http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000480450009990&rtmo=kNAekxAp&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/00/5/7/wwom07.html
Indian women take up guns to fight abuse
By Julian West in Johri, Uttar Pradesh
A GROUP of women from a small village west of Delhi, tired of lives of oppression and abuse, are defying generations of convention by taking up guns.
Prompted by an incident when a local woman was stripped naked and paraded through the village by policemen, about a dozen young girls and their grandmothers from Johri village, in western Uttar Pradesh state, have taken up rifle and pistol shooting to protect themselves.
The women, who all come from the Jat caste - a proud farming community whose men traditionally keep guns - practise for an hour a day after working in the fields. The older women want to protect themselves from robbers known as "kacha banyians" or "dirty shirts" who infest the region - they are known to evade capture by covering themselves with oil to slip out of people's hands.
The women also want to ensure that their granddaughters are not abused or maltreated, especially after they marry. Dowry burning - the practice of feigning kitchen accidents to dispose of an unwanted bride, in order to remarry and get a second dowry - is common in the area. Wives throughout India, who traditionally move into the homes of their in-laws, are often tormented by dominating mothers-in-law and can be beaten by their husbands.
The incident that planted the idea for what is now India's only shooting club was the public humiliation of Maya Tyagi. The woman had tagged along unwittingly with some robbers, villagers say, when the men were ambushed by police. In the ensuing fight Maya Tyagi threw a pistol at one of the robbers, but when the men had all been killed, the police turned on her, parading her naked. Eventually her relatives took revenge by killing the police inspector involved.
Dr Suresh Datt Sharma, a founder member of the Johri gun club said: "She was courageous, but instead of throwing the pistol she should have used it herself. That's where the idea of these women shooting came from, I'm a strong believer in women's rights." Johri looks much like any other prosperous Jat village in north-western India: a maze of brick houses, with courtyards strewn with immense sheaves of wheat from the harvest, surrounded by mango trees and brick kilns.
However, in the mud courtyard of the finest house in the village there is a fully-equipped, if rudimentary, 10-metre shooting range - complete with.77 air pistols, air rifles and pulleys to send out and recover paper targets. Under the club's thatched roof, its oldest members - Chandro Tomar, 66, and Prakashi Tomar, 61, grandmothers in traditional wide blue skirts and veils - raise their pistols with a practised eye.
With them are three of the village's youngest marksmen, Hitteshwar Dixit, 10, who has been shooting for a year, and their granddaughters Ruby and Shefali, 13. The women, who are taught by Dr Raj Pal Singh, a rifle coach who comes from the village, have become such good shots that they have beaten men to gold medals in international contests.
Last autumn, Seema Tomar, a pretty 17-year-old from one of the village's poorest families, won a gold and a bronze medal for India in the South Asian games in Kathmandu, and now hopes to compete in the Olympics; and earlier this year, Prakashi beat four men, including a policeman, to win two gold medals in India's state shooting championships.
In a country where women's liberation is almost unknown, their achievements have attracted notoriety. Prakashi, who still asks her husband for permission to attend shooting contests said: "People laughed at first. They said, 'These old ladies, what are they doing?' When I beat the policeman he was so upset he didn't even want to stand on the same platform as me. But now people have begun to accept us."
Of India's 300 "serious" shooters, barely a handful are female, and of those only the women of Johri are villagers. The notion of a woman using a gun is so unusual that it is likely to confer celebrity status. After being abused and raped, Phoolan Devi became a "dacoit", or armed robber. Having gained notoriety as the "Bandit Queen", she later became a politician.
Dr Sharma hopes that the idea of women using guns will catch on. "When you light something in the dark it doesn't matter if it's only one candle. From that one light there can be many candles."
Indian women take up guns to fight abuse
By Julian West in Johri, Uttar Pradesh
A GROUP of women from a small village west of Delhi, tired of lives of oppression and abuse, are defying generations of convention by taking up guns.
Prompted by an incident when a local woman was stripped naked and paraded through the village by policemen, about a dozen young girls and their grandmothers from Johri village, in western Uttar Pradesh state, have taken up rifle and pistol shooting to protect themselves.
The women, who all come from the Jat caste - a proud farming community whose men traditionally keep guns - practise for an hour a day after working in the fields. The older women want to protect themselves from robbers known as "kacha banyians" or "dirty shirts" who infest the region - they are known to evade capture by covering themselves with oil to slip out of people's hands.
The women also want to ensure that their granddaughters are not abused or maltreated, especially after they marry. Dowry burning - the practice of feigning kitchen accidents to dispose of an unwanted bride, in order to remarry and get a second dowry - is common in the area. Wives throughout India, who traditionally move into the homes of their in-laws, are often tormented by dominating mothers-in-law and can be beaten by their husbands.
The incident that planted the idea for what is now India's only shooting club was the public humiliation of Maya Tyagi. The woman had tagged along unwittingly with some robbers, villagers say, when the men were ambushed by police. In the ensuing fight Maya Tyagi threw a pistol at one of the robbers, but when the men had all been killed, the police turned on her, parading her naked. Eventually her relatives took revenge by killing the police inspector involved.
Dr Suresh Datt Sharma, a founder member of the Johri gun club said: "She was courageous, but instead of throwing the pistol she should have used it herself. That's where the idea of these women shooting came from, I'm a strong believer in women's rights." Johri looks much like any other prosperous Jat village in north-western India: a maze of brick houses, with courtyards strewn with immense sheaves of wheat from the harvest, surrounded by mango trees and brick kilns.
However, in the mud courtyard of the finest house in the village there is a fully-equipped, if rudimentary, 10-metre shooting range - complete with.77 air pistols, air rifles and pulleys to send out and recover paper targets. Under the club's thatched roof, its oldest members - Chandro Tomar, 66, and Prakashi Tomar, 61, grandmothers in traditional wide blue skirts and veils - raise their pistols with a practised eye.
With them are three of the village's youngest marksmen, Hitteshwar Dixit, 10, who has been shooting for a year, and their granddaughters Ruby and Shefali, 13. The women, who are taught by Dr Raj Pal Singh, a rifle coach who comes from the village, have become such good shots that they have beaten men to gold medals in international contests.
Last autumn, Seema Tomar, a pretty 17-year-old from one of the village's poorest families, won a gold and a bronze medal for India in the South Asian games in Kathmandu, and now hopes to compete in the Olympics; and earlier this year, Prakashi beat four men, including a policeman, to win two gold medals in India's state shooting championships.
In a country where women's liberation is almost unknown, their achievements have attracted notoriety. Prakashi, who still asks her husband for permission to attend shooting contests said: "People laughed at first. They said, 'These old ladies, what are they doing?' When I beat the policeman he was so upset he didn't even want to stand on the same platform as me. But now people have begun to accept us."
Of India's 300 "serious" shooters, barely a handful are female, and of those only the women of Johri are villagers. The notion of a woman using a gun is so unusual that it is likely to confer celebrity status. After being abused and raped, Phoolan Devi became a "dacoit", or armed robber. Having gained notoriety as the "Bandit Queen", she later became a politician.
Dr Sharma hopes that the idea of women using guns will catch on. "When you light something in the dark it doesn't matter if it's only one candle. From that one light there can be many candles."