The book illustrates how community-based actions, programs, and organizations that allow women to determine their lives and participate in decision making contribute to the creation of a civil society and thus enhance democracy. The case studies show how participation in grassroots movements promotes women’s involvement in their organizations, communities, and in societal institutions, as it influences state policy and empowers women in personal relationships.
The book illustrates how community-based actions, programs, and organizations that allow women to determine their lives and participate in decision making contribute to the creation of a civil society and thus enhance democracy. The case studies show how participation in grassroots movements promotes women’s involvement in their organizations, communities, and in societal institutions, as it influences state policy and empowers women in personal relationships.
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Overview
The book illustrates how community-based actions, programs, and organizations that allow women to determine their lives and participate in decision making contribute to the creation of a civil society and thus enhance democracy. The case studies show how participation in grassroots movements promotes women’s involvement in their organizations, communities, and in societal institutions, as it influences state policy and empowers women in personal relationships.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780253028143 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Indiana University Press |
| Publication date: | 12/22/2021 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 412 |
| File size: | 877 KB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
JILL M. BYSTYDZIENSKI is Director of Women's Studies and Professor of Sociology at Iowa State University. She is author of many articles and book chapters on women in politics and cross–cultural comparisons of women, as well as several books, including Women Transforming Politics: Worldwide Strategies for Empowerment and Women in Electoral Politics: Lessons from Norway.
JOTI SEKHON is Associate Professor of Sociology at Greensboro College, where she is also the coordinator of the International Studies Program. She is author of Modern India, a volume in the Comparative Societies series from McGraw-Hill.
Read an Excerpt
Democratization and Women's Grassroots Movements
By Jill M. Bystydzienski, Joti Sekhon
Indiana University Press
Copyright © 1999 Indiana University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-253-02814-3
CHAPTER 1
Grassroots Social Action and Empowerment in India
THE CASE OF ACTION INDIA WOMEN'S PROGRAM
Joti Sekhon
After I started going to the meetings I was able to understand myself more. I felt that I was not alone, that there was an organization behind me to support me. So I felt stronger. Earlier all the battles I had fought at home I always fought alone. ... About Action India I will say one thing, this is where I have got the strength to understand life and live life. My parents gave me birth only, but the right way to live did not come from home I started working with young girls because I felt that at a young age there is the most restriction on girls, there is no one to show them the way and make them aware and there is no one at home to listen to them. So I felt that there should be a forum for girls so that they can come and say what is on their mind and talk about their problems and hopes and aspirations and also find new avenues in life (Reshma, Girl Child Program).
Reshma's words illustrate the nature of empowerment and individual self-development through collective action that often characterizes democratization at the grassroots. The struggles for social justice, equality, and empowerment, however defined, at this level are an essential part of the overall democratic process. In this chapter, I focus on Action India Women's Program, an organization working with women, children, and youth in four urban communities or bastees in Delhi, India. Most research on democratic processes in India and elsewhere has been at the macro-level, or has focused on state-oriented activities and electoral politics. Little systematic analysis of small, local organizations has been done to illustrate the kinds of changes they effect and the ways in which they contribute to the democratic process. Numerous grassroots organizations have emerged in India since the late 1960s and early 1970s among categories of people who define themselves as disadvantaged in some way, such as the poor, landless agricultural laborers, the lower castes, tribal groups, and women, focusing on a variety of economic, cultural, and environmental issues. Following an overview of the historical and social context in which grassroots movements have emerged in India, I describe and analyze the work of Action India. In my concluding remarks I reflect on the potential for grassroots social action to influence democratization at the larger societal level in India.
The Indian Context
The cultural, social, political, and economic diversity of Indian society has, for centuries, allowed for the emergence of varied forms of voluntary activities by people at the local level. Self-help initiatives and philanthropic activities for providing civic amenities and disaster relief, as well as village councils and community-owned schools afforded avenues for voluntary participation. Recent historical research has also revealed various forms of resistance to authority and movements against perceived injustices. Much of the detailed evidence is from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when India was under British colonial rule. This period also marked the beginning of several social reform movements such as those focusing on religious reform, ending child marriage, and improving the status of women, the lower castes, peasants, and tribal groups. Many of these movements included mobilization of people at the grassroots level. With increasing resistance to policies of the colonial administration, many of the movements for reform and resistance were incorporated into the nationalist struggle against British imperialism (Kothari, 1993: 136-139).
