Accidental women human rights activists, unintentional advocacy by NGOs and a displeased government

Mobilising women’s self-help groups (SHGs) and fostering the leadership capacity of the SHG Federation women to carry out the Indian government’s social welfare schemes was what the collaborative NGOs were expected to do, to fulfil the vision of the all-enveloping National Rural Livelihood Mission. So effective did the SHG model appear, that the task of organising SHGs was taken over by government-sponsored and -directed new-age GoNgos – the hybrid national/state Livelihood Promotion Societies. As for the pioneering NGOs which had built community bonds and seeded the SHGs, they were now marginalised to ‘training’ and ‘monitoring’ activities. Moreover, so attractive did the potential of the SHG women appear, given that they were acculturated to being obligingly obedient to local and national patriarchies, that they were chosen as the primary vehicle for quiescently implementing some of the Prime Minister’s flagship schemes: Swach Bharat 2014 (clean India), Awas Yojana 2015 (affordable housing), and Ujwala 2016 (gas connections) schemes. Politically orphaned, but crucial, was the carryover scheme of the previous government premised on the right to work – Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme 2005 (MGNREGA). With pride, government officials noted the breaking of the silence by SHG Federation women in the decision-making gram sabhas (village assembly) and in contesting local Panchayat elections. Expectedly, once the silence was broken, women’s voices could not be stifled from criticising. Consciousness raising and capacity building for Federation leadership could not be blocked from asserting rights entitlement and demanding justice. As for the NGOs, they had set out to collaborate with the government, but the process of mobilising women’s economic capability and leadership invariably involved fostering consciousness about patriarchy, equality, and justice. Unintentionally, this set the NGOs on a confrontational course with the government, for the SHG women emerged not only as carriers of the burden of government welfare schemes and critics of unsustainable models, but also as frontline leaders of protest against land dispossession and displacement. This is a tale of successful SHG mobilisation in the states of Jharkhand and Rajasthan. Back in 2017, in B... a village in a district in Jharkhand, a public event was organised to showcase the capacity and leadership skills of the SHG Federation women before the chief guest, the local legislator who became state Minister for Rural Development. But