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Development Planningfor and by Women: Over
Five Decades of the Indian Experience
By
C.P Sujaya and Devaki Jain
May 2000
*
Table of Content
Part I - How “Planning for Women” evolved from
the first to the beginning of the ninth five year plan
Part II - The “Earmarked Funds” Approach to
Planning for Women - A Closer Look
Part HI (1) - Learning From Experience - the Way Forward
Part III (2) - How to Change the direction of Planning?
Part IV
The Kerala Case Study (People’s Planning Campaign)
Part IV (2) - Some Questions and answers on the Kerala Experience
Conclusion
2-19
19-29
29-33
33-38
38-42
42-45
45-48
1
DEVELOPMENT PLANNING FOR AND BY WOMEN:
OVER FIVE DECADES OF THE INDIAN EXPERIENCE
DOES THE MAHILA COMPONENT PLAN SHOW THE WAY?
By DEVAKI JAIN AND C.P.SUJAYA
This paper attempts to trace the contours of state-sponsored
"planning for women" as it has evolved over the post
Independence period and to examine the extent to which the
women themselves have been involved in the exercise.
The paper is divided into four parts. The first part tracks
the planning experiments of the initial social welfare and
community development era right up to the beginning of the
Ninth Five-Year Plan, with the increasing emphasis being
placed on women's plans, earmarking of resources for women
and fixation of physical and financial targets for women
beneficiaries.
The second part questions the rationale and the model of
planning adopted by the state for women in the light of
field realities.
The third part examines the extent to which the mahila
component plan strategy announced in the Ninth Five-Year
Plan, by itself, has the potential of giving women political
power. It explores the need for the component plan to be
yoked to the process of decentralisation and devolution of
powers and functions to local government bodies so.that
planning and decision making at the local level can
meaningfully involve the women.
The fourth part of the paper presents a case study of
Kerala’s PPC (People's Plan Campaign) where the concept of
earmarking of local funds to women has been put into
practice for the last four years. The positive and negative
points of this experiment are then highlighted along with
remedial suggestions.
The concluding part of the paper sums up the main issues
Arising from the experiences of planning and emphasises the
need for planning to become a part of the restructuring of
the economic polity.
2
PART 1-HOW ^PLANNING FOR WOMEN” EVOLVED FROM THE FIRST
TO THE BEGINNING OF THE NINTH FIVE YEAR PLAN
National planning systems in India have historically
relegated women to the margins of the development resource
allocation processes. This neglect applied as much to women
as the "subject" or "target" of development planning as to
women as the "agent" of development, to women's access to
decision making and their participation in the management of
development planning. Thus, on the one hand, women in the
aggregate received a small piece of the development cake;
and on the other, they had very little say on how the cake
was apportioned and to whom. This double bind in which women
were placed was an index of their weak bargaining power and
political invisibility.
Decisions were taken by men, who largely dominated the
development administration, on behalf of both men and women,
as to how and for whom public moneys were to be spent. Women
did not have agency. Allocation of resources to women was
largely made for activities which male decision-makers
considered fit and appropriate for women.
It is not that women did not receive plan resources from the
Government budgets. The early years of development planning
after Independence saw allocation of funds to the "social
sector", to "social welfare services" and to "Applied
Nutrition" in the Community Development Programme, all of
which catered to certain "perceived" needs of women in
different situations [by policy planners].
1(1) “Social sector” and “Social Welfare Services”
The programmes under the category ^social welfare services"
were aimed at reaching a large number of "vulnerable" groups
which included women and children along with orphans,r the
aged, the infirm, the beggars, the prostitutes, the
physically disabled, the destitute and others. Dubey (1973)
classified them under the
• socially underprivileged
• socially maladjusted
• physically and mentally handicapped, and.
• economically under privileged
3
sections of society to whose welfare and protection the
State was committed. Amongst the category of women,
therefore, widows, unmarried women, women "in moral danger",
aged, infirm and destitute women and "fallen" women received
more attention. Underlined in this typology was the absence
of the male breadwinner, the lack of male protection and the
familial support system.
The categories of programmes under the "social sector" were
more numerous and wider ranging than "social welfare
services", covering education, public health, medical
services, housing, welfare of backward classes, labour,
labour welfare etc. They included school feeding schemes and
maternity and child welfare centres. Illiterate women,
malnourished mothers, girls who dropped out from school, the
groups socially and economically discriminated against by
traditional caste and other societal norms, the economically
deprived groups such as the homeless were covered under the
social sector umbrella.
The First Five Year Plan allocated Rs. 340 crores to the
Social Sector while a very small amount of Rs. 4 erodes were
allocated to Social Welfare Services. Women formed a
significant part of the clientele of the social sector
programmes.
I (2) Community Development Programme and women
The Community Development Programme (launched in 1951)
concentrated on the rural areas and the rural population.
The ambitious objective of this venture was, in the words of
S.Gopal, the biographer of Pandit Nehru, "to change the
whole face of rural India and to raise the level of the vast
majority of our population". (Vina Mazumdar 1998)
In Nehru's own words, "I will not rest content unless every
man, woman and child in this country has a fair deal and
attains a minimum standard of living". Speech at Sholapur,
30 April 1953 (Vina Mazumdar 1998)
Within a few years of the start of the Community Development
initiative, a women's "component" was started as an integral
part of the programme. The Government kept on adding various
activities from time to time to help the rural women. The
basic underlying concept was the importance of home to the
development of community. (Shanti Chakravarti,1977) They
included nutrition education, food production, feeding of
pre-school children, mahila mandals and nutrition to
pregnant and nursing mothers. The women who received the
4
benefits of these programmes were the wives, the mothers,
the daughter-in-laws, the daughters, in short, those who
were members of the rural households. The sweep of the CD
programme was therefore much wider than the earlier 'social
welfare' programmes. The stress was on increasing the skills
and knowledge base of these women within the families. The
planners saw home science, food storage and preparation,
child welfare, food processing, environment education,
sanitation, etc. as important subjects for women because
they were responsible for the welfare of the household
members. The planners recognised the lnstmmenta.1 value of
women in terms of their crucial roles in household welfare.
At the same time the programme overlooked the economic
ventures in which the village women were engaged in and
failed to cater to these needs. (Indira Chakravarti, retired
woman Deputy Director, Panchayat and Community Development,
Assam 2000)
However, the Community Development Programme did create
cadres of women extension workers such as the gram sewikas
who were from rural and agricultural backgrounds and who
developed personal contacts with the village women. (Indira
Chakravarti 2000) The gram sevikas ran balwadis, organised
meetings of women, and helped them with information,
demonstrations on various topics to propagate a better way
°f life. There was less emphasis on food production and more
on family life improvement. (Padmasini Asuri 2000)
Institutions of rural women such as the Mahila Mandals were
also started during this programme at a later stage, for
which the Mukhya Sevika's posts were created, It was at this
time, as Padmasini says, that sewing machines were
distributed to rural women, in the assumption that following
this urban-oriented vocation,, they would be able to increase
their earnings! Other programmes such as Applied Nutrition,
Associated Women Workers' Training Scheme, Farmers' Training
and Education Scheme, etc. were introduced from time to
time. But they did not succeed in strengthening the agency
of women in any sustainable manner. Shanti Chakravarti
observes that inadequate infrastructure was provided to the
new extension agency, their coverage was insignificant, they
had restricted mobility and technical supervision and
guidance. (Seminar on Women and Development, Anand, November
1977)
In 1980, a <country
■
'
'
review
of- the
role and participation of
women in agriculture observed,
’/ "The review’of major
programmes for rural development reveals that the role and
contribution of women were ignored in virtually in all the
sectors and aspects of rural economy such as production.
5
processing and distribution".
The Committee on the Status of Women in India (1974)
observed that "though some member of the Mahila Mandals have
acquired both interests and experience in developmental
activities, their purely voluntary and non-representative
status denied them recognition from local statutory selfgoverning institutions". Their effectiveness, however,
varied sharply from state to state. Reviews and evaluations
have commented on their vagueness of objectives and lack of
resources.
Whether it was the social welfare or the components of the
social sector schemes or the community development
programmes, the quantum of resources actually reaching women
was comparatively, very small. Decision making powers were
not vested with women in any significant way. Yet these
initiatives raised some very important issues related to
women's roles, the need for education as an intervention to
change women's lives and the importance of extending
sustained support to cadres of women workers in the rural
areas. Some of the women workers emerged as role models, in
doing pioneering work, in spite of various impediments and
challenges.
I (3) The setting up of the Central Social Welfare Board
The setting up of the Central Social Welfare Board (1953)
was an experiment and an innovation of a very different
kind. It gave women agency and enabled them to have a say in
resource allocation, planning and implementation. For the
first eleven years of its existence, (1953-1964) the Board
was the sole, dedicated institutional planning and delivery
system for women and children at the national level. It
enjoyed a pre-eminent position under the leadership of
Durgabai Deshmukh who managed to achieve an enviable level
of co-ordination with the other contemporary development
actors and institutions such as the community development
effort, the social sector programmes, the handicrafts and
handloom boards, etc. To enable it to carry out its enlarged
role of co-ordinating social welfare activities with the
other arms of Government, the Chairperson of the Board was
included on the major Boards and National Committees set up
by the Government such as All India Handicrafts Board,
National Committee on F
' \ Planning,
'
Family
National Committee on
Adult Education, Working Group) on Employment of Women,
National Committee on Children, etc.
6
The Board was fully funded by the Government. The fund
allocations made to the Board in 1954—55 were Rs. 63 lakhs.
By 1985—86, it had increased to Rs. 16.27 crores.
Durgabai, who was sensitive to the roles, contributions and
the multiple needs of women and had plenty of organisational
drive, also encouraged institution building by and for women
at the grass roots level, the building of leadership of
women in order to foster social development and the creating
and managing of institutions and mechanisms for the
effective delivery of services to women and children though
people's efforts. The Board was an influential and powerful
organisation which, though situated outside the Government,
functioned on behalf of the State with a degree of autonomy.
This balance was fractured in the mid-sixties when the
Ministry for Social Welfare and Security was set up to look
after, among other subjects, social welfare. The Board had a
broad mandate, consisting of----
• assessment of the needs and requirements of
social welfare organisations.
co-ordination of Central and State Ministries
funding social welfare activities.
• evaluation of the programmes and projects of
aided agencies.
• promotion of social welfare organisations on a
voluntary basis in places where none exist
• rendering financial aid to deserving
organisations or institutions
Over the decades, the Board tended to concentrate its
efforts and energy on only one of these objectives, namely,
that of providing grants, to the exclusion of its
promotional, catalytic, watch dog and co-ordinating roles.
