Cwlr Member Case study

SAFP Sept

2010
Sathi All For Partnerships Emmanuelle Paris Cohen, Harriet Winfrey SAFP International interns

[CASE STORIES OF WOMEN AND RESOURCE RIGHTS IN MADHYA PRADESH]
[State government needs to intervene through affirmative action to increase the resource base for women, as is demonstrated by the case studies in this compilation. Women active in the national land right movement came away from their activities with very little. State policies for women don’t translate either into active programmes to create gender equality. Therefore, resource gaps between men and women have yet to be filled. Through area development plans in which spaces would be demarcated for women to manage and access collectively for care services and livelihoods, we are hoping to remedy the situation. Each case story resonates with the need for developing skills in women to help them manage productive resources. This case study compilation is a part of a wider study that compiles evidence on the gender resource data gap. Through it, we suggest that every development plan must have a women resource zone built within it for women to access both built and natural infrastructure, as women have been historically denied equal access to resources]


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How I came to work for Sathi All For Partnerships(SAFP) Harriet Winfrey
I impulsively booked returned flights to Delhi in October 2009 after sitting through a series of lectures on the socio-economic conditions affecting Karnataka. Shortly after booking these tickets I started to consider firstly whether I had been a bit brash, booking tickets without really thinking about what I was doing; and realising that it was too late to take the decision back, I started to think about what I hoped to achieve during my time in India. On this basis I decided to consult my university adviser, Nitya Rao, to discuss what opportunities there may be for me to volunteer with an NGO during my time in India. Soon after our initial discussion Nitya got in touch with me to tell me of an opportunity that had arisen to work with SAFP, an organisation based in Delhi which promotes the establishment of partnerships between different NGOs working to increase the rights and resources of women. Continuing the work initiated by the Consult for Women and Land Rights (CWLR) Shivani Bhardwaj, the director of SAFP, sought to build upon her existing research into the circumstances of women from different minority groups and therein to provide evidence to support project proposals that sought to both redress the gender imbalances, and to tackle the problems that such women face. Having in the past studied English literature, and accordingly having written more essays that I care to mention, I was assigned the task of helping to write case studies on behalf of SAFP. It was thus arranged that I would spend three weeks working alongside Shivani in Delhi. In line with this work I got to speak with the women in question and got to experience firsthand the nature of the problems they face which I sincerely hope I managed to accurately convey within the case studies I produced. Prior to coming to India I had a general overview of the problems faced by the lower classes of Indian society so in many respects I was prepared for some of what I witnessed, however looking back on my experiences of talking to individual women


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and trying to immerse myself into the culture I think that the reality of their circumstances was quite difficult to accept let alone write about. I felt at times a lot of pressure to do justice to the situation of the women which, from my own perspective as a young western woman, was not only unacceptable but also much removed from the social norms I am accustomed to living in England. Whilst I have been brought up to believe that women are equal to men in all walks of life (social, professional and educational) and to perceive prejudicial attitudes as being outdated and wrong, entering into a culture where women and minority groups are powerless, undervalued and ostracised came as quite a shock. Lack of awareness regarding their social and constitutional rights seemed often to inhibit the women’s ability to exact change within their own lives and even when this awareness was present the women were still often powerless to do anything. So for a first year International Development student I think whilst I tried to remain objective at all times and portray the difficulties encountered by my subjects from the rural context of two women who worked on land rights issues in Madhya Pradesh as close to reality as possible, I felt it was at time quite difficult to mask my own feelings on the matter. On this basis I sincerely hope that the work I have produced does justice to the feelings and experiences of the women in question, moreover enables the reader to understand the complexity of the situation faced by these women and the groups they represent.


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An Introduction to the case studies of Hira and Ranjini and the context of SAFP’s interest in the circumstances encountered by scheduled tribe females
At the core of Sathi All For Partnership’s (SAFP) work is a desire to address the circumstantial problems and hardships encountered by India’s most vulnerable women, which of course encompasses the full range of different minority groups. This section reflects the struggles of those working with indigenous women. Within the first week of my arrival in India I witnessed no less than three newspaper articles1 discussing the alarmingly high levels of poverty found to affect 165 million people throughout the Indian subcontinent. These articles came on the back of research carried out by the Oxford Poverty and Development Initiative adopting a newly developed strategy for assessing global poverty, the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI, 2010). In the process of conducting these assessments comparative measurements were taken in order to track the discrepancies between the different Indian states, and also the different minority groups. From this it was found that in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgargh the proportion of the population considered to be in abject poverty was in excess of 69% of the total. Furthermore this poverty assessment found that scheduled tribes were particularly vulnerable, with 81.9% of scheduled tribe members considered as being severely poor, compared to the general population average of 33.3%. This demonstrated that a high proportion of the people living in either one of these five ‘poor’ states are living in, or at increased risk of falling victim to, poverty. The reports also suggested that out of all the different minority groups (including scheduled tribes, castes and other backward classes) scheduled tribes in particular, are highly vulnerable to poverty. Irrespective of and oblivious to these poverty assessments my work had me speaking with representatives of an NGO set up to address the issues encountered by the forest dwelling communities and scheduled tribes. In light of the aforementioned newspaper articles, which I read upon my return to Delhi, I felt that the study’s findings exemplified just a few of the circumstantial
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The Times of India, 2010


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problems faced by the residents of India’s poorest states. Moreover in relation to the case studies I was asked to produce (which are printed in the following pages) these reports provide statistical evidence showing the social and economic context in which scheduled tribes live. Of course the implications of these harsh realities for female members of scheduled tribes, who already have a subordinate status within the community on the basis of their gender, are far reaching. SAFP, whose central focus is the issues and rights of women throughout India, is particularly interested in the condition of these scheduled tribe females. On this basis we travelled to a village with a group of such women and interview a tribal woman called Hira, in order to get a clear picture of the problems that characterise their daily lives. The findings of this trip are discussed at length in the following case studies. As members of society these women were found to have virtually no rights whatsoever, and within their own communities the situation was not much better. When the women had come together in the past to make legitimate demands of the government, they had not been listened to. In order to move forward these women perceptibly need guidance, so that they know how to get their needs acknowledged. Thus in our conversations with the villagers we encouraged the men and women to think about what resources they need and how they are to go about demanding such resources from the government. Take for instance the current situation with the ration shop; as the situation stands at present the women are required to walk 15km or more to access the nearest ration shop which is unacceptable and unfair. Whilst the women of the village had made an application to the government asking for a ration shop to be opened nearby they had not proven to be very efficient in following the status of their application. In light of this we (representatives of both SAFP and the local NGO with whom we met) argued it was simply not enough for them to make an application; in order for the desired result to materialise we argued that the women needed to go back week after week and track the status of their claim, reinforcing the need for their case to be acknowledged. Of course another important matter to address is the government’s reluctance to correctly implement the Forest Rights Act, and allocate land to indigenous tribes, so maybe the villagers need to raise concerns here also. Although it seems likely that for demands of this kind to be realised they will need to obtain support from NGO’s as well as support from other tribal communities. In terms of the interviews we conducted, Ranjini’s case study (Ranjini being the joint director of the NGO, and the latter case study in this section) illustrates how in spite


