As we approach March 8, early in the dawn of this new century remarkable developments are taking place on the women’s front in India. Deep in the forests and plains of Central India, in the backward villages of Andhra Pradesh and up in the hills among the tribals in the State, in the forests and plains of Bihar and Jharkhand women are getting organised actively to break the shackles of feudal patriarchy and make the new democratic revolution. It is a women’s liberation movement of peasant women in rural India, a part of the people’s war being waged by the oppressed peasantry under revolutionary leadership. For the past few years thousands of women are gathering in hundreds of villages to celebrate March 8. Women are gathering together to march through the streets of a town like Narayanpur to oppose the Miss World beauty contest, they are marching with their children through the tehsil towns and market villages in backward Bastar to demand proper schooling for their children. They are blocking roads to protest against rape cases, and confronting the police to demand that the sale of liquor be banned. And hundreds of young women are becoming guerrilla fighters in the army of the oppressed, throwing off the shackles of their traditional life of drudgery. Dressed in fatigues, a red star on their olive green caps, a rifle on their shoulders, these young women brimming with the confidence that the fight against patriarchy is integrally linked to the fight against the ruling classes of this semi-feudal, semi-colonial India and are equipping themselves with the military knowledge to take on the third largest army of the exploiters . This is a social and political awakening among the poorest of the poor women in rural India. It is a scenario that has emerged far from the unseeing eyes of the bourgeois media, far from the flash and glitter of TV cameras. They are the signs of a transformation coming into the lives of the rural poor as they participate in the great struggle for revolution.

But this revolutionary women’s movement has not emerged overnight, and nor has it emerged spontaneously from merely propaganda. The women’s movement has grown with the growth of armed struggle. Contrary to general opinion the launching of armed struggle in the early 80s by the communist revolutionary forces in various parts of the country, the militant struggle against feudal oppression gave the confidence to peasant women to participate in struggles in large numbers and then to stand up and fight for their rights. Women who constitute the most oppressed among the oppressed, poor peasant and landless peasant women who have lacked not only an identity and voice but also a name, have become activists for the women’s organisations in their villages and guerrilla fighters. Thus with the spread and growth of the armed struggle the women’s mobilisation and women’s organisation have also grown leading to the emergence of this revolutionary women’s movement, one of the strongest and most powerful women’s movement in the country today. But it is unrecognised and ignored, a ploy of the ruling classes that will try to suppress any news and acknowledgement as long as it can.

The vast majority of women live in villages weighed down by feudal oppression that takes many forms. Intense economic exploitation, crude and brutal social oppression, a culture that not only denies her independence but also denigrates her in all possible manners. Hence, women from the oppressed classes have had a stake in the destruction of the feudal rural order and have come forward to do so.

In the anti-feudal peasant struggles in the past century women have played a very militant and active role. In the Tebhaga struggle in the 1940s the participation of women was very high and Nari Bahinis were formed for self-defence when state repression began. In the Telengana peasant uprising from 1947 to 1951 too women participated in large numbers and peasant and tribal women became guerrilla squad members and there are many accounts of the bravery and tenacity displayed by these women in the face of encirclement by the Indian Army, in the face of torture and sure death. Thus when the Naxalbari uprising took place in 1967 in North Bengal under the leadership of Charu Majumdar it is not surprising that poor peasant women and girls participated with full enthusiasm. In the Srikakulam struggle the participation of women was remarkable. Women became commanders of the armed squads and struck terror in the hearts of the moneylenders and landlords of the area. The armed struggle in fact began after an attack on women by the goondas of a landlord when they were on their way to participate in a peasant conference. The names of the women martyred in this struggle, women who preferred to be felled by the bullets of the armed police rather than surrender still shine high – Nirmala, Ankamma, Saraswati. Thus these women defied their families and society to take on roles, which directly challenged their traditionally acceptable roles in society. They displayed tremendous heroism and determination to make the anti-feudal struggle a success. But the revolutionary movement at this time did not take up the conscious task of organising women’s organisations and taking up the struggle against manifestations of patriarchy. In the face of severe repression these movements were suppressed.

