R. Shyamala, a Kudumbashree member. Image Credit – Suneeta Kaul
A few days ago, on November 7, 2015, the state of Kerala announced the results of civic polls, with a total of 75,549 candidates having contested for 21,905 wards. And in that exercise of participative democracy hangs a tale – a significant and a very interesting one at that.
As many as 13,120 candidates were members of Kudumbashree, the highly successful and globally acclaimed women’s collective to fight absolute poverty that has done Kerala proud in international development dialogue fora. Significantly, all major political parties harvested candidates from the collective, and fielded them with great fanfare, with the candidates proudly flaunting their Kudumbashree tag.
So, what is it all about? Well, Kudumbashree is an innovative community-based women-oriented initiative working to ensure women no longer remain passive recipients of public assistance, but become active leaders in development measures. It is one of the largest women’s movements in Asia, with a membership of 42 lakh, enabling women to leave behind their traditional role as passive cadres of political parties and move up the political hierarchy to claim the coveted space of decision-makers.
Here’s how it works
Kudumbashree was launched by the then prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee way back in 1998. It is a joint programme of the Government of Kerala and the National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development (NABARD), implemented through Community Development Societies.
What sets it apart from similar initiatives elsewhere in the country is its insistence on a process approach, rather than a project approach. It perceives poverty not just as the deprivation of money, but also as the deprivation of basic rights. From its very inception, Kudumbashree has attempted to bring every economically challenged woman in the state within its fold. As a result, it is present in every village panchayat and municipality, and in nearly every ward, colony and hamlet, with local women being the driving force.
The functioning of Kudumbashree is tied to the development initiatives of the local government, be it for social infrastructure, welfare or right-based interventions or for employment generation. From food security to health insurance, from housing to enterprise development, from the national wage employment programme to just about any initiative, Kudumbashree becomes the community interface.
The organization has a three-tiered structure, with its apex tier anchored in the local self governments (LSGs). The three tiers are:
- Neighbourhood groups (NHGs), with groups of 10-20 women from the same neighbourhood forming the foundation of the structure
- Area Development Society (ADS), which is a federation of NHGs within a ward of the LSG
- Community Development Society (CDS), which is a federation of ADSs within the LSG
So, what does it do?
If one were to put it in one sentence, Kudumbashree empowers women and fights against their marginalization in the economic process. It functions as the community voice of the Local Self Government, particularly economically and socially weak women. Even though Kerala has a high female literacy rate of 86.2%, a low infant mortality rate of 13 (against the national average of 80), a favourable sex ratio of 1032 females/1000 males, and a low maternal mortality rate of 0.8/1000, the absence of women in the public domain remains a paradox of the state’s model of development.
Moreover, the gender-oriented division of labour has resulted in the concentration of women in low-paying unorganized sectors such as agricultural labour, cottage and traditional industries and selected service sectors. Despite the powerful trade union movements, equal wages for equal work still remains a mirage and gender discrimination at the work place is widely prevalent. Add to this deadly mix the high incidence of violence against women. In this scenario, the all-pervasive Kudumbashree movement has, over the years, been a boon for deprived women, lending them a voice and a say in the affairs of the state that even much better placed women in many other states do not have.
Some of the objectives of Kudumbashree are:
- Identification of poor families through risk indices-based surveys, with the active participation of the poor and the communities to which they belong
- Empowerment of poor women by enhancing their managerial capabilities as a sub-set of the population, and grouping them into community-based organizations (CBOs)
- Encouraging thrift and investment through credit by developing Community Development Societies to work as informal banks of the poor
- Providing micro-finance for starting entrepreneurial ventures, among other activities
- Ensuring better health and nutrition for all
- Ensuring basic amenities to the deprived
- Ensuring a minimum of five years of primary education for all children of risk families
Engaging women, particularly those belonging to weaker and marginalized sections, in civil society in development and policy-making initiatives has been a major achievement of the Kudumbashree movement. It has enabled women to achieve economic, social and political empowerment, overcoming all societal challenges. The collective has won several awards (the latest being the HUDCO award for Best Practices to Improve the Living Environment) and global recognition, with some African nations, notably Ethiopia, in the process of replicating it in their geographies. Kudumbashree has successfully transformed the local governance agenda from welfare to entitlement, giving a voice and an active say to lakhs of women.
It’s a movement that needs to be emulated by all states.