The Board did not also seize the opportunity of playing a
decisive role in resource allocation and planning in the
social welfare and social development sector, in spite of
Durgabai's early initiatives in this regard. This was
certainly a case of an opportunity missed.
IVe conclude by observing that Social welfare, Community
Development, education, health and other basic needs--these
were the components which helped the tentative contours of
"plans for women" to take shape in the first two decades of
development planning in India.
7
I (4) The logic of ‘special programmes’ for women
Why were special programmes for women thought to be
necessary? On the one hand, Article 14 lays down equality
before the law between men and women as a fundamental right.
Article 15 abjures all discriminatory practices on the basis
of sex. Yet in the very same Article, that is Article 15(3),
the Constitution legitimised positive discrimination in
favour of women and children "nothing shall prevent the
State from making special provisions for women and children"
Was it not the basic premise of the Constitution that these
'special provisions' were necessary for enabling women to
successfully claim the fundamental right to equality?
The same logic appears in relation to the right to equality
irrespective of caste. Article 15(1) prohibits
discrimination on the basis of caste, but Article 15(4)
empowers the State to make "special provisions" for
scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and socially and
educationally backward classes.
In other words, it was accepted that women's historically
disadvantaged position could not be converted to one of
equality with men purely through the Constitutional—legal
framework. Positive discrimination, affirmative action,
special schemes, programmes, resources, all had to be added
to strengthen and provide ballast to the legal framework of
gender equality.
The provisions of Article 15(3) regarding positive
discrimination in favour of women and children were added
later to the Constitution through the First Constitutional
Amendment in the early fifties. A judicial verdict of 1951
had pronounced preferential treatment to weaker sections as
discriminatory. The Constitutional Amendment was then
carried out to enable the Government to introduce special
measures for the upliftment of women. This was in line with
the strategy of the Government to use state intervention to
confront institutionalised discrimination. (Vina Mazumdar
1998)
A suggestion for reservation of seats for women in elective
bodies, for example, was proposed as long back as the
Constituent Assembly was turned down by the women members of
the Assembly on the grounds that it went against the
8
principle of equality of the sexes! We have certainly
travelled a long way since!
But was equal attention paid to the identification of the
roots of inequality and to attacking the structural
infirmities and defects that had led to women being unequal
partners in society? This is a question that must be asked
and has been indeed asked from time to time by the women's
movement.
I (5) The 1970’s—The Committee on the Status of Women in India,
the United Nations Decade for Women and New Research under
Women’s Studies
The publication of the report of the Committee on the Status
of Women in India (CSWI) (1974), the International Women's
Year (1975) and the declaration of the International Women's
Decade (1976—85) were the milestones of the seventies. The
CSWI's report "Towards Equality", was commissioned by the
Government. It served its purpose in raising the women's
question in relation to the direction that planned
development had taken in the first two post-independence
decades vis-a-vis the realisation of the promise of and
commitment to gender equality that the framers of the
Constitution had made to the women of India.
Empirical research conducted during this period had gone
into areas hitherto untouched, such as women's work, intra
household disparities, satisfaction of basic needs, violence
against women, women's health and survival, lack of legal
protection and vulnerability to oppression and
discrimination both in the private and public sphere.
A time-allocation study conducted in 1976—77 by Devaki Jain
and Malini Chand (ISST, New Delhi)verified the hypothesis
that female work participation rate was under enumerated
because of the nature of female work and wages. The
statistical invisibility of women's work has now become part
of conventional wisdom. The study, which was done in 6
villages in Rajasthan and West Bengal, identified the
various determinants of female labour supply, regrouped
productive apd non-productive activities against the
conventional logic and defined gainful activity on the basis
of evidence.
The hitherto unacknowledged economic contribution of poor
women to the survival and welfare of their households was
highlighted through these studies even as the anti-poverty
programmes made their first appearance on the agenda of the
national government.
9
The invisibility of poor women's work, their multiple and
overlapping roles, their discontinuous engagements in the
labour force and many other factors ensured that it would
take another decade before the Government finally realised
that addressing the household would not automatically reach
programme benefits to the women in it. IRDP was launched in
the mid-seventies and DWCRA in 1981--82
The information that emerged through research helped to
foster a new understanding of women's roles and
contributions which now broadened and deepened considerably
from what it was in the fifties and sixties. Amidst the
emerging debate and the search for answers to old as well as
new questions, the responsibility of the state as the prime
mover for social change was re-emphasised, even as the stark
contrast between statements of gender equality and the
structures in place through which women were to be empowered
for social change became more and more apparent.
The "internationalisation" of the issue of women's status
through the agency of the UN also helped in focusing
attention on the structures within national governments
which were responsible for ensuring the advancement of
women. With the inception of the International Women's
Decade, the 'national machinery' became an officially
sanctioned and legitimate concept, the preoccupation with
which has continued ever since.
I (6) The Gradual Emergence of “Plans for Women”
Along with this, the sanctity of formulating a 'plan of
action' for women was also globally acknowledged. It was
first depicted in the "World Plan of Action" for women,
which emerged from the first International Conference for
Women in Mexico in 1975. The Government of India came out in
1976 with its own National Plan of Action for women, a 36
page document partly inspired by the World Plan of Action,
partly based on the suggestions of the 1974 report of the
CSWI and borrowing from certain parts of the approach to the
Fifth Five Year Plan. The National Plan of Action consisted
of five separate chapters on
10
1. Education,
2. Health, Family Planning and Nutrition,
3. Social Welfare,
4 . Employment
5. Legislative Provisions.
There were certain dichotomies and contradictions in the
Plan of Action which are indicative of the difficult
transition that was being negotiated from viewing women as
consumers of welfare and protective services or household
nurturers to productive persons in their own right.
The National Plan of Action recommended setting up
structures comprising of what the global discourse termed
the 'National Machinery'. These were set up within the
Government of India in the mid-seventies.
The National Committee on Women (headed by the Prime
Minister) and the Women's Welfare and Development Bureau
within the Department of Social Welfare. The National
Committee then created a Steering Committee, which in turn
constituted an inter-departmental committee consisting of
representatives of most of the Ministries functioning in
areas considered important for women.
Each of the five Chapters of the National Plan of Action
contained a separate Action Plan, covering particular
sectors. The National Plan of Action contained a large
number of suggestions and recommendations In fact, one of
the ‘functions of the Steering Committee, which was the
creation of the National Committee on women, (see box above)
was to cull out the items requiring immediate attention and
action from the National Plan of Action and indicate as to
how these may be implemented. (It is another matter that the
proceedings of the Steering Committee do not show any great
pre-occupation of the Committee members with following up
this particular theme).
What is important to note here is that, post-CSWI and post
Mexico World Conference on Women, the Government of India
took the first tentative step to frame a document which was
an aggregation of schemes, programmes, suggestions for
reform, etc. which had several ingredients of a "component"
approach. The reasons for its lack of sustainability were
several. One was the failure to allocate resources on a
matching and secure basis. In other words, the plan-design
11
exercise was not matched with a resource allocation process.
The NPA stood outside the budgetary process of the
Government of India and no effort was made to dovetail the
two. Another reason was the lack of an accountability
mechanism.
However, at this time, the demands for component plans and
separate allocations for women's programmes were
simultaneously being voiced from other locations.
• The Working Group on Employment of Women set up by the
Planning Commission (chaired by Prof. Ashok Mitra, with
Prof. Raj Krishna as the member-in-charge. Employment,
Planning Commission) as a preparatory exercise to feed
into the Sixth Five Year Plan produced a report that
recommended a special plan for women within every sectoral
and area plan. It recommended the delegation of
responsibility of women's advancement to each of the
Ministries implementing its own plan of action for women.
No longer were women to be the responsibility or the
constituency of only one or two Ministries. Henceforth
women were the subject matter of all government agencies
and formations.
• The National Committee on Women in its first (and only)
meeting held in April 1978 passed a resolution that all
departments should ensure that their plans and policies
should not adversely affect the opportunities for women
but should actively safeguard and support them. These
special steps were to be documented and presented to
Parliament.
• The Steering Committee, (the creation of the National
Committee on women) in its second meeting, decided that
the Minister for Social Welfare would address a letter to
his Cabinet colleagues on the need for
"a deliberate policy to promote women's integration in
all sectors of economic and social policy---- in the
development plans of every sector--- . I would
therefore suggest that a beginning should be made in
all sectors of the Plan of your Ministry. A reasonable
percentage of allocation may be earmarked for
programmes relating to women and may be separately
monitored".
(emphasis added)
Here is the germ of the component plan for women. It emerged
from divergent locations, voiced by different sets of
people, all within the broad category of spokespersons or
12
agencies for social development within the national
government. The emphasis was three-fold.
=> one was the need to broad base the women's
question, moving it away from its centre in
social welfare to spread it out amongst many
agencies within the government. This
"burgeoning" was the reflection of the new
internalisation (based on empirical data and
research) of women's productive roles, their
contribution, both actual and potential, to
national development.
=> the other was to allocate specific resources
for women in each of these agencies from out
of their existing budgets. This came out of
the collective realisation by development
agencies that in spite of the right to gender
equality to women and prohibition of
discrimination on the basis of sex contained
in the Constitution, women's traditional and
accumulated handicaps effectively prevented
them from enjoying these benefits without the
weight of affirmative action. Thus, "gender
neutral" strategies or mechanisms adopted by
the state, such as budgeting and planning for
the families, householdsr communities (or the
general population) as a unit, had failed to
reach the women in these categories.
=>the third was the insistence that each
government agency should manage and monitor
its own investments in women, that they had
to own up to this responsibility themselves.
This went counter to the conventional wisdom,
which had ruled in the bureaucracy hitherto,
that apportioned the field of development and
administration into discrete jurisdictions
amongst the various state agencies. Women as
a cross cutting theme or subject were a new
paradigm that had to be grappled with by the
state structures.
In spite of these pronouncements by the organs of the State
and by the influential working groups of the Planning
Commission, the Component Plan for Women did not take any
concrete, system-wide shape for the next two decades, There
were some exceptions, however, iwhere
’
the idea of earmarking
resources for women within a larger programme meant’ for the
'general population' did catch the imagination of the
13
political masters and the policy makers. These then took
shape as directives in certain programmes, sectors and
ministries. Prominent amongst them was the range of anti
poverty programmes, which were introduced in the seventies
and eighties.
