Narratives of women's collectives: challenges and opportunities

[Ranjani K.Murthy]

Ranjani K Murthy, 2025

Background:

This presentation seeks to:  a) define women’s collectives and explore different kinds of women’s collectives; b) share my experiences over the last forty years in forming and evaluating women’s collectives in India; and c) explore challenges and opportunities if contemporary women’s collectives are to further gender/social equality.  

Women’s collectives are groups of women who meet for common development purpose. The concern is hence not with women’s groups which meet for religious (e.g. bhajan groups) or entertainment (e.g. cards groups) purposes, but with groups which meet for development, equality, and empowerment. By gender equality,  one is referring to achieving ‘fair outcomes’ for men, women, and transwomen by addressing the root causes of gender inequality.  This is also referred to as substantive gender equality as against formal or legal gender equality.  Women and transwomen are not a homogenous group, their different identities (caste, class, ethnicity, religion, gender orientation, sexuality etc.) interact to create distinctive or additive discrimination.

Experience with women’s collectives: 1984-2025

In this presentation I share three experiences with forming and evaluating women’s collectives/women in mixed collectives over different periods, and then draw lessons.  Post passing from the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA), I worked at the village level for two years (1984-1986), and in and out of the field for two more years (1986-1988) with a southern NGO based in Bangalore. My task at the village level was to form Milk Producer’s Cooperative Society (MPCSs), and link them to Periyar Milk Producer’s Union, Tamil Nadu. The main persons who looked after milch animals were women, whether from dominant castes, Dalits or tribals.  Of the 16 MPCSs, 12 survive even today. Income of households increased due to better prices as well as expansion of livestock, veterinary services, and availability of cattle feed. In women headed households, women had control over income, while in 50% of male-headed households, men had control over income from milk produce.  There were other gender specific challenges too. Women’s work load increased with expansion of livestock. In some cases, though women were majority of members, men came to collect the weekly payment from the MPCSs. The staff who were engaged in testing milk and maintaining were all men at that time, and few women took part in Board meetings actively. following strategies were adopted by the NGO , like bringing more women into Board, holding special workshops with women members on leadership, sensitising men to support the increased livestock related work of women, having milk collection centres in hamlets to reduce walking time of women, and training a few qualified women to test milk and manage accounts.

The second experience is in my capacity as a researcher on Arunthathiyar women’s self-help groups formed by a member of an NGO network in Tamil Nadu (2017). Arunthathiyars are considered Dalits amongst Dalits. They live in crowded housing (two-three families living together), have several children (reluctance to adopt contraception), have no agricultural land, depend on livestock and in many villages do not have a homestead to tie the livestock. In such cases they tie their livestock in yards of dominant castes.  The income of Arunthathiyar (AR) women and men comes from agricultural work, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, and livestock activities.  Patriarchy is deeply entrenched with restrictions on women’s mobility by men and on work outside the neighbourhood.  Single (widowed, divorced, deserted, never married) Arunthathiyar women are vulnerable to sexual abuse by men from dominant caste, particularly if they are dependent on them for employment. It is in this context that Village Service Trust initiated an NGO network which in turn formed women’s Self-Help Groups (SHGs) from 2002. Arogyagam is an NGO in the network which mainly formed  Arunthathiyar women’s SHGs and federated them, while other NGOs formed women’s SHGs with other Dalits, Backward Classes, (BCs) and Most Backward Classes (MBCs). Several women’s SHGs started collapsing due to various factors in end of 2000s; with rate of collapse being higher amongst Arunthathiyar SHGs. A study conducted by the author revealed that while AR women expressed that post their joining SHGs their access to credit and mobility had improved, their livestock had expanded a little,  leading to enhancement of their status in family, and in a few in society (through contesting elections, addressing gender and caste-based violence), there were several challenges leading to 40% of AR SHGs becoming defunct.  These include limited internal capital due to low savings, emergence of profit oriented joint liability groups which gave loans at doorstep at higher interest, women taking multiple loans and not being able to repay, poor monsoon and inadequate agricultural land and employment, small homestead and limits to expanding livestock, some SHGs being appropriated by new government programs which later stop, and spending on cultural practices of dominant castes like ear-piercing, puberty ceremonies and house (repair) warming ceremonies. Further, at times groups collapse when some members are not given loans by banks (like elderly members and members with too many loans from profit oriented MFIs).  Recommendations to address these gaps from a development (e.g. forming a women’s bank, women’s labor cooperative) and rights lens (e.g.  advocacy for Panchami land on AR women’s name, labor union for equal wages) were evolved by the researcher

