Gender and Development in India, 1970s-1990s: Some Reflections on the Constitutive Role

of Contexts
Author(s): Mary E. John
Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 31, No. 47 (Nov. 23, 1996), pp. 3071-3077
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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 Gender and Development in India, 1970s-1990s
Some Reflections on the Constitutive Role of Contexts
Mary E John

The ideologies of globalisation and structural adjustntent seek to make one deaf to the immediate past and to anything
that does not spe( lA in the language of efficienc). However, the contemporary changes overtaking us, disturbing as
they are, also har our the possibility of bringing our political and intellectual engagements on to new and fruitful
terrain. For tho.s( who have been working at the interfaice of genider and development, it is time to refigure their
priorities, not by secluding themselves within some putative 'pure' economy, but by broadeniing feminist conceptions
of the economy itself. Rescuing the notion of gender from its ritualistic incantations and mnakinig it reallb work for
a more emancipatory and inclusive social order is one of the ways open to them, one the)' have every reason to
take.

I third world nations - through their processes is steadily growing; there is little danger.
of evolution, and in terms of historical shifts moreover, of being lost to posterity. But I
IT is surely a truism today that women's in the frameworks within which development am not certain that we have a good sense
issues no longer belong exclusively to the is being understood. My own efforts here ot how feminism is historically 'passed on',
women's movement, if they ever did. This are tentative and preparatory, somewhat in and not simply because we in India suffer
situation is especially visible in the world the nature of drafting the outlines of an the specific disadvantages of a third world
of development, and finds its cleairest agenda and thus making a case for new nation. The problem may be a new one,
expression in proliferating references to feminist research. having everything to do with the transformed
'gender': in local, national and international It hardly bears emphasising that the 1 990s conitexts of the 1 990s. We are perhaps more
fora, among state functionaries, development have brought the women's movement in accustomed to think of a context as the
experts, academics and activists - many of India on to new and unfamiliar terrain. Even 'background' to our questions and demands,
whom would not think of themselves as as we reorient ourselves to the challenges, rather than as the conditiont of possibility of
feminists - one hears repeatedly of gender predicaments - and promi ses - of the present,our initiatives, that is to say, as something
bias, gender sensitisation, gender planning feminists are disoriented. A significant constitutive. However, the kinds of changes
and gender training, to mention just some response to this situation has been to look taking place today - of which globalisation
of the more common examples of its back, especially to the last two decades, in is the most visible indication - demand a
contemporary use. order to assess the future. rethinking of the very terms in which
As is well known, the whole purpose While I also feel propelled to re-examine women's issues were initially raised and the
behind supplanting the older frame of the debates and issues of the last 20 years modes in which they are being reconstituted
women in development' by that of 'gender and their connection with questions of today.
and development' since the late 1980s in development, the crucial motivation for me By drawing attention to the question of
many parts of the world had to do with comes from the experiences and questions contexts, this paper seeks to reframe issues
fundamental shortcomings in 'WID' of a new generation of women who are in that may otherwise be posed in a misleading
thinking. To begin with, there was the process of becoming feminist in a worldway. For instance, these days we often hear
thelimited
nature of speaking only about 'women' rather decisively different from the frameworks of of the 'co-option' of the women' s movement
than about systemic relations of inequality, the 1970s, which had made post-indepen- by other forces such as the Hindu rightwing,
involving the relations between both men dence feminism possible. How are women's the state or certain NGOs. This gives one
and women. Secondly, attitudes toward issues inherited, fought for, carried forward? the impression that the womens' movement
developmenit itself tended to remain In her study of western feminist history had a 'pure' beginning of its own, which
insufficiently critical, when the entire from the Middle Ages to 1870, entitled The only subsequently, that is to say, at some
process, and especially the assumptions Creationt of Feminist Cotnsciousness, Gerda later stage, came to be taken overby different,
underlying development as such, needed to Lerner repeatedly underscores the absence contrary influences. Instead, I will be
be questioned if gender issues were to be of progression in women's intellectual suggesting in the following pages that the
effectively tackled. formation throughout this period: no 'beginning' itself cannotbe so easily isolated
Has the change in terminology, important generation, it appears, was able to build - indeed, multiple players have been
as it is, produced the intended results? I am upon the achievements of a previous one involved, nationally and internationally, from
not sure, and this paper is an attempt to find [Lerner 1993]. 1 am less concerned with theIemoment of its emergence. What has
out why. With over two decades of plausibility of this historical claim than \\changed
ll rather- and changed decisively for
development work behind us, first in the Lerner's unspoken assumption about thie everyone concerned - is the context, mediated
name of women and now in the language subsequent history of feminism, which icts by 'frames' of intelligibility and signification
of gender, the time has clearly come to take as a foil: she seems to be implying that alterwhich are themselves the product of a new
stock. Unlike some of the other reviews now 1870, withtheonsetof collectivelyorganised historical moment, frames effected by
coming out [e g, Young 1993, Moser 1993, forms of struggle and greater economic 'critical events" that radically transform the
Kabeer 1995, Escobar 1995], which are independence for certain women, the modes political culture within which we live. lt is
produced in the first world and pose their of creating, sustaining and building feminism this sense of radical transformation that also
analyses at a general level, I argue that we have been more straightforward. affects our relation to history, making it less
need to explicitly situate our critical No doubt, the number of those who have clear as to how the past is to be a basis for
reflections within the histories of specific heard of feminism and of women's issues the future. Hence my problematisation of the

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question of inheriting feminism today.
