The moon shines in South Asia

When I came down from the upper floor and sat in the lower floor room, I could clearly hear her breathing. That breathing made me wonder if she was sick. And, I asked her – is she okay or not? She immediately replied – “What do you mean by difficult, I don’t know, I am healthy.”

Chandani Joshi, who has spent most of her time in the field of women’s health out of her 46 years of national and international work, has undergone 9 surgeries for various health problems, and due to a problem in her knee, she has had steel installed in her knee. Within a month of the surgery, she has experienced walking while holding her stomach while working. These days, she has trouble sleeping. Due to ‘sleep apnea’, she has to sleep with a machine in her nose. However, she is still associated with various organizations and says – “I am healthy, work is my therapy.”

She considers the loss of her family members (mother, father, husband, daughter) as the most difficult time for her. Her husband and marriageable daughter died in a Thai Airlines plane crash. Recalling the situation at that time, she says, “At that time, the doctors themselves said, ‘I must be crazy or I should be gone,’ but work became my therapy.”

Born in Palpa in 2001, Chandani is one of the personalities that the country should be proud of. ‘I reached the ‘D-1’ position as a Nepali woman,’ she says proudly. Chandani, who passed her SLC at the age of 13 and started her career by teaching at Padmakanya College for 19 years, has played an important role in policy-making related to women in Nepal and South Asia. She played an active role in gender mainstreaming in the national plans from the Sixth to the Tenth National Plans of Nepal, and in the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh National Development Plans of India. Similarly, she has played an equal role in formulating national gender policies for countries like Pakistan's Seventh National Development Plan, Bangladesh's Fourth National Development Plan, as well as Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bhutan.

Joshi, who retired from the post of Regional Programme Director of UNIFEM's South Asia Regional Office, has recently been appointed as an advisor to the SAARC Gender Information Centre, and is active in many organizations including Home Net South Asia, an organization working for the rights of women working in the informal sector.

Chandani, who has become an example of how something can be done for women after sitting in the women's policy-making level, evaluates her work at home and abroad and says, "In a breakfast meeting after the tsunami, I suggested to Bill Clinton that there should be a policy to give land in the name of women as well, and my proposal was passed."

From teaching to women

Chandani started teaching at Padmakanya College, where she had studied, after completing her master's degree in English. She was happy to be teaching at the college where she had studied. She had studied English philosophers and literature, but when she taught small books according to the course in the classroom, she felt like she was "falling into it." After five years of teaching, she became the head of the English department. As the head of the department, she was frustrated when others gave priority to subject matter, but when she taught the language that was her responsibility, she was given priority. Reflecting on the saying that if you teach too much, even the teacher becomes an ox, she left her teaching profession.
She turned to government administration, but when she had problems with where to use her English, she looked for a place to use her abilities. The then Ministry of Home Affairs and Panchayats produced training materials and books for employees. She saw her potential there and went there. While working, the 1975 International World Women's Conference was held.

According to the work plan of that conference, the Ministry of Local Development launched the Women's Development Program, but it was not effective. Chandani says, "After the program did not take off, my boss Shyam Prasad said, 'Even if you touch brass, it turns to gold, you should work on the program.'" After I explained that I also had no experience in women's development work, I thought why not go abroad and learn, and I went on an observation tour of various women's programs in India."

After Chandani and other Nepali, Bhutanese and Bangladeshi representatives made a three-week observation tour of programs such as India's Service and White Revolution, a plan was formed to determine what and how women could be developed in Nepal. Accordingly, the program to increase women's empowerment in Nepal was started in 1981, with the support of UNICEF. Sociologist Lynn Bennett was also involved in this project.

Mother of the PEWA Program

Chandani Joshi is the pioneer of the PEWA program for women, which has become well-known in Nepal and other SAARC countries. And personalities in this field refer to her not only as the pioneer but also as the ‘mother of the PEWA program’. That is why, among the many programs she has run for women, she says that the Production Credit for Rural Women (PCRW) program is the one she likes the most. Chandani Joshi has experienced that the aforementioned program has helped her throughout her time in Nepal, at the United Nations Women’s Program (UNIFEM), and as the South Asian Regional Chief. She says, “Experience gave me confidence. The PEWA program became a guru for women’s development. Even though the environment in all South Asian countries is similar to Nepal, it was not difficult. The women of that village dared to speak up for women by talking to personalities like Bill Clinton, Pratibha Patil, Hamid Karzai, and Benazir Bhutto.”

