Girvar – Where Differences Unite!

Forming an oasis in the desert of caste divides, women SHG members recognize and uphold the underlying unity of their humanity, honouring their interdependence and displaying tolerance and compassion for each other

Introduction

I t was a regular SHG meeting in the Rebarivas hamlet of Awal village in Abu Road location, Rajasthan. The meeting proceeded like every other meeting, with familiar transactions and discussions, and facilitation. When the meeting ended, the group members asked me if I would like to have some tea. I knew that they belong to a community that specializes in dairy. They milk their own cows and sell the milk to a regular milkman. So the milk that was going to be used in the tea would be pure and freshly milked. I was never going to say no.

Soon the tea arrived. The woman, who served the tea, came in with a tea container and two different types of cups. One was made of brass and the other was a regular porcelain cup. The woman asked me, “To which caste do you belong ?” I admit I was surprised because in my entire work experience, I was never asked such a question; I had no clue what a cup of tea had to do with my caste. I replied that I was a Thakur- Brahmin. Immediately, the lady poured the tea in the brass cup and served it to me whereas the community facilitator, Savita Bai, who belonged to the same village and stayed in a hamlet that was a stone’s throw away, was served tea in the porcelain cup. She belonged to a caste called Meghwal, considered a low caste compared to the Rebari caste, to which the other members of the group belonged.

This discrimination had a mind-boggling impact on me. I knew that Savita Bai, with whom I had been working in the village to form so many SHGs for the past one-and-a-half years, was comparatively well-off and well-educated as compared to the Rebaris. Yet, she was being discriminated against because she belonged to a lower caste!