Mois : mai 2008

Linked with Act Now for Harmony and Democracy ANHAD, and with Campaign Pains.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Shabnam Hashmi (born 1957 in Aligarh, a small town about 80 miles from Delhi) has worked for more than 20 years to combat communalism in India. She was associated with the creation and running of Sahmat, formed by artists and intellectuals in memory of her activist brother, who was murdered while performing a street play in 1989. After the Gujarat carnage, she understood the need for an outfit to systematically counter fascist propaganda, and the NGO Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (Anhad) was born in March 2003. Working voluntarily and without fees and with limited funds, Shabnam has emerged as a single-person pressure group. She was the youngest of five children. Although her family belonged to Delhi, Partition reduced her grandfather’s business to ruin.

She says: « The fascist forces are very organized and gaining ground. It is a battle for the hearts and minds of the people ».

Statement of Facts.

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Shabnam Hashmi – India

She works for Act Now for Harmony and Democracy ANHAD.

While some relatives decided to move to Pakistan, her father, Haneef Hashmi, decided to stay put: he had much at stake, having spent years as a student leader, as well as four years in British jails during the freedom movement. Faced with a deep financial crisis, the family decided to relocate to Aligarh.

While Haneef joined the university, her mother, Qamar, who came from a highly-educated family of writers and poets, soon found life in Aligarh claustrophobic. The Muslim clerics in the area had started objecting to the fact of her oldest daughter walking around in frocks and skirts. Disgusted, Qamar shifted to Delhi and took up a job as a school principal.

In 1964, she brought her children to Delhi. The family had just about enough wherewithal for three meals a day; all the children went to government schools. In 1969, Haneef also found a job in Delhi as editor of a magazine.

Shabnam was brought up on the stories of the freedom struggle and of World War II and classical literature. The first book that made a deep impression on her, when she was 13 years old, was The Diary of Anne Frank. By the time she finished school, she had read most Soviet, Russian, and English classical literature.

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he is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s Quit India exhortation as a youngster, Mrinal Gore (born 1928) chucked in a promising career in medicine to devote herself to organizing the poor and the disenfranchised. For more than half a century, she has been involved with a series of organizations and leading protests both on the streets and in the corridors of power, focusing on women’s rights, civil rights, communal harmony, and trade union activities. She was fortunate to have had extremely enlightened parents: her father was a professor of physics at Mumbai’s Elphinstone College, and her mother came from a family of intellectuals. Of her six other siblings, three went on to become doctors and two engineers … It is said: Mrinal Gore’s sacrifice of her medical career for lifelong social activism was one of a kind with postindependence idealism and the establishment of a democratic superstructure of governance. (1000peacewomen).

Known as a political reformer, Mrnal Gore was a member of the Bombay Municipal Corporation. As a politician, she constantly brought into focus the woes of the common woman, earning the admiration of the masses. For her vociferous protests against water shortages in the city she was called Mumbai’s ‘Paaniwali Bai’. She had won the election with the largest margin of votes ever in Maharashtra. (women in politics online).

A Socialist State leader, (she) was a Member of Parliament, Member of State Legislature and Mumbai Municipal Corporation, uninterruptedly from 1961 to 1990. A staunch supporter for Women’s empowerment and is in public life as a socialist since 1948. (Nagari Nivara Parishad).

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Mrinal Gore – India

She works for Swadhar (named on Gov.India, and on NIC.in ), and for the Keshav Gore Smarak Trust KGST (described on MIT.edu, USA, and on AIDprojects.org, India).

Oral History Recordings, Women In Progressive Movements, Mrinal’s short statement: click on ‘Hear the audio‘.

It was during a family vacation to the nearby town of Palghar that Mrinal came in contact with the Rashtriya Seva Dal RSD (named on UNIFICATION OF HINDUS), a voluntary organization connected with the Indian National Congress. At the time, India’s freedom struggle was at its height, and the atmosphere was charged by Mahatma Gandhi’s Quit India exhortation.

Mrinal had taken up medicine for her higher studies, and although a brilliant student, she decided to drop her academic career in favor of devoting herself to organizing the poor and the disenfranchised. She had passed the first MBBS examinations with flying colors, but in 1947, the year of Independence, Mrinal departed medical college, choosing to become a fulltimer with the RSD, organizing housewives for sociopolitical work.

She spent a year with the Congress, leaving in 1948 with a group of Socialist youngsters who decided to form the Socialist Party, which became a critical thorn in the Congress party’s flesh. The same year, Mrinal married Socialist leader Keshav « Bandhu » Gore. The two were from different castes and were breaking the prevalent caste taboo by marrying. The Gores lived and worked in Goregaon, a rural area that has now become part of suburban Mumbai.

In 1950, Mrinal joined the Goregaon Mahila Mandal * as its secretary. The Mahila Mandal worked for the uplift of women in the area; in 1951, the organization put in place the Family Planning Center under Mrinal’s guidance. She was a step ahead of the Indian government, which introduced its family planning programs only in 1952.

