Banking on Women – To whose advantage?

Nalini Nayak & Aleyamma Vijayan

Celebrating Gabriele on the occasion of her festschrift is indeed a great joy. Having known her from the time she came to India in the very early 1970s, we have accompanied each other on our journeys over the last three decades and we would need several pages to express what this friendship has meant for us. It is even more difficult to find words that will do justice to acknowledge the deep commitment, tenacity, and unquenchable desire of this woman to help build a just and humane world not to mention the new lines of thinking she introduced in the feminist movement in our country particularly in taking the faith and religious sentiments of women seriously. Since Gabriele as an activist has been so involved in people’s struggles and the National Alliance of People’s Movements, we thought we would, on this occasion, write about the mobilization of women as a phenomenon within the mainstream, an ongoing reality that brings women and gender issues to centre stage.

Banking on Women – To whose advantage?
In the last decade or more feminist consciousness has grown substantially. India has seen the growth and development of the women’s movement at different levels and in a variety of spheres. While this may not have yet led to women being a force to reckon with, ‘women’ have definitely grown to become a banking proposition.  So, while there are groups, organizations and women’s unions that continue to focus on the rights of women to organize and participate in public life they strive for better access to resources and social equity.  Thereby, they challenge and seek an alternative to the ongoing patriarchal and capitalist development paradigm, ‘gender’ (generally implying women) is now a bandwagon that many hitch on to, without the least concern to transform the patriarchal relations that continue to subjugate women.

The last decade has also witnessed two distinct kinds of mass mobilization of women. One of them is the emergence of elected women representatives at the panchayat level, and the other is the organization of women through self-help groups.
    The first kind of political mobilisation has been a result of affirmative action by the State where the 74th Constitutional amendment provided for 33% women representation in local government. This brought thousands of women out of their homes and into the public realm.  In this caused several women their lives.  Hundreds of women have been humiliated by their male counterparts, but thousands of them have taken the challenge and responded to the demands of public office.  Much has already been written about the experiences of these women and the courage of a large number of them to be responsible and accountable to their constituencies.  These women have taken upon themselves to deliver to people what they think are the real local needs.
    We have to acknowledge here, that this apparent affirmative action by the state occurred at a time when the phenomenon of globalization was being ushered in and ‘decentralization’ as a way to democratise governance, was being suggested/imposed almost as a part of the structural adjustment programme of the international financial institutions.  In India the 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendments went together.  One gave prominence to local government through the panchayats and the other draw women into the public realm. Looked at independently, these were very progressive amendments. But put in their historical context were both rather dubious. Local governance was being affirmed at a time when the role of the nation state itself was being put into question by the international institutions which were created by the new globalised world that was being ushered in. While the deregularisation drive was unfurling on the one hand with the state withdrawing from the public sector particularly health and education, women were being drawn into public office on the other.
    Unlike probably in other states of the country, Kerala, with its particular model of development of achieving high social indices at very low costs because of a socially pro active state, took these amendments seriously and proposed a People’s Planning Process to make ‘decentralisation’ a political instrument to challenge global forces. While we do not go here into a critique of the People’s Plan Campaign, we reflect on what drawing women into the public realm has meant. Unlike in other states of India, in Kerala most women stood for the elections on tickets of political parties although there were a few independent candidates. Very few were ‘puppet’ candidates. Notable efforts were made not only to orient women in developing women-specific needs programmes, but budget allocations were also earmarked for the same through the Women’s Component Plan which was 10% of the budget. 
For us in SAKHI-Trivandrum, who tried to reach out to these women, it was both a learning and encouraging experience. Except for a few women who actually had an earlier organizational experience through their political involvement, the majority of elected women were taking public responsibility for the first time.  Yet most of them were well aware of party ‘discipline’ and understood what the ‘party line’ meant.  So they were certainly not going to lose party ground in the panchayat.  Yet as women, they seemed to have a sense of unity as they faced resistance from male colleagues and they were unwilling to fall into the ‘corrupt’ practices of these males.  In this they were very supportive of each other.  They were also eager to learn and do things, but were always cowed down by the men who told them they ‘didn’t know’ and hence it would be the men to decide.