The first two decades after independence from British rule in 1947 were marked by few movements of resistance against the state. In keeping with the constitutional principles of equality, liberty, and social justice as well as secularism, socialism, and democracy, the government of India instituted several laws granting equal rights to all disadvantaged groups and launched numerous plans for economic development and modernization. The aim was to promote economic growth, social equality, and national integration and to do it all through the democratic political process (Frankel and Rao, 1989 and 1990; Rudolph and Rudolph, 1987; Kothari, 1989 and 1990). Popular participation at the grassroots level was officially viewed as an essential part of the process.
However, state-orchestrated and uneven capitalist economic development and the liberal-democratic model of politics have largely benefitted the middle and upper castes and classes and a few segments of the poor, lower castes and classes. Numerous studies have documented increasing inequality and marginalization in recent decades among significant sections of the lower castes and classes, peasants, and women (see Omvedt, 1993; Shiva, 1989; Kothari, 1989 and 1990; D'Monte, 1989).
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was increasing realization by people from various marginalized groups that they were being left out of the development and democratic processes. It was also becoming clear to many that the government lacked both the political will and resources to initiate and implement all of its policies. A series of economic crises brought on by the slow pace of industrialization, uneven spread of economic development, droughts, and inflation added to the sense of exclusion and deprivation. Lower castes, small and poor peasants, landless agricultural workers, women, and people from different religious, linguistic, and tribal groups started organizing and mobilizing for inclusion in the political and economic process.
State leaders responded to competing demands from various categories of people and economic stagnation with greater control and centralization of power, culminating in the declaration of a state of emergency and suspension of constitutional rights from 1975 to 1977 by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. This period was marked by the organization of numerous social action groups in the rural and urban areas, including Action India. Many of these organizations and groups were initiated by educated middle-class individuals. These middle-class people have gradually emerged as partners in the process of change, in broadening political opportunities, and articulating the interests and needs of the marginal groups (Kothari, 1993: 131-162). Among the ideological influences on these groups are the formulations of Gandhi, neo-Gandhianism, Marxism, and neo-Marxism, as well as various shades of feminism and liberation theology, and combinations thereof. The groups include welfare and charity organizations, development groups, struggle-oriented social action groups, groups focusing on legal action, documentation and research centers, and single-issue organizations dealing with women, unorganized labor, the environment, or some mix of these activities. They also relate in a variety of ways to broader political processes and the state. So long as they do not overtly challenge state authority, these organizations are relatively free to engage in activism in their communities.
Action India Women's Program: History and Activities
Action India was formed in 1974 by a group of middle-class women and men with the aim of organizing "the poor and [to] enable them to demand their rights as citizens, and collectively struggle against the exploitation and injustice inherent in a class, caste society" (Action India, 1992: 1). They started working in two "squatter" settlements where people had migrated in search of livelihood. They first worked with a community that had been displaced from West Bengal where sixty-nine villages had been uprooted for the development of the Haldia Port and Petroleum complex. These activists eventually moved along with the community to work in four "resettlement" colonies created by the government during the emergency years from 1975 to 1977. These were among the settlements established as part of the drive to "beautify" the city. About 750,000 people were uprooted from their dwellings and coerced to move. They were provided with twenty-two and a half square yards of land in exchange for forced sterilization that was part of a population control program. Initially the activists worked on the acquisition of basic civic amenities for the residents, such as adequate water supply, street lights, ration cards, public transportation, health care, and education.
In 1979, a core group of five women activists with Action India started working specifically with women. They were influenced by the women's movement that had emerged in India during the 1970s. Galvanized by the publication of the Report on the Status of Women in India, in preparation for the International Women's Year commemorated by the United Nations in 1975, the movement focused on various forms of oppression of women. The aim of the Action India activists was to organize women at the community level where their lives were enmeshed within a patriarchal family and community and were characterized by economic marginality. This was different from the traditional Marxist/socialist method of organizing the working classes exclusively in "workplace" settings. As middle-class women, the activists saw their "role not as leaders, but facilitators, bringing women together to form small autonomous groups in the neighbourhood" (Action India, 1992: 4).
