Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

In the Name of the Community 181
patriarchal values by women themselves, through the processes of socialisation
and other means, makes the articulation of women’s independent
voices more problematic and difficult. In societies facing the challenges
of modernisation and possible integration into other dominant cultures,
there is generally a strong emphasis on preserving a real or imagined ‘pure’,
‘indigenous’ culture. In such sharply polarised discourses on identity and
culture, women’s rights and concerns are often relegated to the background.
It is difficult to explain the status and position of women in Arunachal
Pradesh in general terms. Given the substantial influence of traditional
mores, community institutions and regionally differentiated socio-cultural
practices, there are significant variations in the status of women within
the indigenous communities. Traditional social differentiations as well
as newly emerging economic differentiations within these communities
also impact on the position of women from different strata. In addition,
migrations from different parts of the country, education, mass entertainment,
media exposure and external cultural influences have been shaping
gender relations in the changing social milieu.
In the traditional value system of the communities, the relative supremacy
of adults in general and male adults in particular vis-à-vis children was
near universal. Among some of the indigenous communities of Arunachal
Pradesh, experienced old adults commanded greater respect and played
a decisive role in decision-making. The changing values, disintegration
of old family systems and differences in the worldview of the young and
the old have, in varying forms and degrees, been changing the balance of
power and authority within households and clans.
So far as gender differences in intra-family decision-making are concerned,
any generalisation about the entire state, given the degree of intercommunity
heterogeneity, is bound to be partial. Gender relations in many
migrant families, though not completely immune from the influences of
the general social milieu of the state, are largely governed by the social
conditions of the state or country of their origin as well as by their relative
social position in terms of a caste-class hierarchy within the original society.
Among the indigenous communities, too, there is a great deal of difference
in the relative position of women in decision-making, though by and
large it is argued that women enjoy greater autonomy in tribal communities.
It is, however, equally important to note that in some communities
in Arunachal Pradesh, male dominance is quite high. Within those