[Reader-list] long overdue post on Resident Welfare Associations

[rakshat hooja]

This is a long long overdue post. Its been a while since I posted any update
on my I-Fellow Project on Resident Welfare Association & Urban Stakeholder
Activism, but in this post I will try to discuss one specific issue, that I
find very interesting and has cropped up during my initial surveys, meetings
and discussions.

 This issue is   – Role of Women in RWA's -> One of my reasons for choosing
the issue of RWA activism for further investigation was that whenever I
visited any of my friends or relatives and had a chance to talk to the
parents/ older generation (i.e. aunts and uncles) the working of the RWA
used to invariably become a topic of conversation. The interesting part was
that it was the women (mothers and aunts) who were more vocal and talked
about the facilities being made available/ not being made available in great
detail.

 Based on the above, I had assumed that women would be playing a very
important role in the functioning of the RWA and would also be holding a lot
of the office bearer posts. (I also assumed that some of them being home
makers would have more time).

 I was initially surprised when I, for the first time, carefully looked at
the list of RWA main office bearers of the colony where I am living in a
rented accommodation (C9 Vasant Kunj) and found no women members. But I was
even more surprised by my findings when I conducted informal interviews in
the Kalkaji Extension area (Pocket A 14).

 My initial contact in Kalkaji was a lady (Flat No 58) and through her I got
to meet a few other ladies in the colony. Through them I was hoping to learn
quite a bit about RWA functioning in the area, and I did, but what I found
unusual were their views on attending RWA meetings and the decision making
process of the RWA. Though they did attend some of the RWA meetings, they
felt that most of the main decisions were taken by the men in the colony.
(And they seemed ok with it). "Male dominated" and "the men decide" were
some of the phrases used by the women. The women were satisfied with the
working of the RWA though not thrilled but did have some minor grievances.
For example, the RWA had set up a uniform system of garbage collection from
the houses. This did not suit many of the women /residents. But when they
tried to make private arrangements the RWA did not allow it. The women also
felt that because the RWA was male-dominated they were not very comfortable
about raising issues that only they felt strongly about.

 After the interviews in Kalkaji Extension, I went through the newspaper/
web articles about RWA that I am collecting and realized that though there
are some comments by women RWA members in the newspapers, the men do seem to
be taking the lead in most of the activities / government interactions /
agitations organized by the RWAs. (For example, Water Harvesting
initiatives, agitations on house tax, highlighting water problems etc.[I
have gone through the newspaper and web articles in a cursory manner at
present, and will look at them in detail in due course]).

 I feel that the role of women in RWAs is an issue that needs to be explored
further (as there may be other RWAs where women are much more active), and I
will do so as my work progresses.

 I had used the 'stakeholder activism' concept based on my earlier work on
rural development (in Rajasthan) where, on being provided a multi-stake
holder platform, the rural women had become much more vocal and started to
actively participate in the development activities. I had assumed that in
urban areas women will be participating anyway in any kind of stake holder
activism (as I have visualized RWAs activities to be). But my initial
findings have left me quite surprised.


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