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of struggling against adversity Ranjini has been able to obtain numerous resources that she did not posses in the past. Conversely for women like Hira (the former case study in this section), women from scheduled tribes, the progress she has been able to make is completely different, in as much that she has obtained just the bare minimum of what she is entitled to according to government legislations. On this basis it may be pertinent to question whether social conditioning and identity, for instance as being a member of a scheduled tribe, can inhibit an individual woman’s ability to access resources. And, if this is the case, what sort of mass movement or mobility strategy is required in order to get the voices of the scheduled tribe women listened to and heard? These are just some of many questions that SAFP and other acting organisations need to consider in order to make meaningful conclusions and develop effective strategies to address these issues. Combined, the case studies seek to show how two women within the same geographical locality can experience very different forms of progress and gain access to different forms of resources. In many respects, Hira can be viewed as being in a similar position now to Ranjini’s situation when she was at the onset of her personal and professional development. Therefore is it possible that Hira can experience continued growth and further increase her resource base? Or is her position as a scheduled tribe female likely to limit her ability to acquire both government and private resources? So what can be done? Judging from our trip to a rural village (where we saw how men and women were able sit together and collectively consider and discuss their resource needs when given the opportunity to do so) there is evidently scope for participatory approaches to bring about social change. Such changes may be in the form of male-female relations at community level, or changes to the ability of communities to unite on a particular matter and make collective demands of the government on the basis of what they, the residents of these villages, decide is needed. Such discussions also enable the scheduled tribe members think about the resources they already posses and consider how best to preserve them, preserve their cultural and economic past, and in doing so, preserve their own livelihoods. Of course in order for this participation to occur the process needs to be both encouraged and facilitated, which is where intervention (from NGOs and other charitable organisations) may prove necessary.


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The section features two case studies: A. Hira’s story: Fighting for her constitutional rights as a widow and acquiring skills both as a teacher and as a leader of local women. B. Ranjini’s story: An forerunning activist within the land rights movements and more importantly, an exemplary example of women’s ability to be treated as equals.

SECTION 1 Case Study A: Hira’s Story
The struggles of the scheduled tribes: fighting for forest rights, preserving tribal customs and maximising collective productivity

Harriet Winfrey Hira, like many Indian women, got married at a very young age. Following the premature death of her husband she was forced to move back to her family home in the village we visited, after her father in law evicted her from the house in which she and her husband lived, taking custody of her two children. Upon her arrival back to her family village, Hira found herself stigmatized within the local community on account of her return to the area as a widow (an act deplored by Indian culture). In spite of such adversity, Hira is an example of how a single woman from a tribal community has been able to assert her own rights, obtain the welfare benefits rightfully hers according to government legislation and re-establish her status and sense of identity within the local community. It is hoped that Hira’s example will pave the way for others to make such demands from the government in the future. Having received appropriate training material from a local NGO which we prefer not to name, Hira has been able to obtain employment as a teacher within one of two tribal schools in the area. This training also imparted her with the necessary skills to organize, mobilise and educate women within the neighbouring community as part of her work within the village self help group (SHG). She has further legitimised her position within society through her persistent battles against the national government in order to obtain both an NREGA card (which entitles the holder to 100 days of paid labour per annum) and to the state provided widows pension. Information about such entitlements were again provided by an


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NGO, although to date Hira is one of only a few cases in which appeals to the government have been successful. In the future Hira aims to challenge her marital family for the rights to her late husband’s share of the family property as well as to win back the custody of her children, whom she has been forbidden access to since she was forced to leave her in laws home. Hira is an isolated case, for others of the tribe that reside in this area the story is not so optimistic. Composed of some of the nation’s poorest individuals, all of whom depend on the forest for their survival needs, these tribal communities have faced numerous struggles against the national government and the forest department with their entitlements to land and forest produce. As the co head of the NGO we spoke with, Indrajit2, argues ‘community forests have not existed since the implementation of the Forest Conservation Act in 1980’ (2008). Whilst claiming to preserve the forest in the name of environmental interests and demands, the Forest Conservation Act in practice sought to undermine the tribal ownership of forest land and appropriate these high resource areas as state property. Prohibiting human settlement and farming in forest reserves, and assuming control over forest resources, the state government dispossessed tribal communities throughout India. For a community that traditionally practiced slash and burn agriculture these restrictions had vast implications for their way of life and their cultural survival. Measures have been taken in the attempt to increase the rights and resources of forest dwellers, as is demonstrated by the introduction and legislation of the Forest Rights act in 2006. However whilst this act claims to allocate property rights and resource access to forest dwellers, in some states, there is yet to be a single instance in which an application to claim land rights has proved successful. The evidence suggests that the implementation of these rules has had very little application within the communities which it claims to target. Furthermore the access to forest produce that is warranted by this act has led to further atrocities against the scheduled tribes. Women frequently report incidences of sexual assault when trying to gather produce from forest department land belonging to the forest department whilst men face more

Name was changed.Indrajit and Ranjini are married stay with their 10 year old boy in a city not far away from Hira’s village.

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brutal and violent punishments. Under such circumstances it has become normal for women to carry out produce gathering activities. As Indrajit, the manager of the local NGO suggests, the result of these struggles is a growing trend of both permanent and seasonal migration as traditional livelihoods are becoming increasingly unviable for forest tribes. In the past 2-3 years this region has witnessed dramatic changes as more and more residents have, owing to their desperate circumstances, been forced to seek work in brick kilns and other out of state industrial labour activities. In short it can be surmised that with the limitations, constraints and adversity forest communities currently face their industrious and isolated ways of life are greatly under threat and at risk of being lost entirely. It is on this basis that the NGO operates as a means of trying to increase the viability and maintaining the existence of the tribal practices, increasing their collective rights and imparting them with the knowledge and training to better their circumstances.

In the field: Consultations with the residents of a rural village
The following is an account of a field trip which Shivani Bhardwaj from Sathi For All Partnerships, Indrajit and Ranjini (manager and secretary of the NGO), Ruben Cruz (photographer), a very patient taxi driver and myself attended. The drive to the village can only be described as a bumpy one. Dilapidated tarmac roads with plenty of ruts kept our team on the edge of their seats for the duration of the two hour drive. Whizzing past the forest department offices, its ground amass with piles of timber, put into perspective the colossal scale of deforestation still ongoing throughout this region. Fortunately the monsoon rains kept the dust at bay so we had fairly clear visibility upon arrival. We were beckoned into a covered patio area outside a mud brick house backing onto a small plot of agricultural land and a courtyard, around which more of the same cow dung buildings were arranged. Due to a lack of school building the patio of this family home was said to be one of two sites in the village where the children would come for schooling. Greeted by around thirty or more school children, ranging in age from 3 to around 11 years we very quickly began to appreciate the rarity of such a visit as we were regarded and treated like royalty, encouraged to sit down on chairs which were hastily brought out from the house and offered mugs of chai tea.


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After some initial shyness on part of the younger children and a couple of traditional songs from the braver individuals, we too were asked to repay the favour which consisted of a rather quick lesson in how to dance the Spanish ‘Macarena’ and a rendition of ‘Do ray me’, a song from the well known musical The Sound Of Music. Very flushed and embarrassed Ruben and I hastily took our seats and listened as Shivani translated a conversation between herself and one of the village children Kanti. Kanti, a 10 year old girl attending the school described the allocation of roles within her household. She spoke of how she had gained responsibility for the preparation of food within her household. Although she admitted that she had some assistance from her mother, at times she was left solely responsible for catering for the entire family: her father, brother, mother and herself. She said that she also helped her mother with the collection of water and other domestic duties. Her brother on the other hand was responsible for looking after the goats. When asked about the duties her mother and father undertook she described how her mother worked on the field, planting and caring for the families crops whilst her father’s was responsible for the seasonal ploughing of the field and the sale of produce within the local markets. Although Kanti’s mother would commence her day’s work at 3am, her father she reported woke at around 8am. Despite this discrepancy her perception was that her father worked harder than her mother on the basis that his duties required him to spend more time away from the homestead. On consultation it seemed that the majority of the congregated school children shared this conviction. Such perceptions amongst the younger generation may be seen to imply that reproductive roles, namely domestic work and other activities carried out by women, are seen within the community to be less labour intensive than the work carried out by men. Although domestic duties and tending for the fields appeared to demand significantly more hours (per day) than other forms of work it seems that such reproductive roles are perhaps overlooked and underappreciated within such communities. Our time with the school children was brought to a close by the arrival of a number of the adult villagers, and upon instruction from Indrajit, a hand drawn map was pinned up underneath the patio, against the outer wall of the building.


