For Shanavva Gurappa Kamble, the journey has been long and arduous, but life-changing. From a devadasi, exploited and reviled by society, she is now the owner of three buffaloes and will soon open a shop of her own. And it all started with a small loan from the Mahila Abhivruddhi Matthu Samrakshana Samsthe (MASS) — a society for, and run by, former devadasis in Belgaum district, Karnataka.

The organisation was in the news recently when Iravati, Shobha Gasti, and colleagues from MASS met in Bangalore to drum up support for their society.

Founded in 1997 with about 2,500 members, and now having about 3,600, the society aimed to sustain the momentum of a project initiated by the Karnataka State Women’s Development Corporation and Bangalore-based non-governmental organisation MYRADA to bring social justice and equality to devadasis in Belgaum district.

It started as a crusade to eradicate the age-old practice of forcing girl children, mostly from Dalit communities, to become devadasis (with 66 per cent becoming devadasis by the age of 10, and nearly 93 per cent by 15). This practice, supposedly a dedication of the girl child to the Goddess Yellamma by her guardians, was in reality an induction into a life of sexual exploitation, marginalisation and grave stigmatisation throughout her life.

Through awareness campaigns, vigil against new ‘dedications’ (backed by legal suits against individuals who attempt to induce a girl child into being a devadasi), skills training programmes for former devadasis, and educational support through scholarships and hostel facilities for their children, this social practice of sexual exploitation has been eradicated in Belgaum.

MASS now plans to extend its work to other districts in north Karnataka and south Maharashtra, where similar exploitative practices are being followed.

One of the main challenges faced by MASS and related NGO activists, is capacity-building for alternative and sustainable sources of livelihood. Many efforts have been made to integrate the women into mainstream economic activities and empower them to live independent lives.

A success story is that of Shanavva, who received a subsidised loan nearly 14 years ago from the Karnataka government to buy two buffaloes as part of an income generation programme. She now has three buffaloes.

Eight years ago, she attended training sessions on owning and running enterprises, organised both by MASS and the Stree Shakti self-help groups promoted by the State government).

“These training sessions helped me decide that I should start a cloth trading business,” she says. “I also do ‘pico’ (stitching sari edges) and attach sari ‘falls’ (lining sari edges) for my customers, who are from my village and other places nearby.”

Shanavva’s business operations started with a tiny loan from MASS, supplemented by a larger amount of about Rs 60,000 from the bank where she maintained a small savings account.

“The bank lent me the cash without collateral,” she says, as she was a member of an SHG and associated with MASS. She started the business at her house, which was built and allotted to her as part of the government’s rehabilitation programmes for former devadasis.

Over the last six to seven years, her revenues have grown, and her loan quantum from the bank has expanded nearly four times the initial amount. She is now on the verge of setting up a shop in her village

Another story of transformation and entrepreneurial success is that of Shantha Balappa Mang and Yellavva Rathnavva Mang of Alaknur, who now sell coconuts outside the village temple.

However, these success stories are few and far between, and need to be replicated and scaled up to acquire a critical mass. A programme for training nearly 1,000 former devadasis as handloom weavers had to be shut down due to inadequate capacity-building and poor project execution. Other skill development projects that involved manufacture of soap, incense sticks, chalk and camphor suffered similar fates.

According to Lathamala, who was associated with KSWDC and MYRADA in founding MASS, a large part of the society’s operational funding that came from the Karnataka government has been stopped since the past two years. The corpus generated from the lifetime membership fee of Rs 500 per member and the interest income from the corpus is now being used for operational expenses.

If the focus on generating sustainable livelihood is to be maintained, it is imperative to continue providing entrepreneurial skill training, developing business scaling abilities, initiating viable projects and imparting new economy skills. For this it is critical that MASS as a society survives, as it possesses the experiential learning of solving issues of gender exploitation and the transformative processes required for reform.

The organisation is uniquely positioned to share and disseminate the experience of erasing centuries-old inequities, and can be co-opted to be held up as a working example of empowerment throughout the nation.

After a hectic day of calling on various government departments to seek continued funding for their eradication and empowerment operations, Iravati and some colleagues from MASS, while resting at a shelter near Bangalore City railway station, said that some members had been able to set up independent entrepreneurial ventures. These were largely ‘petty’ shops, or stalls at weekly or daily village markets.

A few had been able to initiate sustainable livelihoods as coconut, jaggery and banana vendors, and as owners of small grocery shops, stationery shops and betel leaf shops. Most of them, however, continued to be agricultural labourers for whom livelihood was highly erratic, and who managed to supplement their income marginally from livestock purchased through a combination of subsidies and loans provided by the State government and SHG networks.

The nine-member MASS team has since returned to Belgaum after being told that their requests for funding could be considered in the future. Iravati says nearly all 3,600 members will land up in Bangalore, if need be, to campaign for support of their programmes, but hopes it will not come to that.

Published on September 6, 2012