When The Phogat Sisters Inspired An Entire Village In Haryana

A village in Charkhi Dadri district in Haryana initiated a special scheme to install daughters’ nameplates outside their homes. This incident was inspired by the movie ‘Dangal’ which stars India’s leading wrestlers, the Phogat sisters. This village in Haryana borders the one where the sisters reside.

The man behind this laudable scheme, Kamod Sudarshan Kumar who is the Sarpanch of this village and also a proud parent of a girl child says “Everyone talks about saving and promoting the girls, our village panchayat thought of doing it first. He added that he always wanted to do something for the girls and this movie ‘Dangal’ had given him the courage to do so. Kumar is leading the initiative by installing the first nameplate with his daughter’s name Preeti Mothsara outside his paternal house. He finally said, “Later, it was followed by all the panchayat members and Anganwadi workers.” Speaking on this occasion, Sanjay Shastri a teacher at the local government school and also a panchayat member said that the panchayat would bear the expenses of nameplates having the names of girls along with their fathers and mothers as well.

Kamod Village has an impressive child sex ratio for the age group of 0-6 years. There are about 1300 girls for 1000 boys, which is one of the highest in the nation of its kind. The village which stood as an example has just about 450 houses and roughly a population of 2100. This village lies 24 km north-east of Balali, where the Phogat sisters live.

Sanjay Ramphal, a social activist from Kamod said, “The whole idea is to get the daughters their place in the society and change the patriarchal mindset of the people.”

Mahabir Phogat, the father of the Phogat sisters, lauded the panchayats’ effort and said that all villages in Haryana should mirror this decision. He added, “I am overwhelmed to see that people have started shunning biases of treating girls less than boys but the government should come forward by providing more education and sports facilities in rural areas for promotion”.

Hopefully, this initiative will inspire more villages and people to start such movements to fight against patriarchy.