The reach of global capital shows no sign of diminishing its impact on developing nations and their people. Indeed, in the past fifty years, the developing world has undergone major structural changes (Potter and Lloyd-Evans 1998) with drastic implications for social, economic and political life. There is a crucial gender dimension to such economic restructuring (Elson and Pearson 1981; Joekes 1985; Wilson 1993). Women are increasingly drawn into employment in globalized industries. The consequences of this change continue to be debated. Some scholars reject the notion that employment can empower women (Joekes 1985; Lawson 1995; Wilson 1993). Nevertheless, it is important to point out that women, even poor women, are sometimes developing strategies to cope with new situations. Indeed, even a small income can become the basis for challenges to existing social roles, norms, values, traditions and boundaries.
Poor urban women have their own daily, diverse and subtle strategies to bring about change and enhance their lives within the context of the household and its restrictions. Scheyvens (1998) defines ‘subtle strategies’ as attempts to achieve profound, positive changes in women’s lives without stirring up wide-scale dissent. Subtle strategies can be a form of informal politics, which represent women’s citizenship in action, and are important for the empowerment of communities and individuals. They build on social capital2 – the ‘networks of norms and trust which govern societal interactions’. Empowerment and social capital are inherently linked through the informal networks forged between households at the community level. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have a crucial role to play in encouraging the transferability of such informal networks into organized community groups that will be key players in civil society and municipal and national politics.
Women-focused NGOs have expanded dramatically since the 1975 declaration of the United Nations’ International Decade for Women. Over time, many have also shifted from welfare-oriented strategies based on women’s customary domestic roles to more transformative empowerment projects. International donor agencies have followed a similar pattern, becoming increasingly focused on women’s empowerment. To that end, some donor agencies have provided direct support to indigenous or local women-focused NGOs as part of the neo-liberal agenda to reduce state power and shift the burden of service delivery on to local stakeholders. Grassroots NGOs have been seen as key players in the reordering of political space and a revitalization of the ‘local’. Yet the focus on local and women’s empowerment is often constrained by donor concern with overt, measurable action rather than the more indirect and subtle moves that often lead to social transformation.
This chapter aims to inject a much-needed dose of realism into the new civil society and development discourse. Healthy democracy depends on a strong and vibrant civil society. NGOs have a central role to play in this process, especially those that empower disadvantaged and under-represented groups such as women. However, we need a thorough organizational and political understanding of NGOs in the South in order to comprehend both their potential and their limitations. Examples from Bombay highlight the difficulties faced by NGOs trying to enhance women’s empowerment.
The chapter draws on evidence from ten gender-oriented NGOs3 within a diverse larger sample of sixty-seven mainly small- and medium-sized grassroots NGOs4 working with the urban poor in the slums5 of Bombay. Bombay has recently experienced economic adjustment and liberalization; moreover, it is a rapidly expanding metropolitan centre with a distinctive urban profile. Its industrial base has become increasingly feminized under pressure from global competition. The findings are drawn from interviews in 1995 with women in slums, NGO staff and from participant observations. The chapter contributes to debates on informal strategies, NGOs and women’s empowerment.6
Women’s informal politics represents women’s citizenship in action, a different politics that needs to be understood and valued, especially at the grassroots level. This informal politics exists in the form of ‘subtle strategies’ – actions that attempt to improve women’s lives without stirring up wide-scale dissent. They are thus defined more by process and outcomes than by content. Subtle strategies are an important way for women to assert or reassert themselves in their communities rather than resigning themselves to unpalatable circumstances (Scheyvens 1998: 237).
My research reveals a rich and inspiring nexus of activities at the grassroots level; a lot of unstructured and fluid activism escapes the net of even more broadly trawled research into political or community participation. The case for viewing such activism as informal politics is two-fold:
1 It represents an interconnecting network of community life, maintaining informal networks and generally sustaining the personal, public and political lives of poor neighbourhoods.
2 It contributes to individual women’s self-development. For many women, informal politics is more personally rewarding than engagement in formal politics which is often more alienating than empowering. ‘Accidental activism’ can transform previously apolitical women into political activists.
There is perhaps a danger here of idealizing women’s informal activism, often born of deprivation, exhaustion and disadvantage. Nevertheless, informal politics contributes to women’s conscious sense of political agency. It helps to break the chains of victimhood and facilitates women’s emergence as full and active citizens. Poor women in the city of Bombay are forging a different way of doing politics – generally less hierarchical, more participatory, more informal and, importantly, more sustainable on a daily basis, within and outside their own households. These practices can provide new role models for active political citizenship at a time of growing disenchantment with conventional politics in many developing countries. Moreover, the value of such politics lies in the process as well as the result.
The involvement of individuals in a particular informal strategy might be motivated initially by self-interest, but the outcome could benefit the wider community and even the individual. For example, a mother might join a campaign for decent crèche facilities for her own children but the campaign could benefit the whole community. If it increases her mobility and participation in employment it may have broadened her own concerns and actions.