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Linked with The Salesian Sisters, and with North Eastern Community Health Association NECHA.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Sister Elizabeth Edattukaran was born in 1938 into a humble Christian family in village Malla, Trichur district, Kerala. She has worked fearlessly and relentlessly under the most trying circumstances, and at considerable personal risk, to provide healthcare and relief to people affected by conflict and violence in northeast India. She has also been instrumental in setting into motion several conflict resolution initiatives, and in providing livelihood options to women affected by ethnic violence. Her deep faith in god and her humane touch have helped dispel much of the fear and distrust that result from endemic conflicts.

It is said: In many, many ways, Sister Elizabeth personifies the words « in the service of God », bringing together two neighboring communities separated by ethnic distrust.

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sorry, we have no photo of Elizabeth Edattukaran, India

She works for the Salesian Sisters.

She had six siblings. From her parents, who were both very involved with social service, she absorbed the Christian values of giving and service to society.

Elizabeth is trained to be a nurse and holds a PCBSc degree in nursing. She has also obtained a diploma in administration, and higher training in geriatric nursing. She has worked in Northeast India since 1956, founding the Rapsun School of Nursing in 1979 (which she handed over to the Holy Cross Sisters in 1988).

Since 1984, Elizabeth has been directly involved with providing health services and relief to people affected by violence. The ethnic violence in the Northeast deeply disturbed her: during the eponymous 1984 Nellie massacre of an immigrant community in Assam, she was an important player in healing the wounded and the affected. She was also key in the rehabilitation work that followed an upsurge of ethnic violence in Meghalaya. In 1985, she received a presidential award for her exemplary services.

Since 1991, Elizabeth has been working under very difficult circumstances in Assam’s Kokrajhar district. In 1996, when communal and ethnic violence erupted in the area, she immersed herself completely in providing much-needed medical and emotional support to the broken communities. She is deeply involved in healthcare, with a special focus on reproductive health for the most marginalized tribal communities.

Elizabeth has also been instrumental in setting into motion confidence-building and conflict-resolution initiatives. An intercultural peace meet was organized, with her as a key member of the committee. She played a leadership role in providing basic necessities, healthcare, and trauma-counseling to victims who had witnessed the killings of their dearest ones. Equally remarkable is her work on enhancing skills and providing livelihood options to women affected by ethnic violence.
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Linked with When culture kills – Urvashi Butalia’s View From the South, and with Pratham.org – India.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Urvashi Butalia, born 1952 in Ambala in Punjab, is the face and voice of feminist literature and publishing in India. In 1984, she set up Kali for Women, India’s first feminist publishing house, from a little office in a garage and with almost no funds. Two decades later, Kali has succeeded in bringing to the fore the marginalized voices of Indian women. Her parents, Subhadra and Joginder Butalia, had relocated to what became India after Partition when The Tribune, where Joginder worked, had shifted there. Her mother began as a teacher, and taught both at school and university.

She says: « Early in my life I realized that knowledge is a most powerful weapon, and the silence of women across the world was premised on the denial of knowledge and information ».

Find her on wikipedia.

She is a consultant for Oxfam India.

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Urvashi Butalia – India

She works for Kali for Women (Feminist Publishing in Asia), which is part of Zubaan Books.

The third of two brothers and a sister, Urvashi was brought up to believe in honesty and self-reliance. Her mother worked even as she bore four children, and looked after her own brother and sister, who became refugees after Partition. Urvashi’s parents brought up their children with no thought to gender inequity.

They were all educated in a co-educational school. When her father was offered a job with The Times of India in Delhi, Urvashi and her sister Bela went to a girls’ school where their mother taught, and where education for them was free.

Urvashi earned a Masters in literature from Delhi University in 1973 and a Masters in South Asian Studies in 1977 from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Involved in student politics while at university, she became leader of the students’ union in her college, Miranda House, and worked for women and girl students. She was the vanguard of a campaign for women’s colleges to become members of the Delhi University Students’ Union, until then the preserve of male students.

Urvashi participated in crusades to make the university a safer place for women, for better hostel conditions for girl students, against the commodification of women through beauty contests, and several other campaigns. It was this that led, in the early 1970s, to her involvement in the then nascent women’s movement in India, where she was initially part of a large umbrella group called Samta (Equality), the parent group that founded the journal Manushi.

Urvashi was on the original founding collective of this now-legendary journal.
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Linked with Himmat online.net / the Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation CDR, and with the Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy PIPFPD.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

For more than two decades, Sushobha Barve (born 1949) has been working tirelessly, often without any organizational support, to create dialogue and reconciliation in conflict-stricken areas. Her philosophy is based on the need for reconciliation, whether it is in Maharashtra, Bihar, Sri Lanka, or Jammu and Kashmir. Sushobha believes that people do not need state agencies to solve their problems. Born in 1949 in Mumbai, she grew up in a middleclass Maharashtrian- dominated area, the Hindu Colony in Dadar, one of the older parts of the city. Her family encouraged liberal thought and unfettered questioning. Both home and school environments bolstered the spirit of service and social work. The walls of the family sitting-room were adorned with the photographs of the freedom movement’s leaders … It is said: Sushobha’s sensitive and democratic approach to conflict resolution has led to inimical communities accessing each other’s mutual survival desires, and to building bridges over choppy waters. (1000peacewomen).

