The 1970s and developments during the UN Decade for Women

If developments during the first two decades of Independence were disappointing from the perspective of achieving greater equality for women, the decade of 1970s was rather remarkable as it witnessed an emergent consciousness on issues pertaining to women, this time explicitly in the context of development. Undoubtedly, this has much to do with developments at the international level, specifically the United Nations (UN). With the objective of shortening and gaping the gulf between Nehru's dreams for a modern, just

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India, and the reality of women's continuing subordination, a committee to analyze the condition of women and report on particular measures specific to their empowerment was set-up by the Government of India, in 1971. The overarching mandate of this committee was to present a review of the status of Indian women and the impacts of operation of all the policy measures put in place for their empowerment till then. The Committee was also assigned the task of identifying new problems creating impediments in the advancement of women, and suggesting appropriate measures through which women could extend their support whole heartedly in the process of nation building.

In 1974, the Report of the CSWI appeared as a major landmark in creating awareness about the deep rooted disadvantages faced by women in all walks of life. This succinctly drafted, historic Report, entitled ‗Towards Equality‘ provided significant fillip to sensibilities both to the government and civil society associations working in the field. In its report the committee noted:

An examination of the Five Year Plans reveals that in spite of the policy emphasis on welfare or investment in human resources, the share of investment in the social services in terms of the actual allocation has been steadily declining in successive plans. The objectives emphasized in the various plans, as well as the share of allocations, indicate that among programmes specifically designed for women‘s development, the order of priorities up to the Fourth Plan has been education, then health, and lastly other aspects of welfare because it was generally assumed that all other programmes will benefit women indirectly, if not directly (GOI 1974: 308).

The report was an eye opener of sorts, in pointing out the imbalances and discrepancies of the plans, schemes and policies taken up for women‘s empowerment and in underlining the fact that large sections of women had been adversely affected in the process and consequently relegated to the background. It also suggested that women‘s inequality was inextricably linked with the larger issue emanating from the unfair structures of the social

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order and must therefore be understood in that context. Therefore, unless structural social inequalities, institutional decays and disorders were comprehensively addressed, the issue of women‘s empowerment and advancement of their interest could never be attained. This would not only allow the benefits to trickle down well, but would also yield more inclusive results.

The suggestions and recommendations of the committee were deliberated upon in the Parliament. After much discussions, the members of the Parliament recommended the launching of a host of legislative and executive actions targeting the eradication of social and economic inequalities in general and empowering women in particular. The Prime Minister was authorized to lead the campaign up-front. After parliamentary deliberations on the report, the Government outlined a National Plan of Action for women. The NPAW principally drew from the recommendations of the Reports of CSWI as well as on the prescriptions of the UN‘s World Plan of Action - an outcome of the 1975 World Conference on Women in Mexico. The NPAW was later set up as a National Committee, with the Prime Minister as its chairperson.

Subsequently, a separate department (WDBW-Welfare and Development Bureau for Women) was inaugurated within the Social Welfare Ministry. The WDBW was to be the nodal agency for identifying the most vulnerable sections from amongst women and launching developmental policies aimed at securing their overall welfare. Since the status of agrarian women as well as those employed as daily wage workers was significantly low, special cells in the Ministries of Rural Development and Labour were set-up to initiate measures for their empowerment and development.

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During this period, therefore, a change in policy is quite discernable in the sense that women no longer were understood simply as beneficiaries of affirmative policies of government. Instead an acknowledgement of their importance as a potent group in the development of India was very evident. Consequently, the focus areas to be covered under the Fifth Five Year Plan (1974-78) was considerably widened to include a host of issues concerning not just women‘s familial but also their social roles. Home economy was linked to national economy, prioritizing household duties including child care, nutrition, health care, and other related domestic activities as contributory enterprises to overall economic activities (Pandey 2008: 72).

Arguably, the Sixth Five Year Plan (1980-85) proved to be significant for women in the sense that for the first time ever, it comprised of a separate chapter on women in development. Plausibly, the wider acceptance of gender as a problematique at the international levels and the UN declaration of 1976-85 as the International Women‘s Decade could have been the reasons behind such a development. Additionally, by now campaigns run by both local and international women‘s groups had also intensified and so it was natural that women‘s concerns made their way on to the agenda of governance in a major way. The sixth Plan in a way marked a shift in the way women‘s empowerment was to be achieved. Women‘s health, education as well as their economic independence were to be the major areas for action. In order to execute the objectives envisaged and outlined in the Sixth Plan, a separate committee to suggest means for improving the current and generating additional employment opportunities was constituted by the Planning Commission. The policies and programmes put up by the said working group were to be supervised by the Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development. Similarly, the Industry

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Ministry also formed another group with the purpose of exploring and developing options and strategies for enabling and encouraging women to take up opportunities of self- employment. With the larger objectives of creating conditions for the spread of education amongst women, an entirely new curriculum was launched within the ambit of the already running Adult Education programmes. All these efforts and strategies were to be pursued in collaboration with researchers and civil society groups, particular those working for gender equality and justice. It looked like, the entire India, was united in its‘ efforts to emancipate women.

