6 Women’s Movement

Sarala Gopalan

The Social Reform Movement in India, highlighted the miserable conditions of women and their low status in Society. They highlighted the issues of “Sati”, (widow burning on the husband’s funeral pyre), widow remarriage, and women’s education. Some Reforms were initiated pursuant to the intensive Social Reforms Movement.

The struggle for Independence in India triggered along with it the struggle for Women’s Rights in the Indian Society even more intensely. Mahatma Gandhi called for women to join the freedom struggle, and bring their special endowments of qualities of sacrifice, endurance and patience available at their family level, to the wider social level and strengthen the Freedom Movement with their human power.

Women took an important part in the Freedom struggle, by participating along with men in Satyagrahas, helping them with services like cooking food for the Satyagrahis and rendering various other support services which involved a lot of sacrifice to their own families. In recognition of this important role played by women, on the declaration of Independence of India, the New Constitution of India, in 1950, conferred on women equal rights as men in all spheres of life including in the political field, which was not available to women in many other parts of the world.

Writing in the Constitution did not automatically confer equality to women nor did the social and cultural values of a patriarchal society change to yield to the new vision.

I shall deal my topic in two Parts. The first Part will be on the issues relating to women and the second Part on the Positive measures that have been successful in this country.

Women had to struggle on various basic issues like right to land and property, elimination of discrimination, intensive violence at the domestic and sometimes social levels.

Several Grass roots level organizations pursued these issues intensively in different parts of the country to change the situation for women in the society.

Major women’s issues, or gender issues as known now, taken up by the Women’s Movement include ownership of land which signifies higher status in society, security against absolute poverty, ability to increase intra-household distribution of resources, access to credit, information, technologies and ability to challenge violence.

The Santhali Women in the Bodhgaya District of Bihar- known as the Ayo Ayidhani Group, (Women’s Rights) formed a group to fight for these issues. Similarly various Non Government Organizations and Activists have been helping women’s groups to fight for these rights.

Land for the Tillers Movement in Tamil Nadu, was famous for getting Land rights for Landless Agricultural Labour. Krishnammal Jagannathan fought for this along with her husband. I had the good fortune in helping them sort out practical problems in getting access to land.

The famous “Chipko” Movement in Uttar Pradesh, now part of Utharakhand was by women who hugged the trees to prevent Contractors who came to cut them for making way for Lime Quarries. The women cherished these trees that provided them the environment, resources of livelihood and protected their lands from sliding down and spoiling their agriculture. The Women won.

Another very significant Movement was against ‘sale of Arrack’. Alcoholism amongst men led to a lot of domestic violence. In Andhra Pradesh, in the 1980s the women promised to vote the N.T.Rama Rao’s Telugu Desam Party to Power if Prohibition against sale of alcohol was introduced. Accordingly, ‘Prohibition’ was promised and introduced. The Party won elections and came to power. But shortly thereafter, the Government reverted to sales of alcohol as the State lost a lot of revenue without the sale of alcohol!

Women are still agitating in many parts of the country against sale of liquor as this is associated with a great deal of domestic violence consequent on alcoholic husbands. Governments find it difficult to oblige the women as excise duty on sale of arrack is an attractive source of revenue for them!

Other issues against which the Women’s Movement has taken a lead relate to Women’s health issues, coercive population control measures, like experimentation on certain medical means of controlling fertility.

The fight against price rise lead by Women’s Movements and by large groups of women themselves who are not able to meet their household expenses with limited amount of money given to them by their husbands has been very significant.

Intensive consumer Movements led by women on the need to control prices and make essential items of consumption available at reasonable prices is always a discussion taken up after presentation of Annual Budgets by the Union Government. Participation of women in Consumer Forums is very significant and in many cases taxes have been rolled back heeding to the pressure from women’s groups.

Another matter that has irked women is the portrayal of women as commodities of commerce in advertisements. This militates against the dignity of women.

Violence against girls and women is the most disturbing issue of the day. Rapes and molestations are causing a great alarm in the Society and girls and women feel very insecure and unsafe to pursue their routine activities of education and work.

Many of these struggles are ongoing and solutions are not easy without shedding patriarchal mindsets and good governance.

POSITIVE ACTION FOR WOMEN IN INDIA

The Community Development Programme in India started in the early fifties, perceived women as needy persons who should be administered measures of Welfare, in health, nutrition, general awareness and poverty amelioration. Formation of Mahila Samajams to organize women in groups .
The first five ‘Five Year Plans’ built in Schemes in the Plans to benefit women in a special manner with ‘welfare’ as the main approach..