Before turning to the beginnings of the
women's movement and its connections to
development, it is crucial to notice that
globalisation, liberalisation and the
programme of structural adjustment are by
no means the sole forces redirecting
contemporary agendas. Rather, a multiplicity
of emergent phenomena and realignments
charactenise the present: nationally, the eventsIn this section, I make an attempt to lay the
of 'Mandal' and 'Ayodhya' have become,
in very different ways, part of cultural and
political life, and cannot be dismissed as
violent, pathological eruptions of little
significance to development issues. Equally
pertinent, the status of regions is also open
to new forms of politicisation. Apparently
sutured within a newly-independent India
through the creation of linguistic states,
regions can no longer be so obviously
subsumed within a national frame. Changes
such as these make the task of exploring the
past from the perspectives of the present a
particularly challenging one, since a number
of avenues are now available for the process
of reconstruction. The contemporary context
is, therefore, by no means a deterministic
one; it functions more in the nature of setting
contemporary gender issues are situated by
limits and opening up new possibilities. Thus,focusing on certain key documents that have of marriage for young women barely out of
for instance, many regional histories of the played a decisive role in framing these issues their teens, and the real hazards of the
women's movement would simply not fit
the national narrative, either in terms of
periodisation or in the light of the variable
significance of development issues in
ground-breaking.
different parts of the country. (This does not
Ingrained habits of looking at the past
mean, of course, that regional narratives of
development and the women's movement
lie outside the 'national' one, or can only
be constructed as exceptions. Consider the
'Kerala model' for instance, which in its
own time has borne complex relations to
gender issues at a number of levels - within
Kerala itself, at the national level and,
certainly internationally as well.)
In the face of such options, this paper sets
itself the extremely delimited task of
concentrating on just one strand of the
mainstream feminist literature, in order to
illuminate changes in development thinking
from a national perspective. While Section
II looks at historical issues, Section III is
more speculative in nature, and raises
questions for the immediate future.
II
In the influential and important World
Bank report Gender and Poverty in India
of 1991, principal author Lynn Bennett
announces:
... now, researchers, womens' activists, and
government departments are reaching a new
consensus. ...[W]omen must be seen as
economic actors - actors with a particularly
important role to play in efforts to reduce
poverty. [World Bank 1991: iii]
How are we to evaluate such a claim to movement, and the modes of theorisation
consensus? What has enabled the available are simply too complex and
spokesperson of an international agency to contradictory, still too poorly understood, to
endorse her own views by clubbing them be couched in unilinear terms of either
together with those of feminists in India and progress or decline. Too little, because what
representatives of the Indian state, tends to remain hidden from view in such
standpoints which have often been perceived constructions is the fact that we do not have
as divergent, if not antagonistic? unmediated access to the lives of women.
There is no simple answer to this question. Women's issues are rarely allowed to be -
and seldom are - women's issues alone.
ground for an answer through a comparative They are invariably tied, both explicitly and
assessment of two crucial time periods, (more often) implicitly, to other issues - this
namely, the decades of the 1970s and 80s is precisely how contexts work. Much more
(when the debates on women and effort is required, as I have already tried to
indicate,
development first took shape) and the to highlight the constitutive effects
present
conjunctures of the 1990s. Claims to of the changing frames in which gender has
consensus, I shall argue, have only become been and is being foregrounded.
possible because the meanings attached to Though there is a significant history of
debates and policy initiatives around women
a range of terms- such as nation, sovereignty,
economy, and, above all, development - and development during the last decades, it
have changed considerably from one context would be quite misleading to believe that
to the next, and these shifts have in turn women's issues have gained an autonomous
affected the way we need to approach space and are now ready to be analysed on
discussions about gender and feminism their own terms. But it is precisely such an
today. My method of exposition here is a impression that is conveyed by the Country
textual one: I will try to lhilglight the Paper, especially in its concluding chapter
transformed context within which on women and violence. Though this chapter
is quite radical in its account of the violence
over the last two decades, of which the Draft workplace in the field, factory or office, the
Country Paper produced for Beijing last discussion fails, and not only because
year is the most recent, while the early custodial rape and other major forms of state
Towards Equality report was the most violence have been quite disingenuously
written out of it.2 The trick lies in how this
radical tone has been achieved - by pitching
tempt us to think in terms of a single story accounts of violence in so general and abstract
or a uniform, continuous process. This is a manner that everyone and, in effect,
true even of the relatively recent past, suchtherefore, no one, is really held accountable.
as the experience of the last two decades. I am, therefore, proposing a different look
Thus, for instance, the Draft Country Paper at the past and the present, one that tries to
produced and circulated by the Department be vigilant about the shifting modes in which
of Women and Child Development in 1994 women's issues have been shaped and recast.