The third case study is that of Tejaswini program for empowerment of women in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. The program envisaged collaboration with National Rural Livelihood Missions  in forming women’s SHGs and federating them at the village level into village organizations. Two other organizations at village level are specific to the Tejaswini program: formation of village chapters of Shourya Dain, Madhya Pradesh (feminist mediation  on gender-based violence) and forum for men who stand against gender-based violence (in Maharashtra). At the Panchayat level, Community Managed Resource Centers (for SHGs), federations of Shourya Dals, women’s producer companies, federation of women’s SHGs, and higher-level Shourya level were formed.  At the Block level, Women elected  into PRIs were brought together and panchayat level federations were brought together. These women’s collectives at different levels, addressed livelihood issues, took up cases of gender-based valence,  prepared women to contest elections, reduced women’s drudgery through appropriate agriculture technologies. In Maharashtra, the government had evolved a guideline giving incentives to registration of property on women’s name, which the Tejaswani program made use of.  A cadre of men for gender equality was created through the program.  

The achievements included increase in assets on women’s names, increase in income and food security of landless, tribal and Dalit women, reduction in women’s drudgery through water, sanitation and ergonomically designed agricultural tools, reduction in gender-based violence, and improvement in education of girls and boys.   The challenges were also many. New agriculture tools like combined harvesters displaced women landless labourers.  Some of the CMRCs were on paper governed by women self-help group/formation leaders, but by male managers of CMRCs. This was also true of some Producer companies The resource persons, including gender/social issues were poorly paid, and the turnover was high, as was the case with NGOs involved in programme. Work with men was on an early stage in Maharashtra, and the sustainability of Saurya Dal once the programme ends was another issue.

 

 

 

Lessons

A first lesson is that a substantive equality approach is required to empower women. A good example is registering house and land on landless/houseless women’s name under Tejaswani, Maharashtra. This enhanced women’s livelihood options.  A second lesson is that one size does not fit all. An intersectional lens is required for women’s collectives to empower say AR and Adivasi women. In case of Arogygayam, for example lack of homesteads and land for fodder came in the way of expanding livestock enterprises, while the other Dalits had some agriculture land and could benefit from credit activities more and expand. Adivasis in Madhya Pradesh, forest dependent, leased land collectively and formed wheat and  millet producer companies. A third lesson is that management of seemingly women’s collectives, like the Milk producer’s cooperative society and Community Management Resource Centres, can be dominated by men. However, over time gender norms may change, a few of the CMRCs are indeed managed by women. A fourth lesson, from Tejaswini,  is that there are trade offs between benefit for some women and disadvantages for another, like drudgery reduction agriculture machines and tools. A fifth lesson is that norms of social institutions (family, community, market, and state) must change from a gender lens if collectives are to empower women. For example, norms of ear piercing, “sei murai” (cultural practices) were in the Arunthathiya case study coming in the way of use of credit for productive purposes, norms on head of household came in the way of women coming to collect milk produce. A final lesson from Tejaswini and southern Indian NGO,  is that working with men and boys on dominant masculinities is central to women’s empowerment

The larger political economy also matters. In the case of Tejaswini, government’s broader legal support to encourage registration of land on women’s (several incentives) made a difference. At the same time, the larger political economy can also hamper women’s collectives. The larger political economy of neo liberalism and emergence of NBFCs and lesser importance of agriculture has affected the survival of Arunthathiyar SHGs  Convergence of  government programmes and autonomous women’s empowerment programme (Eg Tajaswini) leads to a larger women’s empowerment impact. However, strategies like protest state are more difficult