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These village plans had been drawn up in order to cite the location and composition of the different households, specifying the caste as well as the age group and gender of each individual household member. These plans also indicated the position of both privately owned and government provided wells, in addition to the location of tarmac roads and dirt tracks and the surrounding land. The objective of such plans was to create a visual image detailing the present allocation of resources and to use this plan as a basis for collectively (villagers and NGO workers) identifying patches of land and the necessary infrastructure that could be incorporated within future project proposals for the development of the village. It became apparent during discussions with a small group of male and female adults from the village community that in terms of decision making power men had a greater say in local development. For instance when asked who hypothetically would decide where additional government well’s would be built a local man was quite adamant that this kind of decision was to be discussed solely amongst the male members of the community. Paradoxically we found that the women and female children in the community were responsible for the collection of water from the existing wells, as a part of the numerous daily domestic duties women in this community were expected to carry out. It therefore seemed absurd that women, who have the greatest knowledge about the whereabouts and supply of water, should not be included in such discussions. Within the group discussion Hira’s case was deliberately discussed as a means of integrating and explaining the ideas that the interview sought to address and explore. This was done in front of the community firstly so that others were aware of our motivations for speaking with Hira about her experiences, thus pacifying any suspicions that may be harboured by others within the village, and secondly so that Hira’s example could be used as a starting point for talking about wider gender issues, SHG activity, resource allocation and entitlements within the village The nature of the visit was not merely to talk to Hira alone, rather our small team sought also to contribute information and ideas to the community: motivating them into taking collective action to demand more resources from the government and getting them to think collectively about aspects of their livelihoods namely the division of decision making power and resources, access and control, between males and females. The learning from this meeting was later shared with two authorities from the State’s capital, to suggest a plan of action. It became clear as the community meeting progressed that this was the first instance in which gender roles and imbalances in terms of control over resources had been openly addressed.


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Practical questioning regarding the location of, and decisions surrounding, government water supplies and choice of seed varieties revealed that the vast majority of decision making power lay in the hands of men. On the basis that women were seen to carry out most of the activities pertaining to these two resources it was possible to argue that women within the village should have a more prominent role within decision making. As Shivani explained ‘we can deduce from conversations like this that not only tribal’s are getting less resources (as a result of government imposed restrictions), but that women are getting less’ and thus argue a case that demands increased resources and infrastructure that specifically target the women living in this area. Due to the growing concerns about climate change and its detrimental impact on this area, and in line with the work and research being carried out by NGOs who actively supports this community, we encouraged the villagers to identify and think about possible climate change mitigation projects that could be collectively implemented in the nearby area, providing the village with more secure and sustainable ways of producing food and extra funds from the government. As this meeting disbanded, the villagers left talking amongst themselves, Ranjini, Shivani and I moved out to the courtyard to talk with Hira about her personal experiences and involvement in the village SHG, in which she played a leading role.

Hira’s story Hira explained the widow pension was the only governmental resource that any women in this community had as yet been able to access. Out of five applications, pensions had been allocated to just two women. As she said ‘besides these two I don’t think anybody has been able to access anything else.’ The process of obtaining the pension Hira explained, required her to purchase and fill out a widow’s pension application form, which she gave to the government. Her case, and others, was brought before the Gram Sabha and after some deliberation the pension was awarded. She said that she encountered numerous difficulties in getting her name put on the village voting register, the registrar arguing that she could not have her name on a list in both her marital and her family village. She disputed against this saying ‘if I am here I will vote here, if I am there I will vote there’ to which he argued that because she would be visiting her children in her


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marital village she should also go and vote there, and therefore what need or reasoning could she have to be put on her family village voting list. This decision was made with no regard for her personal circumstances, the fact that she had been banished from her marital village and not permitted any access to her son and daughter. When Hira returned to her family village (where we met her) she obtained SHG training however she felt that even before this she had some experience of community meetings through her experiences in attending the Gram Sabha. She said that although she had some involvement in community based work she has gathered more information and training since joining the NGO and hence she felt that her role has become more organized and established. In terms of the resources women within the village had been able to access through the SHG she said that five women were granted old age pensions and one woman obtained a deserted woman’s allowance. The SHG also put forward an application to get a children’s feeding centre and a school for the village. Hira believed that it was likely that they would be granted a school building from the government. At present she said that the children were being divided and studied in two different houses, one owned by the village head and another by a yarder. Hira teaches at both of these schools. The women had also tried to incorporate a savings scheme within their SHG, however progress of this project had been impeded partly by the government’s reluctance (after three years of being established) to supply the counterpart money owed to them, and also by a loan taken out by a teacher. The teacher failed to repay the money he borrowed for over three years and only after pressure from the Gram Swaraj government programme (which reviews the implementation of government programmes at village level) did he return the money, failing to pay any interest on the amount borrowed. As Hira explained obtaining the repayment of this loan was one of the notable resources that women have, thorough collective action, managed to recover. As the interest on the loan was not paid the women’s saving group failed to make a profit and accordingly the process of repayment was not as they had initially hoped. Another problem they encountered surrounded the provision of the midday school meal. The women were under the impression that the officer of the school would provide money for this meal however for four months the women supplied the midday meal without any payments being made. They took collective action to try and remedy this problem.


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Hira said that the government officials gave them some resources to overcome the loans that had been taken from the shop supplying the food for the school meals, in an attempt to remedy the situation. The SHG submitted an application and started to put pressure on the school officer to ensure that this money was repaid. When asked about the impact of her SHG on her family life she said that she had over time gained support from her natal family members. Whilst in the early days they used to monitor her activity asking whether she would come back from the meeting in time and so on, overall things had changed: ‘They no longer ask me where am I going and what am I doing. They have a sense of respect; so much so that other women in my family are going out to seek a job like I have to get some income and be a woman of substance.’ On the other hand Hira’s in laws, as far as she knew, were not aware of the work she was involved in: ‘They really want nothing to do with me. When I have gone there my father in law has simply shut the house door on my face.’ Naturally Hira felt somewhat helpless about her situation with her in laws and it pained her to talk about them, as she pointed out ‘I do not want to think or talk about them much now, I want to establish myself first. The main thing is that I have lost is my relationship with my children and I think about them all the time.’ Trying to unveil the rationale underlying the behaviour of her husband’s family we asked Hira what was their motivation for treating her so badly and whether this had happened immediately preceding her husband’s death or after some time had passed. Hira said that she was locked out of the house immediately. Her husband’s family perceived her to be ‘a witch’ and held her responsible for his death. At this time Hira was understandably quite distressed and she recalls being somewhat unable to ‘present herself as a collected person or deal with her pressures.’

Hira’s husband died in 2005 and she has not been permitted any access to her son or daughter since.