(in preparation for the 4th World Conference How did the 1970s become a 'beginning',
on Women that was held in Beijing in 1995) a point of origin for the contemporary phase
tries to tell a story of progress, progress in of the women's movement? An answer to
spite of all the hurdles: There is now an this can only be laid out in a number of
increased sensitisation to gender compared stages. Accounts of these years have rightly
with the early "introspections on women's seen them as a crisis period for the Indian
status in the seventies"; it has been a "bumpy state, the clearest indication of which was
ride", we are told, from "women's problems" the rise of a range of social movements at
to "women's perspectives" [Department of the time. Sudipta Kaviraj has spoken of the
Women and Child Development 1994]. crisis of legitimacy suffered by the Congress
Many feminists, on the other hand, assess from the end of the 1960s, which produced
the situation differently: pointing to signs fundamental revisions in the Nehru model
of growing violence against women, the of politics and planned development, in
falling sex ratio, the effects of environmental
favour of a more obviously empty rhetorics
degradation or the negative impact of of poverty alleviation and increasingly
structural adjustment, they tend to tell a centralised forms of government rule
story of decline. [Kaviraj 1988]. And yet, at precisely such
Such attempts at constructing a history of a time, the coding of the Indian nation as
women in development (whether positive or socialist, guided by aims of national self-
negative) assert both too much and too little. determination, still shaped political discourse
Too much, because we are not yet in a to such a degree that these were also formative
position to produce such overarching for anumber of oppositional struggles. What
narratives - gender issues, the pace of a must be presented' as a crisis at one level,

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I am therefore trying to suggest, was also at the time had placed their hope on an in India's imagined economy, by focusing
a relegitimation of the state at another - as egalitarian free India and the creation of a on working women and the problem of the
primary organ of governance, and source of welfare state [Desai 1986; see also Desai and invisibility of women's work.
potential well-being to its citizens. It was Krishnaraj 1987]. From the more The kind of supplementary place that had
thus possible, and considered necessary, to disenchanted perspectives of the 1990s, it been alotted to women in the community
question the state, expose the hollowness of is not easy to assess the precise nature of development programmes financed by the
its claims or the vested interests it harboured, the abdication and relegation of responsibility Ford Foundation in the 1950s and 60s, which
while at the same time demanding a certain by pre-independence women's organisations involved training women in the skills of
accountability through the rights of to the emergent nation-state, which resulted 'family management' and 'homeeconomics',
citizenship. However critical the institution in the effective containment of pre- thus came in for vehement criticism.
of patriarchy was to become in the self- independence initiatives and a quietism for Feminists in the ] 970s could now emphasise
understanding of the women's movement, close to three decades of post-colonial Indian the utter incongruity of projects meant to
especially among autonomous groups, the history. Moreover, we are only beginning enable village women to become, in the
Indian state has been the movement's most to rediscover the range of activities of the words of the director of the Women's
constitutive site of contestation, or so I would newly formed state which crucially Programme in 1959, "a good wife, a wise
like to contend. implicated women - in the terrible costs of mother, a competent housewife, and a
The imprint of these characteristics is Partition, as well as through a number of responsible member of the village
clearly visible in what came to be one of legal enactments, of which the fate of the community" [cited in Mehra 1983].4 They
the founding texts of the women's movement,
Hindu Code Bill is perhaps the most well pointed instead to most poor rural women's
the Towards Equality report of 1974 known. traditional participation in both agricultural
produced by the Committee on the Status But it is clear that a subsequent generation and non-agricultural production.5
of Women in India. This report is clearly of women in the 1970s were shaken by the Many of the chapters of the Towards
a product of the initial phase of the women's absence of a women's perspective in the Equality report dealing with religion and
movement and the inception of women's overall development process and the culture, the law, women's political status
studies in the academy, when there were indifference of policy-makers and planners. and so on were subsequently superseded in
palpable motivations to demonstrate one's As they put it: the major campaigns and new forms of
Indianness. The middle class women who Three decades after Independence, and after scholarship that were to follow from the end
formed the core of the movement (and three decades of planned development, the of the 1970s. (Or, as in the case of an
supplied the authors of the report) specificallypicture of women's position that emerged extremely interesting appendix on women's
foregrounded rural and poor women in their was startling in its grimness. [Desai and status in a minority community, which
research and activism, thereby claiming an Krishnaraj 1987: 4] focused on Muslim women, some aspects
authentic non-western, nationalist identity. It is particularly worthy of note how womenof the report apparently went relatively
The report is remarkable for its nationalist in the academy were especially interpellated unnoticed.) The more strongly highlighted
structure, perhaps even fervour. It is repleteby the economic dimensions of women's 'discovery' of women's declining work
with references to the Constitution and its deteriorating circumstances, an orientation participation rates and the overall worsening
guarantees, to 'nation-building', suggesting which appeared to be decisively new. 'The of employment opportunities of the majority
measures to enable women in general, and marginalisation and impoverishment of the of India's women became the basis of
rural and poor women in particular, to play majority of women within the transforming ongoing work,6 and was thus a product of
"their full and proper role" in the making economy became the entry point for a conjuncture where, whatever the agendas
of the nation. There is no mention whatsoever academics into the movement" [Agnihotri of international development agencies or of
of the UN Year for Women of 1975. In other and Mazumdar 1995: 1874]. In the face of western feminists, feminists in India
- especially western - accounts of this period, the reneged promises of independent India, produced national directives, sought to
however, this document is seen as little more it was not possible for a tiny group of middle influence state policy, expanded the scope
than an offshoot of the subsequent UN class feminist intellectuals and activists to of statistical data collection, and so on, in
decade, a top-down creation occasioned by refer to the experiences of their worlds alone.
