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Women's Empowerment through State Benevolence
Rajasthan was one of the first states to launch a participatory and innovative women's development programme (WDP) which was successful enough to challenge the socio-political power structures and was in time, derailed. Does the newly announced policy for women reflect the understanding gained through the WDP experience?
The decades of the 1980s and the 1990s have been characterised by a variety of pressures on the government of India and state governments, especially from international bodies and from groups within for affirmative action in favour of women as well as incorporating gender issues in policy planning. One of the primary objectives of the Ninth Five-Year Plan (1997-2002) is to create an enabling environment where women can freely exercise their rights both within and outside home as equal partners along with men. The Ninth plan document further states that this will be realised through early finalisation and adoption of the ‘National Policy for Empowerment of Women’.
The Rajasthan State Policy on Women announced by the government of Rajasthan(GOR) on March 8, is the fourth in the row of policy statements issued by different state governments led by the Maharashtra State Policy on Women announced in 1994. The policy drafted by the department of women and child development, GOR discusses (through 41 pages and seven chapters) various dimensions of women’s lives in Rajasthan and draws up critical areas for strategic interventions. According to the signatories to the policy the draft is an outcome of deliberations with various women’s groups and NGOs in May 1998 and subsequent discussions with departmental secretaries of GOR. The final document was prepared incorporating the comments of both these groups.
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