IN each and every case of struggle, particularly in resistance struggles, peasant women have played a very significant role. They have remained in the forefront of all militant struggles, despite having to bear the brunt of all repressive campaigns. They disarmed policemen at Kaither-kalan ( Bhojpur district) and actively participated in the raid on Bikram police station (1981) and in getting their arrested comrades released. Whether it is a mass meeting, demonstration, gherao of some official, or movement over land or wages, everywhere the women can be seen fighting shoulder to shoulder with their menfolk. And they, too, have shed their blood in these struggles — the martyrdom of Chandravati while resisting police repression in a village in Bikram PS (Patna, 1981) is a shining example of the women's death-defying spirit and persistence in the movement. In keeping watch on the enemy, safeguarding the underground and maintaining the secrecy of underground work, it is the women who play the frontal role.

The peasant struggle in Bihar has made a great difference to the conditions and status of women, particularly of poor women of lower castes. Only a few years back, their condi­tions were simply horrible. Gangs of upper-caste bad gentry would freely enter the harijan tolas at any hour of the day, and would molest the daughters, sisters and wives in the presence of their frightened parents, brothers and husbands. In some villages, young girls as a rule were not to be found in their houses after 10 at night, 'reserved' as they were for the regular enjoyment of upper-caste landlords. The toiling people of lower castes had also begun to get infected with this corrupting influence of these parasitic upper-caste bad gentry. The struggle has radically altered the situation. Landlords do not dare to enter the harijan tolas any more, particularly after sunset. The women have found back their dignity and any case of rape nowadays evokes immediate retaliation.

Not only against sexual oppression by upper-caste bad gentry, the poor women in today’s Bihar are equally voci­ferous against male domination in their own families. In the event of a woman being beaten by her husband, women in their hundreds intervene, condemn the husband and some­times even take punitive measures. If in any family the women are not allowed to join the movement, women from other families would en masse approach the male members of that family and convince them.

The Kisan Sabha has organised a separate wing for women. This apart, there are certain women's associations, too. The rate of women’s participation in the movement is highest among agrarian labourers and poor peasants. This is somewhat natural since they have relatively more freedom within the family than the housewives in middle peasant families. The latter, too, need to be brought more and more in the fold of the movement, but this depends very much upon greater mobilisation of the middle peasants/strata in the peasant movement.