the belief that this would arrest deteriorating
international decision makers [see, for It was more important to emphasize the trends. By exposing the ambivalent effects
instance, Young 1993]. It is less important, exclusion of the vast majority of women of development strategies that had been
it seems to me, to decide as to which designed without regard for women,
from the promises-of progress, modemisation
perception is more accurate. The point is, and development, than to focus on the gains feminists demanded that policy-makers
rather, that the authors of the Towards made by a minority of highly visible relatively actively address the invisibility of women's
Equality report apparently felt no compulsion
privileged women. contributions to the making of the nation.
to refer to 'the international scene, perhaps In a recent essay, Satish Deshpande has It would take me well beyond the confines
even actively suppressed it.' Contrast this suggested that one of the primary ways in of this paper to dwell upon the different and
with the 1994 Country Paper which was which the Indian nation-in-the-making came conflicting strands of scholarship on women
explicitly framed for the 1995 UN Con- to be conceived within the nationalist and development that characterised the 1 970s
ference: India's path to greater gender aware-
movement was in the form of an "imagined and 1 980s, from liberal demands for greater
ness is seen to be deeply intertwined with economy". In this scheme of things, recognition of women's labour to more
the period of 'contemporary social history' Nehruvian socialism imaged the "patriotic radical critiques of a development process
running from "Mexico to Copenhagen on producer" at the centre of the nation at the that had reinforced. patriarchal relations of
to Nairobi and finally to Beijing" (p 1). time of independence, surrounded by the inequality. I only wish to emphasise two
The revelations of the Towards Equality apparatus of state-led planning and things: the proliferation of studies that
report had a shattering effect on a number industrialisation [Deshpande 1993]. I would emerged at the cross-roads of class and
of feminists 20 years ago. The initial post- like to go on to suggest that during the gender, which has yet to be matched in any
independence years were a time of critical years of the 1 970s, the new emphases other field, and the special place of the
"complacency and acquiescence among on development by feminists gave fresh debates on women's work within this nexus
women", we are told, since many feminists of intellectual and political engagement.
shape and a new lease of life to the 'producer'

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Relating to labour force participation rates,
problems of underestimation, the sexual
division of labour, the household, and
to an overall consensus on the nature of
criticisms of the very concept of work itself,
these debates meshed directly with - indeed,
actively reconstituted - prevailing
conceptions of India' s national identity, and
the reconfigured primacy accorded to
development. As is well known today, one
accruing to a number of terms.
of the most important results of all this effort
was the discovery that women as a group,
far from having nothing to do and with
plenty of time on their hands, were more
active than men, even though national
statistical indicators would have us believe
otherwise.
One of the crucial texts to come out of
the subsequent decade of the 1 980s was the
Shranishakti report on self-employed women
and women in the informal sector that was
published in 1988. Drawing from a now
vastly expanded literature and from extensive
field surveys in different parts of the country, saying for some time now, the informal
the authors produced detailed studies of
women in the informal sectors of urban and
rural India. The report was intended to show
women's extremely vulnerable working
conditions across diverse occupations under
high levels of discrimination, as well as the
range of health hazards women were exposed
to on an everyday basis. The
recommendations of the report - lddressed
to various ministries and departments at the
central and state levels, but possibly also to
international agencies - run to almost a
;iundred pages. Their demands included
underwriting the development literature on
enlarging the definition of work to encompass
all women engaged in production and
reproduction, recognising women's position
as major rather than supplementary wage
earners, and finding strategies to enhance
women's control over and ownership of
resources. Also important was the demand
to extend the rights and benefits of the
privileged 10 per cent of the general labour
force who make up the formal sector (in
the case of the female workforce the
corresponding figure is barely 6 per cent)
to the rest of the working population. If
necessary, a separate labour commissioner
needed to be appointed to ensure that women
managerial and entrepreneurial skills than
in the informal sector receive the same
security of employment.
