Damsel Became Warrior

Hi Friends,

I would like to share a story with you all today.

Once upon a time in Lucknow there lived a girl named Usha Vishwakarma. She was a school teacher. While growing up she had been victim of street violence, eve teasing many times. Other girls in her locality, city also faced similar incidences. Her life was normal until one day when one of her co-worker tried to rape her. Authorities of school and people of her community blamed her only. Not only school management insulted her but also transferred her to another school. No one said a word to that moron.  It’s common in so called our great India where victim of rape is blamed instead of rapist. Parents are afraid to send their daughters to school, colleges, and work due to such instances. Women are seen as sexual objects by lot of men in our society. Anytime a girl is raped or sexually assaulted, people start finding faults that she was out late in the evening, she shouldn’t have been wearing these types of clothes. Most shocking is lot women also blame the victim only. Such people don’t even think for once what kind of mental trauma a girl goes through after being assaulted. If a girl goes to police station to file complaint for eve teasing, sometimes policemen also starts misbehaving. I myself have witnessed few policemen eve teasing girls. They don’t lodge their complaints instead support evil only. Why aren’t these nasty men questioned for their misdeeds? In my opinion every morning they should be beaten and thereafter sent for work of cleaning roads, canals, tunnels with no salary just one time food for rest of their lives.
Coming back to the story, this incidence shook her and she decided to do something about it. She formed red brigade organization to empower women to stand against their attackers. Organization trains their members in Martial Arts and builds confidence in girls to face street violence.

She was wearing a loose Shalwar-kameez during the attack which stimulated her to adopt a loose uniform. Red means dangerous and black means protest. That’s why Usha Vishwakarma has chosen these two colors as dress code for her foundation Red Brigade. The organization builds confidence in girls by teaching self-defense who was troubled by eve teasers, stalkers. Her vision is to help women of all strata affected by any kind of discrimination, violence in our society.

Trainees of Red brigade have become strong and confident after learning self-defense. They now face their attackers with confidence and also beat them if needed. I salute her for not only standing for self but also for other girls as well. This is one fine example of women empowerment. These days her organization has worldwide press coverage. She is an inspiration for all the women folk out there. I salute her.

She also appeared on Kaun Banega Crorepati along with Priyanka Chopra and won Rs. 12.5 lakh as funding for her organization.

Here is the link to the episode from KBC - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SbIYLx2LoE

Website - http://www.redbrigade-lucknow.com/

I couldn’t resist writing about her.

Keep reading my posts

Megha Gupta