When we think of ourselves as citizens, we are adopting a shared understanding of the rights and duties of participants in our community. Yet citizenship in a poor society often requires support from organizations such as NGOs to make a difference. This support has to value difference and recognize the fluidity of political identities. It also has to recognize that disadvantaged women face difficulties moving from the private to the public sphere. This is easier to theorize than practise for it requires acknowledging differences as well as commonalities. It also requires listening to the ‘previously silenced women’s voices’ and acknowledging ‘their interpretation of the world they inhabit, their successes and failures and their desire for change’. In order to do so, we need a thorough understanding of women’s multiple realities and strategies for survival (Parpart 1993: 457). Thus, if women choose to support subtle, informal strategies rather than judge their efforts as conservative or ‘politically immature’, we should perhaps consider why they support them and to what extent they effectively challenge oppressive relations.
NGOs in developing countries are often central to empowerment efforts and are thus a good starting point for examining the relationship between informal politics, gender, empowerment and NGOs. Such an analysis must of course be placed in the context of global restructuring. Yet, despite prolific writings on empowerment (Afshar 1998; Elson and Pearson 1981; Mayoux 1998), little substantial research has been conducted on the strategies of the women involved – their own ‘subtle strategies’ (Scheyvens 1998). By exploring the subtle strategies of urban poor women, we can begin to understand how empowerment operates at the grassroots through informal networks. It will improve our understanding of the extent to which sources of social capital emerge from such grassroots empowerment and informal politics, and the role of NGOs in this process.
Poor women’s aspirations have been dramatically affected by the impact of global economic change on urban life in the South. Yet these women are often challenging, implicitly or explicitly, the existing hierarchies, social norms and boundaries that control them. I discovered that women within the slums of Bombay were more effective in using subtle strategies than confrontational ones. While these strategies may seem like soft options to casual observers, they can profoundly change and enhance women’s lives. I spoke to many young women in the slums (between 18 and 25 years) who were involved with NGOs, either as community workers or as participants in other activities. These young women were confident and quite determined in their own way about choosing their partners. One young woman said ‘I want a husband who will help me to be economically independent, not be like my father and brothers.’ Another told me, ‘I want my husband to support me in doing various vocational courses so that I can get a better job and we can both bring in income to raise a family.’ Another insisted that ‘I will choose my own husband, try and know the person well before I get married, I don’t care what other people think or my parents think, I have to live with him, if things go wrong nobody will help me, there is no point crying later.’ These statements reflect their visions and expectations. Some were actually dating young men within the slums or at work. Of the six who were Hindu, two were dating and wanted to marry their Muslim boyfriends. They recognized they would encounter opposition from the religious communities of the slum and from their own families, but were patiently saving money and building up networks of friends in their generation to counter the opposition. They realized that NGOs would not be willing to interfere in cultural or traditional issues, yet these are the kind of changes that are taking place at the grassroots level and for which the younger generation receive little support. After all, culture is not static but dynamic and susceptible to change, especially for the young. They are the ones most apt to confront traditional/religious values and rituals.
Seven NGOs involved in the study were aware of these changing attitudes and aspirations at the grassroots, especially among the younger generation. Yet NGOs in the Bombay slums are unable to encourage this transformation. This limits their ability to encourage change and enhance women’s empowerment. While all ten NGOs support women’s empowerment, many have demonstrated an inability to understand the many complex ways women pursue empowerment. NGOs emphasize participation and the codification of local knowledge for inspiring social change. However, NGOs working in urban slums also need to know more about the changing nature of gender relations and resource use within slum households, as well as women’s decision-making and coping strategies within these households. They also need to understand the extent to which networks have formed between households within the community and whether these informal networks (social capital) are allowing women to access resources to empower themselves.
There is a critical gender dimension to some of the household adjustment and/or survival strategies in post-liberalization India. In many societies urban women have borne a disproportionate amount of the cost of the adjustment process (Elson 1989; Elson and Pearson 1981). With rising unemployment levels and declining real wages, women increasingly have to bring in an income so they can provide food for the family.
For example, I interviewed Parvati, a woman in her fifties living in the slums of Asalpha village near Ghatkopar. She worked as a domestic servant, while her daughter (Rani), 20 years old, worked in a nearby garment industry. Parvati’s husband had worked in the textile mills of Bombay but economic liberalization eliminated his job and, at the time of the interview, he worked as a garage attendant in a nearby petrol station. An alcoholic, he contributed little to the household income. Parvati’s 22-year-old son drove a hired auto-rickshaw and used most of his small income to buy fashionable clothes and hang around with friends. Parvati and Rani were thus the main breadwinners. Rani told me she is saving for the future, wants to do vocational training courses and regrets her poor school performance in the past. She does not want to be a domestic helper, preferring the long hours at the garment factory, which pays more. She recently changed jobs due to sexual harassment. She had expected support from her co-workers but received none, so she found a new job. It is further away unfortunately. She knows there is legislation about harassment but it offers little help to women like her who work in the informal economy.