The first such group, called Sabia Mahila Sangh or association of empowered women, was formed in 1980 as a cooperative to produce and market crochet products without having to go through a broker. Education and awareness about women's health and reproductive rights were introduced as well. This informal group, starting with about ten women, gradually grew to include twenty-five women. By 1984, a Community Health Worker project was developed by recruiting and training women from the bastees as health workers. Since the early 1990s additional programs have been developed including the Women, Law and Social Change project, Economic Activity for Women's Empowerment, and the Children, Girl Child, and Youth Programs, though the Youth Program was recently discontinued.
The Community Health Worker Program (CHW) is based on the assumption that health of the people is a social, political, economic, and cultural issue. Therefore, improvement in people's health is believed to be contingent upon improvement in the overall quality of life. Issues such as poverty and the unequal status of women in the family and society are thus associated with lack of access to adequate health care, lack of proper nutrition, lack of control over women's own livelihood and bodies, and lack of knowledge and awareness of factors that affect one's health. The CHW program has developed to focus on education, awareness, and action to deal with these problems. Over the years, the women have worked on a variety of issues, such as sanitation, adequate and clean water supply, adequate and affordable food supplies, reproductive rights and fertility consciousness, self-help, and herbal medicine, nutrition, and preventive health care. The focus now is to revive indigenous knowledge of medicine and healing and to develop a health care system based on the recognition of the traditional role of women as health care providers. This is seen as necessary if women are to gain control over their bodies and be in a position to make conscious choices concerning their health and well-being (Action India, 1996e and 1997a).
Community-based health care workers have been trained to work on fertility consciousness in groups of ten to twelve women. This knowledge is being used to improve the health and lives of the workers themselves, and is disseminated to women in the communities through the Sabla Sanghs and other grassroots forums. The health workers have gained the confidence of and recognition from women in the Sabla Sanghs, and today speak out about issues that are widely viewed as areas of "shame" and "silence." For example, many women are abused and harassed by their husbands who demand frequent sexual intercourse that exacerbates health problems these women experience. Some women are harassed for not having a child or for not producing a son. Knowledge about reproductive health has enabled many women to have more control over their bodies and relationships with their husbands. Also, common ailments are treated through herbal healing and changes in diet and nutrition, while access to modern diagnostic methods and medical care is provided when necessary. In addition to growing awareness of the patriarchal structures affecting health within the family and community, women are also challenging state-sponsored "family planning" programs focusing narrowly on limiting family size mainly through contraception. As understanding and action to deal with such issues has developed, new programs have been created to address other social and cultural factors that affect health and well-being. These include projects focusing on legal issues, economic empowerment of single women, and programs for girls, children, and youth.
Over the years, numerous cases of domestic violence, stress, and abuse were brought to the attention of the Sabla Sangh members. They took whatever action they could to resolve them. Through this work at the grassroots level, however, it became clear "that the laws of marriage, custody, maintenance, inheritance and property rights do not serve the needs of a whole variety of conjugal arrangements that have come into being" (Action India, 1996b: 1). Moreover, women do not have knowledge of the laws nor do they have effective access to the legal system. The laws themselves are related in a complex manner to patriarchal norms and embedded in many religious customs. Women in the bastees expressed a need to work on these issues and the "Women, Law, and Social Change" project was developed in 1992. The immediate goal was conflict resolution and solving problems through social action and legal redress. The long-term goal is sociocultural change and legal reform by evolving a space for women to develop new ways of thinking about laws and customs, and changing attitudes and value systems that oppress women. These objectives are being achieved through a variety of means including establishing Mahila Panchayats or women's councils that meet weekly in the four neighborhoods to deal with violence and conflict within the family, conducting legal literacy workshops for educating women about the laws affecting them and the possibilities and limitations of law, educating and training community-based paralegal caseworkers in conjunction with legal counsel to support women seeking legal redress in the courts, documentation and recording of cases, and providing legal aid and counseling for women in crisis situations (Action India, 1996b: 3-5).