ANTI POVERTY PROGRAMMES AND WOMEN
The Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) targeted
faiailiesf which meant, overwhelmingly, the male heads of
families or other male members. But not the women. The
number of women beneficiaries covered by IRDP, as per
figures furnished by the Government itself, was
infinitesimally small. Development of Women and Children in
Rural Areas (DWCRA) was therefore started as a sub-scheme of
the IRDP, solely for women (and children). It was launched
in 1981-82 on pilot basis in a few blocks, later on taken up
in all the states as a major programme for poor women. But
in 1985, the Government also took a decision that one third
of the IRDP beneficiaries shall be women. One third of the
beneficiaries of TRYSEM (Training of Rural Youth in SelfEmployment) were also to be women. Jawahar Rozgar Yojana had
also a stated preference for women. Most of these anti
poverty programmes have 30—40% of benefits reserved for
women. The Indira Awas Yojana has a special component in
which dwelling units are constructed for the poorest womenheaded households.
In addition to the Ministry of Rural Development with its
focus on women in poverty, many other agencies of the
Government of India took up both 'women-specific' programme
initiatives as well as strategies to benefit women in a
targeted way through 'general' programmes. This trend picked
up steadily through the Five-Year Plans. The Sixth Five Year
Plan (1980-- 85) emphasised women as a specific development
sector and a planning priority. The Seventh Plan (1985-90) identified and promoted 'beneficiary oriented
programmes' with the objective of extending direct benefits
to the women. The Eighth Five Year Plan (1992-97) emphasised
that the "benefits of development from different sectors
should not bypass women". "Special Programmes are to be
implemented to complement the general development
programmes. The flow of benefits to women in the three core
sectors of education, health and employment are to be
monitored vigilantly". By the nineties, the thrust on
women's development had resulted in a perceptible increase
in resources allocated in the budgets of certain Ministries
and Departments under the broad rubric women's development.
The approaches followed were mainly, two fold, one, special
programmes for women, the 'women-only' programmes, and, two.
14
the quota or component approach, whereby a part of the total
budgetary resources of general programmes were earmarked for
women, or a specific percentage of beneficiaries were
mandated to be women.
I (7) The Ninth Plan and the resurrection of the Component Plan for
Women
The Report of the Working Group on Women's Development set
up in January 1996 by the Planning Commission to help
prepare for the Ninth Five Year Plan (1997-- 2001), while
reviewing the programmes for women undertaken during the 8th
Plan had this to say about the performance of programmes for
women—
'"Although many beneficiary oriented programmes have a
portion of the targets earmarked for women, the experience
so far has been that the share of the women in. the funds of
those schemes is not satisfactory. Keeping in view this
fact, a separate women's component will be kept aside in
funds of all these schemes to ensure the utilisation of that
portion of funds for the women beneficiaries only. It is
therefore proposed to earmark the women's component in every
central and centrally sponsored scheme from the first year
of the IX plan. The monitoring of these funds will be
undertaken through the Indira Mahila Yojana. Similarly from
the first year of the IX plan, a separate women's component
will be insisted in the state plans as well. After the 73rd
amendment to the Constitution, a large number of women are
now being represented in the panchayati raj institutions. As
the immediate consequential step in the process of power to
the people, there is an urgent need to involve women in the
decentralised planning process. Indira Mahila Yojana will be
an instrument in this direction and through this scheme, the
women will be organised into groups, they will articulate
their felt needs and prioritise these needs which will
subsequently become the district level women's sub-plan. It
is very urgent, therefore, that the Indira Mahila Yojana
follows the Panchayat Raj process in every state immediately
taken into consideration". (emphasis added)
(Ninth Five Year Plan (1997—2001) Report of the Working
Group on Women's Development, Department of WCD, 1996)
This recommendation of the Working Group is unique in one
striking respect. It has yoked the component plan strategy
with a crucial and dynamic concept, namely, that of
decentralised planning.
15
Even before the Working Group's recommendations, the
Department of Women and Child Development had requested the
Planning Commission (in late 1995) to introduce a Mahila
Plan component in the Ninth Plan. The Ninth Plan exercises
were starting at the time, discussions on the draft Plan
with the States/Union Territories and the Central Ministries
and Departments would be taking place. This was the
appropriate time to introduce new planning concepts and
ideas and get them discussed in the working groups.
The suggestion from the Women's Department was that the
Planning Commission should emphasise with all these agencies
to identify
'specific quantifiable Mahila Plan component in
each scheme/programme' before they come for the meetings
with the Planning Commission on the Ninth Plan. While
certain programmes have already specific earmarking for
women (such as IRDP and some of the other anti-poverty
programmes), the Women's Department wanted the Planning
Commission to consider earmarking of funds for women in
other programmes and Ministries such as Agriculture, Animal
Husbandry, Wasteland Development, Employment, etc. It went
on to suggest that the quantum, the percentages, the number
of women beneficiaries and the benefits accruing should be
specifically indicated in the Mahila Plan component. The
responsibility for doing this should be vested in the
concerned agencies of the Central and State Government. The
Women's Department also wanted the Planning Commission and
the Ministry of Finance to give incentives (by way of
additional Central funds) to those States who would give
emphasis to the Mahila Plan component 'by providing targets
in excess of the prescribed minimum percentages'. The
monitoring of the performance of the Mahila Plan component
was suggested to be carried out by the Planning Commission
and the Programme Implementation Department.
(Quotes from the letter dated 12-12-95 from Secretary WCD to
the Member-Secretary, Planning Commission).
Expectedly, the internal notes of the Planning Commission
showed their identification of the concept of the Mahila
Plan component with that of the Special Component Plan (and
also the Tribal Sub-Plan)[See subsequent part of the paper
for these two]. While addressing the advisers of the various
divisions within the Planning Commission, the Plan Co
ordination Division explained, "the Sub-Plan for women, as
visualised, should be operative under all women related
developmental sectors, both at Central and State levels,
just as on the lines of Special Component Plan (SCP) for
SC's and Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) for ST's wherein a certain
16
percentage of both physical and financial targets are
earmarked for the women".
(Note of the Planning Commission dated 20-5-96).
The Planning Commission took about a year to respond to the
request of the Department of Women and Child Development. In
October 199$, it sent a comprehensive communication to all
Ministries and Departments of the Government of India
sharing the general thinking in the Planning Commission on
important issues related to the formulation of the Ninth
Plan. The issues dealt with include--
♦ plan priorities (agriculture, rural development, rural
infrastructure, seven basic minimum services, poverty
alleviation, public sector reform)
* delivery and implementation (creation and strengthening of
institutions of participatory development, involvement of
panchayats, co-operatives, self help groups, workers'
associations, partnership with the voluntary sector)
♦ decentralisation (need to devolve more 'social welfare
measures' to the panchayats, encouraging local bodies to
raise resources. greater autonomy to the States)
♦ Continuation of existing schemes and new schemes (need to
review the entirety of ongoing schemes to retain only
those which have impact, dropping of schemes and projects
where only 5% of expenditure has been incurred even after
60% of the gestation period is over, high priority to be
given to SC/ST welfare through adequate earmarking of
schemes with direct benefit potential for Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes, under the Special Component Plan and
the Tribal Sub-plan, etc.)
It is under this last section that we find a reference to
the Mahila Plan component idea, "For the Ninth Plan, it may
also be desirable to identify a women's component in the
various schemes and programmes of the States and Central
Ministries" observes the Member-Secretary.
The Ninth Plan began in 1997 and will go on to 2002.
Information on follow-up action by the agencies involved in
the Mahila Plan component is scarce and difficult to obtain.
Informally, we learn that the earmarking of 'Mahila Plan
components' by most of the Central Ministries has not yet
actually taken place. As far as the States are concerned,
similarly, we learn that Karnataka, Rajasthan and Madhya
Pradesh have taken certain steps to institutionalise the
17
Mahila Plan component in the State Plans. It is also not
clear what'kind of monitoring of the progress is taking
place and what are the results of the monitoring, where the
bottlenecks are, etc.
I (8) Some earlier initiatives in women’s plans
Long before the Ninth Plan, the mechanism of "Action Plans
for Women" had been tried in some states. Madhya Pradesh,
for example was one of the early initiators.
Karnataka made an effort in 1993 to work towards an
institutional model of planning for women. The objective was
to identify those sectors where women's participation has
been traditionally greater and to suggest strategies for
development of women in these sectors. For a start, six
broad sectors were identified. These were land and housing,
agriculture and allied services, rural development,
education, health, industry with focus on sericulture, KVIC,
VISHWA, etc. The senior policy makers and administrators
(including the Finance Department) then held department-wise
discussions---"a) to identify schemes which would lead towards empowerment
of women by recognising activities in which they participate
and enabling them to have a controlling voice in such
activities,
b) to facilitate diversification of production activities
through training, skill upgradation, access to credit,
c) create a sustained programme for education and health"
The document prepared by the Government of Karnataka states
the following—
"Women's development cannot be a programme of one department
alone. Viewed thus, women would continue to be relegated to
a separate stream, rather than being integrated into the
mainstream of development and economy. Women's development
can only succeed if all sectors of Government are adequately
sensitive to the needs of women and focus their programmes
on women".
One noticeable feature of the Karnataka model was that the
recommendations made included policy changes, amendments to
laws, improvement of procedures, increasing representation
of women in committees, etc. and not only earmarking quantum
of benefits to women or allocating percentages of the funds
18
to women or percentages of women beneficiaries. Both
qualitative and quantitative aspects were included.
Government of Karnataka paper "Women's Development Programme
1993)
»
The "women in agriculture", "women in sericulture", "women
in dairying", "women in fisheries" etc. genre of projects
made their appearance in the seventies and eighties and have
remained with us ever since. Most of these are still being
funded externally, i.e., from outside the mainstream
Ministry budget and plan. The group of Agriculture projects
have been the earliest to be taken up (Karnataka,1983) This
was followed by a number of other externally funded projects
of similar nature in other states such as Tamilnadu, Orissa,
Madhya Pradesh, etc. In the Eighth Plan, the Ministry of
Agriculture launched a pilot scheme of Women i'n Agriculture
in 7 states in the country and this has now been continued
in the Ninth Plan on an expanded basis. This initiative has
meant that the Government plan funds for agriculture are
being invested, for the first time, in a "women's
component". There have been few evaluations of these
projects from a focussed gender perspective. The available
evaluations and reviews show that the focus is primarily on
training for higher productivity and income. While
highlighting the pioneering and innovative nature of these
projects and stressing their positive impact in the Eighth
Plan, improvement in access to technology and extension have
been stressed as resulting in "empowerment" of the target
group women. (Ministry of Agriculture) There is no reference
in these evaluations to equity issues, legal literacy,
ownership rights, land rights, titles, control and access
issues, wages, mobilisation, gender issues within the state
agencies, etc.
