Word: sanghera
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Good Karma Re "Marriage Rows" [Feb. 12]: news of forced marriages and honor killings, two cruel practices of the unsophisticated Asian community, has always saddened me. I finished Jasvinder Sanghera's memoir Shame in four days. I pray more socially minded Asian women follow Sanghera's footsteps in setting up refuge centers for Asian women. I congratulate her for founding the organization Karma Nirvana, not for the rocky path she has taken. M.S. Shah Jahan Colombo...
...when an older sister burns herself to death to escape an abusive marriage, Sanghera begins to realize the toll that custom and oppression are taking on Asian women. While raising children alone and pursuing a college degree on virtually no money, she launches Karma Nirvana (from Sanskrit words connoting action and enlightenment) in a spare room at a Derby women's shelter...
...Today, the group maintains homes for abused Asian women in Derby and nearby cities, and Sanghera lectures widely on the problem. But she has paid a price for her fame. "People here regard me as a woman with no shame, hence the book's title," says Sanghera, in a strong Midlands accent, from her home in Derby. "I get intimidating phone calls, saying my kids will be hurt, my legs chopped off if I don't return their daughter. I've had human feces smeared on my window and signs painted on my car." Her brother was beaten...
...Sanghera, now in her early 40s, reconciled with her parents before their deaths, but most of her seven siblings, including her only brother, refuse to talk to her. "They cross the road when they see me coming," she says. "Family means a lot to Asians, but, in the past 25 years, I've never heard from anyone in my family on my birthday, not even a card. That still hurts...
...Sanghera would like to see a law against forcing someone to marry. A Liberal-Democrat member of the House of Lords introduced a bill to curb the practice by civil means. It was debated on Jan. 26 but has little chance of becoming law without government support. Sanghera intends to expand Karma Nirvana, eventually to Scotland and Wales, and dreams of a "national network of friendship for women like me, women who are alone. We will send them birthday cards." As Sanghera has learned from the tumultuous life described in Shame, there is more than one kind of family...