From using leverage points to overpower an attacker with a larger body frame to staying calm during an emergency, young women were taught self-defence techniques at a workshop here on Tuesday.
The workshop on ‘Distress management for women’ was organised in memory of trade leader and businessman Mangalpady Namdev Shenoy who passed away in June this year. Conducted by Major Bhavana Chiranjay (retd.), the 90-minute session focussed on tackling stalking, aggression by men, and thinking on one’s feet in situations of violence.
The workshop was inaugurated by Sampat Pal Devi, founder of Gulabi Gang in Bundelkhand, U.P., which routinely uses force to counter domestic abuse and cases of dowry demand. “Women have to protect themselves and be united. It is only when men and women are considered equal, will there be education for all, and development for all,” she said.
She lamented that it was women who forced patriarchal rules, whether it was a mother ruing that she had given birth to a girl, or a mother-in-law who demanded dowry. “Women end up spending their entire lives in chains. There is a need to break out of it and become self-reliant,” said Ms. Devi.
When asked by presspersons how she justified vigilantism when a legal procedure was prescribed by the Constitution, she said: “The right laws are in place, but implementation is lacking. If one has to get justice under the law, you have to have money and be ready to go between offices and courts for years… we teach erring men a lesson, and even then if do not heed, we produce them to the police.”
On the outrage over the incidents of sexual assaults being reported in the State, Ms. Devi said society should introspect on its morality. “There is a need for social change. We cannot blame the government, as they can only take action after the incident. It is society that causes such incidents to take place.”