The special focus of this report on the
informal sector, it seems to me, can help
serve as a bridge for the 1990s. The World
Bank's Genider and Poverty report, with
employment that obtain in the formal sector,
which I began, followed only a few years
later. The World Bank report draws directly
from the efforts of the National Commission moment in Indian history when production
on Self-Employed Women and Women in
the Informal Sector as well as from most of
the literature on women and development
produced in India and elsewhere over the
last decades. In other words, it is not based
on case studies of its own. By drawing upon
the past years of research, activism and who now claim to be the nation rather than
government action in India, however, it is merely the representative of its citizens,
able to perform a remarkable feat: lay claim consumption of the world's goods is of far
greater concern.7 Along with these
women in poverty, while in fact coming to discernible shifts, the crucial relation of the
often diametrically opposite conclusions state to the economy as a whole is giving
from prior feminist concerns. This can only way to a fragile and contradictory welfarism:
be understood, as I mentioned at the outset, It is in the social sectors - such as health,
by following up on the changed significationsfamily planning and primary education -
that governmental intervention is still sought.
Notions such as development, the economy Here, too, women are uniquely, if
and national identity, amongst others, have problematically, foregrounded - most
been critically transformed, at times almost frequently through marketing contraception
unrecognisably so, with the new ideological for women's empowerment, or in drives to
legitimacy accorded to the market. correlate literacy with reduced fertility rates.
Intemational discourses, such as the so-called Development, therefore, is increasingly being
'agency discourses' of bilateral aid donors referred to as a social issue rather than an
or the World Bank, have been adopting this economic or political one. It is not accidental,
framework at least since the 1980s; official, I think, that the specifically economic sections
active endorsement has come in India in the in the draft Country Paper of 1994 - on
last few years. women in poverty and the possible effects
As the 'agency discourses' have been of structural adjustment - are amongst the
weakest in the entire report.
sector is at the heart of the market economy There are some signs that the growing
and represents its prime model. In their hegemony of the middle class is not confined
view, although 'restrictive' third world state to its estimated 200 million members. The
regulations are responsible for the growth increasingly aggressive push for the small
of the informal sector in the first place, it family norm, the growing incentives in thrift
is nonetheless here that high productivity is and savings schemes, references in the
possible with low capital costs. Most literature to wonen as 'household managers'
important of all, since women are seen to and to self-employment schemes as 'micro-
predominate in this sector, itis theircreativity
enterprises', point to a peculiar middle
and potential that needs special attention classisation (to coin an ugly word) of the
[for a fuller discussion see Kalpagam 1994]. poor, especially poor women. The message
The World Bank report draws upon this of the times seems to be that if poverty
kind of understanding, while simultaneously cannot be eradicated in, as they say, the
medium-to-long-term, it can perhaps be
women in India. The incredible range of endured better through more efficient
tasks poor women perform, their often greater
management. And poor women, as we have
contributions to household income despite seen, are made out to be more promising
lower wage earnings, their ability to make managers of poverty than their men.
scarce resources stretch further under
deteriorating conditions, all of which were III
documented and debated in the past, are now
reworked: through a crucial shift in How might one respond to some of the
signification, these findings are no longer changes accompanying the loss of economic
arguments about exploitation so much as nationalism, such as those so briefly outlined
proofs of efficiency. As the World Bank above? Most of these developments, of
report concludes, poor women are clearly course, have yet to take definitive shape. The
more efficient economic actors, with greater
promotion of the structufal adjustment
programme by the Congress since 1991 as
men. It is in full agreement with the 'irreversible' and, by implication, therefore,
Shramnshakti report's recommendation that as uncontestable, even natural, has been
women require greater access to resources, strongly opposed within the women's
especially credit and social services. But the movement, often by drawing upon the
last thing they need are the conditions of negative experiences of other third world
countries who have been structurally
which would only stifle productivity. adjusting since the 1 980s. At the same time,
Views such as these are feeding into a however, globalising trends - fostered as
much by strengthened western ties as by the
itself is no longer definitive for national sense of economic chaos emanating out of
identity. Or, at least, if we are to take the eastern Europe - are rapidly gaining ground,
new ideology of export-led growth quite and are already ideologically and physically
literally, production today is only meaningful transforming the landscape.
if its destination lies beyond India's national It may even be too late to position oneself
boundaries. Moreover, for a middle class as primarily either 'for' or 'against' such

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trends. Moreover, such positioning can get we may also have to acknowledge that similar but its privileged citizens. There is more that
in the way of realising the range of critical uncertainties mark the traditions of political needs to be understood about the ambivalence
work that needs to be done if we are to obtain economy and development planning. A of the state from the perspective of its
a better grasp of the shifts taking place. A number of Marxists seem to be tacitly historically evolving participation in the
new generation of feminists do not even responding to the new historical situation by power relations of society. One way to
have the benefit of having known the kind qualified references to market socialism. approach this problematic is by studying the
of left-inspired economic nationalism which Along with efforts to reconceive 'the state apparatus in the realm of
many, of us could take for granted. Disaster market', I would like to suggest that it is implementation.