Following our individual meeting with Hira we were joined by the remaining members of the village’s SHG as well as another two groups from neighbouring villages. Although some of the men present in the initial meeting were in attendance they took a back seat in discussions about the activity of the women’s groups. We learnt that the village’s SHG, in April, had applied to obtain a ration shop on the premise that the nearest ration shop to the village was over 15km away. Whilst the


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forms had been completed and sent off, on enquiring, it transpired that the SHG had failed to chase up the relevant authorities on the status of their application. Furthermore the village SHG’s action in terms of initiating and organizing a woman’s enterprise was deemed to be somewhat lacking. In amidst our discussions the women spoke of a small business they had making brooms wherein they would buy the required material for 4 rupees and sell the finished product for 6 thereby making a small profit. A spokeswoman from the SHG admitted that whilst they had started collecting money from group members they did not at present have the capital to create a lucrative business. The women from a neighbouring SHG on the other hand had collected 5000 rupees from each of its individual members, and with it created a bank. This initiative had enabled the group to collect somewhere in the region of 20-30 thousand rupees which they said they had invested in about 4 or 5 new businesses. With some of the money they had collected they employed a cashier and an accountant to assist them with managing the group’s finances. Another SHG which started up ten years ago (2000) ran a primary school and a shelter home. They financed the provision of midday meals for the primary school children by setting up an account, into which each woman deposited 2 rupees per month. At present they estimated the balance of this account to be in or around 9000 rupees. Whilst neither of these groups had registered their existence with the government they appeared to be independently running successful enterprises and, as Indrajit said, had no need for the group loans the government offered to registered SHGs.

As part of their role in supporting the village community both Ranjini and Indrajit challenged the members of the village SHG asking why they had not been more proactive in their attempt to obtain a ration shop. As Ranjini pointed out in order to get their request acknowledged they should have checked up on the progress on a weekly basis rather than leaving it for months. Indeed, as witnessed through Hira’s experience of dealing with the government, it has been proved that only with a great deal of persistence can results be achieved. Ranjini thus argued that the village group should have been more assertive and resolute in its requests. Returning to the matter of collective enterprises which other village groups had evidently had some success with, Indrajit encouraged the women and men to think realistically about their individual capabilities and identify what productive activities they could do in order to generate profit. He implored them to think of an activity that


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they could participate in all year round rather than just seasonally as that would ensure a more reliable flow of income for the village. What the villagers needed, Indrajit argued, was a change of both attitude and behaviour so that they could amend their role from that of a watchdog (which appeared to be the case at present) to that of a resource developer. His suggestion was that they look into collectively purchasing 20 or so goats and asking the government for more land on which to let them graze. With these twenty goats it would be possible to breed, multiply the size of the herd, and thus gain further resources for the collective. It was no use expecting one or two individuals to take part in this, in order for anything to work it must be a community effort.

As our day in the village drew to a close it was evident (judging by the heated conversations ongoing between the different village SHG’s as we left) that the questions posed by Ranjini, Indrajit and Shivani had given the villagers something to think about. As Ranjini earlier pointed out it was pointless for the NGO to keep giving the villagers assistance unless they were willing and able to also start helping themselves. Putting some pressure on the villagers to increase their efforts by means of some tactical reverse psychology was hoped to inspire more concerted action. Having initiated perhaps one of the first conversations about the relative access and control of males and females over resources it was hoped that the community would now start to redress just a few of the imbalances that existed between men and women. Encouraging them to start working together to try and establish some new initiatives that would increase their productivity, the overall aim is to start building upon the resources that the villagers have access to, thereby increasing the viability and regeneration of their traditional way of life. Hira’s role as an active member of the village SHG remains to monitor and incite the action of the group. With her existing knowledge about how to access government resources in addition to some encouragement to ensure the demands of the SHG are heard, the hope is that the women in this community will take collective action and start putting pressure on the government so that their entitlements may be realized. Whilst the FRA has as yet failed to bring about the land entitlements it promised, community efforts are undoubtedly central to ensuring that individual and collective needs and are met and that claims are granted. The Indian government needs to account for its evident failure to live up to its promises and only with pressure from village communities like those we met with, is it likely that the government will begin to fulfil its role in the allocation of resources to


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forest dwellers. It is only through increased knowledge about rights, entitlements and the means of obtaining such resources that change will occur and women must participate in this process

SECTION 1 Case Study B: Ranjini’s Story
Ranjini’s Personal and Professional Development Harriet Winfrey in association with SAFP For the past twenty years Ranjini has played an active, and often leading, role within rural and urban social development programmes and a land right movement. Whilst her primary work at present is with the NGO we visited, which she and her husband Indrajit established in 2000 and currently manage her professional and intellectual growth as both a woman and a facilitator of development has involved numerous struggles. As she suggests ‘although now I am my own boss, recognised and respected both as an individual and as a development practitioner in my own right, this has not always been the case.’


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Indeed the reverence with which Ranjini is treated by such respected members of the community as the Mayor of the state capital, and the numerous others that specifically seek her knowledge and advice, has come on the back of a lifetime of hardship. In the past Ranjini has been unlawfully crammed in a cell with 51 male prisoners, receiving death threats from the arresting police officials and she has been subject to frequent gender discriminations within the workplace. Struggling against the norms and expectations of a society that promotes early marriage and female subordination, her unrelenting determination in her attempts to obtain justice, both for herself and for the sake of others, is a testament to her unwavering strength as an advocate for the rights of women. This article seeks to divulge the nature of circumstances that have contributed to Ranjini’s individual growth and acquisition of resources, revealing the significant role of both personal and professional experience in the development of such an exemplary leader of women’s and tribal rights. Since 1987 Ranjini has worked in NGOs, particularly in organisations that target forest dwellers and tribal communities. From 1989 until 2000 she played a pivotal role in the land rights movement active in the nation with its head quarter in Bhopal. During this period she sought to understand and address the situational struggles faced by the Dalit women (the majority of which are landless and impoverished) populating the areas in which she worked. Over time Ranjini came to appreciate the disparity between the way in which she, as a woman accustomed to the dominant ways of thinking inherent in Indian society, perceived tribal issues and the way in which the tribal communities themselves understood and managed them. As she says ‘there is a huge gap between the issues that we face and the way we deal with them and the problems and experiences faced by tribal women.’ At this time Ranjini also became aware of the difference between the way in which the policies she worked with framed forest resources, in terms of the lives and livelihoods of forest dwellers, and the way in which the tribal’s themselves viewed them. As she suggests for tribal communities the forest was far more than just a livelihood resource, ‘it was their way of life’. In recognising this, Ranjini and accordingly the land right movement began to amend the way in which they conceived the problems that tribal communities face and thus reviewed and adapted the approaches they used to assist them.


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As she says ‘I significantly added to my own skill base during this time as the knowledge and approaches that I derived from my experiences in the field were quite different from the understanding I had previously.’ As part of her work at that time Ranjini sought to mobilise the women from tribal villages, trying to enable and encourage them to actively take part in land rights movements. Her ability to generate action and awareness was, however, impeded by the sheer fact that almost all of the women she worked with were uneducated, and therefore they did not have the intellectual capacity to immediately understand the premises of her suggestions. Her hard work however did eventually pay off when in 1999 the land rights organisation successfully orchestrated a demonstration involving around 200 people, who blocked off the roads in a protest against the fact that they had not received payment for work that they had done and also to demand increased access to forest resources. Bearing in mind the feudal environment in which this demonstration took place this mass mobilisation came as a total surprise to local authorities and was, for Ranjini, indicative that her own work was progressing. Alongside such protests and in light of the research reports and petitions of the land right NGO had given the government with regards to the World Bank’s forestry programme (which they, and others, had linked to the widespread deforestation that had been witnessed in the south) an extensive review of the World Bank project was also carried out in this year (1999). The review, conducted by the bank’s Operations Evaluation Department (OED), highlighted the failure of the World Bank in its implementation of the 1991 Forest Policy, claiming that there was ‘a lack of synergy between conservation and development ‘(WRM 2002) and admitting that its own efforts, to adapt its methodological approach so as to contain the rate of tropical deforestation, had up until now been vastly inadequate (ibid). For Ranjini, recognising the impact of multinational agencies upon forest resources (and thus forest dwellers) further contributed to her intellectual grounding, enabling her to appreciate the complex and interrelated factors underlying the political, social and economic conditions prevalent within forested areas.

