When 60 women in Edamalakudi in India’s southern state of Kerala recently carried about 100 solar panels on their heads across 18km (11 miles) of hill, forest and wild elephant territory, they made history of sorts. In this remotest cluster of villages where 240 families live, there is no electricity. Solar panels and batteries are the only source of power on which you can even run the odd television set. When the local elected village council acted to try and reach solar power to all, these women took on the task. They formed a ‘chumattu koottam” (head-load workers group), riling local male porters who had enjoyed a monopoly over such work. They picked up the panels from Pettimudi – close to Munnar town, 18km away and the nearest point to which vehicles could reach – and carried them across hostile, hilly, up-and-down terrain to Edamalakudi on foot. The panels, paid for by the village council, weighed up to 9kg (20 pounds) each. All the women belong to the local Muthavan tribe and are members of Kudumbashree, Kerala’s unique anti-poverty and gender justice movement

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