What is empowerment?

"We are poor when elections are here. When it is time to count the BPL (Below Poverty Line) families, we are not poor at all"! added Anarsi with a sarcastic smile. her simple analysis stumped me! She was explaining how the Gram Sabha (open meeting of the village council) meetings take place. Women in the meeting explained how they protested there against the Gram Pradhan and Secretary smoking country cigarettes (birhi) and passing time. They actually asked them to stop fooling around and conduct the open meeting of local self governance seriously. Ramratti was quick to add, "The Secretary then told us, had we been so vocal and upbeat about the Gram Sabha processes, there would not have been so many wrong BPL cards! It was I, who said then..", she emphasized, "..mere bhai (my brother), I was not there for sure but were you also not there? Was it not your work to ensure the deserving ones get the cards?"(Gram Sabha)

These are leaders of Pratapgarh district's Nari Sangh, a community based organization. The Nari Sangh in Maduraraniganj and other villages use community meeting places (chaupal) as a place for adult women's education. In Patti Block they have successfully replaced a gambling gathering with women's literacy center!  The best part of it was to go through the leave applications. Women ask a leave of absence from the teacher by writing about their extra work in the paddy fields or more house work when their sisters in law visit with family.

In the village I visited this October, a trader force-purchased a goat from a single woman at a much lower price. Next day when his employee was passing through the village with two other goats the women tied the goats and asked the man to go and inform the trader. The trader was forced to pay the market rate to the poor widow. Nari Sangh thinks that is their greatest achievement! They are ready to forget that they achieved an average of 84 days per family in MNREGA last year and this year a woman came to us to ask what to do as she has completed her 100 days!

What makes it more astounding is that all this is happening in Pratapgarh. Pratapgarh is a district that is adjacent to the "in"famous Bundelkhand. It is similar in nature rugged terrain and infertile lands and unabashed, "nothing could put them to shame" dominance of the feudal lords. A certain "bhaiya" rules the area, who could even secure a bail for himself in a POTA case. It is here that these women take the feudalism head on! 

When I hear all the experiences above I am reminded of Naila Kabir's explanation of what is empowerment. She explains empowerment as an expansion of one's ability to make strategic life choices in a context where this ability was previously denied to them. The empowerment encompasses the context (It is very important to remember. Your empowerment is not mine if we are women of different contexts and vice versa) in which the person lives, the agency or ability to take decisions (process) and the achievement, which is the outcome of choices. 

And I wonder will we, the so called educated lot ever be able to empower ourselves by making such choices or to be precise taking such risks? Will we ever have so much faith on our collectives? Will we even have our collectives, ever? And then we go to these rural areas to work on empowering women. When they react we try to say how much was justified, how could they have better responded and also do everything to make sure their already full plates get fuller with more work. 

And then, if a gutsy Anarsi or Ramratti or Parvatiya comes out and faces the world, we visit again. This time with a "tool" developed in a Delhi lab to measure her empowerment! And tear our hair whether its really empowerment!