When communist revolutionaries regrouped themselves and began building up the anti-feudal peasant struggles in the late 1970s once again there was an upsurge of participation of women in the struggles. In the plains of Central Bihar, in the fields and villages of Telengana (AP) the peasant movement grew like a storm. Among the first issues the movement confronted was the feudal privileges of the landlords over the wives and daughters of the labourers working in their fields, especially of the Dalit castes. Subject to worst form of abuses and vulgarities of the landlords’ men, bent down due to starvation and poverty, these poor women were easy prey for the landlords and their henchmen. Many of the violent struggles in Bihar and Telengana in the first part of the peasant movement in the 70s and 80s was to end this abuse and molestation, going in the name of "tradition". These struggles provided the background for the growth of the women’s movement.

In this article we are restricting our report to the movement in Andhra Pradesh and Dandakaranya.

The Telengana region of Andhra Pradesh remained a bastion of feudal exploitation and many forms of patriarchal oppression related to it have continued there till the early 80s till the anti-feudal struggles hit them hard and decisively. The landlord’s ‘sexual rights’ over the wives of his labourers is only one of them. Then under vetti, both the male and female labourers were expected to provide free services to the landlord and his family. The service castes too were forced to provide free labour. Child marriage was widely prevalent. So were religious practices like the jogini or basavi. A local variant of the devadasi cult, young girls from the lower castes were married to the gods and a girl so married could not marry any man. In effect she was forced into prostitution.

When the anti-feudal struggles broke out in Karimnagar and Adilabad districts of Telengana in 1977 one important form of struggle was the social boycott of landlords. The labourers refused to go and work for the landlords in the houses and in the fields. The success of the social boycott was made possible because of the active participation of women too. Vetti came to an end in many districts of Telengana only because of these struggles. The active struggle of women also helped the formation of the Ryotu Coolie Sangam(RCS), the peasant organisation. They also became members of the peasant organisation. As the struggle developed many incidents challenging the right of the landlords in social and cultural aspects of their lives came up. After this struggle broke out the first RCS organiser to be murdered by the goons of the landlord was Laxmirajam. He was murdered because the women in his village decided to celebrate the batkamma festival in their own locality rather than as tradition in the gadi (courtyard) of the landlord’ house.

Among the other major issues taken up by the revolutionary peasant movement has been the issue of wages. Though initially the question of equal pay for equal work was not taken up, the struggle for an increase in the pitiably low wages was fought bitterly. The movement led to an increase in wages for all kinds of agricultural labour, though the rates for men and women remained different, women getting less than men. The peasant struggle developed in the midst of intensive propaganda about the new democratic revolution to end feudal and imperialist exploitation.

Among the first women’s organisations were formed by the CPI(ML) CP Reddy group in Telengana under the banner of the Progressive Organisation of Women (POW). Towards the end of the 1970s units of the POW were formed in villages in Karimnagar district and conferences were also organised. Later as work of organising women rolling beedis (leaf cigarettes) began they too got organised into the POW apart from being organised in the unions which were also formed. Thus the demands of women, especially peasant women began to be articulated.

Women in the Telengana region and in the Eastern region of AP were also active in the land struggles undertaken by the CPI(ML)(PW). By the early 1980s itself women of the poor peasant and landless classes were clashing with the landlords and police over the lands occupied by them. Tribal women had started displaying their militancy. In April 1980, when the police suddenly banned the tribal peasant conference at Indervalli in Adilabad district and started driving away the people who had gathered in the market it was a tribal woman who pulled a bow against a policeman and hit him with her arrow. Gradually village level organisations of women began to emerge and they became widespread from the late 1980s. These women’s groups also became targets of police repression and found it difficult to function.