A DEVELOPMENT APPROACH FROM THE SIXTH FIVE YEAR PLAN ONWARDS

The Perspective changed from “Welfare” for women to ‘Development of Women’, as well as make them partners in Development.
Emphasis on skill development, income generation, access to health, education and enterprise
From the Ninth Five Year Plan the approach was to “Empower” women for their own benefit and benefit of the society and nation as equal partners.

THE RISE OF CIVIL SOCIETY AND NON GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS TO ADDRESS WOMEN’S NEEDS

Organization of Women under the Cooperative Society system in Hyderabad and Andhra Pradesh with credit as the main objective was a very significant measure is developing women’s enterprise and self employment.
Organization of women in Chennai under the Working Women’s Forum encouraged women to improve their skills and borrow for their enterprise and made them credit-worthy.
The emergence of Trade Unions for women also in the form of Cooperatives under‘SEWA’ in Ahmedabad, reaching out with credit, skill development, insurance, was yet another great milestone. This has expanded to other parts of the country.

Organizations of the Government like the Central Social Welfare Board (CSWB) with its network of State Social Welfare Boards also reached through civil society organizations for skill development and income generation to poor women since the first Five Year Plan in 1952. One of the significant programmes was giving cows to women , so that they could sell milk and earn incomes. This was long before the Diary Movement got established and therefore women did find problems to maintain the cow and sell the milk.

The Department of Rural Development carved out special programmes for women’s development under Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) and Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWACRA) with special subsidized credit for women in the 1980s.

The Integrated Child Development Services Scheme (ICDS) has played a very important role in women’s development at the grass-roots level in many parts of the country, particularly in the Southern States. The Anganwadi workers have provided a great deal of support and services to the SHGs, including in their formation. However it must be said that the full potential of the ICDS structure was not realized as there was not enough recognition of the roles they could have played with more financial and manpower support. While Government used the Anganwadi worker for a plethora of Schemes, as the sole representative of the Government at the lowest rung of the Village Ward level, training, recognition, and selection of capable persons was always not the case. Sometimes they were treated as mere feeding centres whenever food was available for distribution (as daliya khanas). Where they were given recognition and proper hierarchy was made available, the Anganwadi Centres and Workers became nodal points for a variety of social development issues like education, health, skill development and income generation activities, and formation of Self Help Groups for women.

In the 1990s the UNICEF assisted in the formation of ‘neighbourhood Groups’ starting from the Municipal Ward levels, and Area Development Programme with clusters of these neighbourhood Groups, to meet basic needs of households with women in particular. This was experimented in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. These groups were encouraged to indentify and prioritize their needs of drinking water, sanitation, housing, credit and skill development and health care. Savings and access to credit was the sheet anchor of the Programme with NABARD using the Nationalised Banks to channelize credit to the women.

Kerala later launched the KUDUMBASHREE programme covering women throughout the State, and facilitating formation of self-help Groups. These groups strengthened access to credit for income generation, promotion of skill and enterprise, access to markets, and a great deal of awareness generation on many matters including their own status in Society. This has been a very significant Empowerment Programme for women. One of the outstanding achievements of this programme has been accessing credit to women and bank accounts in their name. It has recorded more than 34 lakh Bank Accounts in the names of women, which is a very significant symbol of strength for them.

In 1995-96, Shri. P.V.Narasimha Rao , Prime Minister of India introduced “Mahila Samriddhi Yojana” whereby every rural woman was entitled to open a Savings Banks Account in the Post Office, and deposit up to Rs.300 a year and earn 25% interest on it. The philosophy behind this was that, the Account would give the woman an entitlement to an asset, which was a symbol of empowerment, as she would possess an asset. More than a crores accounts were opened. However this scheme was given up as it was expensive to manage as the cost of each transaction which was as little as a deposit of Rs.4, would cost Rs. 16 and more. It was replaced by a “A Women’s Empowerment Programme” where a Coordinator at the Block-level organized a series of training programmes, including legal training and leadership training, that would be transmitted to groups of women at the village level. It is to the credit of the Government that they thought it important to build capabilities and capacities in women to take up greater familial and social responsibilities.

