Talk by Ms. Dayamani Barla

-This blog was originally posted on Nov 27th 2007 in my other blog-

Tuesday Nov 27th I attended an inspiring talk by Dayamani Barla, organized by AID Dallas. Before I give any opinion, let me give a brief introduction about her.

"Dayamani Barla's is an inspiring story of a tribal woman who decided to stand up and campaign for issues that continue to erase, erode and impoverish tribal societies in Jharkhand in the name of development. Dayamani, educated at the Ranchi University, has been writing articles in Hindi in regular newspapers and magazines like Prabhat Khabhar for the last ten years. Her writings powerfully articulate the exploitation faced by tribal communities, especially women. She strongly believes that by taking the voices of the tribal communities to the common public on issues of tribal women's empowerment, health, local self-governance and on Government's Tribal policies, common people can be made aware of the real situations on the ground and thus participate and influence development policies in the right direction.

She has been a powerful campaigner working shoulder-to-shoulder with the community on different issues ranging from eviction of tribals due to the Koel Karo Project, hazards of Uranium mining to forced prostitution of tribal women. A recipient of the Counter Media Award for better rural journalism(2000) and the National Foundation for India Fellowship (2004), Dayamani runs a local tea-shop for a regular living which she claims is also one of the best places to listen to the voices of the people!"

The talk lasted a little more than 2 hours. For most part of the talk, she talked about tribal people and their life. She went in detail to describe how things work there, how much these people depend on nature for most of their stuff, and how much they respect it. Then she started talking about her family and her childhood days. To me she went on way too much into detail about it. By the time she came to the interesting part where she started talking about how her life as an activist started, it was too late. But we extended the questionnaire round, where we were finally able to get a sneak preview about her life as an activist. Thanks to all the good questions being asked by the audience. I asked a simple question as to how in a state like Jharkhand, she manages to deal with bad people and their threats, for which she gave a great answer. She told us that people try to threaten her in the beginning, but when they see the so much determination on her side, they loose their spirits. She also added that she got nothing to loose so she has no fear at all, and even about being killed, she said she dies everyday, isn't that enough. I really liked the questionnaire round. The first half of the talk was like a good information, but you can get that information from any source and for that you do not need a personality like her to tell.

She seemed to be like a very determined, fearless leader and her life, struggle, protest so far tells everything about her. Fact that in spite of being born and bought up in a remote area, she managed to complete her Masters in Commerce, was really impressive.

People like her continue to inspire people around them all the time, and I am glad that I was able to meet one such person in person.

More information,

As Aid Saathi

Articles she published in Prabhat Khabar can be found here