Competing interests in forest resources took numerous different forms: from the feudal lords, who were concerned about their ownership and management of both land and labour, and the forest department who sought to monopolise the extraction of timber and other forest produce, to the more conservative interests of environmentalists and proponents of eco- tourism. In each case, Ranjini reports that the work of the land right NGO was treated with suspicion and contempt. As she says


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‘for the first ten years of our work we were perceived as a threat by all of these different actors (the environmentalists, eco tourists, feudal lords , and the forest department) as our work was considered to undermine and oppose both their economic and their political interests. This was also because the World Bank review hit them hard, and our involvement in initiating this review was known.’ It was not just Ranjini’s work as part of the land right NGO that was treated contemptuously, she spent a lot of her time working on her own in the field and as she suggests the forest was not an easy place, particularly for women, to negotiate. She was frequently subject to such suspicious inquisitions, and she felt that this was certainly in part due to the fact that she was female. Whilst other women of her age had already been married off and were sitting under pardha, Ranjini was going around, with her head uncovered, with absolutely no wish to enter into ‘the patriarchal marriage system’ until such time as she had achieved her wider goals of initiating a social transformation. In spite of the admonishments she received from her peers and within wider society, she described being proud to be ‘actively standing up for her values’. In many ways, Ranjini detached herself from her identity as a woman, and when men indicated that they were attracted to her or asked for her hand she says she would resolutely reject them. Furthermore she was greatly dissatisfied by the gender relations, and inequality, that existed even in the organisation in which she worked, which paradoxically claimed to be gender equal. In spite of the fact that she was more qualified and experienced than many of her male counterparts she felt undervalued and underpaid on the basis that she was female: ‘men were paid higher wages in spite of the fact I knew more than the majority of them, and had different capabilities. I therefore did not feel that men and women were valued equally.’ In her own mind Ranjini prioritised her identity as a human being over her identity as a woman, which perhaps enabled her to better deal with the situation at hand. By negating the cultural labels, of weakness and subordinate status, attached to women, viewing herself instead as a human being (with every right to be and act as she pleased) Ranjini was able to proactively fight for her own rights and the rights of other women. Given the social and political milieu she had grown up with in her own village, wherein she said ‘women were treated like dust’, her personal identity was seen to manifest itself as the complete reverse of the social conditioning she had grown up with.


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This inexplicable courage ‘to show a totally different role model and be perhaps more courageous than I actually was at this time’ enabled Ranjini to make progressive steps within her professional development. Ranjini was thrice selected to be the secretary for a particular group and asked to coordinate its activity. She was allocated the most difficult assignments because as she said she ‘was ready and willing to take the bull by the horns’. Often she would end up in a situation where she would have to rectify cases of financial misappropriation which she overcame by not taking much money for herself. Ranjini would travel long distances on minimal budgets to straighten out problematic situations, and she would hold to account those responsible for such issues, as she says ‘rectifying the stakes’. By the time she turned 24, Ranjini had become an angry and disillusioned with her work. Whilst she continued to invest all of her time and effort into the land rights NGO she noted that others around her did not contribute at all. This angered her to the point that she would often argue, ‘shout and scream’, with anyone who dared to challenge or undermine her. She gained a professional reputation for being a ‘masculine woman’ on account of this anger and was duly advised, by her mentor at the land rights NGO, to perhaps take a more passive and relaxed approach towards her work, ‘try to smile a bit more often’ she reported him as saying. This anger was however of some use within her capacity as an activist. She reports how at the 1999 demonstration, the district magistrate of the area had referred to her as a prostitute. Outraged by this remark Ranjini describes how she launched herself at the magistrate, grabbing him by his collar and hurling abuse at him, disregarding the fact that there were police in attendance. She laughed saying that ‘the police were so aghast and transfixed by my sudden outbreak that they failed to intercept. Stunned into numbness they were’. On another occasion she was arrested and thrown into a small cell with 51 male prisoners (which, just to clarify, is in violation of the law which stipulates that on no account must men and women be detained in the same cell). Having been arrested by a nurse (there were no female officers within this particular police battalion) who had been called away from her work and shoved into a police uniform to perform the task, Ranjini was thrown into a cell no larger than your average bathroom with 51 men. An exchange of verbal abuse passed between the guard and Ranjini, ‘“I’ll get her hanged, get her killed, just stuff her inside between all the men and I’ll see to it that she doesn’t live anymore,” he kept shouting. And I kept on abusing him from inside the bars saying that I would see to it that I survived. All of the other fellows in the cell with me told me to shut up saying “the more abuse you give him, the more he beats us, so will


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you stop abusing him.” But I wouldn’t stop; so long as he continued to verbally abuse me I would continue abusing him.’ Whilst Ranjini’s anger may have had a spectacular effect in the field, she began to appreciate that it inhibited her ability to work: ‘I wanted to understand what is the appropriate to manage operations, to ensure proceedings run smoothly and efficiently. I knew things had to be managed in a different manner to the uncoordinated, selfish and lazy manner which I had witnessed with my own managers in the past. But I did at least appreciate that my own anger was not a useful alternative.’ In 1998-1999 Ranjini attended the Beijing conference and the National Conferences for Women in India where she became better acquainted with the issues of gender and patriarchy posited by different development and political debates. She realised that the way in which she mobilised women, selecting them for leadership roles, needed to change. By picking on women from distressed backgrounds and helping to transform them into leaders, Ranjini saw how she could enable widows and victims of domestic violence (amongst others) to overcome the problems associated with their situation and become role models for other women, who would be driven to do the same. As she said the two conferences enabled her to exchange and develop such ideas with other women (from across the globe) that were working to develop gender sensitive projects and policies. Also around this time, she came to realise the process she herself had encountered, and the nature of the circumstances that had caused her so much frustration: ‘When I achieved a position of strength and power, the ability to coordinate operations, I started to experience opposition from my colleagues. Rather than receiving support from the people around me I felt that my peers would rather I was demoted and that they sought only to highlight my shortcomings. I realised that this is part of the process of competition. When you are one amongst many, you are seen to be of little threat, however when you are competing for spaces of leadership people’s attitudes towards you change. So often I was told that I was getting promoted only because I was a woman. I realise now that these accusations provided the way in which men were able to justify my progression into leadership roles. I realised how important it was to recognise this rather than react as I had in the past.’


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Evidently a very determined and impassioned woman, as an outsider conducting an interview with Ranjini, I could but wonder where such confidence and resolve came from. Was it from her marriage to Indrajit, or was there something in her childhood that made her into the strong willed figure which she is today? On the question of whether her marriage with Indrajit facilitate her leadership. She could not respond directly as like she said, he had never prohibited her from doing anything. Ranjini had not experienced what it is to experience working in a situation where there are restrictions within the family. In that respect Ranjini is very fortunate to have married a man so attuned to her own goals for social transformation, as for many other women working in this field their marriages and other personal relationships can serve as a source of inhibition. Ranjini was however prepared to admit how her leadership strategies had changed subsequent to her marriage: ‘My change in perspective from NGO ideology to vision of mass mobilisation came from the exposure I got when working with Indrajit and his co-workers. When working for forest dwellers in a national park I experienced firsthand the kind of left oriented thinking of mass mobilisation, the organisation of labour workers within unions, and the ability to initiate collective resistance within the unorganised sector. Most importantly I started to differentiate between forest people and forest workers which resulted in a complete change in my perspective. With this new perspective I was able to very quickly gain the information, knowledge and strategic expertise which were fundamental to the mass mobilisation the land rights NGO managed to achieve in 1999. So within a year of my marriage I had certainly shifted strategies, and I also shifted base.’ In terms of Ranjini’s self confidence and self image, she said that it had developed a lot earlier. ‘When I was in the 6th standard my father had died. My mother at the age of four had got married. It was an inter-caste marriage so my father’s family never really related to him after that, and so my mother got no support after my father died. My mother’s father however gave us a little bit of support. From that time, from when I was six years old, I witnessed my mother having to work very hard both at home and outside so I chose to take on the responsibility of looking after my three siblings, my two brothers and sister.


