IF one were to pick out the single most significant political phenomenon in contemporary Kerala, it would be the expansion of governmental space after the institutionalization of democratic decentralization. Of particular note is the fact that the expanding interface of politics and development has provided women in the state an entry point into public life through a number of channels – notably, through the women’s quota in local self-government (which has been recently increased to fifty per cent) and the building of a statewide network of women’s neighbourhood groups (NHGs) under state aegis, which has been granted an integral role in the development activities of the local self-governments. Suddenly, women seem to be everywhere at the local level – not just in development, but even in politics.

Yet, the latter presence, while more interesting in Kerala’s context, is more of an unintended consequence than a planned one. Modern politics in Kerala too has historically been an area of unmitigated male privilege; indeed the forces that are widely credited with having taken forward Kerala’s specific thrust on social development have almost inevitably been male-led, with few exceptions. On the left of the political spectrum, women workers were a very vital presence in the mid-20th century labour struggles; yet they failed to reach leadership positions, and indeed, it has been argued that what we have seen across the 20th century is a process of ‘effeminization’ of the woman worker, by which she has been effectively reduced from the status of a worker to that of a ‘secondary worker’/housewife.

Nor have women been able to garner much leadership in the state’s development and welfare machinery. It is interesting that women grassroot-level workers have been a prominent part of Kerala’s welfare and rural development bureaucracies since the earliest years. Yet they continue to remain largely unrecognized even in the literature that lauds the role of women – conceived primarily as housewives – in shaping Kerala’s achievements in social development. In these structures, women have remained largely at the lowest levels – they receive lower pay, lack tenure, and are subject to masculinist hierarchies. While there were efforts from the left to organize women development workers – viz. the anganvadi workers – a comparison of their gains with, say, those of the headload workers during the 1980s in Kerala would suffice to highlight their relative invisibility.

 

Importantly, feminist voices in Kerala, quite prominent in the public sphere since the late ’80s, too have remained largely marginal to both politics and development. Even in the Kerala Shastra Sahitya Parishad, Kerala’s well-known ‘development movement’, the articulation of ‘women’s interests’ in the late 1980s-early 1990s involved, in the end, a regrettable reduction of gender struggles to the ostensibly non-political induction of women into development activities. However, this assured that governmentalized feminism, which entered Kerala’s developmental arena in the mid-1990s through the gender main-streaming agenda endorsed by the Beijing Conference, was easily institutionalized.

Governmentalized feminism was essentially a version of liberal feminism that pegged liberation from patriarchy on giving a share of the state’s cake – through reserved seats, special allocations in budgets, and so on – to women, now conceived as a specific interest group. However, the spaces which the state created for women to thus come together and articulate their interests were not really conducive to the shaping of such a ‘women’s politics’ that could effectively forge collective interests and put pressure on the state to yield resources to them. In the late 1990s, at least, the resources and spaces allotted to women as part of gender mainstreaming – the positions in panchayats and such allocations as the Women’s Component Plan in the budgets of local bodies – seemed to be largely oriented towards making effective the new turn towards ‘responsibilization’, which has been a key feature of the post-decentralization welfare regime in Kerala.

 

Kerala’s large network of women’s self-help groups, including the neighbourhood groups, commonly known as the Kudumbashree Mission, was also formed within this larger framework of governmentalized feminism. Launched in 1998 by the Government of Kerala, it aimed at eliminating poverty within ten years, by 2008. The present structure, however, began to evolve earlier, in 1991, when the Community Based Nutrition Programme (CBNP) was initiated by the state government with active help from UNICEF to improve the nutritional status of women and children. This initiative involved three-tiered structures composed of neighbourhood groups (NHGs), federated into area development societies (ADS) at the ward level, in turn federated into a community development society (CDS) at the panchayat level, which were composed exclusively of women from families identified as underprivileged through a non-income based index. The success of the CDS model in urban Alappuzha and in rural Malappuram led the Government of Kerala to scale up the strategy to the entire state in 1998 under the name Kudumbashree, with the State Poverty Eradication Mission taking the responsibility of implementation through the Department of Local Self-government.

Kudumbashree, roughly translated as ‘Prosperity of the Family’, clearly did not pinpoint women’s emancipation as its primary goal – rather, it was clearly designated as a ‘poverty alleviation mission’. In fact, it seemed to embody, on the one hand, the most popular prescription then current in the new welfarism, one that tied women’s empowerment, specifically of women from below poverty line households, to responsibilized welfare, primarily through microcredit. On the other, it was conceived as a state centred, state created civil society that was to assist local governments to implement the agenda of responsibilized welfare – in other words, as the bearer of ‘social capital’ in Robert Putnam’s sense.

