GUWAHATI, India, March 5, 2006 (AFP) - A social outcast five years ago, Jahnabi Goswami -- who is HIV positive -- is now campaigning to persuade Indian couples planning to wed to dump traditional horoscope-matching in favour of AIDS tests.
Goswami's campaign to persuade people to get AIDS tests at first drew hostility from locals in her home state of Assam in northeastern India where HIV-AIDS is rife, mainly due to rampant drug abuse.
But now the campaign is being taken seriously and the 29-year-old woman has been asked by the ruling Congress party to contest state elections to be held next month in Assam.
Congress is billing her as the first HIV-positive person to contest an election in the state.
Goswami is running on a platform that highlights the need for regular AIDS tests, especially among young couples intending to marry.
"In our society, you see people going to astrologers to know if their horoscopes match their partners to see if they will be compatible," she told AFP in an interview. "They should be going for AIDS tests instead."
Goswami knows tragically how important AIDS tests can be.
In 1994 she married a wealthy businessman "in traditional Indian style."
"Soon after my marriage I found that my husband was often taken ill, complaining of various ailments from herpes to fever and coughs," she says.
Her husband died in 1996 but he had already infected her with HIV which he contracted from having unprotected sex with another woman carrying the virus.
"A few days before his death, he told me he had AIDS," she recalled.
Two years after her husband's death, Goswami lost her two-year-old daughter to the illness.
She now wants the Indian government to make pre-marital AIDS testing mandatory to prevent the spread of the virus. India is home to 5.13 million HIV-positive cases, the highest after South Africa with 5.3 million cases.
Goswami, who lives in Kampur, 140 kilometers (87 miles) from Guwahati, Assam's largest city, is enthusiastic about making her political debut.
Congress, which is in power in Assam and at the national level, "said there is a need for people like me who can become future policymakers, especially on issues relating to fighting the HIV-AIDS menace in the region," Goswami said.
"She's a gutsy young woman and she will definitely be an asset to the party," said Congress party spokesman A. Bora.
Goswami says campaigning on the electoral hustings will be nothing compared with the battles she has already faced because of her HIV status. While she is on anti-retroviral drugs to fight the illness, she adds her health is strong.
"Soon after my husband died, my parents-in-law chased me out of their home and I went back to my parents," she said.
Left with few options, Goswami decided to go to university and get a degree in political science. Once armed with her degree, she went public with her HIV status, becoming one of the few Indian women to do so.
"My idea was to fight against the social stigma attached to the disease and help innocent women like me from contracting the virus," she said.
She has experienced first-hand the social stigma attached to AIDS.
"The moment a flat-owner came to know of my HIV-positive status, I was asked to vacate the house," she said. She had to change her accommodation at least 12 times before the government provided her housing.
But her openness about her situation ended up getting her a job as a government counsellor, advising people about AIDS.
Now Goswami says the Congress party has provided her a platform from which to launch her on a new stage of her AIDS-awareness campaign.
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