Women's Right to Land: Voices from Grassroots Movements and Working Women's Alliance in Gujarat

Abstract

Working Group On Women and Land Ownership (WGWLO), a Gujarat based network of 23 NGOs set up in the last part of 2003, emerged in a context where women’s rights to land ownership has gained more recognition in international conventions, the national planning and policy processes and research. At the national and state levels, within development dialogue and actors, in mass movements or in networks focusing on land and other forms of resource rights, women’s entitlement and rights to land ownership remain marginal, even where such rights are acknowledged. There were other challenges as well, such as lack of information and understanding on the status of women and agricultural land ownership in the state, awareness levels and perceptions of rural women and communities, legal rights and its implementation, role of land administration and state policy. It was in this background that a unique journey and exercise in networking was initiated by AKRSP (India), drawing on its own learning in the field on women’s empowerment and the seminal work of Bina Agarwal on the issue, bringing together NGOs working on issues of natural resource management and women’s empowerment. Using a more reflexive approach and communicating more openly to constituenciesn through a creative use of participatory action and research methodologies at the grass roots level, committing human and financial resources as per their own priorities, led to a sense of ownership within the staff and organizations. At the same time, it increased understanding of grass roots realities and opened up possibilities of strategizing at varied levels - organization, household, community, government. Several factors shaped the participation level and structure of the working group that evolved namely, interaction between member NGOs not being funding based, the working group comprising of NGO leaders and grassroots leaders in the initial years, commitment to work together for three years, housing the secretariat within a member NGO, key role played initially by a Convenor also from within the group, and later, by the Co-ordinator. Building capacities of village level institutions, supporting processes at the grassroots level and the resulting field experiences/learning led to the development of a regional and decentralized approach. The value added to this by linking and co-ordination enhanced the capacity of the working group to act in several/diverse regions, provide space for varied ideas to be articulated, build consensus positions and strengthen the information base for advocacy. Material production, documentation, dissemination of information combined with the groups strong process rolefacilitating exchange, joint strategizing and collective analysis - have led to the capacity building of grass roots level institutions (women’s federations, women’s justice committees, information centres, panchayat resource centres, etc.) to address the issue of women and land ownership. The group has also linked with other networks in the state focusing on gender issues- (violence, governance). On the other hand, the group’s grassroots approach has strengthened the base for advocacy and to bring grassroots realities before policy makers/government. Training of local officials involved in land administration and finding a foot hold in government training institutions are part of the multi level strategies developed by the group and have led to design and production of training modules. As the issue of land is still alive the group, decided to continue its role of supporting processes and to play a more pronounced advocacy role. Widening the levels of engagement, share its strategies and learning with other constituencies - networks, movements working on issues of land (tribal, dalit, pastoral etc.) are at the heart of the activities. While the structure of the group remains informal and the secretariat is now housed with another member NGO, three committees are evolving, focusing on grassroots, networking, advocacy and research, respectively and placing newer challenges to linking and co-ordination and decision making process. With federations being directly represented in the working group, the transformation is already taking shape.