Developments both at national and international levels in the 1980s provided additional momentum to attempts being made for the advancement of women‘s interests and improvement of their position and status in society. women‘s empowerment. Plausibly, the publication of a report entitled, ‗UN‘s Forward Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women‘ (UN 1985), may have contributed towards the new found vigour and energy for the campaign for gender justice and equality. In order to implement it in a more coherent and effective way a separate department – the Department of Women and Child Development was established under the aegis of the Human Development Resource Ministry and entrusted with the task of tackling issues and concerns of women and children. With the objective of enhancing women‘s, participation in the empowerment initiatives of the government, a National Perspective Plan for Women (1988) was drawn-up to tackle some of the most significant issues hindering gender justice and gender equality. Whilst women‘s well-being, education as well as economic independence, remained the main focus areas, under the National Perspective Plan as well, issue areas such as rural development, political empowerment, etc. also got a mention under it. In the same year (1988),

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publication of ‗Shramshakti‘ - a report on the condition of women employed as daily wage workers in the informal sectors both the urban and rural settings, added to the existing momentum for gender justice and equality (Mies 1994). Prepared by the National Commission for Self-Employed Women and Women in the Informal Sector, (headed by Ela Bhatt), ‗Shramshakti‘ was a novel and in fact, first formal attempt towards according formal recognition to the work done by women in the informal sectors. Most significantly, the report tried to stress the idea that household work done by women was akin to formal work and so must be duly recognized. Additionally, it recommended the setting up of banks and other kinds of credit institutions to push self- employability amongst women and bridging the skill gaps through customized training programmes.

To complete this summary, I will now enlist other important official initiatives undertaken during the closing years of the 1980s and the early years of the 1990s with the objective of realizing the cherished goal of women‘s empowerment. Some of the important steps were:

A chapter on Education for Equality within the National Policy on Education (1986); the Report of the National Expert Committee on Women Prisoners(1986); 27 women specific, beneficiary oriented schemes monitored by the Prime Minister‘s Office; provisions of reserved seats for women in elected bodies at local level by 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments (1993); Poverty Eradication Programmes and Self-Help Groups under the National Bank of Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD); Support to Training and Employment Programmes for upgrading the skills of poor women and for providing them employment under the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP); the Training of Rural Youth in Self- Employed (TRYSEM); Jawahar Rojgar Yojna (JRY); Indira Awas Yojna (IAY); Development of Women and Children In Rural Areas (DWCRA); a network of support services for women and children belonging to the weaker sections of society. (Desai and Thakkar 2001:153).

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Additionally, policy initiatives for ushering in greater sensitivity and sensibilities towards the cause of gender justice were conjoined with other supportive measures like legal literacy and know your rights campaign. Establishment of working women‘s hostels and provision of crèche facilities in work place were part of these initiatives. These measures were followed by the Hindu Widows Remarriage (Repeal) Act, 1983; establishing equality before law through reforms in the Hindu family laws, combined with economic and educational changes. To a certain extent, these steps, certainly augmented women‘s share in the public domain, giving them a better standing in social and family life and a greater self-dependence in personal life. However, in terms of attainment of the larger objective of gender equality, they were miles away.

The Seventh five-year plan (1985-90) also operationalized the resolutions of the International Decade of Women, specifying the ideas of inclusive development equity and gender empowerment. It projected the task of mainstreaming women into the larger processes and goals of development. It underlined the need of ‗accepting women as a crucial resource [and] their contribution to critical inputs and productive resources‘ (Pandey 2008:74). With that objective in mind, it provided for ‗bank credit, small scale capital, marketing, training and skills, management and technology that stated to be made available to them. More particularly development measures were to be worked out as a beneficiary oriented programme specifically focused on women‘ (ibid). The concerns for gender empowerment were overarching leading to the setting-up of the national commission for women and the enactment of an act by the parliament in 1992 to realize this end.

It is pertinent to include here the eighth five-year plan (1992-1997) that was brought in the shadows of India‘s tryst with neoliberal globalization. This will be discussed in more

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depth later in my thesis, but for completeness I will summarize key points at this juncture. This plan reiterated concerns for the social welfare for women. However, keeping in mind the larger objective of the neoliberal reform process, namely streamlining the state responsibilities and opening up the private enterprises, the plan put special emphasis on the need to monitor the benefit flow emerging from the general development programmes particularly for women. I will detail the ways in which neoliberal globalization spread its wing in India and the consequent impacts on women later (in chapter 5). However, for the purpose of this chapter it is pertinent to note that just as the debates on women‘s rights and development were being framed through the prism of equality empowerment and justice, the adoption of neoliberal reforms drastically altered the discourse on state‘s orientation and obligations to its own citizens (Byres 1998). Evidentially, the neoliberal emphasis on the parallels between the market and individuals through the construct of the latter as a rational, self-oriented, production driven self, had implications for the state, reducing it to a largely non-interventionist, and rather facilitative role. In this respect, the Indian case is no exception to the general neoliberal philosophical imperative. This meant two things (1) a greater focus on integration with the world market and (2) a diminishing concerns with welfare resulting in an ever reducing ‗menu of subsidized services and a standardizing quality‘ (Jayal 1994:23).

However, it is also pertinent to note here that, the rise of the subaltern identity politics in India around the same time of the adoption of the neoliberal reforms meant that the Indian state could not completely abdicate its welfare responsibilities. Instead, it had to readjust its responsibilities by giving welfarism a competitive dimension and adopting a redistributive frame under which identity based awards were to be largely in proportion to

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its contribution to the developmental imperatives of the state. In terms of women‘s empowerment, this implied a major shift in their identity vis-a-vis the state, effectively marking their identity as an economic actor. It is this representation that I will examine later through my case studies. in chapter 6 and 7.