HUNDREDS of members of Kudumbashree, one of the largest womens movements for poverty eradication in India, recently organised a day-night protest in front of the State Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram.
The protest, which had the support of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Keralas main opposition party, ended eight days later, with the Congress-led government agreeing to the majority of the demands of the protesters.
The immediate provocation for the agitation was the transfer of Rs.14.34 crore of Central funds under the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana to the Janasree Sustainable Development Mission, an NGO floated by former Minister M.M. Hassan of the Congress.
Protests had been in the air ever since Janasree was inaugurated in Kochi in 2008. Outwardly, it was similar to Kudumbashree, but Janasree was soon seen for what it was: a private initiative trying to hide under the protective umbrella of a section of the Congress. The opposition alleged that it merely sought to organise all categories of people as self-help groups and to find them funds from various sources for projects whose real nature remained vaguely defined.
Similar micro-finance initiatives launched by religious, caste and community-based organisations already mushrooming in Kerala were a matter of concern, with its members invariably seeking multiple affiliations and loans from several sources that could eventually push them into debt traps. They also posed a threat to the cohesiveness of Kudumbashree, the network of underprivileged women functioning uniquely under local government institutions, with micro-credit, entrepreneurship and empowerment as its key components.
Launched by the Left Democratic Front government in 1998, it is today an organisation of nearly 38 lakh women who also function as the interface of local communities in grama sabhas and other such bodies of local governments. It is unique in the way it is integrated with panchayats and municipalities, and left largely free of political interference so far. Its crucial link with the local bodies ensures social audit and control over delivery of services, utilisation of funds and repayment of loans, and acts as a deterrent against corruption.
Kudumbashree thus becomes a deliberate alternative to the micro-finance model recommended by global financial agencies and implemented in many States through transfer of poverty reduction funds directly to NGOs, bypassing elected governments and their monitoring mechanisms.
This makes the agitation against attempts to weaken a model project for poverty reduction significant.
R. KrishnakumarCOMMents
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