Check this out amma, my daughter thrusts her cell phone at me. The video clip playing is of a young woman narrating a poem. When I hear the words of the poem I’m unprepared for the gut-wrenching impact it has on me. “Main Hindustan ki Beti Hoon,” says the poet to the crowd of women on a wintry night in Lucknow. Since I first saw the video, Syeda Umme
Kulsum’s evocative poem has gone on to create ever greater ripples on the internet.
Whether it is Kulsum protesting against the CAA and NRC legislation, or Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg drawing global attention to climate change, young women are leading from the front. I can’t help admiring them as they continue to speak without fear of the repercussions of their actions. How are other women, especially older ones learning from them and adding their voices to the fight? To be fair, history does show a long tradition of women protesting, even fighting for change at great risk to themselves. However, change frequently has proven elusive or far too slow.
In the sixth century a beautiful woman from the coastal town of Karaikkal in Tamil Nadu made an unusual request to her favourite Hindu god Shiva.
“Transform me into an ugly woman,” she begged. Karaikkal Ammaiyar’s story is not just one of a mystic’s journey but also of a woman who defied gender norms and challenged existing beauty standards for women.
Six centuries later Akka Mahadevi from Karnataka, was still fighting the same battles that Karaikkal Ammaiyar did. Nearly a millennium later, when Kamala Das composed English poems that spoke explicitly of women’s sexuality she faced great criticism.
In the early 2000s, Tamil poets such as Kutti Revathi and Salma were vehemently attacked for their unflinching poems around patriarchal norms and women’s freedom. It took the 2012 Delhi gangrape case of Nirbhaya to give rise to an unprecedented awakening of sorts among men and women across the country.
From the personal to the political, young women are not hesitating to raise their voices against injustice. And they’ve found a variety of ways — conventional and otherwise to express their views and to broadcast their opinions. This has ranged from direct action, be it street protests, public poetry readings and singing of the national anthem, to more creative ones whether making videos for social media or messaging through kolams (rangoli) — the latter roping in women across ages.
In the past, my first response to any form of activism would have been one of fear. However, over the last several years, I’ve realised that it behooves women of all ages and backgrounds to step up to support the young trailblazers.
Activism, much like charity, has to begin at home. The only barriers that we face are the ones in our minds.
As American novelist Toni Morrison said “If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.”