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

[Padmalatha Ravi]

Hello Rakshath,

Looks like women have very little role in RWAs across the country.  I have
seen it happen in smaller cities like Madurai and so called cosmo city like
Bangalore.  All decisions are taken by men and women even if they are not
they just go along.  The women just don't feel comfortable raising issues.
When elections are announced the women either don't volunteer or if at all
nominated they are not elected.  In fact in one of the associations it was
unanimously decided by the men that women should not be part of
administrative team but should take form an association that takes care of
social responsibilities.  That being arranging tea and snacks for the
administrative meetings and organising cultural programmes for Independence
day and deepavali celebrations!

Padma


On 5/26/06, rakshat hooja <rakshat at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  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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-- 
Cheers
Padma
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