The Mahila Panchayats have emerged as a radical alternative in the bastees to the traditional concept of family and village panchayats that functioned as part of a patriarchal system within which women had no voice. About twenty to twenty-five volunteers from the communities and two or three caseworkers from Action India meet weekly to resolve marital disputes and other conflict situations within the family. The kinds of cases brought before the Mahila Panchayats include wife battering within the context of joblessness, alcoholism, gambling, childlessness, lack of maintenance due to desertion, separation, or divorce, bigamy or relationships outside of marriage, denial of share in property rights, dowry-related harassment, sexual abuse, child custody, rape, fraud and cheating, harassment at work, sexual exploitation and prostitution, and neglect of parents in old age. Over 500 cases were brought before the Mahila Panchayats in the first three years of the project from July 1993 to December 1996. The Mahila Panchayats have gained recognition in the bastees for the fair and effective manner in which they have resolved issues and as forums that are accessible to the poor and ordinary people at all times. They also provide opportunity for the development of leadership potential among women without fear of control by males. The caseworkers and Mahila Panchayat members have developed an understanding of legal issues and are able to handle cases and suggest further legal counsel as needed. Action India organizes training workshops, and undertakes documentation and studies of issues such as child marriage, the concept of equality in Muslim Shariat law, the Uniform Civil Code in India, sexual abuse, and child abuse (Action India, 1996a and 1996b).
Ever since its founding, Action India has sought ways to assist women to improve their economic well-being. Though efforts to develop cooperative economic enterprises were unsuccessful in the organization's early years, women in the communities have continued to ask for remunerative work and more control over their economic sutuations. There are few opportunities for well-paying jobs for women in the bastees where they live. Some engage in domestic labor, piece rate work, small-scale vending, factory labor in small-scale factories, construction work, or sewing to support their families. In 1994, therefore, Action India developed a project and sought funding for "Women's Economic Activity for Empowerment" (Action India, 1996f).
(Continues...)
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction/ Jill M. Bystydzienski and Joti Sekhon
PART ONE: Asia
1. Grassroots Social Action and Empowerment in India: The Case of Action India Women's Program/ Joti Sekhon
2. Re-Inheriting Women in Decolonizing Hong Kong/ Irene Lik Kay Tong
3. Democracy at the Margins: NGOs and Women's "Unofficial" Political Participation in Singapore/ Meredith Weiss
PART TWO: Africa and The Middle East
4. Exchanging Participation for Promises: Mobilization of Women in Eritrea/ Susan Leisure
5. Democratization Through Adult Popular Education: A Reflection on the Resilience of Women from Kwa-Ndebele, South Africa/ Khanya Rajuili and Ione Burke
6. Muslim Women's Grassroots Organizations in Syria: Self-Identity as a Form of Democratization/ Nimat Hafez Barazangi
7. Women's Grassroots Movements and Democratization in Egypt/ Nawal Ammar and Leila S. Lababidy
PART THREE: Central America
8. Women and Grassroots Democracy in El Salvador: The Case of Comunidad Segundo Montes/ Elizabeth Cagan
9. Feminist Organizations and Grassroots Democracy in Honduras/ Charles McKelvey
PART FOUR: Eastern Europe
10. New Roads to Resistance and Participation: Polish Feminists in the Transition to Democracy/ Judy Root Aulette
11. From the Ground Up: Women's Organizations and Democratization in Russia/ Jane F. Berthusen Gottlick
PART FIVE: Western Europe, North America and Australia
12. Building Democratic Bridges Over Belgian Political Bastions: The Work of The VOK—Women's Consultation Committee/ Alison E. Woodward and Rita Mulier
13. Women's Participation in Grassroots Initiatives in Ireland/ Christopher Dale
14. Sexual Assault and the Canadian State: Participatory Democracy Struggles Within a Liberal Democracy/ Alicja Muszynski
15. Empowerment and Disempowerment of Women in Central Appalachia, U.S.A./ Nelda K. Pearson
16. Women in Agriculture: Action for More Democratic Australian Farm Politics/ Ruth Liepins
Conclusion
About the Editors and Contributors