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Essay 6 Civic Driven Change – Opportunities and Costs

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Essay 6 Civic Driven Change – Opportunities and Costs Essay 6 From: Alan Fowler & Kees Biekart (eds) (2008) Civic Driven Change: Citizen’s Imagination in Action. The Hague: Institute of Social Studies. (see also: www.iss.nl/cdc) Shirin M. Rai Civic Driven Change ~ Opportunities and Costs (province) of Rajasthan, India. I have reflected upon this case in order to understand how agency is exercised in different and difficult contexts and with what conse- quences - for individuals concerned as well as for the ‘Human security is concerned with safeguarding and movement for change initiated and participated in by expanding people's basic freedoms. It requires both these individuals. By studying this we can also under- shielding people from acute threats and empowering stand how, what Ruth Lister has called, unfolding citizen- people to take charge of their own lives. Needed are ship 1 takes shape - through an interaction with the state integrated policies that focus on people's survival, and non-state actors, among citizens and for individu- livelihood and dignity, during downturns as well as als. What this case study also shows is that while the in prosperity.’ theatre of action might be local, threads of power link Sadago Ogata and Amartya Sen (Ogata and Sen, this local space to the national as well as the global Human Security Now, 2003) through state programmes and international funding of these. A multi-level analysis of governance is important to understand how civic-driven change might happen, In this essay I focus on the exercise of civic agency and what challenges it might face and supports it might gar- on an assessment of the costs that are attached to modes ner. of struggles. I argue that when analysing or measuring Given these concerns, this essay argues the follow- agency we cannot afford to overlook the risks. When ing: first, that ‘agency needs to be informed by a map- developing programmes that might empower citizens ping of power/relations’ - class, caste, gender, space who are seeking social change, we must not overlook the among others, as well as adequate support, in order to perils of participation. When encouraging civic agents to translate conscientization into change. Second, ‘a act in this way we need to assess their vulnerabilities nuanced reading of power in order to understand, meas- which can make them victims as well as actors in their ure or analyse agency as a concept, strategy or outcome quest for empowerment. By insisting upon counting is important’ because it alerts us to the constraints costs, we can also insist upon the recognition of struc- imposed by social relations as well as the possible spaces tural barriers to empowerment. In so doing, we can re- for changing these. This study is centrally about embod- politicize how we regard agency as well as the empow- ied agency. By this I mean where agency is not just con- erment that might accrue as a result of exercising it. This ceptually constructed but is constituted by and consti- would then allow the focus of civic-driven strategies of tutive of actual bodies of men or women, rich or poor, social change to include not only individuals but also healthy or sick, with or without access to power spaces contexts in which individuals and groups function; not and relations. This approach allows us to examine the only in recognition of the disadvantages that need to be various modes of struggle - within oneself (conscientisa- overcome but also the redistribution of advantages that tion), with others (women’s groups, movements and are needed to shift inequalities in our societies. And networks) and with society as a whole - for social finally, we will then see the structures of power (states) change. A focus on power relations as well as on agency and those of agency and agents (citizens) not as binary of citizens to affect change also allows us to be alert to opposites but as co-constitutive of change. the levels of risk involved in exercising agency on a My concern with this broad issue of opportunities and political landscape where power is manifest as well as costs arises from the study of the unfolding and unravel- hidden, disciplining as well as disruptive. And third, that ling of the Women’s Development Programme in the state ‘civic agency is framed by multi-level governance insti- 4 2 tutions’ - the state and donor agencies. It plays out in local leader’. Training of the sathin was thus an important ele- and global spaces, with ambivalent functions in both ment of the programme - but one that, in the end, failed assisting the poor institutionally to fight dominant social them. relations, and at the same time ensuring the consolidation At the heart of their work was a commitment to ‘col- of power and privilege. It also unfolds in the process of lective processes, working upwards through first evolving ‘becoming’ a citizen through exercising agency. village-level platforms for articulating women’s points of view and then moving outwards to other groups of The Case: The Women’s Development women engaged in similar processes’.5 Both practical and Programme in Rajasthan strategic interests were identified through this process. These ranged from famine relief measures, to combating In the story of the Women’s Development Programme gross forms of patriarchal and social oppressions, in par- (WDP),2 we find that overlooking costs of ‘empowering’ ticular child marriage, minimum wages, recovery of land women through development programmes because they from encroachers, issues of widows’ claims to land, are not politically thought through can be catastrophic for employment opportunities for women, safe drinking the individual agents involved. Moreover, this omission water and healthcare. The articulation of these interests can be fatal for the projects/programmes of change in and mobilizations resulting from them inevitably brought which they are engaged. There are different agents caught the sathin into conflict with the village social and political up in this story - individuals, groups and organizations - hierarchies. As ‘long as the sathins received support from local and international, state and non-state. There are also the district agencies, from the voluntary organizations, different expectations of change - integrative and agenda- and through them the government authorities, the sathins setting.3 We will observe different modes of practice - were not alone in their activities (…). The support of the reflexive, conscientisizing and networking. And, we district agencies was a crucial element in women’s con- encounter different outcomes - withdrawal of support, frontations with caste and class oppressions within rural violent opposition, renewed mobilizations for change, society’.6 However, this edifice based on cooperation and unexpected and unforeseen changes - for the individ- between multi-level agencies and actors revealed tremen- uals and the groups concerned. In this context, power dous strains as the government moved to prioritize the mapping would be deeply contested, messy and incon- ‘family planning’ programme at a time of drought and clusive. crop failure in Rajasthan between 1985 and 1988. The WDP was launched in the Government of On the one hand, government-run famine relief pro- Rajasthan, India in April 1984 with the ambition to grammes were the major means of survival for the rural empower poor women in Rajasthan. The programme was poor, and on the other, these programmes were used by not ‘civic-driven’ in terms of the key subjects that were local government officials to fulfil their quotas for the ster- finally involved. In fact, it was a response to pressures of ilization of women as part of the family planning pro- the women’s movement, both national and international, gramme. Women were caught between these twin pres- as well as to pressures on the Indian state from interna- sures. The sathins mobilized opposition to this double tional institutions in the run-up to the UN evaluation of oppression with the support of the non-governmental the United Nation Decade for Women, 1976-85. While its organizations involved in WDP. The District governmen- funding and therefore, to a great extent, its framework was tal sector, however, refused to discuss the issue. In a par- developed in conversation between institutions - interna- allel move, the sathins from various villages and districts tional and national, state and non-state - its implementa- met in 1986 and identified land and health as the two tion remained in the hands of the volunteer worker called areas that most needed to be addressed by WDP. As sathin (woman friend). In terms of CDC, therefore, an Chakravarti comments, ‘The only aspect of women’s important point to note here is that often the causal links health the state was interested in was that they should between social movements and policy outcomes are not stop “breeding”. The women who participated in the linear. In other words, wider, broader movements can cre- health camps held in Ajmer District, on the other hand, ate the environment wherein state and non-state actors were concerned with a whole host of issues around their develop strategies and policies for change. These then bodies’.7 As this dispute on linking family planning and involve individuals and groups not simply as mobilized famine relief showed, the alliance between sectors of gov- resources for policy delivery but as actors in their own ernance was fragile when competing interests - evident in right, with potential for making change. Chakravarti the different interpretation of ‘women’s health’ that the points out that ‘The sathin was envisaged as a worker with government and the sathins put forward - clashed. State a difference: a catalyst of women’s empowerment at the institutions had a powerful position in this dispute. The grassroots. She was to be instrumental in the growth of final, and arguably the most sensitive issue taken up by women’s collective strength, to increase women’s bar- the sathins was that of opposing child marriage.
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