In areas where the revolutionary movement was strong women took up the anti-liquor struggle in their localities. This became a major agitation in the beginning of the 1990s encompassing a variety of women’s organisations. (See report in box). Thus the village level women’s organisations formed in the various districts as the peasant struggle developed coalesced into the Viplava Mahila sangam (VMS) around 1995. (In North Telangana they were initially called MVS.) This underground women’s organisation is the culmination of many efforts and experiments to build the women’s movement in rural Andhra Pradesh in the face of state repression. As the peasant struggle expanded from North to South Telengana, from Guntur to Rayalseema districts so has the mobilisation of women. Born and steeled within the revolutionary struggle for a new democratic society of which the principal slogan is land to the tiller, the land struggles have and still occupy an important part in the mobilisation of women. For example in December 1997 the peasant association RCS in Ainool village (Mehboobnagar district) decided to occupy 200 acres of land controlled by Ramachandra Reddy and two other landlords. Of the 300 people who took part in this campaign 100 were women. In Shalkarpeta village in the same district the VMS supported the call of the RCS to take over 100 acres out of 200 acres belonging to a landlord. The VMS campaigned among women to prepare them participate in the struggle. Finally in June 1999 when a public meeting was held, over 100 women participated. They took part in the rally and planted the red flags they held on the land they occupied. Similarly in 1998 in Kovunoor village in Cuddapah district a land struggle committee was formed to regain control of 120 acres of land illegally occupied by a landlord. The lands belonged to the SC society and village community. It is decision of the RCS and the VMS that when lands are taken over and distributed women should also be given titles to the lands independently and this is being implemented wherever the revolutionary movement is able to give titles to the land.

Wage struggles occupy another important activity for the women’s movement. A campaign for equal wages for agricultural work has been taken up. In Tandra village (Mehboobnagar district) the VMS campaigned among women labourers for days to make them realise the need for and the importance of struggle. Finally when the RCS and the VMS together gave a strike call for higher wages it was a success. They beat the drum and began the strike. Two days later the landlord and rich peasants came before the labourers and negotiated in public to decide on the increase in rates. Inspired by the example of Tandra women in surrounding villages also took up similar struggles even though in all of them no VMS units existed. The initiative of women workers too has increased with the growth of women’s organisation. In June 1998 in Pallikonda village of Nizamabad district, women beedi workers faced unemployment because the owners decided to remove their local agents and thus stop local production. 300 women went to Bhimgal mandal centre and sat on a dharna before the beedi company office. The local agents were re-appointed and production resumed.

An account of the issues taken up by the VMS in areas will give an idea of the variety of issues being addressed by the women’s organisation in AP.

In Achampet area, Vakeshram village one woman Autamma’s husband died but his brothers refused to give her any share in the land. The VMS organised a panchayat and made the brother give her a 5 acres plot of land.

In Warangal village of Medak district 70 women organised a morcha to protest against the rape of a Dalit woman by a landlord’s son. They thus exposed the incident. In Dubbakka village one man Venkatagowd promised to marry Balamma. But finally he ditched her. She committed suicide. The women took out a rally demanding that he be held responsible for her death. The rally was lathicharged by the police.

In another interesting case in Erpedu mandal village Cinnanuru, a village head attacked and chased away a family. In the process the 8 year old daughter of that attacked family got lost. She was found by one Ramaswamy, who took her and made her a bonded labourer in his house. When the VMS got wind of this they mobilised the local villagers and rescued the girl. They insisted he pay for the months she had worked for him. He was made to pay Rs 12,000 to the girl for her labour. VMS units in several areas have been instrumental in organising small symposiums on issues like dowry to educate people against dowry. They have organised processions to spread awareness about dowry killings.

Besides VMS units have been active in mobilising women for agitations against drought, for facilities like roads and electricity. Especially in the summer of 1998, faced with a severe drought, women were in the forefront of the agitations for water and relief. They were in the forefront of exposing Chandrababu Naidu’s Janmabhoomi reform program. Hundreds of women demonstrating in Regonda mandal town shouted, "We want water not liquor". They have staged rasta rokos and dharnas, held meetings and processions. They have stood up in many instances against police atrocities. They have stopped police from arresting mass attacking the police with whatever they had in hand. They even tried to snatch their rifles. Shocked the police ran away leaving Mahendra Reddy behind. 20 special batch police came back another day but were again confronted and chased away. Similarly, in Gurajala mandal 50 women stopped a police bus taking away the Sangham leader and forced the police to release him. In Durgi Mandal, Naramalapadu village twice the police arrested RCS leaders and both times under the leadership of the VMS women staged rasta rokos and got them released.