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So, I guess unconsciously my circumstances imparted me with the confidence to be a person who could keep things under control and work efficiently. I don’t think I ever had much of a childhood; I was more or less born into maturity as I was the eldest there and I had to take responsibility for my family. As my mother had gone out to fend for us then I should be expected to concentrate my own efforts on my studies and looking after my siblings. So in many ways I took on many male as well as female responsibilities even as a small child. The self confidence had to be there because I simply couldn’t do without it. And later in my life I became involved with an NGO, both of which involved the social analysis of equality and development, so my personality went on developing in a particular manner. I guess also the thirteen days I spent in jail were another building block in my life. My role model however has always been my mother. Even though she was widowed at a very early age she didn’t remarry, nor did she force us (her children) to get married just because we were in a state of dispossession. Instead she encouraged us to study, she encouraged us to get jobs, and she encouraged me to get into social development work instead of entering into the seemingly inevitable social pattern of marrying and making families. It was my mother’s confidence, the confidence she had to provide for us and rebuild her own life and the life of her four children. She felt that she had to cook in an NGO’s working workshop, and because she had not studied she accepted that she was unable to advance into a higher position. Instead she invested her efforts in making sure her children worked hard at their academies so that they had a chance of breaking out of this cycle of poverty that she had found herself in after my father’s death. So it was her willingness to go through the grind and to let her children progress and be different from her, that I feel gave me courage. My mother’s confidence multiplied into us, her children, so I feel my confidence comes from her. I guess I feel that there are two ways in which your self confidence develops, one is when you struggle with a situation and overcome it and the other, comes when you intellectualise your experiences and prepare yourself for life, the ability to be academically sound and to comprehend your surroundings. With such understanding you are able to focus your efforts into creating confidence within yourself; so, it’s either derived from experiential learning or it can be generated on the basis of knowledge.’


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The story of how Ranjini had overcome the difficulties she encountered as a child and used it to her advantage made me start to consider the role that social relations and personal experience have in developing an individual’s capacity to make demands and increase their resource base. If for instance a woman, who is a victim of domestic violence, has a strong support base either from within her extended marital family, her natal family or from the women in the local community, is it not possible that she would feel able to call upon one or more of these social resources in order to overcome, or at least appease, her afflictions. It may be that the women in her local community, or her in laws feel able to challenge the woman’s husband on her behalf; they may offer her a place of respite; or as is often the case with SHG’s they may at least be able to offer some form of productive distraction, involvement within a business perhaps. If, like Ranjini, a female child is brought up to believe in her own self worth and to perceive herself not as subordinate to men, but as their equal, then would it not be possible, if not probable, that this young girl may develop into a leading figure and advocate of women’s rights when she reaches adulthood? If social relations are in some way key to this development of this determination to bring about positive change, providing a supportive base for individuals to act, then what is it that NGO’s need to provide to nurture these social resources? Certainly self help groups, if implemented appropriately can help strengthen ties between women. And of course knowledge for women who are not yet aware of their legitimate rights and what social resources they may be able to gain access to, through joining a group of other women, through getting involved with training provided by an NGO like the . How to strengthen social resources and give women the base from which to act seems, in my mind, to be one of the most important questions that policy makers should address. How then, are we to make more women feel as confident and resolute in their convictions as Ranjini is? So, what other more tangible resources has Ranjini been able to access? Using the case study questions we asked Ranjini to identify what resources she has been able to gain...

Do you own and property? ‘My mother created a small property from the pay up from my father’s death, my grandfather brought this land on behalf of my mother.


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This plot has been divided into two small plots, one plot is divided between me and my sister, and we have our individual control over that, and the other plot is meant for my two brothers and my mother. In spite of the fact that my mother’s neighbours have expressed surprise in the way Ranjini’s mother has allocated the land remarking that Ranjini is earning money whilst her brother has very little income (basically implying that he should be given some of my share in the family plot) my mother is resolute in the fact that I have my quarter of the land, saying that “Ranjini has given everything to this family and thus deserves that which I have given her”. My mother resides there so she manages my part of the property. My bothers, who live there also, assist her with this. I of course go there from time to time to oversee it.’ Are you employed? What income do you receive and do you have control over it?

‘Yeah actually between Indrajit and me we earn and spend kind of together but I tell him, I do more housework so you should be paying me more for that. My mother is dependent on my father’s pension so we really are not responsible for extended family. So all expenses are shared between me, my husband and my son When we brought this house in 2000, we just had no money between the both of us. Neither of us had ever earned any money, we just did work for our respective organisations and we didn’t receive a salary for the work that we did; what we did receive was to cover our expenses alone. So when I left the land right NGO, and Indrajit left his previous organisation, we didn’t even have the money to rent a property. For nearly two or three years Indrajit took up documentation tasks, did extra work apart from our organising work, as a means of earning money. He was the sole money earner and we continued to do our work with our NGO. In 2006 we obtained a fellowship from the national forest forum. It was a very small fellowship. We would give money to volunteers, 100 rupees to go and travel to the field, conduct research and documentation, live and work with us. So it was from the very meagre fellowship that we built upon our organisation. In 2008 we were able to make a small deposit out of our savings. We put 70000 rupees into a post office account here and we obtained a guarantee from our funder that attested to the fact that both I and Indrajit were doing credible work. On the basis of these savings and this guarantee we were able to get this house which we bought in instalments.’


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And is the house in your name?

‘No, although we wanted this house to be in my name I had no income to show that I could own a property. Only Indrajit was known to the funder who wrote our guarantee so the letter of guarantee he gave to us mentioned Indrajit’s name only. This letter was given to the builder who accordingly put Indrajit’s name down as being the property owner. So on paper it is technically Indrajit’s house. I am very sure that the next property we make will simply be in my name only.’ What household assets do you personally own? ‘Well I have a bed in my name, I certainly own the fridge and the television; all of these items I purchased myself.’ What forms of communication do you have in your household, and who primarily uses it?

‘We have a telephone, we each have mobiles and we have internet connection. Indrajit uses more internet as most of the work that our organisation does using the internet is done by Indrajit.’ Have you ever taken out a loan?

‘No I have never taken out a loan. If however I was ever in a position to take out a loan I would take it from a woman bank not from any normal bank’. Do you have any future business plans?

‘I have always dreamed of buying an agricultural plot and farming it. I would like to practise natural and sustainable farming. So, in the future, I want some land of my own as a business plan, that’s my dream. The problem that we face is that the only land currently available is tribal land and we as non tribals do not want to take tribal land. But I guess if somebody was to give our organisation a grant to us for this experimentation we would probably take it.’


