Posted on Jan. 5: India’s women are keeping the peace

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/india-women-1.jpg” caption=”Womens Shanti Sena”]Resolving conflict and making peace within India's local community has one non-governmental organization working with officials at home and abroad to use a secret tool that's as old as mankind  women.

Rama Singh, founder and chair of Hamilton's annual Gandhi Peace Festival, is working with this year's Gandhi Peace Lecturer Acharya Ramamurti through McMaster's Centre for Peace Studies to bring attention and support to the Women's Shanti Sena (WSS), a program that educates women about their rights and responsibilities. He's visiting India in February to help with the program.

“Many of India's rural women are illiterate, but that doesn't mean they're ignorant or uneducated,” says Singh. “They face the issues of daily life in a village so they know what the challenges are and they have ideas about how to fix those challenges but first they need to know they can speak up.”

In an endeavor to encourage women's efforts in a traditionally male-dominated society, India's constitution has been changed to mandate one-third of elected seats at all levels are now reserved for women. Now, 45,000 women have been elected to the village council in the state of Bihar alone, encouraging them to come out of their traditional roles and to get involved in community peace building. Through WSS, women stay in a camp for five to seven days where they receive intensive training in areas of peace, non-violence and democracy.

“The idea is to lead a peace movement by women for everyone,” says Singh. “By the end of the seven days these rural women can understand their rights and responsibilities and they're better able to communicate their thoughts and ideas to other women and men. There is no better gift than the gift of education to women in India today.”

More than 3,000 women in the state of Bihar have already trained in the program, and other camps have spread into eight states including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Gujarat and Assam. Next, workers hope the program's curriculum can be written in a way that's general enough to apply to other women internationally.