It took time for the women to understand official and bureaucratic norms and the men used technical language as a sign of their superiority to make women feel inadequate. As a result the women specific projects and programmes got initially shelved. It was a difficult and a long process for women themselves to specify what gender specific needs meant and working towards a gender budget.  In the 1st year of the plan campaign, in spite of guidance from the Planning Board, only 4% of the budget was spent and that too for very individual and stereotyped projects like distribution of live stock and kitchen gardens etc. It was then decided that if the panchayat did not produce a 10% plan for projects for women, the District Planning Committee (DPC) would not approve the plans of the panchayats. This then forced panchayats to make such allocations. Women, lacking imagination and exposure still went in for very stereotyped individualized proposals although some of them went into suggesting collective ventures like sewing centres and a printing press.  Others went in for agricultural programmes, to grow and sell vegetables collectively. When in some panchayats women asked for projects that were slightly off the mainstream, like programmes to teach young girls cycling or to organise self-defense classes like ‘karate,’ or a reading room for women, they were made fun of.  Men said that there were more crucial things like drinking water and sanitation issues that should be taken up on a priority basis.  In one panchayat in Calicut, when women managed to keep a karate lesson going on for three years and where 120 girls and women attended classes every weekend, the panchayat decided to stop funds, just when one more year of training would have enabled them to get the ‘Black Belt” and become instructors! Men said, we only need them to learn self-defense and not earn ‘belts!”
SAKHI participated in a process to network elected women representatives in a few panchayats.  This process covered the four southern states of India, in an effort to enable women to create the critical mass required to make substantial changes to alter power relations through gender strategic planning at the local level.  This process was coordinated by the Singamma Srinivasan Foundation in Bangalore.  Despite their busy schedules, women came to sessions that SAKHI organised as they were eager to learn and widen their knowledge base.  It was an eye opener to women to realize how every local happening was influenced by the macro socio-economic processes of which they knew so little.  This made them keen to understand and to put their own party positions into perspective.  These were also occasions when they could share their problems and get encouragement and ideas from other women. Exchanges between women representatives across the four states gave them a feeling that they were a part of a larger political process where large changes had to be brought about and for which they required collective effort.
Challenging the development paradigm itself was something women would have to do collectively.  They had a sense of responsibility about it as many of them identified the ways in which they were losing access to local resources.  Women learnt from sharing ideas with each other and returned with new plans and determination.  Unfortunately, they had to fit all their ideas into the ‘project mode’ which in itself can distort the more integrated and relational aspects that would need attention.  Moreover, money had to be spent in the strictly budgeted manner and within a particular time, so the space for a process approach was almost out of the question.  Yet, several of the women went into some innovative programmes like assisting women to take agricultural land on lease to grow food locally, set up value addition units in their areas and do local marketing of these products.
In the process of interaction with SAKHI, some women expressed the need for their male colleagues to be exposed to a gender analysis.  Gender power relations play an important role in the decision making process in panchayats both because elected women feel disempowered, and because decisions on what is appropriate for women’s projects are based on the ‘proper role of women’ as perceived by men.  Hence, SAKHI decided to organize a gender-sensitivity session for elected men in some selected panachayats. This was by no means an easy task. This workshop allowed men to talk about gender issues for the first time, get acquainted with the women members’ perspectives and since all this was happening in a non-threatening and non-confrontational atmosphere, men conceded that it was time for change. Numerous suggestions were made to make the panchayats women-friendly. Several of these suggestions have been implemented. The follow up sessions discussed the construction of ‘masculinity’ in the context of Kerala and this helped the men to think through their own attitudes towards male-female relationships which are the result of the socialization process. This is indeed a slow process and only the future will tell how genuinely the men actually change both in the personal and public domain but this did make things a little easier for the women.
The energy and effectiveness of women in public office has certainly disarmed the men. Their only succor is the fact that most of the women once elected will not get back to a second term in office. This is well safeguarded by the Act itself, as the reserved seat rotates and a woman who once proves herself in one constituency can be given a ticket in the same constituency only by the generosity of the men in the party. In some cases women have restood as independent candidates in the same constituency and won, which only goes to prove the point further and makes the men more insecure. In Tamilnadu, the Women Panchayat Presidents Association (which was created as part of other networking initiatives) petitioned the Government to extend the reservation term for another 5 years and the Jayalalitha Government by a government order, changed the term of reservation to two terms, i.e, 10 years. Interestingly, this change has not attracted the attention of other states, for obvious reasons.
While efforts have been made to develop gender sensitivity in the planning process, challenging the processes of globalization itself is a far cry.  On the one hand, the contradictions in several fields between the state and the local government have not been resolved.  Especially in the fields of health and education, more responsibility is thrust on the shoulders of the local government and as these affect women the most, it is they who rally around to fill the gaps.  The water and sanitation programme of the World Bank is the best example.  As local governments were promised pipe water on a part payment basis, it was women who mobilized the local fund collection little knowing that after a few years, the management of the water service would be the full responsibility of the panchayat.  But who would control the water source itself is a question that was never raised.  So when the state organized the ‘Global Investors Meet’ and allured foreign investors into ‘God’s own Country,’ the panchayats had no say in determining where their sand, water, beaches and forests go – much of it coming under some Act or other which gives the State the power to decide.  So will the panchayats be left only with the pipes after a few years and have to face the anger of their electorate as the water refuses to flow? 