Rani was quite critical of the local NGO, which overlooks the needs of women like her. She thinks it does not recognize the value of quiet, yet challenging, initiatives taken by individuals. NGOs have failed to support the younger generation of women who are taking initiatives at a personal level to change the role of women. They have failed to capture and build on the enthusiasm for change and empowerment aspired to by this group of women.
The case study illustrates the way women are trying to shape different social relationships by taking several small initiatives in their particular social and cultural contexts (see Wieringa 1994: 833). These subtle strategies often catalyse changes in women’s lives and improve gender relations more appropriately than more confrontational means. They sometimes involve short-term compromises in order to reach long-term objectives. Subtle strategies can make practical improvements to women’s lives, as in the examples given above, but they can also be forms of resistance. While their attempts may not seem particularly innovative or effective to outsiders, to the women involved, the resulting changes are significant. These strategies provide evidence of the many ways in which a feminist consciousness can manifest itself despite lack of support from NGOs and other institutions.
However, some NGO programmes do promote women’s empowerment. NGOs such as Apnalaya7 have used health promoters’ and pre-school teachers’ training programmes to meet practical needs for health and childcare and, in the process, enhanced women’s skills and knowledge. This has led to personal empowerment manifested by more confidence and independence in daily life. Similarly, women from the Mahila Milan group of the NGO Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC) learned how to build low-cost housing. Some even travelled to South Africa for a South–South interaction. One woman said she was surprised by the similarity of their problems. ‘They have no security of housing, they also hear a lot of promises from their politicians, but see no money, situations are getting worse day by day and women spend all day trying to get some money to feed their children, it is all so much like us.’ She spoke at length discussing the differences and similarities, confidently placing it in a global context. With their newfound skills and self-confidence, these women have spoken at conferences and to the media and have participated in a national campaign for low-income housing. Similarly, experiences have reinforced SPARC’s credit disbursement (Mahila Milan programme). While the savings and loan programme initially attracts women to establish groups, the regular meetings and savings eventually give the relationship a more proactive character.
Another NGO, Stree Mukti Sangathana developed a Marathi drama, Mulgi Zali Ho (A Girl is Born), which highlights the inequality and discrimination a girl child faces from birth to old age. It is entertaining and often humorous, and attracts large audiences, including men. The drama conveys a powerful educational message (both in rural and urban areas of Maharashtra) through entertainment, both disseminating information to women and sensitizing men. Other NGOs in Bombay use theatre, song, dance, puppetry or other appropriate methods to convey important and controversial messages to the community.
These examples demonstrate how development education can empower women by challenging their ideas and expanding their knowledge. However, this education has often focused more on facilitating dialogue than inciting effective responses to the dilemmas facing women in slums. Women who participated in these initiatives were profoundly moved by them and gained a clearer perception of their life opportunities and of their own worth. They challenged customary norms by travelling away from home without their husbands and their traditional roles by becoming leaders in their communities. But what about those women who do not participate in the public arena or training programmes? They still have strategies for coping and surviving in the changing gender relations within society and their particular household.
Moreover, the question remains whether women actually want to become empowered, to be opened up to new opportunities and to make their own life decisions. For as Wieringa highlights, ‘to empower women to critically and creatively reshape their worlds, women’s own concept of themselves has to be decoded and reinscribed. This is a difficult and often painful process’ (1994: 834). Many women fear the ‘new’, ‘for although the old may be painful and uncomfortable, it still provides the security of tradition and of the consent of one’s social surrounding’ (Wieringa 1994: 834).
Here it is important to investigate the behaviour of gender-oriented NGOs who are confronted with women’s strategic needs. Half the NGOs8 in this study provide legal aid for women in distress (compared to 19 per cent of NGOs generally; see Desai 1999). They have found themselves in very difficult moral/ethical situations. Some women who suffered domestic violence, disputes over Muslim women’s right to maintenance, rape incidents, alcoholism, sexual abuse, harassment, divorce, separation, dowry harassment, even teasing and other such issues, have been willing to take legal advice and help from NGOs. Meetings with family members are arranged, court petitions filed and summonses issued, often with the help of police escorts. Initially these problems are shrouded in silence or denial as they affect the family’s honour. Families often blame woman for not ‘suffering in silence’. Supportive relationships with NGO staff help break down this silence.9 Women are increasingly willing to seek help confronting these situations. Thus, issues that had previously been private have acquired a public and political status in the eyes of many slum women.
