Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

382 RAJESH RAMAKRISHNAN, VIREN LOBO AND DEPINDER KAPUR
lower-level functionaries of the government connived to corner all
the benefits of government welfare and development schemes. WDP conceived
that the way to break out of this impasse was to create a trained
cadre of village-level organisers among the women. This was to be fortified
by creating a support structure at the district and state levels consisting
of balanced government and NGO components, the former comprising
of gender-sensitised officers and the latter of experienced activists
from the women’s movement. It should be noted that in concept and
in execution, at least in the initial stages, WDP was far bolder than many
of the women’s development projects today. Many of the programmes,
which are basically economic assistance programmes for incomegenerating
activities by women, have gratuitously taken on the label of
‘empowerment’.
The cutting edge of WDP was the sathin, who was seen as a villagelevel
volunteer who would organise village women. The process of
awakening of the sathins by the WDP training process, and their success
in organising women of their village to fight rural elites and corrupt government
functionaries surpassed all expectations. But a few years into
the programme, the old centralised, top-down and bureaucratic approach
re-appeared, and the government began treating WDP as a servicedelivery
scheme and the sathins as ‘volunteers’ who could be ordered
around at will.
It was when the sathins began contesting their classification as volunteers
needing only meagre honoraria that the progressive mask of the
government fell and the repressive character of the state came forth.
Organising at the grassroots, if done with full seriousness, is full-time
work. It was inconceivable that the sathins, hailing from the poorest strata
of rural Rajasthan, could do such demanding work at Rs 200 per month
and yet be expected to survive. The sathins’ demand was that the honorarium
should be along the lines of minimum wages and should be raised
according to their workload. WDP officials (both government and NGO)
began splitting hairs about the difference between a wage and an honorarium,
and resorted to the fiction that since there was no master-servant
relationship, the sathins were getting an honorarium. This was far from
the case as the workload of the sathins was being relentlessly increased,
and the payment of those who refused to fulfil sterilisation targets was
held up. Officials further argued that sathins were doing ‘voluntary’ work