Eve Ensler is in India meeting students and young activists. She chatted with Divya Kaushik about breaking taboos with The Vagina Monologues and creating a worldwide revolution through One Billion Rising
Nobody imagined that dancing can lead to revolution worldwide, until Eve Ensler introduced One Billion Rising. Billions of women and men got out of their homes, offices, colleges or wherever they were on streets to dance on February 14, 2013.
It was a global campaign introduced by playwright and activist, Ensler, on V-Day — an activist movement to end violence against women and girls across the globe. “In India One Billion Rising was massive and I watched the footage over and over again. I was in Kerala this year in February and I know that people do not come out in open and dance, but to mark One Billion Rising the women came out and danced like no one was watching. It was such a thrilling experience to watch these women dance and let out their desire, their hunger to rise. One Billion Rising is all about coming together to fight against violence, to demand for a just world for all of us where our bodies are for us and not just landscapes which can be occupied by anyone,” said Ensler, with her voice brimming with hope and excitement. How the idea of dance came to her is an interesting story. “I spend a lot of time in Congo where women have been suffering in various ways for the last 14 years. But what they do is dance. They dance like no women would on this planet. So when I saw them dancing I was like ‘Wow.’ I thought to myself just imagine over a billion women on planet dancing in solidarity to shake a world into a new consciousness. Dancing is joyous, holy and disruptive. It breaks the rules. It is like connecting yourself to Mother Earth and deriving that energy that will give us strength to fight for our own rights and stand in unity. Also, I thought why do we always talk of pain and misery when we talk of women. I know women want to have fun, pleasure, who have their own needs, so let us unite in a way where everyone can express themselves freely and no corporation can control it,” she said.
There is this positive thing around Ensler that will inspire you the minute you would start talking to her. She is bubbly, vivacious and so full of life, no wonder she came up with brilliant concepts like The Vagina Monologues, V-Day, One Billion Rising and many such movements are in making. She is in India for a brief while and we caught up with her at Apne Aap office, while she interacted with the survivor-leaders to understand the struggles they face in accessing justice against a corrupt law-enforcement and indifferent judicial system. Dressed in bright pink lehariya kurta, matching bangles, she looked very much an Indian and the way she spoke, it was clear how well she understands the problems that women in India and activist groups face. “I think women suffer same problems everywhere in the world. The government officials at the top level are same everywhere and that is why One Billion Rising was conceptualised to make women come out and speak openly about what they are going through. It invites women from all walks of life to stand in solidarity and speak out of their experiences. I don’t know how to change governments but I know one thing that build people movements and the government will have to change. They can’t stop over a billion people from speaking out in open,” she said and added that women in India are “incredible and really strong. I have realised that they need the support system to motivate and encourage them to come out and speak in open.”
Ensler has been visiting India on and off, meeting students and various youth groups. “A massive change has come and I am coming across more women who are telling their stories. Post the gangrape case last year there has been a movement in India and it should not stop. An interesting thing I noticed is that it is not only young women but men are working along with women to bring the change. There are more educated women who face violence in offices, at homes who are sharing their stories now. Cases like Tarun Tejpal’s are shocking and not so shocking at the same time. Shocking because the magazine gave One Billion Rising a cover story and not so shocking because people have their lives and it happens across the world. Sometimes women can’t speak because they have their jobs on line, they have a family waiting to be fed with their income, but the change has started to happen,” she said.
Ensler says that when she started The Vagina Monologue, an episodic play written by her 20 years ago, she was criticised for using the word vagina. “But now I know many people who are using it around the world and it has got such a success. V-Day and One Billion Rising were a follow up to the success that The Vagina Monologues received across the countries,” she said.
For the forthcoming One Billion Rising on February 14, Eve will be in New York but she says she will be “rising with the homeless, with the women who are suffering injustices, to create a better world and there will be this huge dance at the end of the day, which we might call, ‘just us.’” She plans to come to India soon and spend some time with activists here and initiate an interesting movement.