Women who took the initiative to resolve distressing situations were, most of the time, ostracized from their family or marital home, with no financial or emotional support or shelter. Most NGOs willingly helped in the short term with legal advice, but court cases in India can be long and tedious.10 Moreover, four of the ten helped with food and shelter, compared with only 16 per cent of NGOs generally (Desai 1999). In these interim periods, NGOs often find it difficult to maintain ongoing emotional and material support due to their own precarious financial circumstances.11 According to the NGOs, many women return to previous situations, such as abusive husbands, although one woman said she would rather commit suicide.
This example highlights the interdependence between different categories of needs, particularly in the lives of poor urban women. Women’s lives cannot be compartmentalized or insulated from each other. Problems in one arena have implications for others. They require ongoing input from NGO staff who are hemmed in by the demands of their donors, including development agencies and government bureaucracies.
Self-esteem is an important element here as well. To speak in one’s own voice and put forward one’s own views in the polity requires self-esteem, a stable sense of one’s own separate identity and a confidence that one is worthy to participate in political life. This has particular resonance and difficulty for poor women. Attempts at empowerment have to take note of the trade-offs women make in order to cope with the oppressive relationships in their lives. The empowerment approach tends to assume women are aware of their needs and options, that they are mobile and that they have adequate support systems to help in the process of empowerment.
In fact, none of the NGOs interviewed provide a full range of support services to women who have left home, such as shelter, counselling, legal advice and support, job placement and so on. Children who accompany these women have needs as well. Most NGOs try to restore the self-esteem and autonomy of the women badly damaged by their inner experiences. This is neither automatic nor quick. Many women are unaccustomed to fending for themselves in public spaces such as NGO shelters or centres, and even fewer have dealt with public officials.
Occasionally NGOs have to help women referred to them by police, welfare departments, hospitals or other NGOs, but most expect women to approach them on their own. This ensures the clients are fully aware of the consequences of their actions and prepared to make the choices and trade-offs facing them. Patience is also required when working with younger unmarried women who may be forced into marriage, abused by step-parents, having conflicts at home because of unemployment and so on. Gaining the trust and confidence of such women is a difficult task.
NGOs that identify with the empowerment approach acknowledge it is often a difficult process, requiring time and patience. However, they are often caught in a bind because of their donors: ‘development planners are searching for easy schedules, quantifiable targets and simplicity, while addressing enormously complex situations – planners want to fix, with projects of a few years’ duration, problems which have grown over ages’ (Wieringa 1994: 835). Consequently, most NGOs within Bombay prefer taking on more straightforward health and education projects. As Sharada Sathe (from the NGO Stree Mukti Sangathana) pointed out, NGO programmes that increase women’s assertiveness are labelled ‘feminist’ and frequently encounter hostile, negative reactions. This has led many NGOs to disassociate themselves from feminism, despite the fact that ‘gender planning is a political process with feminism at its heart’ (Wieringa 1994: 844).
Most poor urban households demonstrate the complex strategies women have to adopt to cope with the combined effects of poverty in an increasingly competitive global economy. Issues relating to food, employment and the lack of provision of basic services are often seen as more important than the informal politics of gender relations in the household and society. Women-centred NGOs have begun to realize the need to integrate broader issues with women’s concerns. For example, a feminist group in Bombay, the Forum Against Oppression of Women, has campaigned against issues such as rape and bride burning since 1979. However, the Forum soon realized that over half the women slum dwellers were more concerned with housing, so they shifted focus to that issue. Lack of housing for women exacerbates domestic violence and the provision of women’s hostels provides a critical, practical gender need. Mobilization around homelessness also revealed the patriarchal bias in inheritance legislation and provided the basis for wider, cross-sex alliances. To enhance this, the Forum has become part of a nation-wide alliance of NGOs lobbying for a National Housing Charter. Consequently, women’s housing needs have been placed on the mainstream political agenda. They are no longer simply a woman’s issue.
These examples highlight the integration of separate but interlinked issues – NGOs, gender, empowerment, culture and politics. If women’s informal politics involves grappling with issues at the heart of ‘culture’, then how does this map on to NGO agendas? The following section looks at the role of NGOs in raising gender issues in Bombay, and discusses the possibilities, constraints and dilemmas facing NGOs and their staff. It explores ways in which informal politics lead to various issues for NGOs and for grassroots activism.
The pace of social change in developing countries shows no signs of diminishing as Third World lives are caught up in a system of global restructuring. This process has three dimensions: economic, social and political. The NGO sector is bound up in all three. NGOs are increasingly being drawn into welfare state service provision as a means of reducing state fiscal crises and institutional constraints. The NGO sector is being transformed into a shadow state apparatus, filling the gaps left by the state. But what do these changes mean for the grassroots NGO sector, especially for gender equality? Local politics of NGOs can be just as volatile and variable as the sector’s economic structure and patterns.