Such examples can be multiplied by the hundreds all over the state. Women themselves have faced repression for leading the struggles. The have been beaten up by the landlord’s men, they have faced harassment, threats and beatings and arrests by the police. But through all this women under the influence of revolutionary politics are getting organised and building their own organisations and fighting for the right to equality and freedom from oppression. For them the struggle for new democratic revolution and the struggle against are integrally linked. Hence their feelings and dedication for the revolutionary movement. This came out most sharply in a major confrontation that developed with the police in Manala village of Nizamabad district over the martyr’s column. In Sept 1997, 1800 men and women of Manala and neighbouring villages laboured for 18 days to build a 45 feet high column in memory of revolutionary women martyrs. Thousands attended the inauguration of the memorial column. Hence in June 1998 when the police came and tried to force the women and men of Manala to break the memorial they faced stiff resistance. When the police realised that the villagers were willing to face death but not allow the column to be broken they were forced to retreat. Though they tried to harass the Manala women in other ways they did not succeed.

The impact of the revolutionary movement on tribal society both in Dandakaranya and also in the Eastern Ghats (Vishakapatnam, Srikakulam, Vijayanagaram districts) has been even deeper. The majority of tribals in the districts of Gadhchiroli, Gondia of Maharashtra, in Bastar division of Chattisgarh, Balaghat in MP and Malakangiri of Orissa belong to a sub-tribe of the Gonds – Madia, Muria, pardhan, Dorla or RajGond though other tribes like Raut, Halbi also inhabit these forests.

Though there are particularities in the customs but their society is patriarchal. The women play an important part in production, they labour hard and long in the fields and home yet traditionally they have no rights to the land. They do not have any social rights either. Their participation in the actual rituals is prohibited by custom, their role in community decision-making and arbitrations is also marginal. In many ways, through customs and beliefs, small and big, their subordination is reinforced. Thus, for example, though women may plough the land and even cut the harvest, they may not thresh the grain, nay, they should not even step on the threshing floor when it is going on. Girls are not allowed to enter the main grain store of the family. During menstruation they must stay outside the village and not be seen, esp. by a priest.

The family has the right to decide the marriage of a girl and boy. If a girl disagrees with their decision, then she is forced to go to the house of her in laws. In case of resistance, it was common to beat her inhumanly, tie her to a pole and carry her off, like an animal’s carcass being carried after a hunt. . In some areas, boys would kidnap a girl one of them liked and force her to marry him. Polygamy is common, a woman’s labour being prized. Though their society does not prohibit pre-marital sex, and in some parts it is acceptable within certain institutional arrangements like the Ghotul, yet promiscuity is neither a practice nor is it acceptable. A girl pregnant before marriage is looked down upon. In some areas, like Gadhchiroli the custom of giving up wearing the blouse once a girl is married was strictly enforced among the Madias. But it is not uncommon in other parts too for women to give up wearing the blouse once they have a child or two. Better publicised is the oppression that these women have been facing at the hands of ‘outsiders’ – the contractors, traders, settlers, policemen and other government employees who come into the forest, into the tribal villages and take advantage of the simplicity and innocence of these girls to sexually exploit them and then abandon them. For them the tribal ways amount to promiscuity, which gives them the license to treat them as prostitutes. As the squads of the people’s war entered the Dandakaranya forest from 1980 onwards they confronted these patriarchal customs and practices. As they won the trust of the people and started struggles for rights over the forest and for raising the rates for tendu leaf picking the hot summer moths they gained the trust and confidence of women too. Women are in the forefront of picking tendu leaves sot hey came into the struggle too in large numbers. Women actively participated in the strikes when the contractors and the Govt were intransigent about their demands.

Women participate in many kinds of labour in the forest. They go for bamboo-cutting for the paper mills, they work in the forest dept nurseries, in road building and other such work. In all these areas of work, struggles broke out to improve the wage rates and the conditions of work and women were very active in the struggles. Young girls came forward to campaign in villages, to put up posters propagating the issues and demands. Women with babes in arms walked for days to attend meetings and conferences. There were many instances when outsiders exploiting tribal girls or molesting them were brought by the squads before the people forced to apologise and either leave the area or reform their behaviour. As a result the incidence of sexual exploitation in the areas of struggle went down a great deal. And when the police repression began to crush the revolutionary forces and their struggles women learnt to face the police and help to keep the movement and organisation alive. From all these experiences the Krantikari Adivasi Mahila Sangathana (KAMS) was born. While the initial units were formed in Gadhchiroli district they gradually spread to all parts of the district and to the neighbouring districts. Since 1995 the KAMS has spread by leaps and bounds in Bastar – Dantewada district, some parts of Bastar district and Kanker district, Gondia, Rajnandgaon and Balaghat. It later spread to Malkangiri district too and here too the organisation has grown rapidly.

