JAIPUR: Rehana Rayaz became president of the Rajasthan Mahila Congress in April this year. She has been travelling across the state since then, meeting women members of the party and understanding local issues. “This is a three-year term, and my priority will be to bring to the fore the issues that plague the tribal areas of the state,” she says. Once she came to know this reporter’s name, she smiled broadly – “I too was once Rosamma – my surname was Joseph.”

As a 15-year-old, Rosamma moved from her Kerala home to join her sister, a Staff Nurse in Bikaner district. “I too thought I could become a nurse after school, but when I got here, I was told I was not old enough to become one. So, my sister told me I should learn typewriting and shorthand, and that is what I did. I later got a daily-wage job with the Railways. I was paid Rs6 for each day. I wasn’t paid for the weekends or for any days off. So, each month, I got about Rs 80,” she says, recalling that in 1978, Rs80 as monthly salary was not such a treasure. “But my sister was a staff nurse and nurses were paid rather well, “so we got on fine,” she says.

As a 19-year-old, she fell in love with fellow-railways employee Rayaz Ahmed. The two married, and she has lived in Churu with her family ever since. “My husband’s people were active in politics. Since he was a railway employee, he steered clear of politics. I went campaigning door-to-door ahead of elections in 1985. Then I got more and more drawn into the Congress and climbed up gradually,” she says, adding that she enjoyed her time in the Youth Congress and still falls back on support from the party youth for all her work.

“I wasn’t really expecting to be given this responsibility. But having been granted it, I now enjoy the freedom to plan my own travel and am in the process of firming up my agenda. The tribal belt will remain a big priority. I have seen, in my visit to Dungarpur, women whose stomachs are so shrivelled, they almost touch their spines. And these are women so reluctant to even come forward – they sat a distance from me, treating me with great reverence. I told them that while I was a child in Kerala, my father would tell me to carry the dung from the cows and dump it in the compost pit. I have done manual work too and I have been blessed with unique opportunities that they have missed. But I understand them and will do everything I can to encourage all women to reach their full potential.”

Rayaz said she would like to invite Prime Minister Narendra Modi to come and spend a little time in the tribal areas of Rajasthan. “He speaks of ‘vikas’ (progress) and might, but our people are shrivelled and starving,” she says, adding that she has met people who have missed the 35-kg wheat that they used to get in monthly rations. “Even if they got nothing else, the PDS wheat took care of a big part of expenses and was a big help. Now, even that is hard to come by,” she says.