Once dedicated to goddess Yellamma and forced into sex work, the former devadasis of Bagalkot are chalking out a new destiny for themselves and their children with help from support groups.

Satyavathy Madar, 34, looks stunning. Clad in a pink sari, with her prominent cheekbones and penetrating eyes, she could pass for a business executive. She has gathered 15 women for a meeting at a small house in Kaladige village in Bagalkot district of north Karnataka, to discuss their finances—how to meet their individual expenses and arrange the marriages of their children.

Satyavathy and her ilk were brought up as devadasis—female servants of the Lord, dedicated to Yellamma, the Hindu goddess of fertility and used for sex with religious sanction. They are now charting a different life for themselves, proving to the world that they can be economically independent and socially relevant. Satyavathy, now a mother of two school-going children, remembers how she was dedicated to Yellamma at puberty. “It was considered an acceptable religious custom here,” she says,

Devadasis were originally temple girls who participated in rituals where they displayed their singing and dancing skills. In the name of service to God, they were almost always initiated into prostitution. The devadasi system was outlawed way back during the British Raj and later, the state government clamped the practice, making it punishable under the Karnataka Devadasi Prohibition Act, 1982. Yet, it continues to thrive in remote parts of north Karnataka. “Sadly, families felt they were sacrificing their daughters to God,” says Karnataka State Women’s Commission chief Pramila Nesargi. Most of the women, however, ended up as harlots. Marevva Madar, 32, one of the many poor dalit women who got sucked into the system, says, “We had hoped for material prosperity when we were offered to goddess Yellamma.”

NGOs and support groups like the Karnataka Health Promotion Trust (KHPT) have been working for rehabilitation and empowerment of former devadasis—there are about 10,000 in the state—in Bijapur and Bagalkot districts. “We have taught them to take charge of their destiny. It is a paradigm shift in the management of their lives,” says KHPT Executive Director Vandana Gurnani, an IAS officer who has taken a break from her bureaucratic work to help these women. “Thanks to social welfare groups who taught us to stand on our own feet, we can now live a dignified life,” says Satyavathy. There are about 200 mahila sanghas in Bagalkot, each having 20-odd volunteers, whose basic expenses are taken care of by KHPT.

 Twenty-six-year-old Madhu Nadvin-mane lost her parents when she was eight and was dedicated to a temple by her elder sister. At the age of 15, she was forced to take up sex work. “I had to look after my sister’s five children and my brother’s six children,” says Madhu, who is now a peer coordinator with the Chaitanya Mahila Sangha in Jamkhandi taluk and helps fellow-former devadasis to take care of their health. Madhu says her group alone distributes thousands of condoms to women every month, besides conducting medical camps, etc.

Another case in point is Kalavathy, 38, who was just nine when she became a devadasi. She was 12 when she lost her virginity and at 14, she had a daughter. After extricating herself from the system, she has married her daughter off. As community leader, Kalavathy now speaks for the Mahila Sangha. The groups pool in money for emergencies and work towards dissuade people from following the devadasi system. “We also counsel women who indulge in sex work to take precaution, something we were not advised about in the early days,” she says.

Mahila Sangha has also given Kalavathy and her colleagues access to micro-credit through about 50 self-help groups, helping them take up other vocations like craftwork and tailoring. As Sathyavathy puts it, “Earlier, banks would not give us loans, but thanks to the credibility of the micro-credit groups, we are now able to get loans.” A group of 40 women, who contribute Rs 10 each every week, approaches the local cooperative bank for a loan of Rs 20,000 to set up a business. This is how Hema Madar, a former devadasi, bought buffaloes and started a dairy business, using the money she earned to send her children to school. Earlier, schools used to discriminate against the children of devadasis, but now, with the help of support groups, the women are able to educate their children. Most of the former devadasis now attend adult literacy classes themselves. “We have learnt to write our names,” says Bhemmavva Madar, 34, who, along with her sister Renukavva, was dedicated to the system in her teens. Her children, Parasuram, 15, and Amaravathi, 12, do not know who their father is, but go to the local government school in Kaladige. Amaravathi, who has no idea about what her mother did for a living or what she is doing now, says, “If someone can fund my studies, I will study well and become the collector of the district. I want to improve the lot of the family.”

 Because money is tight and income irregular, Bhemmavva lives with her brothers and parents in a hamlet near Kaladige, which has been earmarked for the low-caste community. Twenty-two people live in her small, 600-sq ft mud house. Her father, who works as a farm hand in the nearby paddy fields, which stay green thanks to the backwaters of the Almatti dam, says he had no choice but to dedicate his daughters to the temple as it was the custom. Now they make sheep pens from throwaway metal wires that their brother gathers from nearby cities. “We like earning for ourselves, but it would be a great help if we could get a house or financial support from the Government to secure our children’s future,” says Renukavva, mother of two.

The government is looking into the issue of ration cards to former devadasis under the Antyodaya Scheme, hostel facilities, jobs under the National Rural Employment Assurance Scheme, and allocation of houses to the women under the Rajiv Gandhi Housing Scheme.

As an economically depressed and socially undermined group of women turns destiny on its head, social acceptance, along with governmental support, can help herald a new future that is free of the taint of sex work and divine slavery.