 

Despite all the fanfare, this addition to Kerala’s welfare and rural development machinery was incapable of altering the unequal participation of women in politics and development. On the one hand, the structural logic of the Kudumbashree’s basic unit, the neighbourhood group, was a liberal one – group interests were conceived of as the sum of the interests of participating individuals. This foreclosed the formation of collective interests that were over and above individual interests. On the other, the Kudumbashree structure was, in many ways, subservient to the local government – and in many places, was used by the latter as a source of cheap development labour. It was also tied to the masculinist development culture of Kerala’s development bureaucracy, especially through the presence of an officer of the Department of Rural Development as the Charge Officer of the Community Development Society in the panchayat.

Therefore, though Kudumbashree groups were soon formed all over Kerala, covering all local bodies by 2004 (often under the initiative of the local government and facilitated by the availability of cheap credit), deep misgivings soon began to be expressed. Social movements in the state expressed the fear of microcredit overkill. Empirical research revealed decidedly ambiguous gains – in some instances, disempowerment rather than empowerment. My own fieldwork in 2006-07 investigating women’s entry into the political public in Kerala post-1995, was dotted with alarming incidents which clearly revealed the pitfall of tying women’s empowerment to development labour with local bodies mediating the process.

 

We found that the narratives of the Kudumbashree leaders were quite ambiguous when they described their relations with the panchayat. While the CDS chairpersons were often harshly critical of the heavy workloads they had to carry – the poor remuneration, the impossible demands on their limited skills and time, and insensitivity of the panchayat to the enormity of the mediating work that they did – there was a reluctance to challenge such injustice openly.

Indeed, some instances appeared to be hugely disempowering – shocking instances of an emergent ‘work-for-welfare’ regime. For example, in Alappuzha district, in the wake of an epidemic of chikangunya in 2007, the Kudumbashree women were entrusted with the work of chikan-gunya eradication, and this was carried out under such unsafe conditions that many women fell ill with chikan-gunya and other serious ailments like leptospirosis. Not only did the women receive zero compensation, they were asked to do this dangerous and laborious work for an unbelievable pittance, unthinkable in Kerala where the average (male) worker receives a wage much higher than the official minimum wage.

In the northern district of Kasaragod, Kudumbashree women were rendering free services as cooks and indeed, collecting cash and provisions to feed the participants for the local youth festivals in schools; in some parts of the Thrissur district, Kudumbashree women were cleaning up public places in the panchayats as voluntary service, or for a negligible remuneration. Across the districts, women were being drafted to conduct a variety of surveys for the state and other agencies, again, for a pittance.

 

Kudumbashree women also participated in the process by which the state shifts welfare obligations onto the local community: they are entrusted the work of implementing specific welfare projects which involve care activities, such as the destitute rehabilitation project, the Aashraya. Interestingly enough, the Aashraya was mentioned by many of the CDS chairpersons we interviewed as the project they felt ‘most good about’ and which required a ‘service mentality’. This work drew on the women’s gendered sense of moral duty, and often very heavily on their time and energy.

But they were enthusiastic, and this is not surprising, as such activity does bring gendered moral credit, useful when one seeks to gain space within the hypermoralized space of the local community fundamental to the new regime of local governance, which is clearly distinct from the male space of local politics. In Kozhikode district, a CDS chairperson told us that when women complained about the mismatch between workload and remuneration in the below poverty line list validation work that they had to do, the Welfare Standing Committee chairman told them, publicly, that they should not seek personal gain, and that the government was implicitly paying them through the allocations for the (mandatory) Women’s Component Plan!

As for politics, by 2007, it appeared that a large number of members of the Kudumbashree had been actively drafted into the women’s wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM). As our research showed, the typical CDS chairperson in the village panchayat was a woman aged between 30-50, more to the younger side, educated up to the tenth or twelfth class, usually of an OBC caste, and with clear affiliation with mainstream left politics. This was not surprising, given the fact that the CPM has always had stronger grassroots presence, and its women’s wing has historically been much better organized than those of its rivals. But this entry into politics did not seem to bring much advantage of the women leaders of the Kudumbashree, since they clearly perceived the Kudumbashree to be ‘below’ the panchayat.