stories of impending doom (produced in equally imperative to re-examine the state, These cursory reflections on the
tones as religious as those in praise of especially from the perspective of the history uncertainties of economic theory and on th
economic reform), which tend to inevitably of the women's movement. The location of need for a fuller critique of the state (now
hark back to a cultural past free from western patriarchy within the state apparatus by in retreat) should make us somewhat wary
domination, appear least useful at the present feminists at an early moment in the movement of the kind of confident proclamations about
juncture. Such apocalyptic views seem (and not only or primarily within the family) gender that are increasingly in evidence in
particularly ill-suited to combating the surely represents one aspect of the genius development circles. Surely there is
present, and even less for imagining new of the women's movement. This critique of something deeply ironical about the
futures. the state, however, has only been a partial circulation of phrases like 'gender planning'
The first task, it seems to me, is to get a one so far. For what are we to make of the by development agencies at precisely a time
better sense of the connections and routine complaint of a 'gap' between when the instruments of planning are being
disjunctions between theory and history. On policy and its implementation?
planning dismantled the world over. Equally troubling
the one hand, those of us who came to see Even as we have rightly celebrated efforts are the often facile forms that references to
the frames of political economy as richer, to overcome patriarchal opposition, such as gender are taking.
possessing greater explanatory power than went into the creation of a special chapter I would therefore like to conclude this
the narrower and obviously more on women in the Sixth Plan (1980-85), similarpaper with a critique of the World Bank
questionable assumptions of neo-classical efforts have not gone into monitoring the Gender anid Poverty report, less in terms of
economic thought, may justifiably continue actual practices of the state, through the its predictable faith in the market than on
to argue for the strengths of socialist and implementation of policy on the ground. the basis of its understanding of gender. Not
Marxist-feminist orientations, in spite of the Let me take a very recent example from only is such a deployment of gender, along
renewed hegemony of the liberal, utility- a related context, which exposes the with references to women's special economic
maximising individual. On the other hand, contradictory nature of the state as an agency, becoming increasingly widespread
however, we cannot fail to address the fact in our context,9 it also interacts quite proble-
institution of power at the level of its practices
that the debates on the political economy of - namely, the much publicised trial in Jaipur
matically with other aspects of our casteist
India, which were expanded by the kind of last year of the gang rapists of Bhanwari and communal culture. Let me explain.
feminist scholarship on women and Devi, the sathin from Rajasthan's women's According to the World Bank report, the
development I discussed above, seem to development programme. Much to major axis of genderdiscrimination in Indian
!iave lost their authority in the present climate.
everyone's shock and disbelief, the accused society arises from the inside/outside
The apparent failure of development were acquitted by the high court, on the dichotomy:
economics has implied the 'victory' of neo- grounds that as higher caste Gujjars, they The culture's very definition of the female
classical market economics and versions of could never have raped a lower caste woman, is her association with the 'inside' - the home.
management theory not out of any intrinsic least of all in the presence of her husband. By contrast, men belong to the 'outside',
merit but only by default. The new theories Subsequently, a large rally was organised where livelihoods are earned and political
are not only not better than the old theories, against the verdict, and predictably enough, and economic power is wielded (p xv).
they also mark the radical retreat of representatives of the state government To begin with, of course, there is nothing
economics from the empirical realities it was pledged their support. particularly Indian about such a dichotomy
supposed to explain.x What might one make of such - consider the centrality of the public/private
We are thus in the strange situation where,
contradictions, where one arm of the state distinction for theorising gender in the
to our minds, superior theories on the is able to protect the accused while the other western world and elsewhere. Secondly, this
strengths of the instruments of planning and to stand by the victim? Our critique
claims distinction is open to considerable confusion.
the unique institutional tasks of the state of the state is incomplete because we have Only a very small percentage of women are
have been found historically wanting in not taken its class and caste composition and in factexclusively associated with the 'inside'
favour of more simplistic theoijes of the identifications seriously enough. The state - sections of the urban and rural middle
market. Such a situation seems to point not
may thus respond - at times with alacrity classes - and their numbers are decreasing.
only in the direction of the failure of a - to the claims made upon it by the women's The vast numbers of poor women who have
particular economic strategy, but towards amovement, whose spokespersons are to work, and the much smaller numbers of
much more fundamental crisis in economic invariably middle class and upper caste, more and privileged women who pursue careers
theory as a whole. The aura and the rhetoric who are also familiar with its structures. The are deeply enmeshed in the public sphere,
of economics, however, which are the effects story is quite different when it comes to though in very different ways. Gender norms
of its power, make this almost impossible implementing policies or laws in favour of for women in the 1 990s are in any case being
to acknowledge. To put it simply, while the a woman of a different class and caste, remoulded: the new cosmopolitan role model,
field of economics itself is in disarray, the especially when it involves opposing those as Sushmita Sen expressed it after receiving
ideologies surrounding it continue to be with whom the state identifies. the Miss Universe crown in 1994, is one who
effective. It is therefore not enough to insist - as can be "a perfect housewife" and still "go
The recognition that economic theories many do today - that the Indian state is in out and get what she wants".
today are caught within fundamental principle more accountable than anonymous Thirdly, and less obviously, it is
uncertainties may tempt us to dismiss Fund- international capital, given that the particularly misleading to associate men as
Bank thought or managerial economics. But government has overwhelmingly failed all a unitary category with the outside world of

Economic and Political Weekly November 23, 1996 3075

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economic and political power. Such power
is in fact in the hands of very few men, who
are upper caste and Hindu, and middle or
upper class, and who may constitute no more I began this paper with some remarks
than 10 per cent of the male population. For about the problems of inheritance for a newnow, various forces at the local, national and
men from disadvantaged groups -
disadvantaged by poverty, caste or minority
status - the question of access to the 'outside' brought us from the 1970s to the present.
world of power needs to be specified and
qualified.
