What UP's Women Want

From Saharanpur in the west to Varanasi in the east, Forbes India travels across India’s most populous state to explore how women—going beyond entrenched caste dynamics—want to vote for everyday freedoms like education, expression and employment

- Divya J Shekhar

A framed photograph of Dr BR Ambedkar is among the few possessions in Neelam’s unplastered and unpainted brick home. The streets of her neighbourhood in Uttar Pradesh’s (UP's) Chilkana Sultanpur town are in darkness, with lit bulbs inside nearby homes being the only sources of light. “Abhi toh sab umeed pe kayam hai [now everything is riding on hope],” says the 51-year-old, indicating that she has high hopes for the candidate she will vote for on April 11. While Neelam, who studied till Class 12, is proud to be among the few “saksham” (able) Dalit families that “believe in getting their girls educated”, in her neighbourhood comprising 100-odd Muslim and Dalit homes, it is still rare for women to pursue graduate studies or seek employment thereafter.

“When I was married into this village three decades ago, people just lived in jhopdas [shanties] and women rarely stepped out of their homes,” says the mother of three, who admits that nothing much has changed when it comes to women being ‘allowed’ to work, except that some of them work on farms, help in anganwadis, or participate in local self-help groups (SHGs).

According to her, the one autonomy women are beginning to claim for themselves is the right to vote as per their choice. “I feel women have to decide for themselves, no matter what. The government has not even done 10 percent of what they promised. We do not feel safe walking on the roads, Dalits and Muslims live in fear... they don’t know which word or action will incite violence against them,” says Neelam, who works with her husband to grow wheat, rice and sugarcane.

Her neighbour Sahana Parvin interjects that she only prays for the “