 

This dismal picture, however, might not give us a sense of the changes that seem to be afoot in the present. One of the most striking developments in the programme – a massive wave of institutional change – began in 2008, with the adoption of a new by-law. This interesting document, in effect, shifted Kudumbashree’s orientation away from the masculinist development machinery and towards democracy. By strengthening internal elections – a move that Kudumbashree insiders claim incited considerable ire among political party leaders and panchayat leaders – it allowed for greater manoeuvring space vis-à-vis the control mechanisms instituted on the CDS leaders by local politicians.

By weakening the distinction between women of above poverty line and below poverty line families; by instituting provisions for appropriate reservation for women of below poverty line families and SC/ST women, it complicates the category of ‘women’: on the one hand, it moves away from the reduction of ‘women’ to ‘below poverty line women’ in Kerala’s governmentalized feminism, and on the other, it acknowledges the inequalities within the category of ‘women’. The designation of the Charge Officer as ‘Member Secretary’ to the CDS chairperson, and the provision to appoint an accountant in each CDS, reduces the power of the agents of the rural development machinery over the CDS leadership. Today, Kudumbashree CDSs also insist on proper remuneration for the caring labour their members do in the Aashraya programme.

 

The Kudumbashree has also developed for itself a large in-house training capacity, which also includes the Kudumbashree Audit and Accounts Service Society that further reduces bureaucratic power. Also, the by-law firmly establishes the CDS as the agency enabling community participation in the determination of local development needs and demands at the local level. After 2008, there has been a shift away from the stress on micro-finance and towards micro-enterprise groups and these have become vital parts of the local bodies’ efforts to revive productive sector activities. The Kudumbashree until very recently completely oversaw the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in the local bodies, and so the panchayat has become all the more dependent on these women for the performance of not only its welfare, but also its productive functions. In other words, at least in structural terms, Kudumbashree can no longer be viewed as a passive civil society under the local state, passively deferring to local politics . While it continues to rely upon the sanction of the state, the possibility of greater flexibility vis-à-vis both political and bureaucratic control, to some extent seems to be real.

 

It also appears that these possibilities are beginning to be realized, at least in some areas. In 2011, the author initiated some fieldwork on the Kudumbashree’s activities in one of the poorest slums in the city of Thiruvananthapuram. While interviewing a member of the Kudumbashree Area Development Society about the ongoing conflicts around welfare, which had translated into bitter contests among political parties and social groups there, a young politician prominent in that area walked in. He was irritated that the interview was being conducted without his consent – and he was convinced, entirely, that she had no business talking with anyone outside without his express consent.

Taking a conciliatory route, I suspended the interview with the woman leader, apologised, and offered to interview him first, a suggestion that pleased him. But it was soon evident to all of us that she knew much more than him – and that he did need her help to clarify the facts! Gradually, she began to take the upper hand in the conversation. The tension that built up soon exploded, with the man raising his voice, and accusing her of speaking so authoritatively – surely, she was not the ward councillor!

Up to then, the young woman had been the typical demure and self-controlled Malayalee girl. But this was the limit; she stood up, and in a firm loud voice stated: ‘Yes, I too am an elected representative. I represent the women in this area. The women elected me, I too fought an election. I wasn’t brought in because some politicians thought I will dance to their tune!’ Since then, I have heard many Kudumbashree office-bearers speak about how fighting an election was a transformative experience for them – more empowering than passively taking orders from the panchayat. Striking too is the mention of ‘women’ as an electoral constituency – a kernel from which a more politicized notion of collective interests may sprout.

 

Perhaps we ought to view the murmurings against Kudumbashree women that are now frequently encountered in the panchayats in the light of the above developments. I remember distinctly how in 2007, panchayat leaders inevitably identified Kudumbashree women as the ‘good girls’ who would willingly do their bidding, while the workers of the Kerala Mahila Samakhya Society, who were clearly more feminist in their orientation, were identified as the ‘bad girls’ who were all the while talking about women’s rights and gender justice. However, that no longer seems to hold – to a sizeable section of local politicians, Kudumbashree women are also ‘bad girls’, no longer willing to follow their dictates. Politicians on the left and right at the local level tell us, secretly and sometimes publicly, how they (the women) are ‘power hungry’ and no longer willing to work under the panchayat. The most common complaint is from the Congress Party-led United Democratic Front (UDF) politicians who claim that the Kudumbashree is controlled tightly by the CPM and its workers do not cooperate with the UDF panchayat leadership.