Development practice of late has moved towards ‘participation’ and ‘empowerment’. Actors and institutions on the ‘left’ and ‘right’ applaud this shift. In particular, the local has emerged as the site of empowerment and hence as a locus of knowledge generation and development intervention. Some scholars and development practitioners (for example, Whaites 1998) believe NGOs should strengthen the capacity of the state as part of their localized, grassroots work, rather than creating parallel or alternative welfare delivery systems. Others are more sceptical about the state. However, NGOs also have to be sensitive to the complexity and particularity of change, especially in regard to gender relations and practices. They cannot determine where the space for social change is going to emerge or what form it will take.
We need to look at more concrete experiences to evaluate this dilemma. Fifteen per cent of the NGOs interviewed in Bombay targeted poor women as a specific group of beneficiaries. Of those, most focused on women’s health (compared to 52 per cent of NGOs in general focusing on health; see Desai 1999). This is especially important because the shame and embarrassment associated with women’s bodies in many societies gives rise to a ‘culture of silence’ around women’s sexual, reproductive and general health questions.12 Education is also seen as a means to help women, especially through adult education. Income generation projects such as papad making, sewing, pickle making and handicrafts are less popular as many NGOs recognize such projects may increase women’s workload for little return. They cannot compete with the increasingly competitive global market, especially in Bombay, which has lots of small informal-sector activity. Some NGOs no longer see credit as the answer to women’s empowerment (see chapter by Lairap-Fonderson). More interventionist measures such as niche marketing may be necessary (Desai 1999). However, even apparently successful income-generating projects rarely transform a woman’s position in the household (Goetz and Sen Gupta 1996). Indeed, some argue that micro-finance programmes divert women from other more effective strategies for empowerment (Ebdon 1995) and/or the resources of donors from more effective poverty alleviation (Rogaly 1996).
Many NGO13 projects for women have failed, often due to lack of technical knowledge or poor planning. Moreover, NGO projects tend to stay in relatively ‘safe’ service delivery areas that do not always relate to women’s concerns, such as health and education. NGOs often avoid activities that preoccupy women because these activities require a lot of patience and emotional support. Yet, economic changes or reforms affect social gender relationships within the household. Unfortunately, the problems stemming from these changes often receive little attention from, or cannot be handled by, NGOs.
Although participation has become a buzzword throughout development practice, the NGO sector has been its most ardent champion. Normally, three steps are taken to ensure ‘popular participation’. First, People’s Committees are set up, usually at the behest of external project leaders, elected by the community using customary methods. Hence they are usually entirely male, thus confirming the position of local notables (Desai 1995). Women’s participation is usually established separately. Many women are reluctant to act outside their patriarchal cultural traditions, making initial involvement very difficult. Slum communities are stratified by factors such as income, housing, religion, caste and class, so the homogeneity of project committees can undermine the project’s acceptability and credibility later on. Furthermore, societies that protect and seclude women are generally suspicious of any training given to women as it may encourage immoral activities (interview with Apnalaya staff).
Moreover, men within the community often exert considerable control over the activities of their wives and daughters. They resent time spent away from household duties, and worry that female involvement in the ‘public’ world of community development will threaten patriarchal power structures. Male community leaders also restrict women’s potential for exercising control over the design, practice and outcome of participatory projects. This is true of slum settlements in Bombay. Male slum leaders sometimes block and circumscribe NGO staff interactions with female residents. Although women often recognized community problems more readily and accurately than men, they found it difficult to discuss their concerns with NGO staff. Consequently, NGOs often bypass women leaders, and fail to recognize their contribution to the organization and to the improvement of urban settlements. This is all the more alarming considering the quotas for female representation at the village panchayat level (73rd Constitutional amendment), municipal councils in cities and metropolitan areas (74th amendment) and in the Lok Sabha (People’s Assembly) and state legislative assemblies (84th amendment).14
Moreover, in many cases women’s full and active participation in project design, implementation and management is more restricted than that of their male counterparts. Practical constraints such as timing and workloads reduce women’s participation so they may even seem ‘invisible’. Women’s projects frequently fail to arouse male support as well. Men tend to dismiss women’s abilities and resent having to share their skills and expertise with them (for similar evidence in Sri Lanka, see Fernando 1987).
By and large, policy-makers see poverty alleviation as a male problem. Women are rarely treated as knowing what they need; rather, agencies seek to think and act on their behalf. Women’s needs and priorities are either subsumed (and then forgotten) within those of the household collectivity or, when addressed (separately), tend to focus on women as mothers, wives and care-givers within the family (Kabeer 1994: 230). Furthermore, policy-makers often assume women have time to participate in empowerment projects.
There are two contradictory trends concerning women’s seclusion and social mobility. In cities such as Bombay, girls attending school and women’s employment are gradually becoming a recognized option, and for poorer families it is an economic necessity. However, many men dislike women having opportunities for income generation and want to keep them in their more traditional roles.15 The new position of women in urban Bombay has created conflicts within households and between older and younger generations of women. Development agencies such as NGOs and their staff need to understand these changes and to support both women and men in their new roles and relations. For this, the role of NGO staff is critical.
