A good book

Some time ago I read a book in school. I vividly remembered there was something interesting in the book but I was not sure what it was. So I looked for the book in my parent's house and, when I found it, I started to read it again. The story was about an Indian girl who ran away from her home because her family wanted her to marry an old and aggressive man.
She escaped with her best friend when both were very young and for years their lives were so hard. First, she finds an outlaw band and lives with them for some years, but then feels that this is not the correct way to live her life.
After living through some tough times, she decides to go to the capital and try living there. But there, she was to become only a young poor woman in a country with a male chauvinist mind, and finally, she ends up living on the street.
After years her luck is in her favor and she meets a group of women who were working to keep the Indian women safe and self-dependent. She then starts to live and work with those women.
While I was reading the book I realized that the interesting thing I'm looking for in the book was the message about the situation of the women around the world and value of work of miles of women fighting for freedom.