In the Seventh Plan, the Department of Women and Child
Development launched the STEP programme (Support to Training
and Employment) in which informal sector women workers
falling in the seven or eight "sheds" such as agriculture,
small animal husbandry, dairying, fisheries, handlooms,
handicrafts, etc. are supported to avail of information and
services to upgrade incomes and skills through the strategy
of groups, such as co-operatives. Cumulatively, these
sectors contain the largest number of women of the
unorganised sector. The Annual Report of the Department of
Women and Child Development (1998-99)shows that a total of
72 Projects have so far been launched, with a coverage of
4.16 lakhs women. (Out of this number, the majority of
19
women, 3.47 lakhs are covered by dairy projects)
The
women's organisations built up under this project were to be
linked with and supported by the huge parastatals or public
sector agencies, boards, commissions, etc. that exist in the
line Ministries of each of the sectors. No evaluation is
available to see the extent to which the interests of these
informal sector workers have been "mainstreamed" in the line
Ministries.
PART II—THE “EARMARKED FUNDS” APPROACH TO PLANNING FOR
WOMEN—A CLOSER LOOK
II (1) “Top down” and centralised
So far, within the Government, the idea of the "plans for
women" or the "component plan for women" or the "mahila
component" had evolved and taken shape within the
conventional milieu of centralised and top-down planning
that has been the common feature of all Indian five year
plans.
D.Bandhyopadyay (1999) quotes E.M.S.Namboodiripad's
dissenting note to the Ashok Mehta Committee Report
"Democracy at the Central and State levels, but bureaucracy
at all lower levels-- that is the essence of Indian polity
as spelt out in the Constitution". D.B.says "prior to the
73rd Amendment, there was an almost non-accountable
bureaucratic administration
the officers were not
accountable to those over whom they exercised power and
authority"
The dominant feature of the component approach was the
earmarking of resources for women at macro- or national or
aggregate level, since that was where the plans were
prepared and finalised. This was accompanied in most cases
by allocation of "physical" targets to be achieved with the
help of the earmarked funds. These targets were decided
upon, right at the top, that is, at the central level. The
effort was to ensure that women got a "fair" share of the
development outlays in the plans/budgets each year by
mandatory executive action at the policy, planning and
programme levels. These interventions were assumed to
satisfy the requirements of women both in terms of their
needs and the requirements of "planning for women". But no
effort was made to question the direction of planning
itself. It was also assumed that women would have no problem
in receiving these benefits through the same general
delivery system. The implementation of these centrally
planned programmes was done by a centrally directed
20
bureaucracy which, through the years, had proliferated from
the capitals right down to the village in myriad forms.
Commenting on the generic failure of Indian planning in
estimating people's initiative and response as a political
force for change, a biographer of Nehru observes that
"planning made them mere beneficiaries. And since the
benefits that was due to them came through a line of
intermediaries, even this largesse was imperfectly
distributed by imperfect people in an imperfect way" (Dhavan
and Paul 1992) This was all the more true of women as the
"beneficiaries" of planning.
The earmarking of resources, the identification of plans,
programmes and schemes for women, the designing of "quotas"
for women within beneficiary oriented programmes aimed at
both men and women, all these processes and activities were
carried out in a centralised fashion, at the national level
or at the state government levels. The prime mover was the
government and its various organs. The influence of groups
outside the government, the women's movement, the women's
studies discipline, organisations of civil society,
community based agencies, etc. on the process of designing
state plans, programmes and schemes was marginal in so far
as the directional issue went, though it was considerable in
other substantive matters.
Consultations with some of these groups did take place with
increasing frequency from the seventies and eighties
onwards. But even they took place it was more to fulfil an
obligation to "meet women's groups", for example, or to
institute "participatory processes" or "to get feed back
from the field" and less to have serious policy dialogues on
the planning paradigms and processes. The government still
played a pro-active role, the discussions were held at its
instance, at times, locations and on occasions decided by
it. Consultations with outside groups, however, did become a
part of the state planning culture in so far as the plans
related to women.
Secondly, these interactions did not directly involve the
majority of the population, i.e. the poor women in the rural
areas, [or the women in the urban slums] for whom these
planning exercises were actually being carried out. Their
voices, or the voices of their representatives, were not
heard first-hand in these meetings. At the most, their needs
and voices were heard at second hand, through the agency of
the women's groups, most of which worked closely with them
and were sensitive to their needs. At the same time, muted
criticism was often voiced that the articulate urban or
21
semi-urban women who found their way to these meetings did
not really represent the mass of rural women. But neither
was any effort made to evolve a system of representation
that would enable the vast majority of women in the country
to feel satisfied that their views were being heard. The
millions of poor rural and urban women had no agency in the
planning process, had no legal and effective representation
in the discourse.
II (2) The lack of attention to gender in planning
The "earmarked funds" experiments and initiatives quickly
became part of the mainstream planning culture as far as
women were concerned. But evaluations and impact assessments
of women-targeted schemes carried out from outside the
government had been throwing up evidence that their outreach
to the poor, especially to the women, was very minimal. A
number of weaknesses and defects were revealed in the
studies—
*
local functionaries approached their tasks mechanically,
were more bound by procedures and targets rather than by
the needs of the women "beneficiaries".
* acute lack
of village level data, on households, on
assets, income, etc. leading to wrong targeting.
* women did not find it easy
to deal with male functionaries
or with the largely male-oriented systems in place in the
village.
* women found it difficult
to organise themselves in
collectives, such as co-operatives of workers etc., due to
cumbersome procedures and lack of technical and official
support. Mahila Mandals [the only ubiquitous form of
women's organisations in the villages] suffered from a
number of systemic faults and were not able to represent
the needs of most needy rural women.
* Whether the
earmarked benefits had the potential to change
women's traditionally disadvantaged gendered position and
what were the issues that these interventions were
addressing did not receive much attention, as the priority
was on reaching the benefits to them.
*
crucial aspects of gender planning, such as redefinition
of categories, reform of information systems, time
22
budgeting of women, area-wise [or "sector"-wise or "workshed"-wise] design of programmes etc. were not part of the
planning design. These gaps resulted in distortions in
design, difficulties in measuring impact, etc. Lack of the
planners' exposure to the emerging discipline of women's
studies led to failure to expose inadequacies in concepts
and definitions, to discover new tools of analysis, such
as survey methodologies using time-use data, methods for
measuring energy inputs and outputs of women, etc.
*
lack of attention to gender and related aspects led to
continued prevalence of sex-stereotyping, neglect of
women's basic survival strategies in programme design and
content.
*
there was no delivery system for gender. The interventions
were an add-on, grafted on the mainframe plan design.
*
(ISSTZ Bangalore)
II (3) Absence of devolution to local governments
Decentralisation of both planning and implementation, which
reduces the distance between the planners, implementors and
the beneficiaries, was missing. So was local accountability.
Local communities of women, or of the poor, were rarely
aware of government plans. Local governments and local
organisations were not involved in planning or implementing
national programmes, except to a very peripheral extent, as
for example, in the identification of beneficiaries in the
anti-poverty programmes. No effective feed back was
possible, as there was no space for it in the planning
cycle. Mid-course corrections could not be done. This
inhibited the process of adaptability to local conditions
and exacerbated women's lack of.awareness, absence of
training and other facilities. Thus, the blue-print approach
of many national programmes did not show sensitivity to
state-by-state variations.
II (4) Representative bodies of women—lack of authority and neglect
of “mobilisation” as a process
The persistence of many adverse features of this dominant
planning paradigm over the last four decades had in fact,
invited the ire of development specialists, activists,
women's groups, social workers and many others. The failure
to involve women's representative groups in planning became,
in fact, a common critique of government programmes. The
Indian women's movement along with the women's studies
movement, had convincingly established the argument over
23
these years of centralised planning that "women,
particularly from the poorer households, need their own
organisation to help them break the barriers of inequality,
invisibility and powerlessness and expand the base for
participatory development" [Kumud Sharma] Beyond the Indian
voices, at global level, the various international
conferences convened by the different agencies of the UN
were saying the same thing. [Mexico, Copenhagen, Nairobi,
ESCAP, ILO, NAM, etc.]
These proponents of mobilisation posited the building up of
organisations of women through mobilisation of groups at
grass roots as a counter to the welfarist ideology that
still dominated Government thinking in the planning and the
delivery of services and programmes for women-- namely, one
which saw women as the 'beneficiary' or the 'target' rather
than the 'active agent'. Groups of women, as opposed to
individual women, had collective strength, bargaining power
and the ability to articulate their views and their needs.
They could build effective leadership, could facilitate
participatory approaches to planning and implementation and
could bring planning closer to the people. As far back as
1974, the CSWI Report "Towards Equality" had made
recommendations for ensuring greater collective voice for
women in local planning. The Committee had recommended the
setting up of statutory all-women's panchayats to ensure
greater collective participation by women in the political
process. The Committee on Panchayati Raj structure (1977)
had recommended village level women's organisations to
improve the quality of planning at the local level.
The Mahila Mandals promoted by the Government in the fifties
were seen to be comparatively ineffective in achieving these
objectives (due to a variety of reasons).
A study carried out by ISST New Delhi in 1992 looked at
mahila mandals, cooperatives and panchayats in tandem as
institutions introduced in rural areas "for ensuring local
participation in the task of socio-economic transformation".
The study postulates the pre-conditions for mahila mandals
to flourish as the increasing growth of panchayats and the
decreasing control of official machinery over rural
development programmes. It is only under such conditions
that the planning and implementation of such programmes as
are capable of being managed locally can be looked after by
representative bodies of women supported by panchayats. The
study found, after examining the position in two states,
that such conditions were not fulfilled, rather, they were
reversed. The role of panchayats was weakening and the
bureaucratisation and control over even locally manageable
24
rural development programmes was increasing. The mahila
mandals were almost never associated with the planning and
design of locally manageable schemes, not even where a
percentage of benefits is earmarked for women, as in IRDP
and JRY, or even DWCRA which is an exclusive programme for
women. Mahila Mandals are therefore handicapped for lack of
information about formal structures, their scopes and
functions. It is only when the supportive hand of an NGO is
there that the study found the mahila mandals to be active
and functional.
The Seventh Five-Year Plan (1980-85) urged that
organisations of women be promoted to ensure the elimination
of weaknesses in programme implementation. The "group
approach" was recommended for improving the quality and
access of government services.