The influence of various kinds of programmes and various approaches at different periods and in different parts of the country helped develop a strong infrastructure of Self-Help Groups for women, broadly known as SHGs. Wherever the SHGs have gained in strength, they have been able to deal with a whole range of social and personal issues of women, like domestic and communal violence, repair broken families, provide access to credit, access to various kinds of infrastructural and basic facilities, like drinking water, roads, schools, teachers in schools, furniture and buildings for schools, apart from credit, skill and access to markets for improving income generation and reducing poverty. The success of “SHGs” have depended on the support from Government or other Mother NGOs and the mentoring available to the groups from these agencies, and leadership within the group. It must be mentioned that these groups have failed to become a powerful instrument of change where cultural factors inhibit from coming out of their homes and participating in community and public activities.

Combating violence has become a significant achievement of women’s Self Help Groups. The groups have been able to help members to face domestic violence from Husbands, mothers-in-law, daughters-in-law, husbands etc.

In some places I visited as a Government Officer, men in those areas have asked me as to why men could not be organized into SHGs as women have been? I had to tell them that organization of men in Cooperatives had often failed, particularly, in the credit sector, as repayment of loans taken by men were not prompt or regular and many cooperatives failed on that count. Women had been good borrowers and repayment was excellent and their credit groups thrived. Besides, politics did not creep into women’s groups as they had swept many men’s groups, and caused their failures, and liquidation. The close monitoring by the women’s groups has been the cause of their success. Men also need to be organized in this manner.

The successful SHGs of women have provided great strength to the Panchayati Raj System and also provided women leaders to participate in the Panchayati Raj Institutions. They have also helped in monitoring Panchayati Raj Systems. They have sometimes been able to eliminate corruption. In areas where women have had no exposure or education and have been elected to leadership positions in Panchayats they have not been able to enjoy the potential of those positions owing to their lack of exposure to public responsibility and domination by their men. It would take some more time to come into their own and discharge those responsibilities more ably, as many other empowered women have done as members, Chairpersons in all levels of the Panchayati Raj System.

Panchayats get a great deal of funds for a variety of programmes. If these are properly utilized without leakages, the community can fulfill a host of needs they have. Very often large amounts of money remain unutulized and people suffer at the other end without facilities they need. The Controller and Auditor General has often commented on large funds of Government remaining unutilized meant for people’s development. Recently, there was a write up on students not claiming the subsidies available on bank loans meant for higher education, and by not availing these huge amounts of interest charged by the Banks had to be paid.

CONCLUSION

We have seen what organizations of women and men can do and their achievements. When people are organized their strength increases and Groups can make strong claims and demands to fulfill their specific needs. It was small groups of men and women who fought for Freedom in small communities that rose up to the National level and finally achieved freedom for the country. We have now to fight against hunger, ignorance and corruption and rise up from the Grassroots level to the national level. We can make the Nation Great and life better for ourselves by Organization. People like us who are educated and have some position in society should help others who are less aware to come together and help the process of community and nation building.

Questions for Self Assessment

What were the major issues relating to women taken up by the Social Reformers?
How did Women contribute to the Freedom Struggle in India?
What were the major concerns of women taken up by the Women’s Movement in India?
State an effort made to get Land rights for women.
What is the special feature of the Community Development Programme in relation to women?
Explain the Role of the Central Social Welfare Board in the focus on women
What was the approach to women in the First Five ‘Five Year Plans in India;.
When did the focus shift to ‘Development’ of women?
Highlight the special feature for women in the Ninth Five Year Plan.
Explain some efforts for accessing Credit for women.
What was the special Programme for women under Rural Development Programmes.
Write three sentences on combating violence by Women.
What is “Kudumbashree”?
How does Organization of persons help in progress of the community?

you can view video on Women’s Movement

References and Web links

Dr. Sarala Gopalan, Towards Equality – The Unfinished Agenda – Status of Women in India – 2001. The National Commission for Women, Government of India
Dr.Sarala Gopalan & Dr.Mira Shiva: National Profile on Women, Health and Development. Country Profile, India, Published by Voluntary Health Association and World Health Organisation – 2000.
Sarala Gopalan: Women in Pasrticipatory Development through Mahila Samajams, The Trivandrum Experiment – Published by the National Institute of Rural Development, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad, (1990)
The Ninth Five Year Plan of India – Planning Commission, Government of India
The Sixth Five Year Plan of India – Planning Commission, Government of India
The Constitution of India The Twelfth Five Year Plan of India – Planning Commission of India