Progress of Women's movement in India

A lawyer and a Gandhian, she was the head of the women’s wing of the textile labour association in 1971 when she realized that self-employed women who work in Ahmedabad Crafts market had erratic wages and little recourse to law. What emerged from this realization and collectivism was the Self-Employed Women’s Association or SEWA.

Ela Bhatt founded SEWA in 1971. Over 13 lakh women are part of the SEWA movement in 9 states. SEWA services have expanded to include banks, housing, micro-finance, colleges.
In 1974, Gaura Devi led a group of 27 women from her village Reni in Chamoli to a nearby forest where they spent almost 4 days hugging trees to prevent them from being fell. This was the beginning of the Chipko Movement.
The Chipko Movement of Garhwal inspired similar actions in the 1980s through India. The movement led to formulation of people-sensitive forest policies.
She never went to school, she was married after 12 and have the first of her five children at the age of 15. In 2006, she led a group of women who beat up a man in their village for physically abusing his wife and then the Gulabi Gang was formed.
Sampat Pal’s Gulabi Gang has now expanded out of her village in Bundelkhand, UP to other states and has a chapter in France too. More than 2 lakh women are part of the Gulabi Gang.
Perhaps this is the beauty of the women’s movement in India post independence. It is not a monolith.  It is full of contradictions in its approach and demands but there are some undertones that stay constant and are perhaps common to the movement in our parts of the world as well.
The demand to give the seat at the table and the desire to move beyond the tokenism and struggle to walk the last mile to the tipping point.
This week we'll talk to women to understand why we are, where we are in the women’s movement in India and what the road ahead looks like. The panel for the discussion includes Vandana Shiva, Founder & Director, Navdanya, Sunita Narain, Director, Center for Sceince & Environmen, Akhila Sivadas, Managing Trustee, Center for Advocacy & Research, Urvashi Butalia, Founder, Zubaan Books and Swati Ramanathan, Co-Founder, Janaagraha.

Watch the videos for more