Conference on JK calls for ‘truth commission’, May 7, 2008.

THE India-Pakistan peace process has been stalled for almost a year now. Its negative impact is seen most in Jammu and Kashmir where people feel discouraged and disheartened about their problem ever being resolved. It was against this gloomy backdrop that the first intra-Kashmir women’s conference, ‘Connecting women across the Line of Control’, was held in Srinagar recently. It helped to lift spirits and revive hope … (full long text).

Her book: Healing Streams: Bringing Hope in the Aftermath of Violence, by Sushobha Barve, 30 May 2003.

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Sushobha Barve – India

She works for the Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation CDR (a project of Himmat online.net).

New Delhi, May 06: A conference on Kashmir has been conducted quietly for the past two days at a resort near Mehrauli off MG Road, which connects New Delhi to Gurgaon.Thirty-eight leaders from Pakistan-administered Kashmir (PaK), Gilgit-Balwaristan and Jammu and Kashmir are attending this meet. At the end of the first two days of deliberations, the message that has emerged is that if something concrete is not done to resolve the Kashmir dispute soon, the Valley could see another violent uprising. The strictly “closed-door” conference, organised Sushobha Barve of the Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation … (full text, May 6, 2008).

Her book in Roupies.

Sushobha Barve demonstrates that communal conflict in India can be addressed through dialogue. Working in the most violence-ridden regions of her country, she engineers conversations that involve all parties in an exploration of the social and economic factors that led to their conflict, and leads them toward practical solutions. Paying no heed to those who doubt the power of discussion, she has helped feuding groups make and implement strong plans to end violence, recover from it, and avert it in the future … Sushobha plans to apply the systems and techniques she developed through years of work in hot spots like Kashmir, Malegaon and the slums of Mumbai to communal conflict in the whole of South Asia. She is now spreading her methods through programs for teachers, community leaders, police, and citizens throughout the region. (full text on ASHOKA Changemaker).

Forging New Paths in Peacemaking in Times of Conflict and Violence.
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Veteran Gandhian Nirmala Deshpande passed away in the national capital early on Thursday morning. She was 79 … (New Delhi, May 1, 2008).

Linked with Remembering Nirmala Deshpande: South Asia has lost a great crusader of peace,

She was one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Nirmila Deshpande, a well known peace crusader of India, died on May 1, 2008, after a long period of illness. She was 79-years-old and left behind so many followers who like her, wanted peace. From her early years she was a Gandhian and an enlightened person whose only aim in life was to work for the cause of humanity … Didi will be remembered for her time as a peace crusader in a region which is on the verge of self destruction by racing to acquire nuclear arms over the importance of feeding millions of poverty ridden people (full text).

She said: « Nirmala is a pioneer of peace work, especially in terms of mobilizing women and girls to engage in establishing pacifism-and the subcontinent is the net gainer » … (1000peacewomen).

She received the National Communal Harmony Award 2004.

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Veteran Gandhian Nirmala Deshpande – India (1929 – 2008)

Her official Website.

Listen her video: Nirmala Deshpande: Limitation, Complexity and Interdependenc, 5 min, June 25, 2007.

She said also: « Gandhi belongs to the world ».

She worked for All-India Harijan Sevak Sangh AIHSS (named on blogs about Harijan Sevak Sangh), for Akhil Bharat Rachanatmak Samaj ABRS, (named on her official website), and for the National Centre for Rural Development NCRD.

She helped also the Association of Peoples of Asia, the Women’s Initiative for Peace in South Asia WIPSA (scroll down), the Adhyatma Jagaran Manch (named on her website), and the Peoples Integration Council (named on AICC.org).

She was Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) (Nominated twice): First term from 1997-1999, Second term from 2004 onwards. (on her website).

Photo-Gallery.

(From 1000peacewomen): Nirmala Deshpande (born on 17 October 1929) was the quiet, reflectiv face of Gandhianism in a world torn apart by strife and communal hatred. A pioneer of peace work, Nirmala has been especially successful in mobilizing women and girls, founding several organizations that function as platforms for people who believe in peace and nonviolence to come together.

Also crucial were her numerous Track II initiatives to establish peace with Pakistan at a people-to-people level. To the many people whose lives she’s touched, Nirmala was known as just didi (elder sister).

She was born to P.Y. Deshpande and Vimlabhai Deshpande in Nagpur, Maharashtra. Her father, a Member of Parliament, brought her up in an open and free environment, encouraging her to take up higher studies. Nirmala did her Masters in political science, and then worked as a lecturer at Morris College, Nagpur.
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