DWCRA (Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas) had
in fact, incorporated the group approach in its design, But
the 'art' of mobilisation of women, the gender ideology and
commitment, the attention to "process" were missing in the
programme design. Mobilisation of women, especially poor
women, takes time. It cannot be made to order. As observed
by a feminist-economist, poverty alleviation was a time
consuming process, it is expensive. Its durable success
depends on both external support and internal motivation,
Above all, the poor must have the room to devise choices of
their own. Within a tightly woven project format, with main
emphasis on reaching earmarked benefits to women, "the group
approach" could not be taken beyond a point to its intended
conclusion. (Devaki Jain 1988)
In a recent interaction, Ela Bhatt (September 2000) made a
distinction between the process of "mobilisation" and the
process of building up an "organisation". This distinction
is very often lost sight of, in the Government programmes,
where the two are treated as one.
Yet the "group approach" did find its way to the government
planning lexicon, with all its imperfections, by the mid
eighties, as evidenced by the Chapter in the Seventh FiveYear Plan document. Some of the government programmes that
have been launched in the last two decades have incorporated
this feature (STEP, CAPART's programme of organisation of
beneficiaries, the Revised Programme of Action of the
National Policy of Education [1992]). The Indira Mahila
Yojana is based on the setting up of self-help groups at the
sub-block level. The National Perspective Plan for Women
(1988-2000), Shramshakti (1988) [The Report of the National
Commission on Self-Employed Women and Women in the Informal
25
Sector] both emphasised the importance of women's
representative organisations in programmes for women.
Meanwhile, new Government initiatives such as the Women's
Development Programme in Rajasthan in the early eighties and
the Mahila Samakhya Projects in several states of the
country in the late eighties and nineties [both of which
used the mobilising of poor women as an article of faith]
became very influential in propagating the success of this
approach. The inputs and the thinking of women activists and
researchers shaped these two initiatives, though both were
launched by the Government. The implementation, monitoring,
evaluation and measurement of impact of these programmes
were also designed in a participatory, gender sensitive and
equity-based way in which the women of the groups were
central to planning.
Most often, there was a wide gap between the group approach
as adopted by the Government and the mobilisationconscientisation-awareness-raising efforts made by women's
organisations. It was the difference between a strategy that
depended on a top down implementation direction, on a target
approach that saw women as needy and weak, but not strong
enough to know how to organise themselves and ask for
information and services and an approach that took women in
the context of their power dynamics and encouraged them to
think of their own self-determination and self-definition.
The group approach in the state-sponsored programmes is
taken up as part of the project design, where an
organisation of women is needed as part of the delivery
mechanism. The stage of mobilisation, where issues of
concern to the women are identified and a slow process of
building a collective identity is built up using empowerment
strategies is missing here.
II (5) Lack of gender-sensitiveness in the implementation machinery
The lack of sensitivity on the part of the top
administrators and bureaucrats, the middle level managers,
the technical and specialised cadres, the extension staff in
the field, the officials at the 'cutting edge' level, etc.
was another adverse characteristic of the top down planning
and delivery’ model. The strategy of "earmarked funds" for
women did not change this environment. The "quota" for women
meant that the same extension workers had to be in position
in the field. Bias towards women was more pronounced in the
case of poorer women, especially those of dalit and adivasi
communities.
26
A Task Force was set up in 1985 by the Ministry of Rural
Development to suggest ways of sensitisation of government
officials in the wake of the government decision to earmark
quotas for women in anti-poverty programmes. It expressed
concern at the poor recognition of the issues concerning
women's development at various levels of the administration.
While on the one hand the Government was taking steps to
increase the access to development resources by women, their
effective implementation required a proper understanding of
the specific issues involved as well as sensitivity towards
the situation of women in a larger context. The Task Force
made a number of important recommendations regarding
training programmes for various levels of officials in rural
development. These included pilot camps-cum-workshops in
DWCRA districts, introducing new features such as
participatory analysis of key issues, face-to-face dialogue
with groups of rural women and formulation of action plans
by the trainees.
Gender training programmes became part of training
establishments' repertoire from the mid-eighties onwards and
have subsequently been taken up on a regular basis in many
State training institutions, but their effectiveness and
even their consistency varies sharply across the country.
More attention is paid to the planning, policy and mid-level
officials and less on the "cutting edge" extension machinery
in these training sessions. A common experience was that it
was more difficult to change attitudes through training than
to convey information or impart skills in gender analysis,
especially when conventional methodology was used. In
training institutions dealing with "technical" disciplines,
the priority tends to be on dissemination of technology and
technology applications, in the interest of making women
"catch up". The training then becomes narrowly focussed and
productivity or growth oriented in the technical sense.
Equity issues, whether related to gender or class, legal
literacy, ownership issues, land rights, titles, control and
access problems, wage issues, mobilisation, overlapping
hierarchies within the training situation, etc. do not get
much attention and sometimes, are totally ignored.
II (6) Parallels with the Scheduled Caste Component Plan and the
Tribal Sub-Plan experiences
The experience of the Special Component Plan for the
Scheduled Castes since the Sixth Five Year Plan (1980—85)
contains lessons for the present initiative to earmark
resources for women through the .mechanism of a component
plan.
27
The parallels between the state responses to planning for
women and planning for Scheduled Castes are indeed striking.
Like women, the Constitution gives the highest priority to
the development-- educational, social and economic--- of the
members of the Scheduled Caste communities. A number of
safeguards have been built into the Constitution to enable
the members of these communities to catch up with the rest
of the population. They include, but are not confined to,
legal instruments for the removal of disabilities, for
punishment of discriminatory acts of commission and omission
and mandatory provisions for reservations in public
services.
However, by the end of the seventies, it was apparent that
these efforts were too meagre to make a significant impact
on the socio-economic status of these communities. Low
literacy levels, grinding poverty, landlessness and socially
discriminatory practices such as untouchability persisted in
these communities. Whatever benefits accrued, such as in
reservations in public services, were cornered by what came
to be termed later as the "creamy layer" of the target
population .
The Planning Commission then initiated a major affirmative
action programme. It first set up a Working Group with broad
terms of reference to review the status of developmental
programmes for Scheduled Castes/other weaker sections in
their entirety and formulate concrete proposals for a new
development perspective along with recommendations for
effective administrative arrangements. A sub-Working Group
was constituted exclusively for Scheduled Castes.
Based on the recommendations of the Working Group, the
mechanism of the Special Component Plan was introduced in
the Sixth Five-Year Plan (1980-85). The Special Component
Plan for Scheduled Castes launched by the Government in 1980
is designed to channelise the flow of benefits and financial
outlays from the general sectors in the plans of all the
States and the Central Ministries for the development of
these communities. These flows were of three types, namely,
flows from existing schemes, flows from reoriented/modifled
existing schemes and, finally, flows from new schemes. The
SCP is essentially a strategy of earmarking benefits to the
Scheduled Castes in physical and financial terms in the
relevant sectors. In concrete terms, physical goals along
with the financial outlays required to achieve these goals
were to be spelt out in the SCP document. The responsibility
for drawing up comprehensive programmes or plans, earmarking
funds from the sectoral budgets, etc. was vested in the
Ministries and Departments in the Government of India (for
28
the Central budget) and in the State administration (for the
State budget). The Sixth Plan was able to invest an amount
of Rs. 3533 crores under the Special Component Plan in 20
states and union territories as compared to a cumulative
amount of Rs. 433 crores spent in the earlier five plans.
The Sub-Plan for tribals had been initiated even earlier.
Unlike the Scheduled Caste Component plan, the Tribal Sub
Plan was mainly spatially based, choosing the geographically
contiguous areas in which tribals resided.
In October 1999, the Planning Commission, on the basis of a
review of the "special strategies" of the Scheduled Caste
Component Plan and the Tribal Sub-Plan, both at Centre and
State levels, owned that the plans have become routinised
and suffer from qualitative and quantitative deficiencies.
The Central Government has, as a consequence of this
finding, set up Standing Tripartite Committees at Centre and
State level to look into all policy-related matters and
issues for effective implementation of these plans)
(^Letter from Member-Secretary Planning Commission in
October 1999 conveying the decision to all state
governments)
Commenting on the lessons learned from the earmarking
resources for weaker sections without accompanying shifts in
the established planning paradigm, Devaki Jain (1988)
remarks—
"Intensive earmarked support for tribal populations [like
women, identified as disadvantaged] by designing and
executing tribal sub-plans which were area specific—had
failed to decrease the immiserisation of the tribals-examination of the process of planning and delivery of the
programmes revealed that they were handed down from above to
functionaries--- issues of gender had to take a back seat to
implementation-both in terms of the conceptual framework and
of the mechanism of implementation. In short the method
[top-down] by which the development scheme was designed and
implemented, prevailed over the aims and objectives. This
had little to do with who in government or ngo was doing the
implementingor for whom [men or women] or with the package
being delivered.
Conclusion
The effort to move away from "exclusively women's" projects,
resulted in locating an alternative planning format, one
where women would be ensured a fair share of the benefits of
29
general infrastructure, local developmental opportunities
and composite developmental programmes, with all linkages
and inputs. These two formats have dominated the mainstream
planning agenda ever since. The latter model was based on
the assumption that women beneficiaries would find it as
easy as the male beneficiaries to access the earmarked
benefits. While emphasising the need to "mainstream" women
into mainframe planning, the Department of Women and Child
Development has continued to launch new programmes
exclusively for women in subsequent five year plans, while
at the same time, pursuing the case with other ministries to
take women "on board".
PART HI—LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE—THE WAY FORWARD
Part III (1) Can the COMPONENT PLAN for women be a stand-alone?
The several approaches used from time to time to integrate
and institutionalise planning for women and development
within the state systems have been described above. We see
that there has always been a tendency to focus on the
perceived needs of women, through special schemes,
programmes and plans. The impetus for such pro-active
planning came both from within the country—a welfare state,
bound by Constitutional obligations to women's development
and equality-and later on, after the internationalisation of
the women's question, from the global forums, such as
Mexico, Copenhagen, Nairobi and Beijing. The presence of the
women's lobbies, the women's movement, the volag sector, the
community-based organisations, the representative
associations of women, the research disciplines such as the
social sciences, women's studies, the educational
institutions and other civil society organisations within
the country had all influenced the thinking of the state to
various degrees in the process of planning for women.
From a purely "welfare" preoccupation with "vulnerable"
women, the canvas widened to include other broad
constituencies, such as "rural women", "women workers",
"poor women" and women seeking political power. Women were
seen as instrumental in the reaching of socially acceptable
national goals such as literacy, health, small families,
protection of environment and many others. Programme
interventions by the state attempted to involve women in
these important sectors.
