Women for change: Witnessing the birth of a Pune activist group

By Katie Jickling

Women for change

On an afternoon in mid-August, 16 Pune women inaugurated "Women for change." It was a christening of the most impromptu sort. Sr. Patricia Santos, a professor, announced that the gathering of Christian women needed a name, and the attendees, who sat in wickerback chairs sipping tea, agreed.

"Women for change!" a nun exclaimed approvingly, upon hearing Santos’ suggestion.

The woman lauded WFC’s first meeting as a hopeful new attempt to reinvigorate a women’s movement within the Christian church. As a Fulbright researcher seeking to learn more about women’s activism, I had come to Pune to witness their efforts.

Pune has a history of feminist activism. Savitribai Phule helped birth the feminist movement in the city nearly two centuries again, launching the first modern school for Indian girls in 1848. Phule wrote prolifically in favor of women’s education and at one point, organized a strike against the city’s barbers to protest the practice of shaving the heads of widows. Since then, myriad women activists and social groups have found a home in the city. Cheap land and a large Catholic university attracted orders of nuns and monks, who in term started social ministries, many for women and children.

The women who had come to the gathering were mostly Catholic sisters — leaders of nonprofits, members of a Catholic medical mission, a professor or two — plus a Protestant theologian and a couple lay women. They hoped to revitalize an ecumenical movement, which had fizzled in recent years, stymied first by internal disputes and later, by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The meeting was marked by an air of lassitude. Participants bemoaned the same challenges I had heard in interviews with women in Tamil Nadu and Kerala: many had labored for years to push back against patriarchal and male-dominated church institutions and had noticed little progress. They pointed to the lack of accountability among leaders, even in the wake of allegations of sexual abuse of nuns. There was little appetite among church leaders to address or even discuss issues related to women; the groups that did exist had struggled to maintain their momentum, especially since the pandemic.

Raynah, the head of the Catholic Women’s commission in Pune, said that few women, and even fewer religious sisters, showed up to the meetings she organized.

"People need to have more courage," Sr. Lucy Kurien said. "Who has courage?"

I’ve spent the last five months studying women’s efforts to make change in the church after feeling similar frustrations at my church in the U.S. Why, I wondered, are institutional so patriarchal and change so elusive?

But frustration notwithstanding, there were success stories in Pune— women who had spent years, even decades, laboring and advocating on behalf of women. I had come to the city because I had heard about those efforts and wanted to see and understand them for myself.

As Sr. Helen Saldanha put it, "Things are happening." She urged the women to focus on those success stories.

Sr. Helen herself was offering legal assistance to women at her nonprofit Streevani ("Voice of Women"). Her staff of six was representing 78 women in rape and divorce cases, she told me — and she spent her spare time defending nuns who had been raped or abused by bishops.

Another attendee, Sr. Lucy Kurien was in between trips to Jharkhand to set up a new home for her organization Maher Ashram, which provided homes and economic empowerment for the needy. She had already established 14 homes, including those for the elderly, those with disabilities, orphans, and single and young mothers. She had won national and international prizes for her work.

Elderly women outside at Maher

Maher women making bags to sell

Later that week, Sr. Patricia Santos would inaugurate a new women’s center at Jnana Deepa Vidyapeeth, the Catholic school where the meeting was held.

Leadership session for women at Jnana Deepa Vidyapeeth … some of sisters who attended

And another sister, Flory, would soon bless a street cart for a widow to make her livelihood selling fruit. These women — and others at the meeting as well — had devoted their lives to the cause of marginalized women.

Sr. Flory blesses and presents the fruit cart

But these efforts were undertaken as individuals, some women lamented; they urged each other to do more to collaborate — sharing resources and ideas, and building a citywide movement rather than working in separate spheres. "I need people with me on these issues," Sr. Lucy said in her appeal for more bringing in more women to the cause.

The Pune gathering was one more iteration of what I’ve found in my research: the challenges that women face as they try to make institutions — both religious and secular — more equitable and less patriarchal. The challenges seem immense, the progress infinitesimal. Individual work (such as helping marginalized women or is both common and effective, but collaborative efforts are more laborious and less rewarding. Should a group work inside the institution to reform it or pose a more public confrontation from the outside? Should the change they seek be moderate and incremental or radical and transformative?

After nearly two hours of lively discussion at the Women for Change meeting, Sr. Patricia Santos posed the foundational question. "Where do we want to start?"

The women grew quiet. But then one by one they piped up. Raynah would start a book discussion group to raise awareness. Sr. Mary, a nun who worked at a medical mission, said she could arrange free counseling for lay women and single mothers. Sisters offered space at their convent for future gatherings.

And then they took the step common to all newly initiated groups: They scheduled a second meeting.