Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

386 RAJESH RAMAKRISHNAN, VIREN LOBO AND DEPINDER KAPUR
sathins of Rajasthan. It would be fallacious to reason that their plight was
such that they could not but revolt. In the face of threats and emotional
blackmail by their superiors, and out of a dire need for their existing
honoraria, they could have silently acquiesced. Yet, they chose the path
of struggle without fearing the consequences. In the face of their persistent
campaign, the Government of Rajasthan, which once thought of terminating
the programme, had to enhance their honorarium to Rs 350 per
month. For all our education and so-called enlightenment, we are unable
to grasp the higher conception of dignity in the struggle, which the unlettered
sathins have. If we follow in their footsteps, we too can possibly
emerge as a truly conscious force from the ruins of an increasingly discredited
NGO movement.
POSTSCRIPT
The Women’s Development Programme continued with the sathins due
to pressure from women’s organisations, despite neglect and antipathy
from the state government. In 2002, the state government again attempted
to disband the sathin scheme, and was again forced to backtrack. The
Rajasthan Institute of Public Administration (RIPA) commissioned a
four-member independent review panel headed by Ms C.P. Sujaya. The
findings of the review team once again corroborated what the sathin union
had been saying all along. The team traced what it called a ‘silent shift’
from the sathin to the ‘samooh’ following a decision to stop recruiting
new sathins in 1992. No official document could be found to explain why
the shift had taken place; there was only an attempt to explain the rationale
for it post facto in terms of the sathin model being a ‘lone crusader’ model,
leading to ‘occupational hazards’ for the sathin. The review team found
that the epithet of ‘lone crusader’ applied to the sathin, and the polarisation
between the sathin and the samooh did not stand the test of WDP
experience, history and lessons. The sathins had always worked through
collective processes with village women and not with individual women
as ‘targets’, planning campaigns and activities on the basis of agreed consensus:
jajams, where sathins fix the agenda based on extensive and
repeated discussions with village women, men and panchayat members,