India has lost its gentle revolutionary who brought freedom for India’s poorest women. Ela Bhatt founded SEWA (the self-employed women’s association) fifty years ago. She passed away last week. Inspired by Gandhiji, she joined the Textile Labor Association (or Majoor Mahajan). She said, “For me, nation-building meant reaching the workers. They are the foundation of the nation and yet remain poor and neglected”. She passed the leadership baton of SEWA to many younger women during her lifetime. She leaves behind a large, self-sustaining movement that has brought Poorna Swaraj (economic, social, and political freedom) to millions of women workers.
I had the privilege of knowing Elaben for many years. Whenever I turned to her for guidance in her later years, she would say she was no longer the leader. She would introduce me to the new leaders, who would introduce me to yet others. The depth of leadership within SEWA is remarkable. I have learned much about leadership, service, and methods of organizing, from Elabhen and the leaders she nurtured.
Elaben’s greatest legacy was her example of how a movement of change for delivering Poorna Swaraj to powerless people is built. Many courageous activists demand justice for the powerless—for women, migrants and “lower caste” citizens. They lead protests, call strikes, and move petitions in courts. Elaben started her journey of activism with a textile workers’ union. She knew the methods of adversarial contest and used them judiciously for women’s rights too. However, SEWA’s members have not obtained sustainable economic and social freedoms by disrupting and demanding their rights from others; but from a deep movement of change to build their own capabilities and self-confidence. SEWA has created several institutions, including a cooperative bank, reinforcing each other within SEWA, thus strengthening the economic independence of its poorest members.
Economic inequalities have been increasing around the world for many decades. Though economic growth has made the poor less poor, gaps between the poorest and wealthiest have increased. The economic system is not fair to all. Governments are losing popular support and therefore unable to make substantial reforms. Paralysis of democratic governments is creating demands for radical change from populists, from both Left and Right, on all continents.
Elaben’s legacy gives insights for labor unions, civil society organizations, and political parties who want to accelerate change in societal power structures that are leaving powerless people behind. Marx stirred a class conflict in the twentieth century. He pitted workers against their capitalist employers. The solution was the rise of communism, which substituted the state for capitalists as the workers’ employer. This eliminated exploitation of workers by capitalists; but created states with totalitarian powers who reduced citizens’ political freedoms.
Elaben was inspired by Gandhiji’s vision. Gandhi was not a communist. His vision of Poorna swaraj for all Indians was a country of a billion democrats and many millions of tiny capitalists. In his vision workers would be owners of their enterprises, individually and cooperatively. By their work, they would create wealth for themselves, not for remote investors or large capitalists.
Self-employed women are the most marginalized workers in India. Women suffer discrimination even in the formal economy: they are paid less than men, and their need to provide family care is considered a hindrance to productivity. Economists driven to enroll more women in the formal economy to boost GDP do not realize that more women in India than any other country already work to earn. They are mostly self-employed: engaged in farming, weaving at home, selling vegetables on the roadside, etc. There is no employer to provide them fair wages or social security, or even safe spaces to work. While improving “ease of doing business” for large capitalists, tiny entrepreneurs are looked down upon. In fact, road-side hawkers are considered a public nuisance.
The shape of economic growth matters, not just its size. Formal trade unions fight for benefits for workers in large, formal enterprises that employ less than 10% of Indian workers. Whereas 90% of Indian workers are in the informal economy—in manufacturing, agriculture, and services. In fact, around the world, with changes in technologies and business models, the trend is towards more informal employment. Trade unions and associations representing self-employed women, farm workers, hawkers, gig workers, etc. must form a wider movement of change for more dignity and justice for the 90% being left further behind while policymakers chase trillion-dollar targets to grow the size of the economy.
An insight from Elaben’s work for NGOs, development agencies, and others wanting to improve the conditions of people left behind, is that poor people must not be treated as beneficiaries of others’ benevolence. This keeps them in a dependent mode; it does not increase their confidence and self-respect. Therefore, powerless people must become agents of change, rather than recipients of compensations for their deprivations. Self-motivated change is economically sustainable too. Moreover, when poor people create new institutions together, as they must because each alone is too small, they acquire more political force for changing the rules of the game and making economic growth equitable.
HelpAge International, who works for the care of older persons around the world, has learned this lesson too. Improvements in infrastructure, health services, and incomes with economic growth enable people to live longer. Also, women produce fewer children. Thus, the ratio of older persons is society to working age persons in the formal economy is increasing. Governments are hard-pressed to find resources for the needs of larger numbers of older persons. Even NGOs are strained for resources; moreover, their priorities are care of children, and livelihoods for youth, who are resources for growth of the economy.
Around the world, when older persons become agents of improvements in their own lives, in older persons’ associations for example, social change is brought about which benefits not just older persons but the whole community. Many older persons associations are expanding into intergenerational associations, binding old and young, and women and men, into social compacts to improve the care of their natural environment and the well-being of all. Democratic and sustainable movements of change for the people must be by the people.
(Published in the Tribune on 9th November 2022)
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/harbinger-of-change-448939