These initiatives, however, placed as they were within the
prevailing planning and policy environment and context,
exhibited the typical features of the mainstream top down
Indian planning model in philosophy and practice. Having had
30
its roots in the welfare model, the idea of a paternalistic
state having to think of the needs of the different groups
of the population continued to be very strong. While action
plans and component plans for women came to be hammered out
with increasing refinement from the mid-seventies onwards,
they all partook of the same planning ethos. Plans for
women, in other words, could not strike out a pioneering
path on their own, nor make a brave departure from the
general direction of other mainstream planning exercises.
The idea of the component plan, as we have seen, was first
mooted in the mid-seventies, but was not taken on board by
the Government in a generic sense. Earmarking of quotas for
women, however, was made in many of the anti-poverty
programmes from the eighties onwards. The component plan was
revived in the context of the exercises done for the Ninth
Five-Year Plan, as brought out in the earlier part of the
paper. The content of the directions issued by /the Planning
Commission in its 1996 letter was to identify a women's
component in existing schemes and programmes.
While the Working Group on Women's Development set up for
the Ninth Five-Year Plan(1996) had emphasised the linking of
the mahila component plan with decentralised planning, the
directives and guidelines issued by the Planning Commission
to all the Government of India Ministries, Departments,
allied agencies, etc. regarding the component plan were
deficient in this very important aspect. No mention was made
of decentralised planning in the guidelines.
It would seem that the objective of recommending this kind
of identification process to be undertaken by the
governments is mainly to ensure that women get a fair share
of the development cake in quantifiable terms. This anxiety
arose from the hitherto poor utilisation of resources by
women from state budgets and plans. Instead of adding on
more and more '‘'women-specific" schemes or schemes and
programmes "only for women", the approach was to ensure that
general developmental programmes catered for both men and
women. This was impossible if no earmarking was done and no
targets or specific outlays were fixed for women.
The fixation with figures and quantification, as we have
noticed, is part of the conventional way of measuring
progress or of evaluating satisfactory implementation in
planning terms. The reality of poor, rural women's lives
however, is indicative of many social, economic, cultural
and environmental obstacles that prevent them from enjoying
their due share of resources, services, facilities and
benefits. Unless women are given opportunities to break
o
31
through these obstacles, are able to access information,
technology, challenge unequal power relations through
individual and collective empowerment strategies, the gains
accruing from the earmarking of resources in plans and
budgets cannot benefit them except marginally.
Apart from urging a system-wide earmarking of budget funds,
the Working Group on Women's Development had also made a
recommendation (quoted in the earlier part of this paper)
that for women to be involved in the decentralised planning
process, they should be organised into groups (through the
agency of the Indira Mahila Yojana), that women should
articulate and prioritise their needs and that this process
should lead to a district level "women's sub-plan".
The Indira Mahila Yojana (IMY) (recast) has been described
as an integrated programme for women's development, which
seeks to build an organisational base for women throughout
the country. It aims to converge all the social development
programmes and integrate sectoral allocations at the
district level to address women's needs. The lowest rung of
the organisational structure consists of Indira Mahila
Kendras at the anganwadi level. These groups, along with
other similar groups constituted under various health,
education and other social development programmes, would
federate at block level. The Indira Mahila Kendras are
basically self help groups. They are expected to access
various programmes implemented by the Rural Development,
Urban Development, Education and Health sectors as well as
others dealing with economic and production activities. The
Women's Department conceives of Indira Mahila Yojana as an
important constituent or conduit of the Mahila Component
plan. However, this Yojana is still pending final clearance
of the Government. In the meanwhile, activities had started
in about 200 blocks some years ago and the Planning
Commission has recently reviewed these. How far the agency
of the IMY will be able to involve grass roots women in
local decision making, only time will tell.
A joint evaluation report prepared by the Department of
Women and Child Development and the Planning Commission in
1997-98 arrived at the following findings--
■
though’IMY has a potential to use women's groups as an
instrument of women's empowerment, there are many
operational problems such as lack of training, funding
for income generation and convergence activity, lack of
animators, etc.
UJH ' lOO
CA\
i'°* A /
j
X*
..
:.
■■
32
the absence of co-ordinating officers in the district and
the failure to draw up district plans has affected the
implementation.
Based on the findings of the joint evaluation, the Yojana
was recast with new features, such as greater flexibility
for women to form groups, participation of members of local
panchayats and officials as facilitators, preparation of
district plans by IMY which will reflect women's priorities,
active involvement of NGO's to assist in group formation,
devolution of planning powers for block level projects to
the local administration, etc.
From the original 200 blocks, it was decided to expand IMY
to 900 blocks in the Ninth Five-Year Plan.
The concern with quantification, with expenditure, with
utilisation of funds within a prescribed time limit, with
counting of beneficiaries, with reaching targets set at the
beginning of the plan period and other easily measurable
indices have been part of the stock in trade of government
programmes. The component plan, by itself, is a further
illustration of this methodology. By itself, without the
help of strategies of empowerment, participation,
mobilisation and sustained support, the component plan
approach would not be able to counter the factors
responsible for the unequal status of women.
The consensus that had evolved over two decades of active
field mobilisation, grass roots research and interactions
with the women was therefore that it was necessary but
certainly not sufficient to earmark resources for women in
the budgets and planning instruments and that in the effort
to involve women in planning, it was necessary to involve
them in local level planning as a part of political
empowerment strategies.
The instrumentality of the component plan therefore, needs a
set of empowerment and participation strategies to enable
transfer of political power to women, to enable them to take
charge of planning changes in their own lives. A basic
requirement would seem to be the over-turning of the
hierarchy of present day planning, of the top-down model. A
window of opportunity has opened with the promise of
devolution of powers and decentralisation of functions to
the three—tiered panchayats at village and sub—district and
district levels.
Strategic partnerships between elected women in panchayats,
local community women's groups and those resource
33
organisations who are committed to women's political,
economic and social empowerment would be another critical
requirement. Such partnerships are already much in evidence.
A large number of resource organisations are engaged in
networking in different parts of the country, taking up a
variety of activities in collaboration with women in the
community and the elected women in the panchayats. Issues
taken up include credit, capacity building, employment,
shelter, savings and credit, communication of information
and other innovations. Problems of violence, health,
education, local corruption, lack of accountability of local
governments, etc. are tackled through building a supportive
environment which will allow institutional solutions to be
handled by the women themselves.
Swayam Shikshan Prayog, a voluntary organisation based in
Maharashtra, working in such a mode since 1995, has now
built an alliance of women's collectives and elected women
of the panchayats and claims that this has emerged as a new
kind of leadership which "is changing the face of local
governance", "transforming gram panchayats to become
accountable and transparent—and building an informed and
active constituency". The synergistic alliances between the
community women and the elected representatives help
mobilise communities to participate in local development,
improve access of all to infrastructural facilities, help
eliminate middle-men and corruption and keep the community
well-informed through regular interactions.
If we were to use such a multi-levelled and synergistic
approach to women's involvement in local planning, the
component plan would then not be a stand-alone, but would be
an enabling mechanism to extend women's outreach to
development resources and goals, defined in their own
tongues.
PART III (2) How to Change the Direction of Planning?
The only significant change, post-independence, to have
occurred in the planning prototype took place in 1993 with
the 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendments. This has found
an echo in the report of the 9th Plan Working Group already
referred to.
The Working Group's deliberations and approach were
influenced by the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution of
India. After these amendments became part of the
Constitution in 1991 and were followed by new panchayat laws
passed in each state, Indian development planning and
administration, theoretically at least, could never be the
34
same. Twenty-nine different kinds of development and
regulatory activities had now to be transferred to the
panchayats as units of local government. This was a
mandatory provision, not an optional one. The subjects
included social sector priorities such as education,
drinking water, women and child development, etc., economic
priorities such as the anti-poverty programmes, production
oriented activities such as agriculture and allied subjects,
forestry, infrastructure such as community assets, etc.
The Working Group was clear that the component plan had to
be hitched to decentralised planning if the promises made to
the women were to be actualised. It was no longer enough for
plans, programmes, allocations and schemes to be made in the
Government offices at central or even state levels. They had
to be made by women, where they were situated, where they
were located. It was for the local bodies (including the
urban bodies) to decide what are the kind of schemes that
the women needed and demanded, how much funds were required
to be allocated, how they were to be spent, how the
monitoring was to be done.
With the move towards decentralised planning, fresh interest
has been generated in planning not only for women, but also
by women in the units of local governance. Article 40 of the
Constitution had already envisaged panchayats as units of
local government. But this provision remained on paper for
long, not being legally enforceable. Though Panchayats have
been in existence even before Independence, they 'were
invariably denied any meaningful powers and authority and,
worst of all, the elections were seldom held at 5-year
intervals'. (Devaki Jain, UNDP)
The entry of elected women into the panchayats in large
numbers in the mid-nineties onwards signalled the start of a
complex, multi-faceted and politically nuanced process of
power dynamics. By the time the first panchayat elections
had been held in the states and the women had time to settle
themselves in their new positions, the pattern of struggle
became apparent. On the one hand, women have to fight the
backlash that has been mounted against them, questioning
their credentials, legitimacy, capability, motivation and
sense of responsibility to occupy these offices. On the
other hand, the process of devolution of powers from the two
higher tiers of government, namely the State and the
National Government, to the third tier of the panchayats has
been, to say the least, long drawn out and laggard. There
emerged a not-so-hidden agenda,'- on the part of the
government, of unwillingness to share power with the
panchayats as the grass roots units of governance, which is
35
continued to be played out in different manifestations and
strategies.
Elected women have therefore to fight on several fronts at
the same time. They have to fight for their own place in the
sun in the panchayats vis-a-vis the patriarchal forces
arraigned against them-- and, at the same time, they have to
fight the political and bureaucratic state agencies for
according a greater role in governance to the panchayats.
A senior bureaucrat reminded the participants of a recent
workshop convened at Bangalore to debate on the theme of
empowerment of elected women members of panchayats that for
women to be truly empowered as members of PRI's, it is
essential that the PRI's themselves must work well. Women's
interests cannot be viewed in isolation from the functioning
of the panchayats as a whole. He further said that those who
do not believe in women's participation in panchayats or see
it a problem are those who themselves do not'believe in
panchayats .
In spite of these tremendous odds, many of those who, from
the outside, are working with panchayats have no hesitation
in agreeing that the difference women are making to local
government is becoming evident in new priorities and new
values. Women are not merely participating in the panchayat!
raj process but they are questioning the system itself.
