Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

Exploring Linkages between Citizenship, Livelihood Security 349
to tangible resources, especially those distributed by the state. Therefore,
the programme placed priority on providing support to the needs and
demands articulated by rural women, and sought women’s participation
as never before—seeing them as initiating agents in the move towards
greater possibilities (IDS 1991). A predictable support structure at the
block, district and state levels helped take forward the issues emerging
from the village level.
The village-level sathin (change agent), consciously selected from the
disadvantaged groups, was expected to facilitate the process of change.
The activism of the sathins helped mobilise women on a number of
fronts. The sathins raised issues related to the delivery of public services—
water, education, health, grazing land, Public Distribution System—and
grappled with the day-to-day realities of women from marginalised sections
and locations. Many of them took up human rights issues in their
villages, raising their voices against atrocities and violence against women.
Others were involved in livelihood issues to get pensions for widows and
the aged, and ensuring the payment of equal and minimum wages to
women, especially from the marginalised sections (see Box 16.1).
Box 16.1
Women Take up Rights Issues
Encroachment of Grazing Land: Twenty women from village
Salemabad in Ajmer district met sathin Kamla to discuss the encroachment
upon a portion of the village common grazing land by a
few upper-caste families from another village. The encroachers would
beat up the cattle of the village residents and also put up fencing.
This was very upsetting as the women, being poor, were totally
dependent on that grazing land for feeding their cattle. The sathin
organised a meeting where all the affected women decided to act
immediately. They requested the sarpanch to intervene in the matter.
Initially the men felt that the women should keep out of this,
but the women took a firm, active stand, and said that they were only
taking back land which was theirs. The sarpanch feared violence,
called the police, and finally the land was returned. The women’s
persistent efforts prevented the land from being taken away by an
exploitative group.
(Box 16.1 continued)