Postscript
S. Shakthi
The posts in Prajnya’s final blog symposium all centre around gender equality, and specifically, progress towards gender equality over the last 25 years. Within this overarching framework, they exhibit a thematic breadth that is at least partly reflected in Prajnya’s own work. This breadth has been enabled by our flexibility as an organisation, arising both from necessity, and, we hope, an innate openness to new ideas. Simultaneously, this wide range in our activities and interests has allowed us to pursue new directions that have brought many partners into our fold over the years, who, along with long-term collaborators, have come together to contribute the 20 pieces in this symposium.
As a feminist non-profit organisation working largely (but not exclusively) on gender equality, our work necessarily brings in institutions. While critiques of these institutions, as many posts in this symposium have highlighted, are necessary for progress, we have also tried to engage with them on their own terms for more immediate gains. Soumita Basu endorses this approach in her piece, one of a trio of posts that recall landmark moments in global feminist policymaking such as the Beijing Declaration and Resolution 1325 on Women and Peace and Security. Dr. Basu highlights that while these frameworks must be scrutinised, they can simultaneously be deployed strategically by feminist activists to shed light on issues that may not receive enough attention in public discourse.
Like Dr. Basu, Suneeta Dhar and Asha Hans also adopt a wide-angle lens; in her macro analysis, Dhar emphasises that these movements can only be built through collective action that is intergenerational and transnational. Dr. Hans reflects on her own journey as a peace educator, concluding similarly that ‘it is solidarity that counts’. In writing on their experience building and sustaining the Network of Women in Media, India, Ammu Joseph and Laxmi Murthy provides practical guidance on creating these communities and engaging in collective work. They underline the importance of ‘feminist mentoring’, as well as the need for information sharing in feminist engagements. The crucial role of information – and access to it – is made by Kalpana Viswanath in a different context, through her discussion of conducting safety audits in public spaces with her organisation, Safetipin. Dr. Viswanath underscores the role of technology in advancing gender equality; Kirthi Jayakumar reiterates this point, while also demonstrating that technology can impede progress, showing how the digital should be viewed as a ‘public’ that is linked to spaces offline while simultaneously being governed by its own gendered codes.
Information as a resource appears again in Fatima Burnad’s piece on the work of the Tamil Nadu Dalit Women’s Movement, which has worked extensively to raise awareness about legal rights – an approach that Prajnya has also adopted. In discussing the importance of access to resources and political participation for Dalit women (also emphasised by Jiji Sebastian in reviewing the work of the Swayam Shikshan Prayog), Dr. Fatima demonstrates how an intersectional lens is necessary in investigating gender (in)equality. Intersectionality appears in several posts, such as Prasanna Gettu’s, on The International Foundation for Crime Prevention and Victim Care (PCVC), which she co-founded. Dr. Prasanna reflects on PCVC’s 25-year journey offering support services to survivors of domestic violence, where the term ‘survivor’ gradually expanded to include LGBTQIA+ persons. This resonates deeply with Prajnya’s own trajectory, with sustained efforts to incorporate intersectionality that are reflected in the evolution of our programmes and research (see for example, our Gender Violence Report).
Mihir Bhatt reflects on intersectional difference in his post on disasters, where Bhatt adopts an eco-feminist view that links climate change to gender inequality. The role of climate change is similarly addressed by Sebastian, who documents Swayam Shikshan Prayog’s work with rural women on sustainable agriculture. Bhatt also notes that women’s voices must be heard by those who have the power to listen – a phenomenon that has been referred to as epistemic justice. As Dr. Fatima emphasises this point, while highlighting the need for movements spearheaded by members of the communities they seek to serve.
The complex entanglements of institutions with gender equality are further revealed by multiple contributors, such as Vidya Reddy, who situates child sexual abuse within the structures that impact children’s lives, including schools and medical establishments. The state, unsurprisingly, also emerges in multiple ways. Arshie Qureshi poignantly places women’s experiences of domestic violence in Kashmir within the context of the violence enacted by the Indian state. In discussing the material realities of access to toilets, Mamta D. reflects on urban infrastructures; while Tanya Rana, in her piece on One Stop Centres in Delhi, shows the intricate network of stakeholders involved in service provision. Rana makes the important point that gender-based violence should be viewed as a ‘public health concern’. Anupama Srinivasan, in her post on tuberculosis, more widely recognised as a ‘public health concern’, argues that gender (and patriarchy) must be factored into campaigns and policies around these issues.
The law, another institution, and one that has been central to much of Prajnya’s work on gender violence, is discussed in by Akila R. in her post on workplace sexual harassment. Akila highlights the need for context-specific approaches to gender justice, and, importantly, how the appearance of inclusion is sometimes privileged over actual inclusion by institutional actors. Anagha Sarpotdar also writes about workplace sexual harassment, recalling the Bhanwari Devi case – one of several moments that have defined the trajectory of feminist activism in India on legal rights and inclusion – and the need to consider the spirit of legal justice (a point highlighted by Swarna Rajagopalan in her introduction to this symposium).
The neoliberal economy presents yet another institutional site of analysis, seen in Radheshyam Jadhav’s and Maitreyee Boruah’s posts, which are both situated within the corporatisation of food and food systems. Jadhav writes about women sugarcane cutters in Maharashtra undergoing forced hysterectomies, which enables their continued availability for performing productive labour. Jadhav shows how their gendered exploitation is inextricable from the informality of their work. This point is underlined by Boruah in her analysis of women tea garden workers in Assam. whose long hours and low wages feed the multi-crore tea industry.
The posts in this symposium come together to highlight the tentacular nature of patriarchy and its many insidious effects. Sudarshana Chakraborty’s piece demonstrates this by showing how acid attacks can be tied to the excessive burden placed on women to look a certain way, as well as other systems of gender inequality that aim to restrict women’s agency. Chakraborty also shows how some acid attack survivors have become activists to counter institutional failures. This is not to suggest that institutions can be replaced, but that resistance and change can emerge in different ways. Perhaps, more than anything, what this symposium has articulated is the need to centre a feminist ethics of care in our activism. Defined by Joan Tronto as valuing relationality and interdependence in human (and more-than-human) life, a feminist ethics of care translates to an active engagement with each other that privileges collaboration and solidarity. As Prajnya’s shutters descend, we hope this symposium serves as a foundation, or inspiration, for those who would like to take our work forward.
Dr. S. Shakthi teaches Human Geography at the University of Amsterdam. She is the Research Director and a Trustee at Prajnya.
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