(L.C.Jain)
The challenge is to build up elected women's capabilities
through information, through legal awareness and supports at
local level. The challenge is to build enabling mechanisms,
which can initiate planning by women, that is, bottom up
planning. The committees of the panchayat are examples of
these mechanisms.
The scenario, as we take a look across India, is not very
promising. Panchayats are still seen in most states as
extension agencies, as bodies or organisations which will
help the Government to discharge its developmental and
regulatory functions more efficiently through the use of a
better delivery system which is closer to the grass roots
and to the people. In other words, they are deemed to work
as extension agencies, rather than as people's
representative organisations. Decisions, especially the
major ones dealing with control of resources and shaping of
policies, still rest with the old ruling classes. The
Panchayat's political profile .and genesis mandated in the
73rd Amendment to the Constitution is most often overlooked,
especially at the lowest tier, where because the elections
36
are to be fought on non-party lines, the gram panchayats are
seen as necessarily 'non-political'. The identification of
the word 'political' with the political parties of the day
has helped to create this false negative. As such, the
panchayats, except in a few states, have not been involved
meaningfully in the exercise of planning from the grass
roots. At the most, they can nibble at the margin of the
hand-me-down projects received from the state or national
capitals in the form of programmes and schemes (their roles
are limited to identification of beneficiaries for
programmes designed elsewhere, to supervision of local works
planned and constructed by offices who over whom the elected
members have no authority or control, etc.)
According to the 1999 South Asia Human Development Report,
some of the most basic features of a decentralised democracy
should include guaranteed political autonomy and specific
powers to local bodies in the state, including' delivery of
public services, natural resource management and law and
order. Other essential features include providing local
bodies with the power of tax collection up to a specified
percentage and devolving a certain portion of national and
state revenues to them.
The debate on the changes to be brought about in the power
structure is long and never-ending. The issues are not
simple nor is the environment static. "Power is not
something people give away. It has to be negotiated and
sometimes wrested from the powerful". (Devaki Jain 1999).
But elected women have enough answers to most of the
questions. They know what are the factors which impede them
and what . supports, inputs and services they need to go
ahead. Among the former they included the following—
*
inability to articulate
*
lack of self esteem and confidence
*
lack of information
*
restricted physical mobility
*
patriarchal controls
* double burden of
work
*
corrupt system
*
lacunae n laws relating to PRI's
37
* no freedom for decision making
Among the latter, they listed-*
the need to organise and express solidarity
*
the need for training and exposure
*
right to information, education and economic independence
*
more of women functionaries and officials at local levels
*
gender sensitisation of elected male members and
functionaries
*
representation in all committees
*
amendments in party politics to encourage women's entry
into politics
(Asha Ramesh and Bharti All, undated)
In seeking to access these resources and services from
outside, the elected women in the panchayats can readily
call upon a large number of support organisations from
various locations within civil society.
The women's movement has been one of the greatest proponents
of women's empowerment through political participation and
decision making. Since the introduction of the 73rd
Amendment, many other organisations of civil society falling
under the broad banner of social change, have also been
engaged in a continuous process of helping the elected women
in the panchayats to transform the existing political
culture by promoting democratic freedom and the rights of
the marginalised groups. There are numerous examples of
local action initiated by the elected women in the
panchayats with the help of voluntary organisations,
educational institutions, activist groups, grass roots or
community based organisations and even government
programmes. When assessing the resources of women-inpanchayats, therefore, we should think of the synergistic
combination of these elected women and the support
organisations outside the panchayats as a continuing source
of their potential strengths.
The example of Mahila Samakhya is only one of such efforts
made in various parts of India to forge a link between women
in the community and the elected women in the panchayats.
38
Through the formations of village level collectives of
women, Mahila Samakhya provides a continuing source of
support to the elected women. The sanghas, in fact, become a
reference point for the elected women, as they can take all
the issues relating to governance to these collectives.
Validation and legitimacy are provided to the elected women
through this agency. This ensures that the interests of poor
women are watched over. The Swayam Shikshan Prayog works in
Maharashtra, partnering with community women's groups and
Panchayati Raj institutions. Again, this synergistic link
helps the elected women to get into the gendered debate on
credit, violence, health, education, etc. at the community
level. These interactions also help the community women's
groups by enhancing their knowledge and awareness about the
electoral processes of local governance. There are countless
other efforts of this type which are too numerous to be
recounted here.
The short point that is being sought to be made here is that
planning at the grass roots level can be entrusted to the
elected women even at this rather fragile and indeterminate
stage of the devolution of state powers and functions to the
panchayats, in view of the availability of strong support
organisations in the field. Perhaps women can lead the way,
by transforming and transmuting the macro-level commitment
of earmarked funds via the Component Plan through the nuts
and bolts of local level planning to achievements on the
ground.
PART IV—The Kerala Case Study ( PEOPLE’S PLANNING CAMPAIGN)
Among the states which have progressed ahead vis-a-vis
others in the devolution of powers, finances and functions
to the panchayats are Kerala, West Bengal and Madhya
Pradesh. The following is a case study based on a brief
summation of the Kerala experience from a gender
perspective. (Prepared by Aleyamma Vijayan of SAKHI,
Trivandrum, 2000)
Kerala has gone a step further than the other states. Not
only has it devolved 40% of the budget directly to the
panchayats and urban local bodies, it has also earmarked 10%
of these devolved funds for projects exclusively for women,
that is, for projects which directly benefit women.
The macro-context in which the Government took these
initiatives was the general environment of disillusionment
with what came to be known as the Kerala model of
development in the seventies. Though Kerala has a high human
development index (HDI) notwithstanding its low per capita
39
income, as evidenced by high literacy levels, low birth
rates, high life expectancy and low infant mortality, the
State has been performing very poorly in its economic
sectors, mainly agriculture and manufacturing. The adverse
economic repercussions include economic stagnation, very
high levels of unemployment and budget deficits. On thesocial arena, there was increasing incidence of violence
against women and high/increasing suicide rates. There were
also sharp regional and intra-district inequalities as well,
which were leading to social tension.
Another disturbing feature of this most literate state in
the country is the very poor participation of women in
formal political institutions and processes. The highest
percentage of women in the state assembly never exceeded
in decision
making in trade
10%. The position of women i_.
J
unions, political parties, service organisations was even
worse.
A year after the elections under the new State Panchayati
Raj Act took place in 1995, the Left Democratic Front
Government was voted into power. It was decided to mount a
campaign strategy to make the decentralisation process into
a popular programme. The lead was taken by the Planning
Board, where a cell was created to oversee the activities.
Against 990 gram panchayats, 152 block panchayats and 14
district panchayats, 3954, 564 and 105 women respectively,
won in the elections.
Local level planning was initiated in the wards, that is, at
the sub-gram panchayat level. (Kerala panchayats had high
population densities, average being above 25,000). The ward
sabhas met mandatorily twice a year and arrived at a
consensus on what their needs are and how the resources
could be mobilised. With the help of expert committees at
the panchayat level and development seminars, each gram
panchayat prepared a development report which were then
transformed into project proposals. These projects were then
sent to the district planning committee for approval. The
funds were directly passed on to the local bodies. A
voluntary technical core team operated at each panchayat
level, to ensure technical feasibility and financial
viability of the projects.
The positive indicators of women's participation, based on
four years' experiences with panchayati raj in Kerala, are
as follows:
40
Women participated in panchayati raj not only through
their candidatures for elections, but as convenors of
task forces, as key resource persons etc.
Women attained a degree of visibility in the public arena
that had not been there before.
S There was general acceptance and recognition of the roles
played by the women and the work done by them.
S The Planning Board included topics and issues relating to
women in the training schedules right from the beginning.
The training handbooks brought out by the Planning Board
contained directions to involve women in execution of
development projects. A minimum 30% quota was prescribed
for women's participation in the training programmes at
all three levels.
The Planning Board played a pro-active role in ensuring
that the expenditure on women's projects did not fall
below 10% from the second year onwards. The Board ensured
this by placing an embargo on all sanctions by the
District Planning Committees unless the expenditure on
women's projects reached the minimum prescribed. The
Board thus played the role of a watchdog to ensure
women's interests.
S The Board prescribed a mandatory gender impact assessment
when carrying out cost benefit analysis of all projects.
Special efforts were put in to ensure good participation
and involvement of women in the gram sabha meetings.
A special effort was made to mobilise poor women through
the agency of the anganwadi workers.
The negative indicators of the experience are as follows
In spite of all out efforts, the participation of women
in the gram sabha never exceeded an average of 20%. The
women who attended these meetings mostly belonged to the
economically backward classes.
In the Gram Sabha meetings, the women generally attended
concentrated in the women's development group only, or
the groups in charge of social inputs like water,
sanitation, education, etc. in spite of the fact that
there was no such restriction on their attendance.
41
J Lack of data on women inhibited the preparation of a
comprehensive development report on women. This was in
striking contrast to the reports written on the other
sectors, where collection of data was successfully done,
with full involvement of the members.
S Women's attendance in the training programmes was
disappointingly low. There were many drop-outs.
There was a lack of women resource persons, especially
for training programmes at the lower levels.
The preparation of projects for women suffered because of
inadequate training on development and planning issues,
lack of experts on gender and limited number of women
volunteers. There was all round lack of familiarity with
the basics of gender planning.
In the first year of the campaign, the preparation of
projects for women, against the earmarked component of
10% funds, was unsatisfactory. One view was that most of
these projects could not be deemed to be women's
projects. These projects included roads, bridges,
sanitation, drinking water, minor irrigation and
electricity. Others included beneficiary schemes such as
animal husbandry, poultry etc., where, though the assets
were in the women's names, there was no safeguard that
the control or ownership was actually in women's hands.
There were other systemic defects such as poor marketing,
unsatisfactory health care cover for animals, etc.
S The elected women representatives carried a double and
triple burden of responsibilities and work covering
professional and household spheres. This greatly added to
their stress. They had to face slander and criticism from
families and outsiders. Many of them did not want to
contest a second time for this reason.
Conclusions reached in the case study
In Aleyamma's words,
"The experiences of Kerala shows that attempts to bring
about effective and good governance does not automatically
address the question of gender inequality"
"If good governance is about equity and equality, gen
gender and
gender equity has to be major concerns in development
42
"For example, it is important to analyse how needs are
perceived, voiced and understood? How resources are
generated and allocated? How the differences of power and
privileges between men and women influence upon this
process?"
"The last four years of experience makes it very clear that
women as a group lack the social and economic and political
power".
