Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

342 MANDAKINI PANT
Samarthan conducted training for the members on gram sabha and
gram swaraj. The training methodology involved interactive sessions
between group members, with the field worker acting as the facilitator
and the resource person of the subject. These discussions would normally
take place after the routine activity of depositing savings or repayment of
loans. Classroom-training sessions also took place. Meetings, awareness
camps, trainings, exposure visits and information dissemination were the
main instruments of Purti Sansthan’s intervention. The capacity-building
strategies of PANI aimed to strengthen SHGs towards meaningful participation
in panchayats. Hence, their capacity-building strategies included
open community meetings, exposure to works done by panchayats and
financial statements of panchayats.
POTENTIAL OF SHGS AS CHANGE AGENTS
The experiences of the collective action of SHGs in the study are by no
means sufficient to draw a universal conclusion, yet their success offers
significant insights into the ways in which they can enhance the political
participation of women. Experiences of the post-73rd Amendment phase
indicate that women’s participation in PRIs has not moved greatly beyond
rhetoric. The opportunities for women’s participation in deliberations,
as well as in the decision-making processes of the gram panchayat, have
been minimal. Their participation is not significant enough to make the
institutions responsive to their needs and priorities. However, the findings
of this study clearly indicate that SHGs are providing a support base to
women from marginalised communities by mobilising communitylevel
activism. SHGs can enhance women’s participation in PRIs in the
following ways:
(a) Ensuring Accountability of the Gram Panchayat
SHGs as active, articulate and organised citizenry have acted on a range
of issues, holding the panchayats accountable in terms of the use, production
and distribution of public resources for the common public good.
Their actions can be classified as those that involve interface with the administrative
machinery and those that involve self-help. Among the
former, some actions are in the nature of articulation of demands, while