Table Of ContentA Space
within the Stf\.lggle
Women :S Panicipation in People :S Movements
Edited by
IUNA SEN
'
koh fa wcmen
~&
1990
l~ Cy
s-
I Rt.Jr).
'"S0X,
'1
I ·:::; CJ
A Space within the Struggle
Womens Partlclpatton In Peoples Movements
was first published in 1990 by
Kall for Women
36
A Gnlmobar Park
New Deihl 110 049
C 7bts collection Kalt/or Women
C Individual essays with the authors
All rights reseroed
Phototypeset by lnteipress Magazines Pvt Ltd
A 126 Neeti Bagh, New Delhi 110 049 and
Printed at Crescent Printing Works (P) Ltd
New Delhi 110 001
CONTENTS
lntrod.uction ........................................................................... 1
IUNASEN
Reminiscences from Wynad ........................................... . 19
KA]ITIIA
25
The Srikakulam Movement ............................................. .
UVINDHYA
50
The Anti Price Rise Movement ............................................
NANDITA GANDHI
The Bodhgaya Land Struggle ........................................... . 82
GOVIND KELKAR AND CHETNA GALA
The Chipko Movement ......................................................... . 111
VIMLA BAHUGUNA
125
The Adivasi Struggle in Dhulia .................................... ..... .
NIRMALA SA TiiE
The Kera la Fish workers' Struggle ..................................... .
NALINI NAYA K
.d. W k . N' . 16o
B1 1 or ers in 1paru .......................................................... .
CHHAYADATAR
The Tamil Nadu Construction Workers' Union ........... 182
GEETiiA
Workers' Struggles in Chhattisgarh ....................... ...... .. ... ... 194
IUNASEN
The Assam Movement .. . . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . .. . .. . . .. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . .. . .. .. .. . .. .. . 213
SHEILA BAR'IHAKUR AND SABITA GOSWAMI
The Farmers' Movement in Maharashtra ............................... 229
GAILOMVEDT
Notes on Contributors..................................................................... 271
Notes on Readings............................................................................ 273
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to the various people who have helped to put this book
together. In particular, I must thank the women of Dalli Rajhar-..t,
Rajnandgaon and Hirri mines who, by befriending me and involving
me in their movement, have contributed enormously to the develop
ment of the ideas I express here; 11le Individual contributors to the
collection have also taught me a great deal both in terms of their own
perceptions, and the perceptions of the women they have written
about.
Binayak, my husband, and Pranhita my daughter have provided
crucial moral, material and intellectual support throughout this proj
nect. And, at Kali, Urvashi Butalia and Manisha Chaudhry have lived
through the wear and tear of this production, and have ultimately
sustained and held it together.
Introduction
ILINA SEN
For some time now the naLure and scope of the women's movement
in India have been the subject of considerable debate. The last two
decades have seen a conscious articulation of women's issues among
many urban and educated middle class women. Women's issues have
gained prominence in academics, with 'Women's Studies' beginning
to take shape as a discipli.ne. The media have played a role in
highlighting issues of women's rights and their violation. Many
women from educated backgrounds have come together in groups
in a realization of their strength and potential and have lobbied and
protested against the blatant forms of discrimination they face in our
society. They have attacked the anti-women bias in national policy
and implementation and have demanded an end to such discrimina
tion. Some of the issues they have opposed include invasive
reproductive and family planning technologies, anti-women legal
structures, se.x discrimination in employment etc. Women have asked
for a secular personal law that guar.intees women's equality. In
keeping with constitutional provisions, they have fought for equality
of job opportunity where such oµ..,ortunity has been denied. Because
of their superior powers of analysis and articulation, and because of
their access to the media, the activists of these women's groups have
received considerable media attention. Structurally, such groups are
c lose to the feminist groups of the West, and this has facilitated their
integration into international feminist circuits. However, such groups
have often remained circumstantially distant from the actual lives of
poor women, even when they have made conscious efforts to articu
late their has meant that they have, by and large, remained
needs.~
isolated from the mainstream of political processes in the country.
As against this tendency, a strange myopia has characterized the
mainstream progressive political groups for a long time where
women's issues are concerned. Centrist groups like the Congress may
have adopted some of the vocabulary of women's rights and by
integrating this vocabulary into plan documents such as the National
Perspective Plan for Women, have basically simplified and co-opted
women's political demands. The attitude of left of centre groups---tlie
Communist parties and Socialists who have a large base among the
organized working class-has, until very recently, been e5Sentially
one where the resolution of women's issues is relegated to the post
revolutionary period. While the left has brought many women into
mass fronts, it has been very distrustful of any open analysis of
patriarchal d9minance. Theoreticians of the left like Vimal Ranadive
(Ranadive, V. Femtntsts and the Women '.5 Movement All India
Democratic Women's Association, 1987) have openly accused
feminists of attempting to break up working class organizations
through an injection of 'irrelevancies' such as the issues of women's
oppression into straightforward class struggles:
According to the different action groups and the feminists, the
origins of the exploitation of women is in the patriarchal system
of society ...[ inl the writings of the feminists in India the political
and left. parties as well as trade unions are 'patriarchal,' they
'subsume' the women's question .... The point to be noted here
is [that) these groups would like to keep away the women from
the common movement, by taking up only social issues like
dowry etc., under their leadership. They would not like women
to be politicised so that they can march ahead In the mainstteam
of the revolutionary sttuggle.
A common feeling in left circles is that feminists in India come
mainly from urban middle class backgrounds and have acquired their
feminist beliefs through an exposure to the West. Thus, the issues they
raise are not of primary concern for the mass of Indian women whose