The program, which was implemented by placing women development officers in five different districts of Nepal (Dhading, Tanahun, Syangja, Nawalparasi and Surkhet), was monitored after it was extended to 11 districts. After it was confirmed that the work was going well, international donor agencies like FAO, UNDP, UNFPA, SEDA, IFAD also came to support the same project. Chandni, who listens more than she talks, works in conjunction with the policy-making level, and believes that for work, one should go to places untouched by development rather than developed ones, was very happy and proud to be recognized in villages through the PCRW program.

Having been a joint secretary at the government level and being the first elected female president of JCSS in the field of social services, she was well-known in the country. She says, ‘It was not that I was not recognized here because I had been a joint secretary and a female president of JCSS, but when I went to Pakistan as the regional head of the South Asia level, only a limited number of people knew me there. The work I had done in Nepal had to be started from scratch there again. .’

Chandani was invited as the first female head of the United Nations program based on her successful implementation of the PCRW program in Nepal. With the responsibility of the head, she had to look at 8 South Asian countries at that time. Despite the challenges,

She tells the story of her experience of not being able to believe it when she prepared her work plan in the three months she arrived in Pakistan. She says that if she is clear about her work, she will be successful in any work. She says that she worked in the government for 26 years, worked in the country and abroad, but my women's 'activism' did not die.

Why in the women's field?

Chandani Joshi spent her professional life almost exclusively in the women's field. Chandani, who says that many things in the women's movement in Nepal are 'under the carpet', why in the women's field? She thought for a moment and said - 'This seems to be my 'destiny.' The inspiration to join this sector must have been there since childhood.'

The 2007 revolution at a young age Chandani, who experienced this, was the granddaughter of Rana Rudra Shamsher, who was sent into exile. Chandani, who grew up in her maternal home, Palpa, used to see young women in the prison attached to her residence. When she saw women in prison, she would ask, ‘Why are women in prison?’ The answer was that they had committed a crime, but that was not understood. Even though she did not understand the matter, she had goodwill towards the women, and she felt that it would be better if women could stay in their families.

Chandani’s education and hostel

Chandani, who believed that she was able to study at the time because of her mother’s belief that daughters should also study, went to Lucknow, India at the age of 6 to study. Out of about 60 children in the family, she was the only one who went to study at a convent in Lucknow. When she reached there, she could write a little English but could not speak it, but Bulu Dixit helped her in the first year. Later, she quickly learned not only English, but also Hindi and Urdu. .

The atmosphere in the hostel was very different from that at home. At home, it was said that you should not cut your hair at night, you should get an old man (for your daughter), but in the hostel, you always had to cut your hair in the evening and go to bed. Similarly, there was a rule that you had to brush your teeth in the evening. In later life, many of the rules of staying in the hostel changed, but the habit of cutting your hair and brushing your teeth has continued to this day.

Sticky notes for family

Chandani was able to move forward so far, not because she did not have responsibilities towards her family. The challenge was how to balance the responsibilities of her family, children, and her career. However, she always thought about how to organize her family for her work. That is why she would leave a sticky note with responsibilities for each member of the family before going out of the house or country. After returning from work, she would collect those sticky notes and understand whether the work was done or not. She says - I learned how to manage well while working and maintain communication. When she lived in Japan and India, there were no mobile phones like today, and talking on the phone cost a lot of money, so she would send postcards to her children every week through the post office. In some cases, the postcards would not arrive even after I reached home, they would arrive later than me, but I would still send them.

Everyone's me, who is mine?

Chandani Joshi's work in the field of women's work and hard work were successful. This is why most of the women in South Asia who know her closely consider her as ‘mother’. As she said at the beginning, whatever she does, she succeeds – like touching brass becomes gold. In this sense, she considers herself lucky. She says – whatever she does, she gets the reward. Everyone says how it is possible, I say – I was never in love with a chair. If you are in love with a chair, you are also afraid.’ According to Joshi, she never had to face political pressure for the program, she did not even take up a program in the field of departmental ministers.

Chandni also made many friends in the country and abroad by working in the field of women. But she did not get the affection that comes from the heart. Counting the number of her well-wishers, who believe that respect at home is higher than respect abroad, she says – ‘Dr. Vanira Giri and Dr. Without Pradhan, I didn’t have much connection with anyone except my two best friends.

Despite spending years away from home for work, Chandani is satisfied that her children have never complained and that they have not used their parents’ names for their careers. Proud of her children, Chandani says – both are artists, they never asked where we were when we needed them. My daughter-in-law and son-in-law are also good, I am very ‘lucky’.

(Reprint of the cover story published in ‘Hasana Magazine’, a co-publisher of newatime.com)