The difficulties which women of her village faced everyday encouraged her to do something for their betterment. She was closely involved in establishing women's self-help groups (SHGs) in the village and motivated women to join them. "We increased our kitty to INR 50,000 through small individual contributions of INR 10, 20 or 30. In case of need they can take loan from it at nominal interest."
An improvement in economic status and general awareness has helped Preeti mobilize the village women to fight for their rights and negotiate better to redress their problems--"I try to empower other women and train them in any new technique which I learn, and collectively we fight for our rights. I feel rural women are more ready to fight for their rights out of economic necessity. Urban women are more complacent as their husbands have jobs and perhaps this financial safety makes them unresponsive."
Besides being a successful farmer, Preeti has been at the forefront of fighting for development and gender justice: "We have some important achievements. We women collectively managed to force the RPF people not to release the water from their flooded compound into our fields and homes during every monsoon. We did a lot of dharnas (sit-ins) and then only did they improve their drainage system."
"We are also agitating for proper functioning of the public distribution system (PDS). There are many anomalies in villages regarding functioning of ration shops. Although all households have ration cards, only those whose cards have been put online, are getting the rations from PDS. Even they are not getting their full due--they are entitled to receive 35 kg in a month but the shopkeeper doles out only 10 kg and makes an entry of 35 kg. We have been protesting and demonstrating against this anomaly and have even approached the DM. but though enquiries have been made, the situation has not improved."
"Recently I came to know that some women were charged INR 10 per kg for wheat, instead of INR 6 per kg from the ration shop on their white coloured card (yellow card holders get it at INR 10 per kg). when I threatened to report the matter the shop owner returned the excess money he had charged."
Some self-styled local political agents/middle men in the village would collect INR100 from each of the 400 households on the pretext of getting some village work done at the district level, saying that they had to pay bribes to get the work done. One day Preeti thought that enough is enough. She asked them to give the villagers an account of the expenses incurred, which they did not. So, at her behest, the villagers stopped giving them money and themselves started going to the city to meet the officials and saw that they did not have to pay any bribe. Thus Preeti helped stop the illegal practice of money collection.
Women farmers
Women farmers face lot many other difficulties too. It is not uncommon for their land to be usurped by antisocial elements. Or else, very often, the husband sells the land without the wife's consent, for short-term financial gains. Preeti has helped many such women get back their land by acting as the go between.
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