Editorial Viewpoint
Jaipur’s gems
There are not many Zoroastrians left in the picturesque desert state of Rajasthan. Of the handful that exist in the state’s capital of Jaipur, two women stand out for their accomplishments. One is social worker Alice Garg and the other, entrepreneur Behroze Singh.
Garg was recently in the news for opening a sea shell museum along with her physicist husband Krishna in the city on December 2, 2006 (“She shows seashells,” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, February 7, 2007).
But her contribution to the Pink City is far greater. An avid social activist and developmental worker, Garg had earlier earned the wrath of the Bharatiya Janata Party government. In July 1998 while agitating to prosecute influential individuals who had gangraped a woman, the Bhairon Singh Shekhawat led ministry slapped around nine cases against her, her two daughters, her son-in-law and 15 other individuals connected with the Bal Rashmi Society which she had founded. Four of her colleagues were imprisoned, some of them tortured, states Amnesty International. The charges against Garg ranged from murder, rape, sexual exploitation of women to embezzlement.
“We disburse around one crore rupees in loans to poor women. They filed a case of embezzlement for Rs 500,” she related. That too was done by coercing an illiterate woman to place her thumb impression at the bottom of a page. The allegation was Garg took Rs 500 but did not issue a receipt.
Fearful for her wellbeing, her family members and others insisted she go underground rather than risk being imprisoned, tortured and made to confess. For nearly five months she hid in the home of family friends outside of Rajasthan. Civil rights groups camped in Jaipur to render the family assistance in their struggle.
When the BJP led government lost the elections in 1999, Krishna approached the Congress chief minister and requested him to reinvestigate the cases. On doing so it was found there was no substance in them. A magistrate who had interned some of the social activists alleged that Garg was a Christian who converted others to Christianity! The Rajasthan High Court passed strictures against the judicial officer.
After the cases were dropped or quashed, Alice met Shekhawat to ask why he had pressed such horrendous charges against her. His feeble reply was “I was pressured.” Shekhawat is now the vice president of India. Who says crime does not pay?
But despite the respite, Krishna persuaded Alice to stop social activism and concentrate on developmental work. He told her the next time a government turned mean they would target the grandchildren. The only reason they escaped the first time was because they were toddlers. And Krishna himself was in the USA at the time the charges were being pressed, so he was spared.
Alice has won 23 local, national and international awards including the Neerja Bhanot Award for bravery in 2000. But the government victimization “broke the back of the women’s movement in Rajasthan,” she says ruefully. After seeing the example the government made of Alice, the others shied away.
“They had a commission for cows in Rajasthan but not one for women,” she recalls. And the female child is still unwanted in the state. Wearing white cotton saris with a colored border, Alice shuns ostentation. The red bindi on her forehead disguises a scar she received when assisting the Mehtars, the lowest of the low castes, to enter a temple frequented by upper caste Hindus. She received several injuries in the scuffle. Her report on the scavengers and rag pickers titled The Mehtars of Jaipur is a meticulously researched and documented study of their existence.
Hailing from Nasirabad in Rajasthan she was named Alice because her father Rustomji Kaka was a fan of Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
Another woman who has encountered discrimination as a female but overcome the odds is Behroze Singh. A gutsy, war
Garg was recently in the news for opening a sea shell museum along with her physicist husband Krishna in the city on December 2, 2006 (“She shows seashells,” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, February 7, 2007).
But her contribution to the Pink City is far greater. An avid social activist and developmental worker, Garg had earlier earned the wrath of the Bharatiya Janata Party government. In July 1998 while agitating to prosecute influential individuals who had gangraped a woman, the Bhairon Singh Shekhawat led ministry slapped around nine cases against her, her two daughters, her son-in-law and 15 other individuals connected with the Bal Rashmi Society which she had founded. Four of her colleagues were imprisoned, some of them tortured, states Amnesty International. The charges against Garg ranged from murder, rape, sexual exploitation of women to embezzlement.
“We disburse around one crore rupees in loans to poor women. They filed a case of embezzlement for Rs 500,” she related. That too was done by coercing an illiterate woman to place her thumb impression at the bottom of a page. The allegation was Garg took Rs 500 but did not issue a receipt.
Fearful for her wellbeing, her family members and others insisted she go underground rather than risk being imprisoned, tortured and made to confess. For nearly five months she hid in the home of family friends outside of Rajasthan. Civil rights groups camped in Jaipur to render the family assistance in their struggle.
When the BJP led government lost the elections in 1999, Krishna approached the Congress chief minister and requested him to reinvestigate the cases. On doing so it was found there was no substance in them. A magistrate who had interned some of the social activists alleged that Garg was a Christian who converted others to Christianity! The Rajasthan High Court passed strictures against the judicial officer.
After the cases were dropped or quashed, Alice met Shekhawat to ask why he had pressed such horrendous charges against her. His feeble reply was “I was pressured.” Shekhawat is now the vice president of India. Who says crime does not pay?
But despite the respite, Krishna persuaded Alice to stop social activism and concentrate on developmental work. He told her the next time a government turned mean they would target the grandchildren. The only reason they escaped the first time was because they were toddlers. And Krishna himself was in the USA at the time the charges were being pressed, so he was spared.
Alice has won 23 local, national and international awards including the Neerja Bhanot Award for bravery in 2000. But the government victimization “broke the back of the women’s movement in Rajasthan,” she says ruefully. After seeing the example the government made of Alice, the others shied away.
“They had a commission for cows in Rajasthan but not one for women,” she recalls. And the female child is still unwanted in the state. Wearing white cotton saris with a colored border, Alice shuns ostentation. The red bindi on her forehead disguises a scar she received when assisting the Mehtars, the lowest of the low castes, to enter a temple frequented by upper caste Hindus. She received several injuries in the scuffle. Her report on the scavengers and rag pickers titled The Mehtars of Jaipur is a meticulously researched and documented study of their existence.
Hailing from Nasirabad in Rajasthan she was named Alice because her father Rustomji Kaka was a fan of Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
Another woman who has encountered discrimination as a female but overcome the odds is Behroze Singh. A gutsy, war
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From the archive