Yashwashini Sahay is the first women candidate from Ranchi Loksabha seat. In a conversation with Outlook’s Abhik Bhattacharya, she talks about how as a woman she is navigating the political space dominated mostly by men. She also emphasises how women couldn’t voice their concerns earlier but now can make a ‘bond’ easily with her.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Hi, this is Abhik Bhattacharya from Outlook Magazine.
00:08 Today we are at Rachi Constituency in Jharkhand.
00:12 Rachi has been a constituency that has so many different importance for Indian politics.
00:20 Number one, Rachi is the space where we have seen so many times the central leaderships
00:26 coming and trying to woo the voters.
00:29 Number two, Rachi is a space that is Adivasi dominated, a major constituency that BJP is
00:35 banking on.
00:36 So whenever we talk about Jharkhand, whenever we talk about Rachi, we have hardly seen a
00:42 woman candidate in this seat.
00:45 Today, Opposition Alliance and mostly Congress has nominated Yashaswini Sahai as the candidate
00:52 of Rachi Lok Sabha seat.
00:54 Today we are with Yashaswini ji and we will try to understand how as a woman candidate
01:00 she is navigating through her journey.
01:03 Thank you Yashaswini for joining us.
01:04 Thank you so much.
01:06 So Yashaswini, let's start with this thing that as a woman, you're the first woman candidate
01:14 Rachi ever had.
01:16 So what is your journey?
01:18 How this thing is, what is the experience on the ground?
01:21 How are you looking into it if you can share with us?
01:23 So because I'm the first female candidate from here, I think predominantly women voters
01:30 in Rachi, if you talk about my constituency, we're half the population.
01:35 So predominantly women voters have been feeling like they were left out because whenever even
01:42 like interactions with any kind of political leaders, women were never on the forefront
01:47 of it.
01:49 So now that I've been able to come onto this political forum in a way, and my previous
01:55 experience has been working for women rights and child rights, I think I've been able to
02:00 build a stronger bond.
02:02 I'm seeing a word bond because it's a bond, it's not even political at this front.
02:07 So it's a bond where I'm trying to understand their problems and understand what can be
02:13 the best solutions for women voters here because here over here women are very liberated.
02:19 If you look at our Adivasi women, they're very liberated, they're working, they're earning
02:23 income.
02:24 So we've got different sections of societies, we've got Adivasi women, we've got the city
02:30 voters, because Rachi in itself, even as a constituency has rural and urban.
02:36 So we've got your urban women who are, as it is very independent and liberated, we've
02:40 got Adivasi women who are working, then we've got different sections of society, you know,
02:46 the SC, ST, OBC, they all have separate, I would say separate problems.
02:52 But as women, they all feel left out.
02:55 So now that I have been able to give some sort of representation, I can see that you
03:00 know, women power, if you see even Kalpana Sorin ma'am is here now, a lot of female power
03:06 is sort of uprising in Jharkhand.
03:09 So this is something as you just referred to Kalpana Sorin and I just was wondering
03:14 that is it the first time in Jharkhand that we can see so many women leaders coming up
03:21 and taking up the political scenario?
03:23 True, true.
03:24 And like I said, there was no representation before.
03:26 But now you look at Kalpana Sorin ma'am, she was a working woman.
03:31 Now that she's here, it's great because we need women to be able to sort of represent
03:36 the voices that are not getting represented, that were totally left.
03:42 Women were essentially earlier were just depending on okay, you know, my family is voting for
03:46 this person, I'll go forward with it.
03:48 But I meet a lot of women voters who are now like, no, we want to have our own identity,
03:53 political identity as to who we vote.
03:55 So we've been able to sort of get a connection in that sense.
03:59 And Kalpana Sorin ma'am has been getting you can see so much love now over here.
04:03 I think it's great that we can see women power coming forward.
04:06 Great.
04:07 So another point that I was thinking through, youth.
04:13 Another major part is the youth unemployment that Congress and the Opposition Alliance
04:18 have been continuously saying that this is one of the major problems of the country.
04:23 So as a youth, what's your plan, actually, if you get elected on 4th June, it's in your
04:28 favor, then what's your plan?
04:30 So like you spoke about unemployment, the biggest problem with unemployment is you need
04:34 to have systemic, system level interventions, it starts at educational level.
04:39 There are a lot of children here who get to go to school but drop out, the dropout rates
04:45 are very high.
04:46 How are we going to tackle that?
04:48 The problem with the youth in Jharkhand or in Ranchi, we need to make them employable.
04:55 Because even if you go and get a degree, you go to a college, you're not employable.
04:59 So you don't get employment opportunities.
05:03 That's why, how can you make them employable?
05:06 At the same time, how do you create jobs for them?
05:09 Because we need to, I mean, this is an industrial, it's considered an industrial hub.
05:15 But we need to get more people in Jharkhand, who can give us employable employment opportunities
05:21 like MSMEs, we need, you know, like small scale industries, I mean, those are dying
05:25 right now.
05:27 So how do you do that?
05:28 And the bigger problem I would say is, because there's a huge disparity between the young
05:36 people over here and the young people who are coming to work from outside.
