Beyond the Mantra of Empowerment: Time to Return to Poverty, Violence and Struggle

Abstract

This article will explore the conflicted relationship between the women’s movement – with a specific location in feminism – and other people’s movements on the one hand, and the changing policies of the state on the other, through an indepth analysis of three programmes – the Women’s Development Programme (WDP) in Rajasthan, the Total Literacy Campaign (TLC) in Andhra Pradesh, and the focus on self-help groups (SHG) in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. The three programmes also represent three moments in the recent history of ‘women’s’ development in India.