The first district Conference of the KAMS was held in Gadhchiroli in 1991, but the Maharashtra Government launched its repression campaign a few months later and all the KAMS district committee members were forced to leave their homes and operate from the forests, or become full time organisers functioning underground. The KAMS took as its task to propagate against tribal customs which are oppressive for women. They struck a chord among young women and gained their active support. KAMS units began to be set up in village after village. But due to the repression the units found it difficult to function openly. For the police merely being a member of KAMS is a crime. In the chargesheet of a middle aged woman arrested from Gondia district was written that she is the president of the village KAMS unit! Thus from 1993 onwards KAMS has grown in the midst of severe repression. KAMS units have been set up in the Abujmadh hills, in the areas around Keskal, in the hills of Byramgadh and the plains of the Avapalli, Indravati and Pamed national parks, up to the banks of the Shabari river. Today there are more than 500 villages with units of the KAMS, the membership varying from 5 to 20 in each village. In areas where there are more units range committees have been formed which oversee 25 to 40 villages. Since 1997 range level conferences of the KAMS have been held in several areas and the range Committees elected.

The KAMS has actively propagated against the more oppressive customs that are resented by the women and helped women and girls who have put up resistance.

For example due to the active campaign against forced marriages now one rarely finds a case of physical force being used to force a girl to marry against her wishes. If a girl brings such a case before the village unit of the KAMS or the peasant organisation the KAMS members and/or the squad talk to the family to convince them to desist from forcing their will on the girl. In fact there are many cases in which girls have left their families and become guerrillas in the PGA to avoid a marriage they are not interested in. Women perceive the revolutionary party as their own because they see it as a force which is helping them to become aware of their oppression and fight it. They come to the squads with their problems and expect help. Girls from the Kondagaon area approached the party to end the Ghotul system because they felt oppressed that they were forced to go and dance in the Ghotul every night even if they were not interested. The KAMS in the area took up this campaign to stop compulsory dancing. Meetings and rallies on this issue were organised. In many villages the Ghotuls were shut down or atleast were no longer a compulsory activity for unmarried women. But taking advantage of the increased repression of the police when it is not easy to function both for the party and mass organisation, the elders of the clan and community again forced the Ghotul activity to be restarted.

In Gadhchiroli there was strong resistance from the clan elders to the campaign for wearing the blouse after marriage and it has taken some years to wear down their resistance so that now the practice is no longer widespread as before. Initially it could be enforced only in the families of those active in the peasant organisation.

For the past 4 to 5 years the KAMS has been regularly organising March 8 programs around specific themes. While sometimes, big programs gathering women from many villages have been held, in some areas smaller meetings of women of 5 to 10 villages have been organised in every range. Women squad members have presented skits in these meetings, sung songs.

A March 8 meeting organised in the Indravati National Park area in 1999 was busted up by the special armed police when a report of the meeting somehow leaked to them. Almost 1000 people, half of which were women had gathered for the meeting in the forest. A pamphlet had been brought out for the occasion. The people had to return very disappointed that the meeting could not be held.

The KAMS has also organised on issues of all India significance like the 400 to 500 strong morcha taken out be women in Narayanpur to protest against the Miss World contest in Bangalore in 1997. KAMS has actively participated in the anti-famine morchas, in election boycott campaigns, in development activity in the villages undertaken by the village itself.

Representatives of KAMS also sit in the revolutionary people’s committee wherever they are formed. KAMS has conducted people’s courts in cases like wife beating, re-marriage by men while abandoning the first wife. In one case of a people’s court the local KAMS brought forward the case of a girl made pregnant by one boy. The KAMS unit ferreted out the identity of the boy. He was forced to part with some land and cattle for the girl and her forthcoming child. As a result of the women’s organisation and campaigns women’s political and social consciousness has developed. Women are actively supporting the armed struggle and the people’s guerrillas. Every year they gather in large numbers before the martyr’s column in their village to pay homage to the revolutionaries who have died fighting to make the new democratic revolution a success. They take tremendous risk to help the guerrillas during police encirclement. When the police arrested some men from Bellum Nendra village the women followed the police and the men all the way to the police station over 5 kms away and did not budge because they refused to release the men. The police arrested these women too and sent them off to jail, more than 150 kms away. They are participating in large numbers in political rallies and meetings.