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Frustrations between the leader of the land right NGO and Ranjini eventually resulted in the mutual decision that Ranjini would leave the organisation in 2000. As she says this departure in many ways came as a relief as the land right NGO had, under this leader, started to change its strategic approach, and she could not agree with many of these alterations. So, upon leaving her position with at the land right NGO, Ranjini, together with her husband Indrajit, started up their NGO. Over her time spent working with the land rights movement Ranjini describes how she had cultivated many of her own dreams and strategies for how she wanted to operate. Whilst the land rights movement looked specifically at rights pertaining to agricultural land, Ranjini’s interests were much more akin to the forest rights movement Indrajit was involved with. As it transpired the kind of work that had evolved from the way Ranjini had developed leadership amongst vulnerable women, were actually more relevant to the forest workers movement. Agricultural land issues such as having a title, not having a title, having a title but not having access to land, were in practice far removed from the issues faced by forest dwellers (the rights to forest land and work, the right to gather forest produce, the rights of the indigenous forest communities versus the rights of outsiders wanting to access forest resources). Furthermore as the land rights movement was at this time unwilling to incorporate forest rights, her transition to this new area of work could not have come at a better time. The benefits of being her own boss and having to answer only to herself has enabled Ranjini to focus her efforts on gender relations, and other issues in which she has vested personal interest. Their NGO currently works with forest workers so much of the progress that has been witnessed so far pertains to wage; firstly that it is of an adequate amount, and that it is received on time, and secondly that forest dwellers are able to access livelihoods in order to obtain such a wage. Much of her work so far has been in training local women in how to teach children, how to participate in community meetings and SHG’s, and how to fill out forms and demand resources from the government. As most of the people she has worked with are non propertied she says that she has not yet had much dealing with property issues, although she hopes that through the correct implementation of the FRA (2006) her work may take her down that route in the future. Indeed she hopes that in the next few years at least some of the 20 tribal villages they work with will obtain entitlement to forest land with her help.


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Section two: the struggle of Dalit women for Land and Resource rights Case study: Subhadra Kharparde, activist and social worker, Indore

Case study by Emmanuelle Paris-Cohen In association with SAFP and Shivani Bhardwaj


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BACKGROUND:

JAMEEN HAMARA HAQ ABHIYAAAN (name changed), WOMEN AND THE LAND RIGHTS MOVEMENT Subhadra3 was working for Jameen Hamara Haq Abhiyaaan, is a land rights movement based on a Gandhian philosophy. This organisation organized walks from one village to the other, to talk to villagers about their land rights, and to record the local situation (i.e. who is being evicted? Displaced? Who has land records but no possession, who has access but no land tiltles) This program to gather actual data on land rights organises foot marches for mass awareness to encourage self-sufficiency with one’s own land: “our village, our rule”. The movement used women as foot soldiers, but most decisions were made by male leaders. Women like Subhadra or Ranjini were conscious that this should change. They got women organized towards the struggle for land, to increase their confidence, etc. Then, a change in leadership occurred. During this time, the wife of the leader brought about visible changes within the organisations ranks and developed a women’s visibility at public events and rallies. But she also alienated people like Ranjini and Subhadra who has demanded that women have their own front in the movement with federated units organising their women and resources agenda with independent funds from village to national level. These women were instead encouraged be available to groups outside the ambit of Jameen Hamara Haq Abhiyaaan. So activists like Subhadra Kharparde took on work with other smaller NGO to create alternate leadership. Today, after yet another leadership change in Jameen Hamara Haq Abhiyaaan, men have gotten control of the position once again, even though it gained international credibility as a women’s rights movement.

We asked Subhadra how she had managed to acquire ownership rights over land of her own, and the struggle she wet through to get it: “My father had died, and although he supported me when he was alive, he wasn’t there to support me against my eldest brother who didn’t want to give me my share of inheritance. The local Panchayat was also denying my right. No one else from the family could help me. In the family, we are 3

3

See her blog : www.worldpulse.com/user/3230 .


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brothers and 3 sisters. But my 2 sisters didn’t want to fight for their share of the land”. As her husband describes in his book, the legal battle that ensued between her brothers and herself was won, not with the help of officers whom they knew: “the moot point is how many poor rural women will be able to muster the same kind of contacts within the IAS as Subhadra to be able to get this law implemented4”.

JAMEEN HAMARA HAQ ABHIYAAAN, A movement based on non-violent means of action for the empowerment of communities by encouraging local self-governance and land, water and forest rights. Its mandate is to hold governments, local and national, accountable for the well being of the marginalized, to implement appropriate policy changes and land reforms. The principles that guide Jameen Hamara Haq Abhiyaaan’s actions are: • Working within the framework of truth and non-violence at all levels of action. • Ensuring that women and traditional tribal and Dalit leaders head the campaign for land reform. • Inspiring equitable social, economic and political changes for the benefit of the masses. • Supporting and strengthening traditional and local leadership. • Promoting peaceful mass mobilization at the grass roots level. • Promoting community based governance, local self reliance and responsible governance at the local, state and central levels. • Promoting the integration of land, water and forest rights and equitable natural resource management in the regional, national and international development agendas5. In her younger years, Subhadra participated in the Sarvodaya movement which encouraged the reconstruction and empowerment of the rural sector through increased participation at the grassroots level and more devolution of power to local authorities6. Its ultimate goal is to ensure that self-determination and equality is achieved by all strata of Indian society. She was an active defender of the rights of India’s tribal people, like Ranjini from the previous case study. After being arrested several times on false charges along with other activists, as well as waging her own personal battle with the Madhya Pradesh government over her ancestral land, she has moved on from the land rights movement.

4

Ibid., p. 244. Ibid., p. 108.

6


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DALIT WOMEN, LAND AND RESOURCE RIGHTS Of the total women population of India, Dalit women constitute 16.3% of which 18% women live in rural areas7. Although they comprise a major part of India’s agricultural workforce, few of them own land or other forms of livelihood resources. This means that should their husbands desert them or die, Dalit women are left to fend for themselves and their families. Without any ownership of resources, this can prove to be next to impossible. Allocating land in the names of Dalit women is crucial, not only for their own survival, but for the entire country’s wellbeing, as it will help eradicate hunger. Women as the traditional care givers are more likely to utilize resources they are given for the survival of the family and community. “As the first law Minister of Independent India, Babasaheb Ambedkar tried to pilot a law to give equal inheritance rights to women and came up against stiff opposition. After four years of fruitless effort, he resigned in disgust in 1951. However, later such laws did get enacted in some states. In Madhya Pradesh, the law regarding inheritance of agricultural land clearly states that daughters as well as sons will have to be given an equal share of their parent’s ancestral plot. However, in practice, this is never implemented8.”

Today, people like Subhadra don’t want to talk of women’s land rights anymore. She now works on gender and reproductive health rights. After participating in such movements as Jameen Hamara Haq Abhiyaaan, she went on to work for the Katsurba Gandhi National Memorial Trust in a mobile health clinic in the mid 1990s9, their activities focusing mostly on women’s reproductive health. We need to understand the psychological aspect behind this change, and behind the struggle for power and negotiation. Land rights are still very much a contentious area of modern Indian law, and much work still needs to be done. So why this reluctance? “Power within, power to and power over”: this is the basis for negotiations for resource increases. The resource increase aspect lends and marks their self-confidence. In Subhadra Kharparde’s life, acquiring rights over land had a notional value, but it didn’t

Tamil Nadu Women’s Forum. “Unheard Voices -DALIT WOMEN. An alternative report”. For the 15th – 19th periodic report on India, submitted by the Government of Republic of India for the 70th session of Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Geneva, Switzerland (2007), p. 3. 8 Banerjee, Rahul. Recovering the Lost Tongue, The Saga of Environmental Struggles in Central India. Prachee Publications (2008), p. 243. 9 Ibid., p. 176.