05:40 And the people who are very employable over here will migrate, like you see a lot of young
05:44 people from Jharkhand going to Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore, because they don't have work opportunities
05:49 here.
05:50 And the work opportunities here are mostly for the labourers.
05:53 So they are working daily wages.
05:56 So how do you make them, how do you give them those platforms where they, you have to level
06:01 the playing field, essentially.
06:03 So they can get, you know, degrees that are not only, you know, not just a basic graduation,
06:10 but upskill those degrees.
06:12 So those are the things I want to work on, like even like getting community centres,
06:17 you know, like encouraging this sports amongst youth, because sports in Jharkhand is massive.
06:23 I just intervene here as you have pointed out something very interesting, that is a
06:27 migrant workers.
06:28 Jharkhand during COVID period, we got to know that how many migrant workers are there and
06:33 they're coming back to they have been taken back by Himanshwar.
06:36 And so even today, as there are a few reports that we were going through that says that
06:41 now when migrant workers are unable to come to vote.
06:45 So that's another issue.
06:47 So 25th May voting is there in Ranchi.
06:51 So what's your plan?
06:52 Are you somewhere or other connecting to the migrant workers?
06:55 Are your workers are connecting to them to asking them to coming back?
06:59 Absolutely, because like when we talk about migrant workers, like I said, my constituency
07:04 has all sections of society.
07:06 We've got, it's like, it's somewhat of a democracy in a way, we've got everybody in it.
07:11 We've got people who are working in multinational companies.
07:14 We've got people who are doing daily wage migrant workers, like you mentioned.
07:18 The thing with migrant workers is their biggest problem is that they're not getting enough.
07:25 How do you say this?
07:26 They're not being paid enough over here in Jharkhand.
07:29 That's why they're going out.
07:31 We have to combat this at a larger level, at a state level, so that we can bring them,
07:37 you know, here or we can keep them here with giving them work.
07:41 You spoke of elections.
07:42 See, now with elections, the thing is, there's a lot of people who will be outside, they
07:46 are outside.
07:48 I have been connecting with them.
07:50 But their biggest concern is how can we stay here?
07:53 How can we get opportunities here, so we can stay with our families and make money and
07:58 take care of our home?
08:00 For the last few months, we have been consistently seeing one party or the other trying to communalize
08:09 the situation of Jharkhand.
08:13 And recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, even Assam Chief Minister Hemant Wese Swarmar
08:19 have said few things that has the potential to vitiate the communal environment.
08:25 How are you going to combat that?
08:28 Because if the votes are polarized, then these issues don't come up, what you are talking
08:33 about.
08:34 You know, exactly.
08:35 That's the thing.
08:36 And my whole election campaign has been built on the fact that we must vote for the things
08:42 that matter to us.
08:44 The government's job is to give our children schools, is to give us good health, to give
08:50 us roads, to give us electricity, to give us water.
08:53 These are the concerns.
08:54 And a lot of people agree with us.
08:57 Because see, what happens is, you can go and you can get communalized.
09:01 But if you don't have your next meal on your table, you may think and you may want to talk
09:07 about religion, but it's not going to matter if you cannot feed your family.
09:11 So the matter is very grave in Jharkhand, especially because people don't have jobs.
09:17 That is a bigger concern.
09:18 And I don't even need to go and talk to people about these things.
09:21 They are coming to us and saying, we need to feed our family.
09:25 We need food on the table.
09:26 So that should be the bigger concern.
09:28 And a lot of people are joining with us, are creating momentum on these basis.
09:33 So I think this is a world, I mean, it's a countrywide issue.
09:37 You know, like the whole communal polarization that's been happening.
09:40 There are a lot of people who sort of benefit out of this.
09:43 It's just you benefit out of some sort of a religious tactic or whatever polarization
09:49 on whatever basis.
09:50 It may be caste, it may be religion, it may be culture, language.
09:55 But I think people understand that if we're not being able to grow and progress, we may
10:00 talk about these things on the top of our lungs.
10:03 What is the matter of this?
10:05 What is the point of all of this?
10:06 If I cannot take care of my child and send my child to school, if I cannot bring back
10:11 money and take care of my family.
10:13 So I think we must really come down to the basics, which is how does every child over
10:19 here get schooling?
10:20 How do women feel safer here?
10:23 How do the young people get jobs here?
10:25 And I think Jharkhand is going to show an incredible result in the elections this time,
10:31 in that sense.
10:32 I believe that because the people here are incredibly sharp, incredibly, I would say,
10:38 they're also very vibrant.
10:40 They've just not been able to get that platform.
10:43 And I feel like Jharkhand has been overlooked, you know, as a state.
10:47 Most.
10:48 Yes.
10:49 So the people, the culture, I think we are very unifying.
10:52 And we do believe in unity, in diversity.
10:55 And I've seen that you go to the villages here, you'll see people from different sections
10:59 of society, you'll see people from different religions, they're all hanging out together.
11:05 There is no hatred amongst them.
11:07 So the hatred that's trying to be created is coming from the people who are trying to
11:11 sort of spit this.
11:12 [MUSIC PLAYING]