by Kalamani, CWS
I am going to speak about two areas in which we have engagement with the State – One is domestic violence and the other is strengthening of the Panchayat administration. The strategies are more or less the same but there are some differences.
CWS Approach
Gender is the prime focus for CWS. It is a core value for CWS. It is important that any policy issue is based on non-negotiable values, and these values have to be personalised. Unless it is personalised it is very difficult to take it forward.
The other aspect of CWS policy dialogue is that it has emerged from our work with the 300 grassroots level organisations, inclduing women’s groups and women’s networ
ks. You all
know the women’s movement has been campaigning against various forms of
violence against women for the past three decades. Some of the issues
were population policies particularly the reproductive rights issue in
women targeted sterilization, female infanticide and foeticide, sexual
harassment at the workplace, domestic violence, trafficking of women,
etc. that is taking place. On each of the issues we have been aligning with different stakeholders – academicians, experts, media and also the state authorities. The alliance with these stakeholders and with the civil society organisations has emerged over a period of time. It was not a pre- planned or fully developed strategy from the beginning. The strategy emerged during the course of our work. For example, we supported the Criminal Investigation Department to establish a counseling cell in the women’s protective cell. And this is based in Hyderabad and women from all over the state can access services of the cell.
Currently, we are very intensively and extensively involved in the campaign against domestic violence. Our collaboration with the crime investigation department is of strategic importance. It really helped us in negotiating with the police department particularly as regards domestic violence in Andhra Pradesh.
The Campaigning on domestic violence
You all know that domestic violence was never acknowledged. It remained invisible and concealed as ‘personal’. It is in this context that the women’s movement campaigned that “personal is political”. It is no longer a private issue. It is the result of a gender-wide attitude.
India has signed many international agreements acknowledging that the state should make specific efforts to curtail domestic violence. However the laws under IPC sections like 498A or 306 are insufficient and inadequate for women to deal with this issue. Women’s groups have been demanding a civil law. The Lawyer’s Collective took the initiative to draft a bill and the bill was widely discussed with many groups.
CWS has taken the issue to the grassroots level through its network of organisations. We disseminated information to the grassroots community and among various stakeholders, through a number of strategies. We translated information into the local language and organised a series of events over 15 days ending on Human Rights day on the 10th of December. We also reached information to other stakeholders (other than those at the grassroots). The APCS played a major role. The strategy was to campaign mainly at the grassroots level and with other stakeholders like academicians. The media played a major role as did certain individuals belonging to certain political parties and the government.
Finally a bill was passed and the Act came into effect. Implmentation however is lacking, and so we continue to lobby with the government to frame rules to enable the implementing the law in its true spirit. We are in dialogue with the state government.We have got them on board in all the meetings and discussions, but find it difficult to get them to commit to anything. Their response has not been very positive so far. It is as if the responsibility of the government is over with the enactment of the law. Somewhere the government seems to say that it is now up to civil society, to take a leading role in the implementation. Is it not the responsibility of the state to implement policy as well. Civil Society is there to co-operate with the state, it cannot be expected to implement the Act.
To sum up: Our experience with working on domestic violence has been that collaboration with the civil society has always been successful while collaboration with the state authorities is some times promising and sometimes not so promising.The media has also been supportive. One has to learn and use different strategies with different stakeholders. It is also important to maintain a connection between grassroots linkages and the macro level.
Research, authentic scientific information, is very necessary to support any advocacy, but that was lacking. We therefore need an alliance, an institutional alliance not an individual alliance with academic institutions.
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