Recall that the conceptual breakthrough
represented by the notion of 'gender' lies
in its status as a relationzal term, where an
understanding of the specific forms of
exploitation and domination suffered by
women requires taking the world of men into provided by the socialism and nationalism
account as well. How, then, might one of the women's movement, which
conceive of the gendered relations of power
between men and women from those
exploited sections of society, with which
development is most directly concerned?
Matters become even more challenging if
we heed Kancha Ilaiah's new study of the
culture and economy of the dalitbahujans:
patriarchal practices exist here too, he says,
but without the existence of the "private"
realm [Jlaiah 1996: 39-40]. This is a clue
with immense implications for the world of
development. For this means that the gender
relations most relevant to us must involve
the following complex relations of power
between women and men: between women,
who do not know the realm of the personal
and private as 'we' do; and men, who are
excluded from the dominant order of things,Agricultural Development: Imperatives of
that is also to say, from the dominant order
of patriarchy and its norms of masculinity
(the bread-winning, caring male, sufficiently
ccrtain of his power vis-a-vis his women and
other men, to be able to be a 'man'). I don't
think our existing conceptions of the family
and the household, and of the forms that
patriarchy takes in these circumstances have
sufficiently addressed the real complexity of
such relations.
Unfortunately, however, too many
contemporary references to gender tend to
collapse back on to women. For example,
recent discussions on the 'feminisation of
poverty' or of the 'feminisation of labour'
under structural adjustment end up treating
women and poverty, or women and the new
flexible reorganisation of labour processes
in the informal sector, as more or less
synonymous.2' But what is much more
troubling is that the discovery of women's
economic efficiency ends up effectively
collaborating with views of marginalised
men as incapable and irresponsible. Under
the present dispensation (where the new
economic policy is by no means at cross-
purposes with an upper caste communal
culture), poor women are being feted as
'good' subjects who make 'sound economic
sense', whereas their unruly men, seen as
prone to violence, especially if they be dalits
3076 Economic and
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or Muslims, become the 'bad' subjects of of non-middle class women whose
modernity and its rationality, undeservingunrewarded labours were yet to be written
even of the rights of citizenship. into national policy. That particular glue no
longer sticks, or so it seems today. Then as
generation of feminists, in the face of the international levels have been speaking in
enormous changes in context that have the name of poor women or the 'grass roots'.
What is new is that the nationalism of that
The ideologies of globalisation and structural time is now being subjected to unprecedented
adjustment seek to make one deaf to the pressures from without and within, making
immediate past and to anything that does notit important to envisage how one might lay
speak in the language of efficiency. Given claim to a history of struggle.
such difficulties, I have tried to reconstruct I would like to believe that the
the 1970s in terms of its frames of contemporary changes overtaking us,
signification - the 'glue', so to speak, disturbing as they no doubt are, also harbour
the possibility of bringing our political and
intellectual engagements on to new and
foregrounded the state as well as the mass fruitful terrain. The time has long come for
SPECIAL, NUMBER
September 1996
Sociology and Common Sense ... Andre Beteille
Agricultural Modernisation and Education ... Krishna Kumar
Verrier Elwin and the Tribal Question in
Late Colonial India ... Ramachandra Guha
Politics of Ecology: Wildlife and People ... Mahesh Rangarajan
Sexual Violence, Discursive Formations and the State ... Veena Das
Should Domestic Prices Be Equated to World Prices? Prabhat Patnaik
Export-Oriented Agriculture and Food Security ... Utsa Patnaik
Institutional Reform ... A Vaidyanathan
Economic Reforms, Employment and Poverty ... Abhijit Sen
India's Checkered History in Fight Against Poverty:
Are There Lessons for the Future? ...Martin Ravallion, Gaurav Datt
Poverty Estimates and Indicators: Importance of
Data Base ... M H Suryanarayana
Minimum Needs of Poor and Priorities
Attached to Them ... V Sitaramam, S A Paranijpe, T Krishlna Kumar,
A P Gore, J G Sastry
Economic Reform and Rate of Saving ... EPW Research Foundation
Savings Rate in Indian Economy since 1991 ... Pulapre Balakrishnan
Explaining Post-Reform Industrial Growth ... C P Chandrasekhar
Foreign Direct Investment and Domestic
Savings-Investment Behaviour .Biswajit Dhar, Saikat Sinha Roy
Capital Market Growth: Trends, Explanations and Evidence ...R Nagaraj
Too Little in the Wrong Places? Efficiency
and Equity in Indian Urbanisation ... Sanjoy Chakravorty
pp 224 Price: Rs 70; $ 20
For copies write to
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Hitkari House, 284, Shahid Bhagat Singh Road,
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Political Weekly November 23, 1996
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those who have been working at the interface [Jayarao 1980]. Government of India (1994): Country Paper
of gender and development to radically 6 Here is a sample from the early phase: Banerjee - India (Draft).
