Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

370 RAJESH RAMAKRISHNAN, VIREN LOBO AND DEPINDER KAPUR
THE WOMEN’S DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME
IN RAJASTHAN
Generally speaking, the backwardness of women in Rajasthan is reinforced
by a feudal culture. Rajasthan has a limited record of participation in the
freedom struggle compared to many other states; nor have there been
any other women’s emancipation movements except for NGO activity in
the past two decades.
In 1983, the Rajasthan Government’s Department of Rural Development
and Panchayati Raj, which was in charge of implementing the
20-Point Programme, held consultations with NGOs and social workers.
It came to the conclusion that for schemes like the emancipation of bonded
labour, securing minimum wages, primary education and immunisation
to be successful, women would have to be given access to these schemes
through innovative means. The project document drafted by the department
stated that the main aim of the Women’s Development Programme
(WDP) was to ‘operationalise the policy framework for women’s development’.
In doing so, it took note of the fact that ‘most government schemes
were not accessible to women due to a lack of receiving mechanisms, and
that it was possible to create such mechanisms through flexible and diversified
structures backed by effective participation of women at the
grassroots level’. WDP was not meant to take over the responsibility of
implementing schemes, but was to improve the participation of women,
especially those from disadvantaged communities. The participation of
women was to be achieved through their ‘empowerment’ by means of information,
education and training. The meaning of the term empowerment
had to be gleaned from the project documents. For example,
Development is a notion which demands a qualitative shift in the attitudes
of the people involved … to generate experiences which facilitate altered
perceptions of the self image as well as social image of women … to rediscover
the lost faith and confidence in ourselves, in our collective strength
… [to create] positive perceptions of a woman’s own identity in a larger
social process.
The basic concept, therefore, was for the state to support poor women’s
efforts to organise themselves.