Meet the karate kid who kicked gender norms to the curb
Mana Mandlekar grew up in a home where the girls sacrificed everything from nutrition to education for their brothers. Today, she's the sole reason her community’s girls are finishing school and fighting back violence.
It was during her teenage years when Mana Mandlekar was told what the essence of her name was. ‘Mana’ in Hindi, translates to ‘refuse’; which she says was a desperate prayer from her parents to not be blessed with more daughters.
Mana is the fifth of seven children to her parents, of which only two are sons. At Alampur in Madhya Pradesh where she lives, Mandlekar is the first girl to graduate from her village. She's also the first girl to have become a sports champion.
Mana Mandlekar (centre) - Co-founder, Tinka Samajik Sanstha
In the last seven years, Mandlekar has trained close to 76,000 rural children—a majority of whom are girls—in karate through her organisation, Tinka Samajhik Sanstha. Some have gone on to participate in national and international competitions and won awards.
Besides discovering a sense of self-worth, the number of girls going to schools has increased multifold, and the number of child marriages plummeted, thanks to Mandlekar’s training. “Everything that I did not have while growing up, the girls trained by me do,” she tells HerStory.
But setting important precedents is not a job for the faint-hearted. While most girls in her community succumbed to the pressure of marriage by 14 or 15, Mandlekar threatened to end her life if she was pushed into that choice. When villagers stopped the education of girls beyond class 8, Mandlekar walked 9 kilometres to continue high school.
When sexual assault within families and in the village was rampant and went unchecked, pushing most girls into trauma and isolation, Mandlekar decided to knock out her perpetrators instead- at times in full public view.
However, all these milestones came after a trial by fire.
Channeling anger through adversity
Tinka Samajik Sanstha trains hundreds of girls from dalit neighbourhoods in Madhya Pradesh in self-defence and confidence building to ensure they finish school and secure jobs.
Mandlekar grew up in a household with little means to support seven children. “As a result, there were too many mouths to feed and it was the women of the house—my mother, my sisters and I—who cut down on meals, went hungry to bed, and saved education expenses by dropping out of school and marrying while they were still children,” she adds.
When she had just finished class 9, Mandlekar, too, was forcefully engaged to a young man. But listening to harrowing stories of friends who were married, Madlekar put up a fight. “My friends in the village—aged 14 and 15—would tell me the horrors they were going through at their in-laws’ place. The simplest of misunderstandings - a little extra salt in the meal, a little time to themselves - would result in them getting beaten up,” says Mandlekar. “I was so terrified of marriage that I became depressed and well fell ill with high blood pressure and bouts of fainting. My parents had no choice but to let me follow my own path.”
After completing school, Mandlekar enrolled in college, where she first encountered a woman teaching karate. At the time, she had little understanding of female agency and independence, so her initial reaction was one of shock.
“In our village, girls always dressed in salwars, adorned jewellery, and covered themselves from bed to toe before stepping out. But here was a woman in track pants, walking into college. I mistook her for a student and even mocked her for it,” Mandlekar recalls. Her young and culturally sheltered mind also assumed that karate was an activity reserved for men, based on what she had seen in the movies.
However, after attending a few classes, a lifetime of anger toward the gender-based violence she and the women in her community had endured—on buses, in public spaces, and even within their own families—finally found an outlet.
“There were so many years when I quietly suffered sexual harassment by some family members at home, by a teacher in school, on the roads. When I opened up to my mother, she would ask me not to talk about it.” she recounts.
“But my karate teacher, Ritesh Tiwari sir, had started teaching karate to girls for free because he had been devastated by the incident of a young woman ending her life due to sexual harassment. And he used to say, we should talk about our experiences as much as possible. It was two different realities,” says Mandlekar.
At her karate lessons, these daily ordeals ignited a resolve within Mandlekar to seek strength and self-assurance. Discovering karate became her sanctuary, offering not just physical prowess but a profound sense of empowerment.
Engaging in over eight hours of daily practice, Mandlekar not only mastered the art of karate but also became the first girl from her village to represent India in the Asian Games.
However, her vision extended beyond personal accolades. Recognising the transformative power of self-defence, she went back to her village and started training other schoolgirls. “I wanted to ensure no girl dropped out of school because of sexual harassment. Soon, boys also started coming to our classes and we told them we would take them in on the condition that they bring their sisters also for class.
“This changed everything,” says Mandlekar. “Women began hitting back at the perpetrators. It became an unsaid norm that the women from our village were not to be messed with.”
However, when one of her karate champions—a girl with a black belt—got married and silently endured violence from her husband, Mandlekar realised self-defence alone wasn't enough. It was time to change mindsets.
Towards this goal, In 2018, Mandlekar, along with fellow champion Aparna Apte Gupta, co-founded Tinka Samajhik Sanstha as an organisation dedicated to imparting self-defence as well as confidence building training to girls and women across six districts in Madhya Pradesh.
Through this initiative, Mandlekar has trained hundreds, instilling in them not only the skills to protect themselves but also the confidence to challenge societal constraints. "We teach women their rights and the laws that support them. They stand up to violence in their homes and communities. They attend championships. For many, sport has become a conduit for improved life skills and self-esteem,” she says.
The journey, however, was laden with obstacles. Beyond the evident challenges of limited resources and infrastructural deficits, Mandlekar confronted deeply entrenched cultural taboos. Menstruation, for instance, posed a significant barrier.
Resolved to break these barriers, Mandlekar initiated open dialogues about menstruation, educating girls on managing their periods without compromising their participation in sports. She emphasised the importance of questioning outdated norms and encouraged girls to continue their training unabated. Her efforts have normalised conversations around menstruation, enabling many to overcome their fears and societal pressures.
Mandlekar's endeavours have not gone unnoticed.
She went on to be recognised through several accolades including the Sandvik India Gender Award 2019, the Martha Ferrel Award Finalist in 2022 and the Nari Shakti Samman in 2023.
Mandlekar's story has inspired collaborations with entrepreneurs and organisations aiming to bolster her mission. In 2018, she partnered with Bengaluru-based entrepreneurs Roshini Kumar and Tanmayi Reddy to raise funds for a dedicated self-defence school.
Today, the impact of Mandlekar's efforts is palpable. Girls who once hesitated to step outside their homes are now equipped with the skills to defend themselves and the self-belief to pursue their dreams.
“Today, in what was an extremely misogynistic community in my village, young men say they look at women differently. They say, ‘We learn to fight from a woman. We can no more disrespect them.’ I feel like my life has come full circle,” she says.
Edited by Jyoti Narayan