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By Laxmi Murthy Micro lending does create a space for women. But it does not change macro structures or provide a transformative framework, says a women's group called Nirantar
Micro-credit has been promoted as a tool not only of women’s economic empowerment, but also of social and political empowerment. An assumption of micro-credit is that these programmes will significantly increase women’s incomes, enable women to control that income and also enable them to negotiate improvements in their status within the household. It was also assumed that micro-credit would give women access to support networks that enable them to advance their individual and collective interests at the local as well as macro level. Yet, the concept of empowerment itself is highly contentious. Nirantar, a Delhi-based women’s resource centre working on gender and education in various parts of the country, has been looking at the education component in self-help groups, and consequently examining the notion of empowerment in these groups. Nirantar in its interaction with self-help groups (SHGs) in various parts of Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Gujarat, found that when micro-credit becomes central, the modalities of financial transactions consume the SHGs. There is excessive focus on records and book-keeping. Health, education, and women’s personal needs become marginal to this process. Women’s secondary status and violence against women is not on the agenda, but relegated to informal exchanges after the ‘main’ meeting of the SHG. The ‘happy’ face of micro-credit is that women are a conduit for bringing credit to the family, but the ‘sad’ face is that women are burdened with loan repayment. Another basic question that researchers at Nirantar raise is “why only ‘micro’ credit for women? Women then have to struggle to make this small loan viable, make the activity viable and ensure loan repayment. And women often are able to ensure repayment by cutting down on their own consumption, or through wage labour. There is no employment-generation, but only self-employment, and that too on a non-viable scale. We have innumerable examples of subcontracting on exploitative terms, with scant respect for labour laws. The question of whether micro-credit indeed empowers women has also been raised by researchers in other parts of the world. [‘ Experts question wisdom of micro-credit for women’ http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1239/context/cover/] Ironically, in most of the schemes, women’s own money is locked up, and they are forced to take a loan against their own savings at a higher interest. NGOs have become collecting agents for banks which are trying to increase their penetration of credit. But this penetration is only creating more dependence. Back-to-back lending ensures that women are continuously in debt and have to undergo the stress of repayment. It is no mere coincidence that Andhra Pradesh, oft-quoted as a ‘success story’ of micro-credit, is also the state with the highest number of deaths due to debts. Nirantar also raises the fundamental issue of why subsidy as a right (for instance agricultural subsidy) is being taken away and credit given as a burden. Moreover, the cash orientation of micro-credit is located in an analysis of exploitative usury arrangements, rather than being located in an analysis of the breakdown of food security or mutuality of village systems. We find that women often approached the moneylender for food security, market access or crisis expenditure, and these needs are now being met by SHGs, without addressing fundamental questions such as: why is there food insecurity; why do producers not have market access; why do only girls’ families have to spend on dowry? Thus, basic issues of women’s subordination and poverty are not addressed. With the emphasis on lending, non-monetary initiatives of saving and co-operation such as grain banks, seed banks etc are not promoted with equal zeal. The myth that micro-credit will empower women or enable poverty alleviation has been propagated by international agencies to draw people into a market economy based on cash or credit. It is also a ‘win-win’ scheme promoted by a State that is increasingly withdrawing from its development and welfare responsibilities. The micro-credit approach implies that it is people’s own responsibility to lift themselves out of poverty – an impossible goal within the current economic paradigm. The ‘success stories’ are disproportionately publicised, and the immense non-economic inputs and support structures required to lift SHGs out of the quagmire of financial transactions, are not highlighted as much. SHGs are also used by various government departments to carry out their tasks – from the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, wasteland development, family planning, immunisation, water, sanitation and forestry. Women members of the SHG do not have much role as decision-makers, but are expected to monitor these programmes in an extension of their traditional role as nurturers. The focus on women here seems more as an instrumentality, rather than to further their empowerment. The impact on processes of organising women at the grassroots level is also of concern. Besides the familiar concerns about women’s lack of control over the loans and the added burden of repayment, researchers at Nirantar point out that the micro-credit ‘movement’ is a chimera. In fact, credit compulsions mandated by banks often result in breaking up larger women’s groups into inchoate groupings of 20 women. The competitiveness created among women within the group is also antithetical to the cohesiveness and bonding amongst women engendered by the women’s movement. Once there is money coming into the family with women as the conduit, men make it their business to know what is going on in the SHGs, and often manipulate the proceedings. In such a scenario, women’s own agendas and struggles take a back seat. Micro lending cannot change macro structures. It does create space for women, more mobility and exposure, but this is in the restricted framework and a pre-set agenda, not a transformative framework. Instead of mere access, we need to speak about entitlement. Questions of land rights, purchase of assets and controlling assets are crucial issues that need to be addressed. Contact email:
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