=================== Ajeet Singh, Guria =================== Ajeet: [missing initial minute or two where Ajeet narrated an encounter with a prostitute]...I met a woman during a marriage and decided that thats going to be the definition of my life. I pursued that woman for 5 years from 86-91. She was troubled by me and told me to take the children away to my place. I faced resistance at home, and in general the response of the outside world was shocking. After 1.5 years, the woman took away the children. For the energy I was using for those children, I have to go to that area and work. I got my organization (Guria) registered. In 1994, I began going to the redlight areas of Varanasi. The main focus right now is education. We began with education. We have NFE centers and balwadis. From the beginning balwadi was not the goal but the means to reach a goal - to get the women rehabilitated and to stop new entries. As far as education is concerned, we believe in mainstream schools. Right now we have 40 children who are in mainstream schools and they are doing well. One girl has reached 9th and one boy 12th. After the education, the immediate exploitation of women came to my mind. It was going beyond education and I have move beyond the education because then you understand the nexus. Even in case of education, education of girl after 12-14 is very difficult to continue. There is lot of pressure, and for [addressing] that you need to go into the roots of prostitution and structure that perpetuates the trade. I began focusing on immediate exploitation and the nexus that is involved - police, traffickers, pimp, brothel keeper. It is strong, sophisticated and well organized. They are well connected because money is involved. As the UN report says trafficking is the third largest trade in the world worth 7 billion dollars, after drugs and arms. At one stage, I did a mistake and I was threatened. I withdrew but pursued it. Of late, we have tried to break the nexus. I feel behind everything - education, rehabilitation etc - the nexus will crop up. So we have taken it [the nexus] as the focus. (1) The nexus relies on dependence of the woman on the nexus itself. Dependence on what? Very small things. For health, legal or security reasons money, even Rs 100, has to be borrowed from the brothel keeper. (2) The other action is a direct confrontation with the police and criminals. The women have organized a press conference and said that they are not going to give "Mahina" (monthly bribe) at any cost. For almost two months nobody paid. This happened in 1997-98. They formed a human chain and closed the brothels. We then took on the police. Why police? Because they are relatively the softest target. They [police, keepers, etc.] work in collusion. If you hurt one fellow, the entire network gets disturbed. The brothel keepers and pimps use the police to control the women also. They [brothel keepers and pimps] bribe the police to lockup the woman. They get the women locked up first, and then go and get women released. All this to tell the women that if she exceeds limits, she can get put in jail. It works magically. Even after genuine raids, the structure is not broken and the redlight does not vanish, you can understand the power of the whole thing [the nexus]. We have to weaken the nexus. Now the police has been mostly tackled. It is an ongoing fight. After 8 years, this has resulted in major changes: we have declared the redlight area child prostitution free redlight area after observing it for 2 years. This is first in the country. The Times of India came out with a story on this. It did not happen in one go. All these small things added up. Womens participation is important. We have also declared that we have stopped new entries. In the last 2 years, there have been no new entries. We did not allow a single girl to be trafficked in. But this has failed after 2 years, I have to admit. I knew that it will happen sometime. You cant go rushing into it. I am not pushing myself consciously. In special cases e.g., in March I took stern action. I dont believe in immediately rescuing somebody. I can do it. If necessary I can do four [rescues] also. But the whole gameplan will get spoilt. I moving in a holistic fashion with a broad theme in my mind leaving no holes behind to cover. I am not in any hurry. You have to have passion. In 1997 I had to go underground for 2-3 months because of threat to my life. Being too enthusiastic is being a fool at times. 2 years is a pretty good. It has been demonstrated that the model can work. I can show that it is possible. The area has become child prostitution free and I am going to stick to it now. It is a give and take. HIV: To me social work is heart to heart interaction. I also emphasised this. To me, it is not jugglery or managerial skill. So it has helped. Once educated, I can assure you that in 90% of the cases, condoms are being used. Education matters. A lot depends on how close you can get. In case of MP [Bedia community]: For the last three years I have been doing nothing but being in between them and playing with them. I am not in any hurry. I am planning for a lifetime. There is no shortcut. In the midst of all this nexus breaking, I spotted on thing in my favor which is the tradition of singing and dancing. I used this for their rehabilitation. (1) This does not draw any suspicion (2) It is ready made (3) you should respect what they are like. lets not impose our ethics, our idea of rehabilitation and/or vocational dancing. Not everybody can do it or enjoy it. If they are doing it in redlight areas, it has to be respected. It is not to be overlooked. I have worked on it for almost 8 years now. After about 8 festivals all over the India, we have hit the pulse. We have a successful team of 30-40 women with us. They have drawn attention...because of their talent. I just brought it out and given them a slot. What is necessary right now is to get them jobs and programmes. Apart from rehabilitation, it is working as a great awareness mechanism. It has a great impact whereever they perform -- 30/40 women dancing, singing and talking about life. Guria Magazine: It is not a newsletter. It has come out of my experience - the way media has dealt with the issue. It is basically a literary magazine. The major theme is love and relationship. It is my passion. All my editorials are on love. I feel that even after the socio-economic aspect is taken care of, one aspect remains which is love and relationship. If