Discriminatory attitudes of male NGO project staff sometimes limit women’s active and visible participation. At the slum level, women react to male hostility by downplaying their interest in women’s issues. However, beneath the overt rhetoric and behaviour I discovered that women NGO staff, at the field and mid-management levels, had learned from their work experiences and held quite strong positions on gender justice. This was particularly so among field workers, one of whom reported that ‘They [NGO management] want us to talk to women in slums, but women want so many different things which we cannot ever deliver.’ Another complained that:
Our support for these poor women is short term, we do not want to take a risk when a women is abused or is suffering domestic violence, we keep saying they should not be dependent on us; in fact they will always be dependent on us for some time. I don’t see what sort of help we are offering.
Field workers wanted to provide space where women could talk about their emotional needs and daily problems. They rejected the (usually male) notion that this was soft, unimportant work. Indeed, many women NGO staff criticized the gender-based inequities in their own organizations and the biases in service provision. Of course, these women often failed to act on their critiques and avoid taking risks, getting personally involved in domestic situations or providing long-term emotional/counselling support for women in need. Nor were they often able necessarily to visibly change their work culture,16 or to change their male colleagues’ behaviour. Conformity is safer and carries more tangible rewards, a point supported by the experiences of many senior women in bureaucratic organizations (Goetz 1992: 14). However, subtle and internal changes can sometimes provide the basis for organizational change.
As Sheela Patel (founder and director of SPARC) told me, the degree of backlash against women’s organizations, and the capacity of women staff in NGOs to create positive environments for gender equity or feminist concerns, depends on the culture of the organization and on attitudes about gender equity in the broader culture. Government bureaucracies in the Philippines, for example, demonstrate that women can transform both the internal culture of bureaucracies and the policies and work of these institutions (Valdeavilla 1995; del Rosario 1995). In Bombay, many people believe women no longer face discrimination, especially since they are well represented in high levels of business and government. This is despite statistical indicators showing women well behind men, and evidence that issues such as sexual harassment are ignored despite their widespread occurrence.
However, NGOs in Bombay for the most part recognize women’s crucial role in society and their many real needs. Nevertheless, to work with women you need appropriate tools. You cannot simply use tools and methods designed for men. This is evident in the credit programmes in Bangladesh, where women’s duties and cultural practices have undermined attempts to empower them through credit (Goetz and Sen Gupta 1996; Hashemi et al. 1996; Schuler et al. 1998). NGOs have to adopt a proactive role to deal with such impediments.
Hence the issue of NGO staffing is critical. Most NGO staff are from educated middle-class families whose ideas of equality, empowerment and gender awareness differ dramatically from that of the communities they serve. Class is, or can be, a barrier between women (also caste in the Indian context). Class is inherent in NGOs, as in most things, and so we need to distinguish between the aims of grassroots NGOs, the perceptions and capabilities of NGO staff, and issues facing poor urban women. Class is an important part of our development analysis, and we should not discard it when it comes to the development of women. At the same time we must remain responsive to the needs and concerns of different women, defined by them for themselves (Sen and Grown 1987; Mehta 1991).
NGOs face a number of structural issues that influence their attitudes and behaviour toward gender and empowerment. These issues explain why many NGOs have failed to capture and build upon the subtle strategies and informal politics operating at the grassroots level. Many small- and medium-sized NGOs (which constitute most of the sample from the NGO sector in Bombay), especially those facing funding uncertainties, tend to operate in a day-to-day short-term crisis management mode. In this environment, organizational purpose and goals may become submerged, to be replaced by frantic resource searches from various donor agencies and implementation of stop-gap measures. Long-term goals are rarely translated into practice. Transformative goals are forgotten in the rush to come up with quantifiable targets and short-term goals – the net result being a rather diluted effort at empowering women (Wieringa 1994).
The crisis management mode of NGOs is often associated with a failure to predict problems and devise strategies for attaining organizational goals. Many NGOs see planning either as a luxury or as an exercise in futility given their dependence on external funding and uncertain future. Although the NGO sector is becoming increasingly professionalized, planning to reduce uncertainty is a foreign concept. The diversity of NGO clients also mitigates against planning (Desai 1999). The complex and lengthy problems besetting many women in the slums further complicate NGO response. Additionally, high staff turnover, a shortage of management and planning skills, and the inability to fund highly qualified staff also inhibit planning.
Women’s NGOs within Bombay have focused a lot of energy on influencing state policy; they have also had widely varying attitudes toward the state, ranging from support and collaboration, to mediation and direct confrontation. They have worked with the women’s movements17 to bring issues such as dowry deaths and rape into the public arena. While NGOs and the women’s movements do not always agree, they have managed to collaborate effectively to increase government commitment to women’s issues.
