by Linda Macqueen

High up in the misty mountains of southern India we sit together on a woven mat in an empty classroom. The two girls’ relaxed-yet-formal posture suggests something close to aloofness. They seem to float, above the world and its problems, above any challenge that confronts them.

But there is also delightful humility in them that communicates warmth and respect. They’re natural beauties and they radiant the sort of elegance and sophistication that you rarely associate with Australian girls of this age. It’s not only their stunning saris that create this impression; the wisdom of womanhood is already in them, acquired through hardships and heartaches, cruel and enduring. You get the feeling that life has beaten them with every rod it can find, and one by one the girls have broken them over their knees and hurled them back in contempt: ‘Is that the best you can do?’

They sit close to each other, shoulders touching lightly, at ease in each other’s space. Occasionally they exchange a glance, a flicker of eye contact through which they draw comfort and courage from each other. I hear in that unspoken whisper the assurance of love and friendship, common to teenage girlfriends all over the world.

Yet Anandhi (17) and Sushila (16) are anything but typical teenage girls. Anandhi is a Dalit. Formerly known as ‘untouchables’, Dalits are considered to be non-persons, something akin to animals, believed to be created to serve the people of caste. They work in the fields and factories as ‘coolie’ labourers, often under conditions we would not consider fit for animals. In India, if you see a woman sitting at the roadside breaking rocks for road construction, or a man waist-deep in a pit bucketing out human waste, or a child on her hands and knees scrubbing a floor, you will be watching a Dalit at work.

In the villages, Dalits live in communities separate from people of caste, perhaps at the bottom of a hill where the mud and sewage collects.

Born a Dalit, always a Dalit. Indian culture is strongly influenced by Hindism, which teaches that only in a reincarnated life can Dalits hope to have the curse of oppression removed.

It is considered inappropriate for people of caste to associate with Dalits; they will not eat or drink with them, touch them or speak with them.

Sushila, leaning lightly on Anandhi’s shoulder, is ‘high caste’ — at least within her village. Most Indians would consider her to be at the lower end of the pecking order, but in her impoverished mountain village she belongs to a privileged caste. It’s all relative. Even in the poorest communities there will be a class system. From her mother’s arms Sushila learned to despise Dalits.

‘In our village, everyone goes to work on the coffee plantations, but caste people and Dalits work in different parts of the fields’, she says. ‘We don’t speak to each other or eat together. We drink from different cups and we don’t even drink from the same water source.

‘There is a Dalit girl about my age in my village. Her name is Gometi. I was never allowed to play with her or even to speak to her. I grew up learning to treat Dalits like animals, as things and not as people.’

There are about 100 villages tucked away in the mountains around Kodaikanal, the home of the Grihini school for disadvantaged young women from Dalit and tribal communities. The school was the vision of Jan Orrell, wife of Australian pastor Dr Norman Habel, who was principal of the international school at Kodaikanal. Under Jan’s bold, visionary leadership and in partnership with the local Jesuit community, a small group of local literate women were inducted as ‘animators’ to teach classes in literacy, social awareness, nutrition, health, crafts and ‘people’s media’, including songs, skits, dance-drama and proverbs.

In 1987 about 30 of the poorest young women in the area, aged between 13 and 23, were brought to live in a small section of the Jesuits’ Sacred Heart College, where the Grihini school had been established. Persuading village leaders to allow the young women to leave their families and communities was no easy task, however. No Indian mother, it was said, would allow her daughter to leave her family and live in a strange place for a year.

But the Jesuits already had an excellent reputation for respecting and providing care for the poor people in the villages. They frequently ate and slept in the Dalit villages and had established meaningful relationships with the villagers. They were trusted, and so, gradually, tentatively, young women were released to go to Grihini. Soon there were 90 applicants for every 30 positions in the program.

Setting the captives free

In its 24 years of operation, nearly 1500 young women from around 40 villages have graduated from the school. They are now the driving force for change in their communities. Dr Habel, who quickly became and continues to be an active supporter of the school, says, ‘Grihini gathers beneath its wings the poorest of the poor and those with little or no education. It aims to set these social captives free.