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make an economic difference for her. This was an ideological victory, albeit with its share of emotional cost brought on by family strife. “Everyone sees me differently when I go back to my village. Inspiration happened, but relationships back home have gotten so strained, the inspirational factor was therefore diminished”. Today, she still shares this land with her siblings. But what about her community’s support? “Some people in the community silently supported me, but no one helped. My neighbour (next to my father’s house) also decided afterwards to fight for her share of the land. Her name is Purnina. She lived in her own home, but also obtained part of her parents’ land from her brother. She got it easily because her mother was supportive. She wanted to giver her daughter land anyway”. So how would land ownership benefit other Dalit women? “I was and still am a social worker. Simple women can get land. The problem is they have no knowledge about their rights. I have tried to give them this knowledge. They also need to take this knowledge from local NGOs, their friends, etc. As social workers, there is no lack of awareness! So NGOs have the responsibility to help others. But awareness alone doesn’t motivate women to take action. It also takes a lot of courage. Not many people want to take on the risks involved in fighting for their rights”. Women’s Land Rights in Madhya Pradesh Amongst other arguments, research has found that people who are against giving women their fair share of land inheritance often claim that doing so would result in the fragmentation of family land, or its loss when the woman gets married. In fact, when villagers in Madhya Pradesh were interviewed, the majority were aware of women’s right to inherit land under the law, but also that they didn’t do so in reality10. This means that lack awareness of rights and laws isn’t the reason women in this state don’t have access to land ownership. More important for women like Subhadra who do decide to claim there share even when it isn’t freely given to them, most people in the villages interviewed felt that a woman should not go to court to claim her rights. “The opinions of the rest of the community appear very important to individuals and most do not wish to act in such a way as to have the community think badly of them11”. So changing attitudes may be of more value than changing the law… As Subhadra herself admits, “going against your society’s framework is looked badly upon. If I was staying in my village I couldn’t have taken up this fight. If I stay there even for one month in my father’s home, people will

Grace. J. A study of people’s perceptions of women’s right to land: two villages in Madhya Pradesh, central India. University of East Anglia, (2002).
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draw attention to the fact that it is wrong. They say it was a mistake to give me my share”.

Subhadra came from a village background and got ousted for her work. After, she started working for women and health rights; she felt her husband’s work overshadowed her own. She felt like she couldn’t think in her own words. This is why getting an education and her Ph.D. is so important to her, to work on her own terms, completely independently. She is linking her current work to the slums in Indore (she went from a village context to this). “I am thinking of other things for now, like doing my Ph.D. Right now, I just want to focus on getting more knowledge. I had joined a government help center to give relief to other women (in the sphere of health and reproductive rights)”. So is there a link between this work and land rights? “Yes. For example, they asked and got a new watering well. Health rights are connected to the right to water. A healthy person is more capable of raising their voices, of demanding things from their Panchayat. I currently work with Dalits and Tribals. As for Dalit women, there is a community center for them in the slum area. I also worked with these women and the local governments to get infrastructure like drains, soak pits, community centers, through their self help groups. The local political party also supports them. There are 200 NGOs that help them”. Gender, Water and Sanitation in Madhya Pradesh “Water and sanitation is not only a basic need but a provision of these services with consultation and participation of women will enable them to earn better livelihood and to take further initiatives for improvement12”. The right to proper sanitation and safe water is closely linked to land rights. Due to the time spent fetching water, girls cannot go to school, and women don’t have time to work for wages. Therefore, the cycle of lacking education and resources impedes these women’s capacity of standing up for their rights, just as Subhadra Kharparde was explaining. “There is also erosion of dignity and embarrassment to women and to the girls who have to go to defecate in open grounds. Even more critical is the new factor of even these open grounds shrinking due to shifting of other slum dwellers there or the areas been taken for other development/construction work”. Land and housing rights, as stated in the MDGs, are closely linked to water and sanitation, as the definition of

UN-HABITAT. Navigating Gender in development of water and sanitation in urban areas: A rapid gender assessment of the cities of Bhopal, Gwalior, Indore and Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, India. P. 94.

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adequate housing is supposed to guarantee both security of tenure, and adequacy of the lodging space (including safe water and sanitation). Therefore one cannot consider any of these aspects in isolation, and when civil engineers in India claim that there is no link between the provision of water and gender, they must be shown how faulty this belief really is. The WRZ concept for which SAFP has been lobbying would take into consideration gender specific needs into account when planning new infrastructure and neighbourhoods. The right to water and sanitation is closely linked to this. “The need of construction of joint washrooms for women which the women’s groups can construct, maintain and use as the houses do not have space for separate bathrooms. These are possibilities with dialogue and participation of women with an external catalyst and facilitator whom the women can trust”13. This claim, made in a UNHabitat report, is exactly the kind of project ideas that would make up women resource zones in Madhya Pradesh.

Subhadra herself has worked with groups that link the right to basic amenities and health care of women to urban planning: “World vision, Cecoedecon and Indore Diocesan Social Service Society,(IDSSS) gave these women training and awareness about their rights. One example is a Deep Nagar group of women who work with a big hospital on their reproductive health issues. These they try to link with aspects of urbanization and services”. In any case, her own experience with big organisations and NGOs have led her to rely much more on her own strength, and she encourages other women to do so as well, to be self-reliant in every way, including in their fight for their rights. “I’ve encouraged these women not to depend on larger organisations like IDSSS or the big hospital, but to register their own NGO and plan their own vision themselves. IDSSS should give them a certain funding and help them participate on the women’s self-defined needs and rights goals. They are having a salary as NGO workers, but their own transformation agenda has to come from themselves. Money has nothing to do with it. The funding influences what work is done, but the core issues remain. But the situation of these women is better now, as it is still an additional resource”. “Another problem I see is that speaking English is a requirement for getting a job, which these Dalit women don’t have”.

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Ibid., P. 95


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“One of the cheerful things happening in India is the quiet democratising of English. Dalits are today its biggest advocates because English allows them to work in call centres and other modern jobs where there are fewer caste barriers. A recent survey in Mumbai shows that Dalit women who knew English rose economically by marrying outside their caste--31% of Dalit women who knew English had inter-caste marriages compared to 9% who did not know the language14”. Perhaps Subhadra is on to something…

So how does she use her income and resources now that she has achieved a certain level of material comfort? “I had decided to by an A/C, but I don’t have my own money. At the same time, I don’t want to use my husband’s earnings. We do have a trust (joint resource) which we both manage. But I have never taken a loan in my name. If I had to, I would probably ask a bank. I wish I could develop my own land, but I live too far (Indore), so I want to buy land here”. We then asked Subhadra how she thought she could increase her own, and other women’s negotiating power: “I feel like I want to do my work without anyone disturbing me. So I am trying to get more knowledge to work without disturbances later on. This is the kind of power I seek. As for the Dalit women in slums that I work with, they are registered as an NGO, but they have no more money to operate it. The leader of this NGO and I think differently. Neither have I done any political work as of yet, with these dalit women”. What about the women in your constituency? “Women came to work in our city. They aren’t going to fight for their land rights from here, for something they left in their villages back home”.

14

Das, Gurcharan. Stranger At Home (2010). Online. http://gurcharandas.blogspot.com/2010/08/stranger-athome.html.


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Inconclusive conclusion: These three case studies tell us a story and it still leaves many questions to be asked. Many more case studies need to be documented to find out what women have been able to achieve if they understood lack of resource as a point of reference for their empowerment. It is clear that in absence of support either from their communities or from larger land and housing rights civil society efforts, well intentioned activist see little reason to take on an area of work that can not give tangible results. However, what could change the tide is women’s own assertion and demands which could be supported both by state as well as supporters of people’s movements. What these case studies show is that it is strong and determined women, almost singlehandedly, who take it upon themselves to bring change within their societies when state and civil institutions let them down. With their struggle comes an increased awareness within their community that women also have the power to take on leadership roles and become active, contributing members of their society. It can be inferred that such women and others currently waiting in the sidelines for some kind of support, would greatly benefit from a greater share of the resource cake. Control over resources gives women more power in negotiating their relationships, in actively participating in their country’s economic and democratic processes, and in avoiding situations which put them at risk. State support along with community support is essential to get women greater equality. At present woman gets programme support from the government if they belong to special categories ranging from being a widow to being labelled as a witch or a trafficked woman. It is time we moved from categorisation to area development and people based planning in a way women get half the share in development process.