Janakamma an illiterate woman aged 65 to 68 years and belongs to the Jenu Kuruba community and resides in Abbalathi village of Periyapatna Taluk, Mysore district in Karnataka. Abbalathi is a tribal-dominated backward village about 80 km north of the Mysore district headquarters in Karnataka.
As a young tribal, she lived all her childhood in the forest. Janakamma just studied till 4th standard in her tribal school. Once her community were asked to move out of the forest, she became an activist at the age of 13. She was married off at a very young age but was determined to fight for tribal rights. While her husband earned for the family and cooked, Janakamma went off for strike and meetings to fight for their rights. They had three children, one boy and two girls. Janakamma who is 65 years now still fights for tribal rights and violence against women.
She started forming sanghas and is the President of the Kaveri Mahila Mahasangha which is 3000 people strong. She has educated everyone on their entitlements and has got most of them their identity cards like ration card, Aadhar etc.
Jankamma and the first set of leaders have done survey of the land, identified illegal encroachment of land and have fought for houses and land rights for the tribal people of Periyapatna. She went on to contest in Panchayat elected and was the President for two consecutive terms. During this period, she got many lands registered in tribal family’s name and also got houses built. Her greatest achievement so far is getting two hostel schools build for tribal children in Abalathi and nearby areas. The primary school houses more than 150 children and the high school, called Kittur Rani Chenamma school, has more than 400 children studying. They also got roads built for the schools to be accessible.
For more than 50 years now she has got lands and houses for more than 2000 families, got roads constructed and fought for the rights of women and violence against them through Nari Adalat. Her tireless social work, got her an invitation by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to attend the Republic Day programme in New Delhi. Janakamma intervenes in various traditional tribal superstitions like witchcraft, several social issues like inter-caste marriages and dowry-related problems.