"The final control over resources and the decision making
capacity is still with men. Many times in discussions,
comparison is made between the scarce resources and whether
it should be spent for drinking water or cycling for women!"
"Many are aware of the issues of women but not of the
potentials of gender-based planning and development".
"The experience in Kerala makes it very clear that just by
decentralising power or allocating funds or putting certain
mechanisms in place, gender equity cannot be addressed.
Kerala has taken a step in the right direction but it needs
conscious intervention to progress further. Patriarchy as a
system has deep roots of society and sustained and long
struggles, systematic intervention of all concerned persons,
especially of women's organisations and movements only can
bring lasting changes".
Part IV (2) Some questions and answers on the Kerala experience
What are the missing links (from the gender perspective) in
the PPC (People's Plan Campaign) carried out in Kerala for
the last four years? What are the conscious interventions
that will have to be introduced to make the plan campaign
stronger in gender articulation?
1. Lack of ownership of the programmes by women in their
collective strength. Who defines what are the projects
which 'directly benefit women'? The formal involvement
of women at the policy making level is minimal. The
Planning Board itself does not have any woman member.
Political space is still to be occupied by women in
spite of their presence in the panchayats in such large
numbers.
2. Men are still the decision-makers. Women do not still
enjoy political power. The women's projects are
generally chosen by those in-position of authority and
deemed to be appropriate for women. In several places,
where women made their choices, these were not
43
implemented. Women wanted mobile libraries, it was not
agreed to. When choosing self-defence training,r women
wanted to go the whole way in karate, iup to the black
belt. This was not deemed necessary.
3. Gender planning is both political and technical, It is
not enough to incorporate women's needs into existing
planning disciplines without re-ordering the context and
the rationale of the current planning tradition. Neither
the political nor the technical dimension is in evidence
in the Kerala context. Therefore, the question of what
constitutes a "women's project" within the "women's
component plan" is left wide open. As one of the elected
women put it, the money in the component plan is spent
without understanding the "problems, needs, potentials
and limitations" of women locally. The money is spent on
pre-determined projects, artificially termed as "women's
projects" by tagging on the word "women" (women's
cowshed, women's milch cattle).
4. How do we introduce gender into local level planning?
How do we ensure that women's entry into political life
has empowered them?
Moving towards gender equality, as the 1995 UNDP HDR reminds
us, is not a technocratic goal—it is a political process.
Moving towards gender equality, as the 1995 UNDP HDR reminds
us, is not a technocratic goal—it is a political process.
HDR's have introduced some indices to help measure progress
towards reaching gender equality. "These indices were useful
since they gave an opportunity to develop more interesting
ways of monitoring attempts towards equality than the usual
breakdown of activities by sex and numbers in social
indicators, such as literacy rates, infant mortality, etc."
(Devaki Jain 1999) But in the context of the countries of
the developing world, it is necessary to go beyond these
indicators and include, instead, indicators linked to
certain characteristics of poor countries. Key issues such
as disparities, unequal opportunities, access, participation
(as differentiated from membership only), poverty, etc.
would be used to evolve a gender audit mechanism which in
turn would lead to better implementation and monitoring of
locally planned programmes and their impacts.
Gender planning has been defined as a transformative planning
tradition, which has as its goal, the emancipation of women
and their release from subordination. While it is not a
theoretical construct, nor has any universally applicable
44
procedures or broad generalised assumptions, it does have
components of planning practice, tools, methodologies, built
on extensive research and literature on women and gender in
the first and third worlds. (Carolyn Moser)
Some of the basic conceptual issues underlying gender
planning tradition are the differentiation between sex and
gender, between practical and strategic gender needs,
between gender relations approach and women-in-development
approach, etc. Many of the 'women's projects' taken up
under the 10% component plan for women cater to women's
practical gender needs, but do not take things further.
Thus, increased income generation for women may be at the
cost of their increased drudgery, without bringing in any
space for questioning the perpetuation of unequal sexual
division of labour. The case study shows that opportunities
for increasing women's income have been identified in such a
way that women can combine them with household
responsibilities! Questions such as ownership, control,
management of assets were also not always addressed. If
strategic gender needs had been addressed, the projects
would have worked on different assumptions, while taking the
acknowledged need for increased income by the poor women as
a starting point. Similarly, access to anganwadi centres by
women was not ensured, though the construction of these
centres was taken up under the women's component. Increased
mobility for hitherto housebound women (through cycling)
adds to women's self-confidence and power, which is a
strategic gender need, but has been contrasted with the
practical or basic need of drinking water by the general
population.
Above
all,
”
~~ r the fact that unspent money lying
with the panchayats at the end of the year was mostly from
the women's component plan is clinching evidence of the gap
in the gender planning input in the PPC.
Another issue of concern is the finding that while their
participation in the PPC has drained many of the elected
women (especially the younger ones) of their energy and
time, that they suffered from mental tensions, had to put up
with double and triple burdens, the system itself has not
responded to this adverse impact. It is clear that the
gender relations aspect is unfavourable to women in
panchayats and that the patriarchal forces have landed the
women into a stressful situation. External support to the
elected women has not been forthcoming.
On the whole, however, the trail blazed by Kerala by
devolving finances to the panchayats and further earmarking
a percentage of these funds to women's development is unique
in the current history of post—1991 decentralised planning.
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It combines the effort for effective decentralisation of
planning to the panchayats with the effort to earmark
resources for women through the Mahila plan component
approach at the grass roots level. This strategy of
combining the two elements will ultimately give more power
to the women, place resources within their reach and ensure
women's control over them for bringing political, social and
economic change. But the absence of a gender strategy in the
PPC is an inhibiting factor at present.
While the PPC women's "component" is closer to the people
than the "Mahila component plan" introduced in the Ninth
Plan by the Department of Women and Child Development and
the Planning Commission, both need to bring women into power
by correcting an unjust and unrepresentative system through
sustaining the link between women and the political process.
CONCLUSION
The paper has attempted to describe the various efforts made
in the last five decades to institutionalise planning for ad
by women in India, "to give it a local habitation and a
name" by evolving mechanisms which are effective and
sustainable. We have experimented with programmes and
schemes grouped under categories such as welfare, community
development, anti-poverty, to Action Plans which comprise of
a range of programmes covering different activities, to the
component or earmarked model of planning, where a mandatory
percentage is set aside for women in general programme
budgets. There have also been initiatives such as Mahila
Samakhya and the Women's Development Programme (Rajasthan)
which have followed vastly different strategies but have
been taken up under the Government budgets.
One feature of the scene traversed by this paper is that we
have looked primarily at the one instrumentality of
"schemes", "programmes", and "projects". Planning, in the
state lexicon, must yield programmes and projects, and these
invariably deal with discrete activities.
Even here, we have concentrated on certain sectors, which
the state has prioritised, such as those with income earning
potential or social welfare sectors. We have not discussed
housing, environment, even health or education (and many
more). But the instrumentality of the "project" or the
"programme" would still dominate in these areas as well.
The "special provisions for women and children" in Article
15(3), which prevails even over the gender equality
46
provisions of the Constitution, is the fountain head of the
"plans for women".
Hence, development planning 'for plans, programmes, schemes,
projects' has been put under the microscope here.
Under the state aegis, planning is done in the sectoral
mode. The format of plan documents, the demand for plan
funds, their allocation and distribution, all follow a
sectoral approach. The implementing structures such as
departments, technical bodies, field cadres, monitoring
systems, are also designed along sectoral divisions.
Planning for women, on the other hand, need "integrative
strategies" (Moser) . This has been one never-ending search
within the state systems, one that has yielded little good
result. "Nodal agencies" or "national machinery" have been
designated or set up to give chase to this ideal,, but they
have faced difficulties, which are of the nature of
organisational barriers.
Within the state structures planning is more of a technical
and administrative business. It is more management
managerial, techno-administrative, an exercise that has its
own set of rules, jargon, its procedures, numbers, norms,
guidelines, etc. It has its own internal logic and its
justification. The links between it and the reality of
women s lives are difficult to forge and preserve.
In.other words, the milieu of planning is not woman
friendly. This refers to the whole milieu. The state efforts
have been to find little oases, or corners, which will have
a different ethos, within the gigantic apparatus of the
state.
Yet, the state has persevered and gone ahead, may be
haltingly and slowly, often repetitively and routinely. What
is most urgent is for the planners to realise that planning
is political and not merely "technical". That the "end
product" is not a set of operational plans, targets and
numbers, but the emancipation of women and their release
from subordination through their own strengthening, their
collective efforts. Schemes, targets, numbers, etc. can be
only a means to the end product. This can take place, not
only through material changes in the condition of women, but
through a shift in the balance of power between not only men
and women, but between the powerful and the less powerful
and more marginalised and the excluded of which women form a
major part. In spite of all efforts, "patriarchy, as a
system, still defines the relations between men and women in
47
society as well as the entire developmental process" (Nalini
Nayak)
If the political roots of planning are to be restored, we
need to shift the emphasis more to encouraging wider
representation of women in all public institutions,
community-based, representative, membership based, economic,
social and others. Kerala, with its enviable social
development indicators, has a very low participation of
women not only in the State Legislative Assembly, but also
in party structures, in trade unions, in professional
associations, etc. This is a poser for those who equate
literacy, awareness and political awareness with women's
political strength and agency.
In Kerala, where the PPG has become synonymous with the
political party in power, hence a potent electoral issue,
questions are being posed about the future direction of
people's planning. "How can the gains of the first phase of
this campaign be consolidated to counter consumerism and its
consequences--- the people as a whole falling victims to the
vagaries of the market place-- apart from the evident
objectification of women?" Hindu, 24th September 2000). This
sentiment was echoed by an activist who recently spoke of
the contrast between the Kerala Planning Board's emphasis on
the primary and secondary sectors in the PPG (in the
interest of building up employment avenues) while the global
and market forces were decimating whatever opportunities for
work were still available in the state.
We recall Gandhi's words that the real change in India will
come when women begin to affect the political deliberations
of the nation.
We also need to recognise planning for women as a specific
planning approach. Too often, women's plans have been an
add-on, a component, grafted on the mainframe. Issues such
as elimination of stereo types, ownership, access and
control, abolition of unjust division of labour based on
sex, drudgery, removal of discrimination, measures against
violence, etc. are the basic conceptual rationale, the
gender interests, which are rarely taken into consideration
when preparing plans for women according to the current
planning tradition. The problems which the PPG women's
48
component faced in Kerala are an instance of how, even when
decentralisation, devolution, women's components, were all
present, the absence of knowledge of gender planning showed
up in the type of activities planned for women.
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