As things go, it appears that the main role of the nation state would be the  safeguarding of ‘national security’, controlling or unleasing terrorism, in order to provide a safe climate for global capital to operate, while the local governments and women thereof will be responsible to wield the magic wand and safeguard life and livelihood come what may.  There are already articles in the press criticizing the panchayats for the poor maintenance of health care which is the best way to force even the panchayats to privatise. Even in a state like Kerala, decentralization will therefore facilitate such a liberalization process and quell the otherwise rural uprisings that have been the hallmark of people’s political participation in demanding a responsible State.   
One of the other big mobilizations we see today is that of poor women through what has come to be called the self-help groups (SHGs). While this says a great deal for poor women who have been able to overcome all local barriers, to get together and help themselves through saving and collectivizing their little sums of money, this cries shame in a society and of governments that take pride in appropriating the gains of these efforts by boasting about the successful mobilization of these women and the lakhs of deposits that have accrued. In fact, this large scale mobilization of women also reveals on the one hand the utter despair of poor and marginalized women to keep their home fires burning as also their unquenching resilience to survive, and on the other, the contradictions of the socio-economic system we live in, that while marginalizing and dispossessing these women, it also makes capital out of them and their efforts.
    Some say this mobilization process took its lead from the Grameen bank approach in Bangla Desh. Others drew inspiration from a Ghandian stalwart in Kerala, Shri D. Pankajakshan who had initiated a neighbourhood process, ailkootam, already in the 70s. This pattern of neighbourhood groups grew into small savings programmes, and was then adopted as a mobilization strategy in the People’s Plan process where the idea was to build up a base for women’s economic activity, thereby creating their autonomous economic federations at the local level. This did succeed in some panchayats although the control of the federations remained in male hands. How could women handle large sums of money after all!! Subsequently, the State, through its Kutumbashree programme and in line with the World Bank and other financial institutions, brought a large number of such groups under its umbrella as it controlled the financial resources and of course, as this mobilization had to be brought into the mainstream. This essentially meant that women have to be drawn into the market economy as monetization and the market are the key words of neo liberal capitalism.
    In several areas these poor women’s groups have tried to utilize their local resources to create income-generating activities at the local level. Initially some of these groups were seen by the big companies as an ideal network for door to door marketing of their products. In fact one can still frequently see little groups of women walking through neighbourhoods with large black bags, knocking at gates and doors with goods to sell. They bring to the doorstep all kinds of industrial products from detergents to utensils and also mechanical gadgets not to mention the expensive AMWAY products that claim to be so eco-friendly. Some of these women earn even up to a couple of thousand rupees a month when products are new but they very soon lose out and give up. Cashing in on the poor, and women at that, is a convenient strategy which not only costs the companies infinitely less than centralized marketing, but it also penetrates the remotest villages with products that communities would otherwise not have access to. In some areas, these women’s collectives have also become the laboratories of the new multinational seeds and fertilizers, a ready made organization base through which privatization claims to get a ‘human face’. So in many ways, the mobilisation of women against the process of marginalization gets defeated as they become the tools to propagate the system that marginalizes them by negating the production and consumption of goods that are locally produced.
    It is only where the local panchayats have been creative and have a perspective of counteracting the forces of globalization, that collective alternatives have been built up either through labour banks as in Kunnathukal, collective vegetable cultivation in Kanjikuzhy or through creating local marketing networks for local production as in Kolleyel or through a large-scale transformation of the production base itself as in Mararikulam.  But as stated earlier, these efforts are still very local and it will be a long way before panchayats will be able to transcend local boundaries to work towards more collective solutions.
    This mobilisation of women both at the economic and political level is not unnoticed by the powers that be. These latter are more watchful of world happenings than anybody else. The main strategy is to either appropriate the gains of such mobilization or to discredit it either by maligning it or by forcefully eliminating it. The People’s Plan in Kerala has already come under fire in an effort to discredit it. On the other hand the easiest tool that dominating power has at its call today is religious sentiment and who but the mass of women are a better betting proposition?  Drawing women in as major players into the communal conflicts is also now a sad reality in Kerala. Will women be able to transcend this chauvinism and work towards a truly liberating society? Will women be able to safeguard their hold both over the production of life and livelihood without becoming mere consumers and cogs in the marketing nexus?
    This is probably where alliances between the women’s movement, the people’s movements and such processes have to be built. The women’s movement has to guard against the pitfalls of NGOization and mere advocacy, by sharpening its understanding of changing power relations both globally and locally. It should find ways to combat both market and religious fundamentalism by strengthening the subsistence base and anti communal base among women and local communities. On the other hand as we all know, the nirman aspect of the people’s movements gets a back seat when all energy is sapped by the sangrash demands. If the women’s movement and the people’s movements are serious about working towards an alternate anti-patriarchal development paradigm, then engaging with such mobilizations of women in creative and sustaining ways would be an indispensable way to topple the global forces that seek to constantly create new colonies for the survival of capitalism.