Thanks for your questions so far. I have them queued up for Stephanie.
We've got 30 minutes until the chat begins. In the meantime, let's hear your thoughts on the school. Were you surprised by the caste system or the conditions in these slums? What did you think of the story?
Mandy, you can email ask@globeandmail.com to inquire about helping this school. We've received a few such emails already.
We're about 10 minutes away from starting. Please continue sending in your questions for Stephanie and your comments about the story.
Looks like we're ready to start. Thanks for joining us today Stephanie.
My pleasure, Stuart - thanks for organizing - and thanks all you interested readers for joining us!
Lots of questions here - I'll try to work my way through the list
I told Sister Sudha this morning that we had a big outpouring of interest from readers and she's really, really moved. She sends her warmest thanks.
If there are specific things you as readers would like to learn about the girls - or ways you'd like us to tell aspects of their story - do let us know, and we'll try to work them in. I'd love to know what you all found most interesting on the site, of the different ways we tried to present the information.
Thanks, Dick. Sudha has been living in rural Bihar for nearly 30 years now but the school has only been in operation for 5 - so Sudha only has a couple of graduates so far. You'll have to read next week's story to find out what's happened to them ...
Great question - because so much is changing in Bihar. I did a long article on this in July, which maybe Stuart can pull up and share with us ... the short answer is, the government of Nitish Kumar is really serious about overhauling the state and shedding the label of India's disaster zone. And he's made huge progress - especially on bringing law and order, and building roads, which obviously are two vital first steps for economic growth ...
... that said, because he was starting from such a desperately low base, things are still really, really bad in much of the state. My favourite example is this - a government team told me really proudly that they have posted an almost 800 per cent gain in the number of households with sanitation facilities. I said, Great! Then I asked, what number had toilets to start? And the answer was, under 1 per cent. So with an 800 per cent gain we're still under 10 per cent.
Thanks Wilf. Sudha won India's highest civilian honour a couple of years ago, and she speaks out often at Dalit rights events, so I wouldn't say she's working in obscurity or anything, but the sheer scale of this country - and the fact that most of what she does is working with a marginalized community in a very rural area - means she's not really that well known.
I have done a fair bit of reporting on women's issues and other issues of equality in Pakistan in the past three years, and it is no doubt a topic to which we will return in future - I do struggle, like most journalists based in Delhi, to get visas to visit Pakistan ...
Great question Arti, and of course one of the critical issues. To be honest, they haven't talked to me about it much - it's such a given, that of course they will marry, as all women do, that they don't think about it much. For their mothers, though, it's a HUGE issue - if their girls stay in school, they get dangerously "old" for finding a husband - and who will marry these educated, independent girls who don't "fit in" at home? This is a large part of the second part of the series that will run next Saturday - stay tuned ...
Thanks Mandy - but at this point the only thing they need that isn't available in the market 200 m away is cash: for school feels, and eventually for college.
Also a great question: India, as you likely know, has a really broad campaign of affirmative action quotas for Dalits, "tribals" (aboriginal people) and "other backward castes" - non-Dalits who are near the bottom of the caste system - they are called reservations here and they hold spaces in the education system and government jobs. This has created some social mobility - and so has urbanization ...
... And some readers have responded to the story by saying that we're being dishonest by not talking more about this or by saying that caste is still a big determining factor. I think caste looks very different depending on where you sit when you examine it - I can only report on what I see, and because of the reporting that interests me I spend a lot of time in India's poorer states and rural areas, and there, caste is alive and well. Of course there are Dalit millionaires now, and powerful Dalit politicians, and a lot of Dalits who have moved into regular middle class life ...
... but there is also the whole "Death of Merit" phenomenon, of Dalit students who get places in medical and law and IIT colleges and then face such discrimination, from other students and faculty, that they commit suicide; and of the Dalit high court judge who just reported serious harassment from colleagues; etc. It is changing, but slowly.
Thanks for your questions so far. I have them queued up for Stephanie.
