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Book Review
Empowerment of the marginalised
PADMINI SWAMINATHAN
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A chorus of nine voices articulating at the intersections of caste, gender, religion and socio-spatial location
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PLAYING WITH FIRE - Feminist Thought and Activism through Seven Lives in India: Sangtin Writers; Zubaan, an imprint of Kali for Women, K-92, I Floor, Hauz Kaus Enclave, New Delhi-110016.
Rs. 395.
This book is a powerful critique of the agenda of `empowering the marginalised' that informs the development initiatives of several organisations, mainly non-governmental, funded internally or externally. Set in the Sitapur district of Uttar Pradesh, the book has emerged from a prior book in Hindi, namely Sangtin Yatra, authored by the same nine authors (Sangtins) of the present book in English. The critique begins by interrogating the "politics of knowledge production" and challenges dichotomies that have hierarchised forms of labour, such as political labour (grassroots activism) from intellectual labour (research and writing). The `collective methodology' of the authors evolved through autobiographical writing and discussions of those writings; the latter in turn enabled the authors to build their analysis and critique of societal structures and processes ranging from the very personal to the global. "The very personal and powerful memories of silencing, shaming, sexuality and control over bodies that the authors shared with each other in this journey carried enormous symbolic and emotional meanings for us. These were the stories that each author had `buried' to protect her familial honour, to avoid her family's embarrassment and shame. But once we started this journey, it was as if everyone was convinced that it was only by saying these things out aloud, that we would begin to see new dreams."
A journey
The Sangtins take us on a journey through their childhood, adolescence, marriage, motherhood, their jobs as NGO workers and the structure and functioning of the NGO itself. The combination of personal reflection and collective sharing at once brings out the ways in which, in their own lives, caste, class, religion and gender intertwined to give their lives as well as their interactions a particular shape. The details relating to the manner in which received and nurtured notions and practices of caste and religion inhibited for a long time (and still inhibit) real socialisation among colleagues of different castes and religion are, to say the least, frighteningly forthright. Further, the thematic organisation of these details lays bare the layered manner in which the complexities of caste, class, religion operate on a day-to-day basis, and, how over time they combine to put down whole sections of people thereby posing tremendous challenges to anyone aiming at transforming social spaces. "We learned to accept the reality that despite going through the same process of training in an NGO, it is impossible for field-workers from Dalit and Sawarn backgrounds to emerge as activists in the same ways. For instance, the absence of opportunities and resources that Radha faced in her personal life often make it necessary for her to labour a lot harder than Sandhya. At the same time it is precisely these deprivations and struggles that give Radha a vision, a perceptiveness and a sensitivity that allow her to enter more deeply into the layers of social differences than any other members of our group." While stepping out of imprisoned homes provided new visions and/or altered world views, the close encounter with inequalities of rank and class characterising the organisational structures of the NGOs with which they worked and were associated led to confusion, shock and embitterment. The book provides a rich and nuanced account of the deep contradiction and double standards embedded in the very foundations of NGO structures that have, at one level, reduced rural women/workers to objects of exhibition and entertainment, and at another level, inhibited the emergence of a social movement.
Foregrounding of issues
The signal contribution of the book is the collaboration of nine authors and the concrete evolvement of a collective methodology that has enabled the foregrounding of issues such as "politics of knowledge production" and "NGOisation of women's empowerment." However, for the fructification of the dream of the collective to nurture an alternative vision of social change in a place hijacked by the mainstream models of donor-driven empowerment, it is imperative to also engage with a critique of the role of the state and of the state's accountability to its citizens.
The NGOisation of spaces and activities is, to put it in another way, a product of the state's abdication of its responsibility of ensuring even critical minimum standards of lives and livelihoods. At the same time, by relying on externally funded programmes of `empowerment', and by depending on NGOs for the operation of `empowerment' programmes, the state has neatly sidestepped the issue of interrogating its development paradigm that has not only disempowered large sections of the population but has heightened inequity and injustice across space and communities. Hopefully, given the strong bond that has emerged among the nine authors, we can look forward to Playing With Fire - II for a contextualisation of the theme of "NGOisation of women's empowerment" from a different angle.
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