Beating the odds: The Unfinished Story of Harvinder Devi

The struggle of Harvinder Devi continues to date, her journey of how far she has come over the years is an eye-opener for many. The challenges pitted against her started from her childhood and continued throughout her life. Yet, she tried to regain her resolve every time she was faced with a trial.

Harvinder from the Malakand district belonged to a respectable family. She had two sisters and three stepbrothers. She lived with her father and her stepmother. Her family was well-positioned in society, yet her parents always prepared them to be self-sufficient. Any additional expenses apart from necessities had to be paid for by Harvinder herself. So, she learned to stitch clothes and do embroidery at a young age.

As is the case with most young women in her part of the country, Harvinder too was denied her right to education because a girl getting an education does not bode well with the “family values”. To her luck, a school opened near her house, knowing her father’s views on schooling Harvinder along with her sisters enrolled in the school without informing him. This was only made possible because of her stepmother’s support since she believed they deserved a chance at education and therefore agreed to help them keep this a secret from their father. This went on for a while, however when the time came for their higher education they needed their father’s signatures.  That is when they had to tell him about their education quests and ask his permission to enroll in higher education. Her father strictly prohibited them from leaving the house and stated they would only be allowed to do so once he was dead. With that level of restriction and rigidity in reaction to education, Harvinder and her sisters lost hope in their plans. Harvinder aspired for a better future for herself and her siblings, she tried every possible way to make her father agree to their requests. It took a lot of convincing after which her father finally gave in, but not without his own set of demands put forward first.

They would have to wake up at four in the morning every day, finish all the house chores, and get ready to leave for school. They would walk to the school which was at a distance but they were not given any money for the daily commute so walking long distances was the only option they had. She accepted all these challenges happily because she was excited that this meant she could continue her studies. Everything was going well until one day when Harvinder got back from her school right after giving her exams for grade eighth, she was informed they had accepted a marriage proposal for her and she was soon to be wedded. Her world came tumbling down as she realized what that meant for her future pursuits. She tried to fight back but this time even her stepmother did not intervene. She had no support, what she found more alarming was that she had two elder sisters who were surpassed to get her married first. This was perhaps her father’s way of controlling her and ending her dreams for good. Despite her resistance, Harvinder was married off at the early age of 15.

She was in for a bigger shock when she finally saw her husband after her marriage. He was an extremely ill-mannered individual who would always be intoxicated and would regularly resort to domestic violence. She had no choice but to suffer in silence because her parents had told her she will have to compromise and live with him despite everything and that she has no option but to come back. Every time she tried to look past the bad aspects of her marriage, a new issue would arise. She was in for a huge shock when she found out that the jewelry her father had given to her at the time of her marriage had been sold off by her husband. He did not stop there, he started selling off all the household furniture one by one. By the time he had raked up a debt of around 14 lakhs, Harvinder had no option but to sell her house and move. They moved to Peshawar, and the flat they moved in was on the third floor. At that time, she was pregnant with her first child. She would have to walk up three flights of stairs regularly to get water and do other household chores. This made her already hard pregnancy, even harder. This was also the time when she would barely have enough to afford to fend for herself once a day. Her husband on the other hand would be out with his friends doing drugs and getting intoxicated. Harvinder was on her own.

Life went on and by the time she had two kids to feed and look after, she knew she needed more money. She asked her husband to arrange for her a way she could earn a livelihood without having to leave her home. Her brother-in-law stepped in to help her, he supplied her spices for her to pack and sell. Things started to look up for her, however, this did not last for long as she found out later that her brother-in-law was indeed a fraud. To recover financially from that setback, she started stitching clothes to make the ends meet.  She even started her spice business – it went on for eight years but their financial position did not improve.

After eight years they shifted to Mardan, she was then blessed with another baby boy. Her responsibilities increased further when her husband got paralyzed. Now she was responsible for her three kids, looking after her husband, earning money, and doing all the house chores. A few years later she lost her husband too. She was now a young widow who also had to step into the role of a father to her children. She knew she would have to increase her struggles by multifold now to earn enough money for her family. She would take every job that she could get – sometimes she worked as a part of polio drives, survey teams, PAEDS workshops, etc. to make the ends meet. She went on to get all three of her children educated and wedded her daughter at a reasonable age, making sure she did not repeat the mistakes her parents made.

Now that she had fulfilled her responsibilities to her children, she decided to take it upon herself to help women like herself. For this, she decided to contest in the local elections. However, her journey was not an easy one, she was uninformed and unprepared and she missed the deadline to file her papers. She says she asked multiple people to help her out, in some instances she was misguided and in others, she was purposefully not guided. People around her claim she did not have the necessary cash to pay for the registration process, however, Harvinder maintains she could have easily managed that amount had she been guided properly about the process in advance. She missed her chance to contest in elections, however, she did not stop fighting. She took it upon herself to get the necessary guidance to be prepared in advance for the next time. Harvinder discovered an NGO that works for the rights of women and their participation in the political domain and learned all she needed to learn to enter the process. And since she has decided to prepare for her next chance.

Her story highlights the daily struggles of women and how they fight against the circumstances to navigate through them. Harvinder’s struggles began very early on, the lack of support extended to her by her parents contributed massively to the ill-fated events in her life. Had her parents not rushed to get her married because they feared she might try to get her way in all matters related to her – Harvinder may have been able to complete her studies and gotten married at a reasonable age. No one can say she would have lived an easier life, but her education and maturity might have helped her deal with them in a better way.  She still has not given up, and with the sort of sheer grit she has; there is no denying she could win the next elections she contests in. But her struggles do highlight the ingrained pattern of controlling women and their choices, marrying them at a young and cutting their access to divorce in case of a violent marriage, and the institutional rigidities that make it harder for women to operate – all these when combined make their lives much harder than they ought to be.

One smart decision by her parents, and Harvinder being given the agency to exercise her will – and her story may have been completely different.