(1978), Bhasin (1977), Gulati (1975), Desai, Neera (1986): 'From Articulation to
refigure its priorities, not by secluding
Mazumdar (1978), Agarwal (1981) and Accommodation: Women's Movement in
ourselves within some putative 'pure'
Saradamoni (1983). India' inLeelaDube, EleanorLeacock, Shirley
economy, but by broadening feminist
7 For a fuller discussion of the ideological shift Ardener (eds), Visibility and Power: Essays
conceptions of the economy itself. Rescuing among the dominant classes from production on Women in Society and Development,
the notion of gender from its ritualistic to consumption, see Deshpande (1993). Oxford University Press, Delhi.
incantations and making it really work for 8 In a recent workshop on feminist approaches Desai, Neera and Maithreyi Krishnaraj (1987):
a more emancipatory and inclusive social to economic theory, it is interesting that Women and Society in India, Ajanta
order is one of the ways open to us, one we different kinds of neo-classical and liberal Publications, Delhi.
economic theory came in for much more Deshpande, Satish (1993): 'Imagined Economies:
have every reason to take.
discussion than Marxist economics [Krishnaraj Styles of Nation-Building in 20th Century
19951. India'. Jour-nal of Arts and Ideas, Nos 25-26,
Notes
One of the shortcomings in the new literature December.
on gender and development is that different Escobar, Arturo (1995): Encountering
[This paper developed out of talks given at the
approaches to development, whether they be, Development: The Making acnd Unmaking of
following places: IV Annual Conference of the
say, neo-classical cost-benefit analyses or the the Third World, Princeton University Press,
Indian Political Economy Association, Hyderabad
structuralist perspectives of Marxism, all tend Princeton, N J.
Central University, January 20-22, 1995; Madras
to be presented as more or less equivalent Gulati, Leela( 1975): 'Female Work Participation
Institute of Development Studies, November 13,
because of their shared limitations in - A Study of Inter-State Differences',
1995; and the VlIth National Conference of the
incorporating gender issues. We thus get no Econiomic and Political Weekly, Vol 10, Nos
Indian Association of Women's Studies, Jaipur,
sense of how any of these theories emerged 1-2, January 4-1 1.
December 27-30, 1995. The comments and
historically, nor what their present functions Ilaiah, Kancha (1996): Why I Am Not A Hindu:
questions of the audiences at these venues are
in specific contexts might be. Even in as A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy,
gratefully acknowledged. I have also benefited
insightful a study as Naila labeer's which Culture and Political Economy, Samya,
from the discussions of the law group at Anveshi
strongly emphasises the need for an Calcutta.
Research Centre for Women's Studies,
institutional approach to gender as a relation Jayarao, Kamala (1980): 'Who Is Malnourished
Hyderabad.]
of power, the institutions in question - the - The Mother or the Woman'? Medico Friend
state, the household, the market and the Circle Bulletin, 50, February.
I I take this phrase from the title of Veena Das'
community - remain abstract and without Kabeer, Naila ( 1995): ReversedRealities: Gender
recent book [Das 1995].
history that is to say, without effective content Hierarchies in Development Thought, Kali
2 The authors of the Country Palper are quite
[Kabeer 1995]. for Women, New Delhi.
self-conscious about the advance their chapter
9 The language of women's economic agency Kalpagam, Uma (1994): Labour and Gender:
on violence represents - as they expressly
has already been so naturalised in the Draft Women and Survival in Urban India, Sage,
state, the Towards Equality report had not
Coutntry Paper, that it even attributes this New Delhi.
even conceived of its necessity.
style of thinking to the Towards Equality Kaviraj, Sudipta (1988): 'A Critique of the Passive
3 In a recent overview of this period, Indu
report. Revolution', Economic and Political Weekly,
Agnihotri and Veena Mazumdar quite readily
10 For a good discussion of the question whether Special Number, Vol 23, No 27, November.
acknowledge that "international develop-
a feminisation of labour can be said to be Krishnaraj, Maithreyi (1987): 'New Opportunities
ments... influenced the movement in India
taking place in our industrial context, see on Old Terms: The Garment Industry in India',
from the start" [Agnihotri and Mazumdar
Shah, Gothoskar, Gandhi and Chhachhi Social Scientist, 169, Vol 15, No 6, June.
1995:1869]. But when it comes to setting up
(1994). An early treatment of this issue was - (ed) (1995): Feminist Approaches to Economic
their account of the movement, the frame they
initiated by Krishnaraj (1987). Theory - A Report, Indian Association of
adopt is straightforwardly national.
Women's Studies.
4 In an important recent study, Maitrayee
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Economic and Political Weekly November 23, 1996 3077

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