The Better India · 51 days ago

International Women’s Day: This Bengaluru Autorickshaw Driver Helps Other Women Gain Financial Independence

Jancy B V learned to drive an auto-rickshaw in Bengaluru so she could take her children to school, never imagining it would become her pathway out of factory labor and into a life where, as she says, "I can choose when to start my day, when to pause for my family, and I no longer fear losing my livelihood." That freedom, hard-won through early mornings and unknown routes navigated by asking strangers for directions, became something she could not keep to herself. She has since trained forty to fifty women for free, offering not just driving lessons but a door out of domestic work and low wages, measuring her success not in earnings but in watching others "standing on their own feet now." What began as a husband's practical suggestion has quietly multiplied into a network of women who laugh more, earn better, and move through the city with new dignity -- each one proof that independence, once gained, wants to be shared.