Garhi Khajur in Haryana’s Karnal district is home to around 4,000 residents. But it took 25-year-old Jyoti in 2019 to became the village’s first woman to graduate.
“We have no transport services available inside or around the village. Few of us girls had to fight our parents to allow us to walk five-six kms to school,” said Jyoti.
Every day, a group of 15-year-olds would walk in tight-knit groups, looking over each other’s shoulders, so they could all safely reach school. But over time, the group seemed to shrink. Jyoti later found out some they had been married off. She would also hear stories of her friends being harassed after marriage, but there was nothing she could do about it. “I used to think this is normal and was just counting my days until I would also be told to get married,” she says. But when Jyoti’s father let her attend college 26 km away in Haryana’s Karnal district, she considered this a special opportunity, one that she should make the most of.
“I would keep my head down, pin my dupatta to my kameez and go straight to college and back. I was always scared that people from my village or nearby villages would spot me and persuade my father to stop me from going to college,” she added. Jyoti never missed a class and never gave her mobile number to anyone. “I did not want my father to have any reason to doubt me,” she said.
After graduation, Jyoti wanted to join the army, but her brother did not let her enrol. That’s when Jyoti heard of Breakthrough, an NGO working to end violence against women and girls, which had visited her village to create awareness about women’s rights and education.
“My friends who could not complete school and were married at a young age, were always at the back of my mind… So, I joined Breakthrough in the hope of giving the girls in my village an opportunity to study,” said Jyoti.
Today, as a community leader, she oversees seven nearby villages as she fights for the rights of women and girls to study.
Sometimes Jyoti has to sneak girls out of their houses to register their names in schools, or even inform the police about an illegal, underage marriage being conducted.
“I have made many enemies in these houses because I don’t let them marry off their daughters at an early age. They think I am spoiling their kids, but I still keep going,” she said.
Jyoti holds a weekly chaupal meeting with girls from the villages and gives them a space to talk about their issues. The girls then come together to find solutions to their problems.
“We want to be like Jyoti didi,” one of the younger ones say. While Jyoti goes from door to door, and village to village, her fight in her own home continues.
“I have fought my parents to wear the clothes of my choice and I am still fighting the whole family to not get me married…I will only marry when I want and to whom I want,” she insists.
(This appeared in the print edition as "Sparking a Flame in Karnal’s Villages")
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