Young girls, often defying their parents, are joining the people’s guerrilla army in large numbers and their numbers have gone up remarkably in the past 5 years. Now almost 40 % of the fighters in the People’s Guerilla Army in Dandakaranya are women fighters. Women, who have been housewives, too have left their children with relatives, and joined their guerrilla husbands to serve the poor.

Up in the mountains of East Godavari and Vishakapatnam districts of Andhra Pradesh an overwhelming majority of the people are tribals. They belong to the Kondlu, Gadaballu, Kondareddy, Bhagata and other related tribes. The hard life in the hills makes the woman’s labour even more arduous and tedious. Even fetching water entails climbing and descending with pots over long distances. Patriarchal traditions make her socially dependent and politically powerless. Further is the exploitation of people from the plains who have come into the hills and started plantations.

Closer to the plains like in Malakangiri district women are facing newer forms of exploitation. Settlers are marrying tribal women to gain access to tribal lands. The woman loses her place in the tribal community only to be used and abandoned by the avaricious husband. Women were in the forefront of the tendu leaves struggle which began in this area from 1983 onwards. They negotiated with contractors before the entire village. When a contractor refused to negotiate with Sanyasamma she told him, " Give me the keys to your jeep, I will drive it, while you carry this one sack of tendu leaves and show me." Women have participated in struggles to occupy the excess lands of landlords. Through protracted struggles they have emerged as mass leaders.

While from 1985 itself women’s organisations began to be formed in villages but it got a district level area level character in 1989 when the Krantikari AdivasiViplava Mahila sangham came to be formed. In 1995 the name was changed to Adivasi Viplava Mahila Sangham.

In the beginning of the 1990s the major struggle undertaken by the AVMS has been on the anti-liquor issue. (See box) Apart from this the organisation has undertaken campaigns, organised meetings, rallies, people’s courts on many issues. For example in 1996 a dowry death case in Ramavaram became an issue in which 100s of women were mobilised and they demonstrated to teach the killer husband a lesson.

Since 1997, March 8 is being celebrated all over, even in the remote villages.

Since 1988 in bamboo cutting and other related work the struggle for equal pay for equal work has been taken up and won. Thus a tremendous change is coming about in the region because of the awakening among women and the growing organisation among them.

In March 2000, hundreds of meetings were held in all parts of these districts and women have come to look forward to this ‘their’ day, the day to talk and plan to struggle for their rights. Women are going to cities far from their region, like Vishakapatnam and Guntur to participate in state level programs. By 1998 there were 200 units of the AVMS with 6700 members. But the organisation is functioning in the face of severe repression and many units are destroyed in the raids and arrest campaigns launched at regular intervals by the armed police. In March 2000 a campaign against polygamy was taken up in the Koyyur mandal. People’s courts have been conducted on many cases of polygamy, on forced marriages. Justice has also been meted out to those men who have sexually exploited women and then abandoned them. In big meetings in which neighbouring villagers are mobilised the men have been forced to marry the woman and give them a share in their property.

Thus the revolutionary women’s movement is growing in the midst of struggle. It is growing in Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal as well. As women are getting mobilised and organised in larger and larger numbers a section of them are also moving forward to join the armed struggle as fighters. They are willing to brave the hardships of guerrilla life with its constant movement and constant alertness, take on tasks and duties equal to men, with the aim of changing this exploitative society, for there is no other way to get out of the existing system, however long and arduous the path may be.

The movement is creating a new woman, bold and brave, who is willing to sacrifice her life for the social cause – the names of the women who have sacrificed thus loom high in the sky. There was Rathakka (Nirmala) the housewife from AP who died at the sentry post while defending her comrades, Emeshwari (Kamala) the Oraon educated girl from Jagdalpur who died at her post during a raid on a police station, young Raje who died of a snake bite, Swaroopa who died giving a heroic fight in an encounter.