Now, this is a claim that needs close examination. Though it has indeed been identified with the CPM, all political parties have approached women who had gained familiarity with the workings of local governance through Kudumbashree activities to fight local elections, and a massive jump in the number of Kudumbashree women candidates representing various parties in the elections to local bodies is now evident: from 2,240 in 2005 to 11,264 in 2010.

According to the statistics collected by the Kudumbashree Mission, Left Democratic Front (LDF) candidates constituted some 50.45 per cent of the total number of women candidates with experience in the Kudumbashree; some 45 per cent were candidates of the rival UDF which gained the upper hand in the 2010 elections. Of those who won, 42 per cent belong to the UDF. In other words, the idea that the Kudumbashree represents a captive organization of the CPM seems highly exaggerated. Historically, women have been at the fringe of all political formations in Kerala; precisely for this reason it appears rather unrealistic to claim that the women who have been politicized through their entry into the public via Kudumbashree have turned, in just a few years, into hard-headed party cadre who will unfailingly toe the party line.

 

Indeed, the reverse seems to be the case now – the newly inducted women members at the local level seem to be pushing the limits of established practice in all the political parties. Perhaps it needs to be recognized that the complaint that Kudumbashree women are increasingly ‘arrogant’, comes from not just the UDF but from across the political spectrum, and is rooted in the discomfiture of entrenched male power in the face of women’s rising self-confidence that even prompts many of them to defy party dictates and established practices sustaining control and hierarchy. As the difference between the left and the right narrows in Kerala and depoliticization of the formal field of politics intensifies, politics relocates itself into other arenas, which include the local political party and governance forums.

The general election of the Kudumbashree office bearers that was conducted earlier this year offers evidence that seems to confirm this surmise. In some panchayats, Kudumbashree women, cutting across all parties, refused to passively accept candidates who had been nominated from above. In another instance, they did not openly object to such top-down decisions, but quietly voted their preferred candidate into office. In some panchayats, therefore, the CDS chairperson has a different political affiliation from the women members who voted for her. In another panchayat, the preferred candidate refused to accept a political affiliation, and was pitted against a powerful candidate who received ample, steady support from a major political party. But she won with a sizeable margin.

 

However, the mainstream media in Kerala continues to remain blinded by its superstition that politics unfolds between political parties and hence does not pay serious attention to these processes. And, of course, there is the irritation at being taken unawares by unintended consequences: women in the Kudumbashree were expected to stay corralled within apolitical, family-centred, self-help and poverty alleviation, but they seem to be bidding for escape into politics!

I do not, however, make any claim that Kudumbashree has achieved a gender coup d’état, or that women’s emancipation has finally arrived – certainly not. However, possibilities of confusing the patriarchal system have indeed been generated, and it remains to be seen how they develop. In fact, I do believe that one reason for the recent escalation of public patriarchal violence in Kerala – the most worrying manifestation of which is moral policing – is the fact that ‘ordinary women’ (a term that usually refers to women of the lower middle class) are now much keener to be present in the public, outside domestic and community spaces, and interact with a wider circle, which includes men.

 

Finally, Kerala is not a place where feminists have an easy time. Even as the gender mainstreaming processes were afoot in the state and many individual feminists were being drafted to collaborate with governmentalized feminism as ‘gender experts’, the feminist movement in Kerala was fighting pitched battles with both the left and right on the political spectrum over cases of sexual harassment and violence, right from 1996. Indeed, these battles have proven so costly that the feminist network in Kerala has exhausted even its political imagination. However, it now looks as if they could well have the last laugh.

So many women are discovering the joys of public life, becoming alert to the limitations of a strictly domestic existence, facing the full brunt of masculine hubris, showing determination to resist it, sensing the power of telling their stories in the forums that have opened up within the Kudumbashree – it appears that it is only the feminist movement that can ultimately reap the political dividend of these times.

However, the limits of a government programme and the all-pervasive presence of an increasingly depoliticized political party system are stiff challenges indeed and, of course, it would be absurd to claim that the Kudumbashree women can wriggle out of governmentalized feminism easily and emerge into self-created emancipatory spaces. It is for the feminist movement to reach out and assume ownership of Kudumbashree, so that these challenges may be met with passion and imagination.