Little girls and dolls are synonymous. They are the best of friends all over the world except perhaps in Jaunpur in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. In Jaunpur, these dolls meet a horrifying fate at the hands of little boys.

The festival of “beating dolls” is a very rare religious ritual which is held on every fifth day of the month of saawan (monsoon) according to the Hindu calendar. This festival is some sort of primary training for boys who will most probably beat their wives when they grow up and get married.

In 1996, Richa Singh, a brave woman from the same region, raised her voice against this strange religious ritual. She considers this religious rite as a school of atrocities where little boys learn to abuse and treat women badly.

The dolls used are particularly made for these occasions and are ruthlessly flogged by specially designed sticks known as “patki”.

Richa singh was working as a program coordinator in a government-aided organization when she first started the campaign against this religious rite.  She thinks, whoever beats her wife can never bear the same treatment given to his daughter by her husband. In 1997 she started to organize programs with the theme “Betiyan padhao, Gudiya jhulao” (Educate the girl child and rock your dolls in the cradle).

This campaign was organized in 15 villages of on every fifth day of saawan, the day when the doll beating festival is held. The campaign was a great success. Thousands of dolls were rocked  in cradles instead of being beaten.  Unfortunately the program did not spread geographically. Several districts in Uttar Pradesh still follow this callous practice of beating the dolls.

Richa Singh is not discouraged,  in fact, she believes that every seed takes its due time to grow until it yields flowers, but at the same time she says that the organization should have taken some more steps to curb the menace. She also believes that because she left the organization, the campaign got very weak and was not effective.  

Richa says that she is very upset with the media. She says the Indian media remained silent on this issue. She is also upset with other women organizations who remained silent on the issue and didn’t come to the fore to restrain people from such practices.

Author: Suhail Waheed/ib

Editor: Manasi Gopalakrishnan