‘Women in these communities are captives to their oppressors. They are triply oppressed: first, because they are desperately poor; secondly, because they are Dalit; thirdly, because they are women. Grihini reaches out to these young women and over the course of one year identifies and develops their unique giftedness.’

Grihini director Dency Michael says the girls come as ‘unpolished diamonds’ to the school. ‘Often they come here malnourished. Their hair is brown and they are terribly thin. They are shy and socially backward. They cannot put two words together and they cannot even look you in the eye.

‘The first thing we do is give them three solid meals a day, and then we start to teach them how valuable they are.

‘After three months they are already changed women. By the time they graduate, many of them are capable of being agents of change in their communities.’

Discrimination against Dalits is illegal in India, but centuries of ingrained tradition are not easily overturned. Especially in remote areas, where people are largely uneducated, caste division still continues. Grihini teaches the young women their rights as Dalit and tribal people and develops their confidence and communication skills so that they are able to speak up in public forums, even lobbying government for improvements in their villages. They learn basic health and hygiene practices and are equipped to teach their communities. They also learn the social responsibilities they must exercise for the good of their communities. When they have children they will send them to school and they will encourage other parents in their village to do the same.

'She died from despair'

‘Before coming to Grihini I never thought of such things’, Anandhi says. ‘I went to school for only two years. When I was seven I left school and started working in the fields with the other children. I had no plans, no expectations that my life would be any different from that of my parents and grandparents.’

Like most girls from these villages, Anandhi had expected to be married at about 14 or 15 to a much older man, possibly a first cousin.

‘Marriage between cousins is common practice, even among educated people’, explains Dency. ‘People don’t want to share their wealth with anyone outside their family.’

As soon as a girl reaches puberty, there is a public ceremony in the village which announces that she is available for marriage. The girls might be as young as ten. But they can only be married if the family can pay a dowry to the prospective husband’s family. Sushila’s father borrowed a ‘huge amount of money’ to marry off her older sisters. ‘One of my cousins is married and she is only 15. She is three months pregnant already.’

When she was only 13, Anandhi’s cousin was married to a 30-year-old man. ‘She was scared to have sex with him and so he beat her’, she says. ‘She became depressed and hysterical. They took her to hospital many times but no disease was ever diagnosed.

'Shed died from sadness and despair.'

Anandhi is determined to work towards stamping out such traditions within her community. ‘I am not going to get married until I am at least 20’, she says with determination. ‘And not until I have the skills to earn my own wage. I want to be able to support not only myself but also my mother and brother.’ Her father, a violent man, abandoned the family several years ago.

‘I want to buy my own sewing machine’, she says, ‘and start my own business’. At Grihini she has learned how to sew and how to apply for a loan. She wants to prove that a woman can be the breadwinner in the family, and that no woman has to endure a life with a violent man in order to eat.

Sushila, too, looks at her future differently now. She has a new respect for herself and also for the Dalit people in her village.

‘Since Grihini my mindset has completely changed. Now I consider all people to be equal. Dalits are people just like me.’

She has been back to her village several times during her year at Grihini. People have noticed the change in her.

‘I never used to talk to Gometi. But now we not only talk to each other, we even feed each other. We eat from the same bowl.’

It’s not easy to do this, to break centuries-old traditions. She receives a lot of criticism from the village elders. ‘They say to me, “Don’t you know who to be friends with?” They tell me that there will be a lot of confusion if Gometi comes into my house and that my family will be shamed.

‘But my parents are big supporters of Grihini and the changes it is bringing to villages like ours. They will help me.’

You can’t help being inspired by the courage and determination of these two young women. But will they be strong enough to make the long-term changes they hope for?

‘Yes’, Anandhi says with conviction. ‘Yes, because Grihini has taught us many things, including how to be strong. We must continue what we have started.’

They brush their shoulders together for reassurance. They smile knowingly. ‘We will do it. We are Grihini women’, Sushili says.