For example, work around violence against women is carried out by very few NGOs who obviously cannot satisfy the needs of the entire city of Bombay. This work includes public awareness campaigns and demonstrations lobbying the government for legal reform, taking up individual cases and extending support to women victims, confronting perpetrators of violence against women and organizing social boycotts of offenders. Demands for changes in police structures and practices have also featured strongly, resulting in the creation of special women’s units and all-women police stations in some Indian cities. However, the women-only focus is being questioned and a more broad gender-aware policy is being encouraged (as in Maharashtra state).
Bureaucrats and politicians tend to treat NGOs as ‘junior partners’. They are never involved in the formulation of policies or plans, but are expected to implement them. Suggestions by NGOs are mostly accepted in a piecemeal manner or distorted or reformulated. Government often tries to pressure its ‘partners’ into taking on work they may oppose. This works against the nature and best interests of NGOs. They function better as autonomous bodies, experimenting with new ideas and building models as well as monitoring official activities. Some organizations, such as Annapurna, link to government without losing their independence,18 but most are not as lucky. Moreover, government officials have rather ‘traditional’ notions of gender roles and relations, and some do not understand or sympathize with NGO gender-oriented programmes or their transformative agendas.
This chapter reflects on the question of empowerment and its relation to women’s (strategic) informal politics. Though the evidence is largely from Bombay, some generalizations can advance our broader understanding and inform research and debates on the role of NGOs in promoting women’s empowerment. The data reveal the need to enhance the transformatory potential of women through strategies that seek to open up rather than foreclose possibilities available to women. Transformation often depends on the extent to which NGOs are able to provide women with access to new kinds of resources, thereby signalling new potential and possibilities rather than merely reinforcing old roles and constraints. This will only happen if NGOs understand how subtle strategies can encourage and support women’s empowerment.
The value of informal politics does not constitute an alibi for the continued under-representation of women and ‘minority groups’ in the formal structures of power. This remains important. However, a more inclusive formal political system also needs to welcome the kinds of informal strategies and politics that many women will probably continue to prefer. At the same time, better links between informal (NGOs) and formal political institutions might encourage more women to move from one to another. Opening up formal to informal modes of politics could legitimate and enhance the latter as a form of political citizenship. NGOs can be considered a form of political organization through which women can outline a space for themselves. The activities of such organizations at the grassroots can be seen as feminist expressions without a feminist discourse.
Working with women, at whatever level, raises the possibility of changing women’s position in society, yet this is rarely acknowledged by NGOs. It is incumbent on NGOs to open the debate, particularly on the extent to which it is appropriate to attempt to reshape the social order. NGOs working in conservative, patriarchal societies have to face several questions. Should the long-term implications of development work for women be addressed? Should the underlying strategic aim of fundamental social change be disclosed? Should NGOs encourage communities to strive for development when it might lead to a substantial shift in social values and a degree of social disintegration? These questions raise moral and ethical dilemmas for NGOs. They require acknowledging the diverse visions for empowering women, especially in societies undergoing rapid change but where women are still expected to conform to customary norms. Moreover, it is crucial to acknowledge that gender transformation affects men too, and effective change, without too much opposition from men, may require subtle strategies rather than overt confrontation. Both informal and formal politics are important for women and deserve NGO support.
I have argued that the effectiveness of the NGO sector is at risk if it does not support the young women and their emerging gender issues in the changing world of cities such as Bombay. NGOs need to overcome internal obstacles that inhibit their ability to support the informal and formal politics required to address the challenges of progressive social transformation. Working within informal politics and supporting subtle strategies of women require long-term commitments to achieving empowerment, even when output or success cannot be quantified (especially for donors). This raises some important questions for the NGO sector regarding the sustainability of empowerment programmes/projects in the context of economic liberalization and the shadow-state role of the NGO. However, NGOs cannot afford to ignore women’s informal politics. If they do, they will lose their constituency and their grassroots effectiveness.
Aware of changes in attitudes and expectations, NGOs have encouraged some programmes, such as training, health and childcare, to enhance women’s skills and knowledge, and have collaborated with governments on legislative changes. However, they have shown an inability to understand the complexity of women’s strategic adaptations and a limited capacity to support them. Most NGOs have come to the sad realization that, although they have achieved many micro-level successes, the systems and structures that determine power and resource allocations – locally, nationally and globally – remain largely intact. More recent interventions have begun to address the need to connect the local more deliberately to the national and global. Participatory development is being undertaken in less utopian ways. NGOs increasingly recognize that change will not occur through localized action alone. Participatory approaches must be linked to the more complex and difficult processes of democratization, anti-imperialism and feminism. Obsessive concern over internal organizational practices and problems can prevent NGOs from effectively interpreting the larger political economic landscape (both formal and informal) and its implications for organizational funding, goals and praxis. This wider vision, including a reassessment of the political role of the NGO sector, is required before NGOs, even grassroots NGOs, become an effective means for empowering women and transforming gender relations.
