of the NGO.
Meet Priyanka,
She works alongside Educate Girls as a community volunteer (known as Team Balika). I walked along with her from door-to-door, where she carefully identified families whose daughters aren't in school. I learnt that she meets these families regularly and helps them to understand, gently yet firmly, why their daughters should be in school. She also helps to change the community's mindset towards girls' education by setting up meetings of local influencers and community members.
Her contribution doesn't stop there, girls who have now been put into school continue to be supported by her presence as she helps enhance their learning outcomes and is a friend and guide to whom they can turn.
Meet Leela,
Today Leela is in school and yet her life is so different from what a school girl's life should be. Her family's rough financial situation means that she wakes up everyday before the crack of dawn, rushes to fetch water for the entire family before it shuts off, helps in the kitchen and works in the fields, goes to school, comes back home and repeats everything before she can finally rest for the next day.
Now look at this family picture, what do you see?
People have said they see a family of six - parents and their four children. It breaks my heart to tell them that this isn't true. That's Narbda in the front, the breadwinner of the family. Next to her are her siblings and behind is her grandmother who suffers from arthritis and her grandfather who is blind.
It was whilst I was capturing Priyanka that we knocked on Narbda's door.
The pictures of her story will always be special to me as I witnessed Narbda looking after her family, cooking, cleaning, working in the fields, meeting Priyanka for the first time and getting admission into school.
While it should be obvious that all children are due the same opportunities to build wholesome lives for themselves, sadly, it is not. In many areas of the world, young boys and girls find themselves distanced from each others experiences through a stark, almost surreal difference in the resources available to them. What's troubling is the acceptance of this as a part of local social norms.
But we can, and rather, we should challenge these norms, even if these situations seem distant from some of our own privileged lives. A long overdue paradigm shift is needed and if we all do our bit, we can make it happen.
Our empowered daughters of today, tomorrow's entrepreneurs, mothers, economic and political leaders, household heads, global policy makers, will unchain the potential of half of humanity.