there is no deeper understanding of relationships, you will find relationships breaking. We have to think at this level also. We have to think about development also. Cars, mobiles and planes have their place but they should not allowed to "ride on us". Instead of looking within, we are looking without - against the nature. There is no happiness and satisfaction. We are looking for new definitions of development. The criteria for development should be that everyone should be happy and fully fed. Education is designed for ensure cutthroat competition. This is very much related and have been focusing on this. Development has to go in consonance with the entire existance. You distort nature and that is resulting in [among other things] into prostitution. Bedias: Bedias are traditional, family based prostitution. Education is going on but here I am just living with them - being with them, playing and gossiping with them. There is no NGO involved. It is just myself. You have open it up at that level. If anything has to work there, I do not want police or law to work. If I become one in their family, it is lot easier. If you have to make them wear a blue saree, you just tell them you look beautiful in a blue saree and they will do it. You dont have to put in that much effort. It is by the virtue of being part of their life. This is what social work has meant for me. Anita: You were mentioning that there is a difference between the nexus in the rural areas and the urban areas. You didnt get to talk about it. Ajeet: It is basically a family affair. There is more space for women here [in rural areas]. It more crude, institutionalized and criminalized in the cities. At the bedias, family members are crude but still you can see that freedom. Father/brother nexus. Indrani: It is not organized and no big structures. Is it easier to find soft spots there? Ajeet: It is in their blood. A girl at the age of 10 will say that she will do this to support her family. It is in their system. Srikant: You have stayed both in the Bedia community and in the redlight areas. What is the perception of the victims? What is the percept of these victims to effort to reform them? Ajeet: I have never talked about morality or rehabilitation to them. I try to be as normal as possible with them. I never had a group meeting. If necessary I can have the women come with me to the magistrate's office for dharna. At times we make it technical. We have to spontaneous and deal man to man. Try and understand what they are wondering about the situation. I had compartmentalize because I have to come out with some facts and figures. At the very next redlight area, the approach will be different. Chandravel: For how many years have you been working? Ajeet: 1994-until now. Chandravel: Why I asked is: I started in 1996. In 1999 I started to realize like him - after 3 years. Within 3 years, I used to say you cant for them, you have to work with them. You as to become like them. Ajeet: Social work is time consuming because we are dealing with humans. Subhash: How many people are working with you? What is your attitude towards prostitution? Is it to be preserved or banished? Ajeet: Legal aspect? Subhash: Yes. Ajeet: It started as one many army. There are 8-10 people in the team. Staying in the Bedia village is personally done by me. There is woman who is helping me there to look after the kids. In Benaras it started with me adopting children. Now there are 8-10 people. My stand in prostitution: I am against legalization. In this whole process, there is certainly a place for women who want to pursue it because of various reasons. In due course when we are talking about prevention and rehabilitation, I found a gap with experience. That gap is for women who want to continue just because they dont know where they are from, they dont have anyone in life. At times I am not trying to interpret also. At that level an exploitation free environment is required for the women. Even our law is talking against organized prostitution. Any individual woman is free from it [the law]. But structurally nowhere in this country does the individual woman prostitute. They dont let her do that. The system is such. For such women, we have to work at a level they are free. Freedom is not only at physical level but in terms money and children. We not talking legalization but tolerance. It is not decriminalizing the institution of prostitution but decriminalizing the individual woman. Anjali:What is it that you are looking for? Ajeet: To evolve a comprehensive approach to the issue - not just taking condom distribution. holistic approach taking into consideration socio-economic background, gender inequality, and cultural and religious aspects. Anjali: Your mention of free environment for the women who want to pursue answers my question. Ajeet: It is not objective. In the process of rehabilitation and prevention, this aspect comes up and at that stage, it becomes inevitable. You have to cope with women who would not like to leave. Anjali: How many women are there? Ajeet: There are more than 300. Shanmuga: There seems to be different streams of thinking at the policy level and in terms of what they see as an idea goal by people working in this area. There seems agree on something and are very diametrically opposite on some other issues. Where did this come about? You were there right from when there were no groups working on this. Can you give some historical background as to what happened? Ajeet: The person who started this legalization process, Dr. Jana, is a good friend on mine. Each festival they participated. I am not very rigid about that. I really dont know. It happened all of a sudden. Dr. Jana talked to me also. I was there in Kolkata for 4-5 days just to understand the idea. Where is it coming from? I talked to lots of women. I realized that when you see the structure of prostitution, you dont find independent women. They are totally under the grip of the brothel keepers and the pimps. This is the harsh reality. Under such situation, who is talking about this? They were the brothel keepers, pimps who were organizing the sammelan. They brought the women herding the women. This is important because it is against the brothel keepers. It is against organized prostitution. It is their problem and they were leading the change. The lady (Sadhana Mukherjee) who led, I found out, is another brothel keeper. She is not an individual. It is very saleable idea and funding agencies like them.