My sincere thanks to all the NGOs for their valuable time, for funding from the Department for International Development (DFID), UK, and for comments by Ramya Subrahmanian and Professors Rob Imrie, Jane Parpart, Tulsi Patel and David Simon as well as the external reviewer.
1 The state government of Maharashtra has declared that the city should be renamed Mumbai.
2 Social capital refers to ‘features of social organisation such as networks, norms and social trust that facilitates co-ordination and co-operation for mutual benefit’ (Putnam 1993: 67). Definitions vary, and the term has acquired a particular World Bank popularity. See Ben Fine’s (1999) very useful deconstruction in Development and Change 30: 1–19.
3 NGOs that concentrate on gender issues and projects.
4 For a description of the sector with regard to activities, target groups, funding base and linkages, see Desai (1999). Desai and Preston (2000) use this data to construct a typology of Bombay NGOs using statistical classification techniques.
5 The term ‘slum’ is used here, as in much of the literature, to denote an area of poor-quality housing, deficient maintenance and inadequate infrastructure; no derogatory connotation is intended. There is considerable diversity within such settlements in terms of type and quality of housing, extent of infrastructure and services, tenure, site-specific hazards and so on.
6 Empowerment has been identified as a key goal of feminist grassroots organizations that want to move beyond the women in development (WID) focus on formal equality with men. The major international development agencies now routinely refer in their policy declarations to the empowerment of the poor and of women. However, there is no consensus on the meaning of the term, and it is frequently used in a way that robs it of any political meaning; sometimes it merely substitutes for integration or participation. I adopt Staudt’s definition that empowerment is a process by which people/individuals acquire the ability to act in ways to control their lives (Staudt 1990).
7 Apnalaya is a grassroots NGO working with slum dwellers in five different areas of Bombay. It tries to respond to local needs using local resources with local participation. It focuses on community health, pre-school facilities, vocational training, para-professional training for community workers and a drug relief programme (see Desai and Howes 1995).
8 NGOs involved in legal aid in this research sample are: Annapurna Mahila Mandal, Ashankur, BUILD, Hamara Club, Jagruti Kendra, Majlis, Mahila Dakshata Samiti, Pragati Kendra, Streehitkarni, Stree Mukti Sangathana, Swadhar, Women’s Center and YUVA.
9 Sharada Sathe (Stree Mukti Sangathana) drew my attention to this point.
10 Judicial gender bias is not unusual in India. It has periodically provided the women’s movement with major rallying points. While the Indian women’s movement has managed to prompt legislative reform, it has done little to monitor violations of women’s rights in both civil and criminal court proceedings. The meagre benefits of progressive legislations often get neutralized by the prejudices and hostility women encounter in law courts.
11 Personal communication with Aruna (Women’s Center) and Flavia Agnes (Majlis).
12 In the slums of Bombay, inadequate sanitation facilities require women to use open spaces or unmaintained, filthy public toilets. Moreover, in the interests of modesty, they are used under cover of darkness, either late in the evening or early in the morning. This leads to bowel and bladder problems. Furthermore, limited availability of water exacerbates problems faced during menstruation.
13 Some women’s organizations do not consider themselves NGOs, but autonomous women’s groups with various funding sources. Some NGOs refused to disclose their funding sources.
14 Almost all the women who figure in electoral politics seem to be someone’s wife, daughter, daughter-in-law or other close relation. Few follow male political career patterns. Elections in India have become very complicated, violent, dirty and expensive. Women find it hard to fit into this matrix. All political parties subordinate women’s participation and concerns to the interests of the party.
15 Emerging political parties like the Shiv Sena and RSS consistently portray traditional gender roles under the disguise of Hinduthva.
16 Organizational culture means the way NGO offices operate and the leadership’s attitude toward its staff. Very few men worked on gender issues within NGOs. NGO male staff could be unsympathetic to the emotional and support needs of women within the organization and also in the field.
17 After the formation of the National Commission for Women, Maharashtra was the first state to establish a state commission for women in 1993 (Sujata et al. 1994). The Commission has progressive policies and was established after widespread consultation.
18 Annapurna Mahila Mandal (AMM) is a grassroots organization of self-employed women in the informal sector. Established in 1975, it has over 60,000 women members. To circumvent labour laws, the mill owners stopped recruiting women workers. Faced with starvation, these women had to resort to income-generating activities in their own homes. They began providing cheap, home-cooked meals for single mill workers and became known by the Marathi word Khanawallis (meaning an inn for eating food). These women were financially exploited by their grocers/suppliers and moneylenders. They started a credit programme with a group loan from the nationalized banks, thus ending their dependency on moneylenders. AMM has now expanded its activities and set up two training centres with units for vocational training, catering, tailoring, handicrafts, health and legal aid.
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