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ABSTRACT
The state of India acknowledges the rights of children as a guiding national policy principle, but also outsources much rights implementation to private actors such as NGOs. This article asks what happens to the concept of ‘rights’ when their implementation is dependent on the voluntary sector. Based on ethnographic material from one NGO-dependent child rights programme, and with the conceptual framework of ‘vernacular rights cultures’, it finds that for ‘semi-governmental’ social workers, the concept of samāj sevā (social service or social work) was merged with the concept of rights to the extent that rights were conceived as things to be given and mediated by social workers, and not only claimed from the state. I argue that if we want human rights theory to reflect actual practice, we should undertake serious conceptional study of ethical discourses that mix with and influence the concept of rights on the ground.
Notes
1 Interview with Sonali, CHILDLINE Coordinator (Madhya Pradesh 17 February 2019). Names of interviewees and organisations in Madhya Pradesh are pseudonyms. CHILDLINE is not a pseudonym.
2 R Srivatsan, Seva, Saviour, and State: Caste Politics, Tribal Welfare and Capitalist Development (Routledge 2015) 3.
3 In this article, I use ‘voluntary organization’ and ‘non-governmental organization’ (NGO) interchangeably, reflecting the way in which the study’s informants used the terms. While ‘voluntary organization’ can seem misleading because workers were actually employed and thus (however poorly) paid, the common use of the term captures the perception that people working for these organizations were conducting a ‘voluntary’ and selfless service, which will be a theme throughout the paper.
4 Sumi Madhok, Vernacular Rights Cultures: The Politics of Origins, Human Rights and Gendered Struggles for Justice (Cambridge University Press 2021).
5 For one of several excellent studies on the relation between neoliberalism and rights in India, see Niraja Gopal Jayal, Citizenship and its Discontents: An Indian History (Harvard University Press 2013).
6 Sten Widmalm (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Autocratization in South Asia (Routledge 2022).
7 Soumi Banerjee, ‘Performing Agency in Shrinking Spaces: Acting Beyond the Resilience-Resistance Binary’ (2023) 11(2) Social Inclusion 147.
8 Nayanika Mathur, Paper Tiger: Law, Bureaucracy and the Developmental State in Himalayan India (Cambridge University Press 2015) 5.
9 Thomas Blom Hansen, The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India (Princeton University Press 1999) 26.
10 See also Thomas Blom Hansen and Finn Stepputat, States of Imagination: Ethnographic Explorations of the Postcolonial State (Duke University Press 2001); Aradhana Sharma and Akhil Gupta, ‘Introduction: Rethinking Theories of the State in an Age of Globalization’ in Aradhana Sharma and Akhil Gupta (eds), The Anthropology of the State: A Reader (Wiley-Blackwell 2006).
11 See James Ferguson and Akhil Gupta, ‘Spatializing States: Toward an Ethnography of Neoliberal Governmentality’ (2002) 29(4) American Ethnologist 981.
12 Aruna Roy, as quoted in Sneha Philip and Smarinita Shetty, ‘Interview: Aruna Roy on how she has successfully campaigned for people rights for four decades’ Scroll (31 January 2022) <https://scroll.in/article/1016243/interview-aruna-roy-on-how-she-has-successfullycampaigned-for-people-rights-for-four-decades> accessed 12 December 2023
13 The ethnographic material on CHILDLINE for this article is from 2019, when CHILDLINE was a state-NGO partnership. In 2022, the Indian government issued Mission Vatsalya, an overarching child protection policy that mandates CHILDLINE to be merged with the state-run emergency number 112 (Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India, Mission Vatsalya. Savdhanta Sanrakshnam: Implementation Guidelines (New Delhi 2022) <https://wcd.nic.in/sites/default/files/GUIDELINES%20OF%20MISSION%20VATSALYA%20DATED%2005%20JULY%202022.pdf> accessed 12 December 2023. This policy is strongly criticized by NGOs (See for instance Jagriti Chandra, ‘Cloud over child helpline 1098 as government mulls merging it with national emergency helpline 112,’ The Hindu (16 April 2022) <https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/cloud-over-child-helpline-1098-as-government-mulls-merging-it-with-national-emergency-helpline-112/article65327177.ece> accessed 12 December 2023; Ambika Pandit, ‘Child helpline to be integrated with 112 emergency response system,’ Times of India (14 September 2022) <https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/child-helpline-to-be-integrated-with-112-emergency-response-system/articleshow/94187843.cms> accessed 12 December 2023. Due to the timing of my fieldwork, this paper’s empirical basis does not allow me to consider this highly relevant ongoing development in my analysis.
14 See for instance Jeroo Billimoria et al., Listening to Children: An Overview of CHILDLINE (Mumbai 2001) <https://www.childlineindia.org/uploads/files/20200316113734_Listening-To-Children.pdf> accessed 12 December 2023.
15 Jeroo Billimoria, ‘Genesis of Project Childline (NGO Interventions)’ (1997) 58(3) Indian Journal of Social Work 456; Interview with Jeroo Billimoria, CHILDLINE Founder (Online 15 September 2020).
16 Prior to the study, the data was reviewed and approved by the Swedish Ethics Review Board (Etiksprövningsmyndigheten) with the approval number 2019-00107 (2018/1059). All participants gave informed consent. Due to the high level of child protection within CHILDLINE, the vulnerability of the children with whom it comes into contact, and my objective of studying NGO workers’ perceptions of children’s rights, I decided not to include children as research subjects. The analysis in this paper is therefore focused on how NGO workers mix different ethical languages, not how these ethical languages are affected by children themselves—which would provide for a fascinating but different study.
17 Peggy Levitt and Sally Engle Merry, ‘Vernacularization on the ground: local uses of global women’s rights in Peru, China, India and the United States’ (2009) 9 Global Networks 441.
18 Madhok (n 4).
19 Mark Goodale, ‘Ethical Theory as Social Practice’ (2006) 108 American Anthropologist 25.
20 See, among many, Richard A. Wilson, Human Rights, Culture and Context (Pluto Press 1997); Jane K. Cowan et al, Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives (Cambridge University Press 2001); Mark Goodale (ed), Human Rights: An Anthropological Reader (Wiley-Blackwell 2009); Sally Engle Merry, ‘The Potential of Ethnographic Methods for Human Rights Research’ in Bård A. Andreassen, Hans-Otto Sano and Siobhán McInerney-Lankford (eds), Research Methods in Human Rights: A Handbook (Edward Elgar Publishing Limited 2017) 141.
21 See for instance Ann-Belinda S. Preis, ‘Human Rights as Cultural Practice: An Anthropological Critique’ in Mark Goodale (ed), Human Rights: An Anthropological Reader (Wiley-Blackwell 2009) 332; William P. Simmons and Lindsay R. Feldman, ‘Critical Ethnography and Human Rights Research’ in Lee McConnell and Rhona Smith (eds), Research Methods in Human Rights (Routledge 2018) 114.
22 See Julie Billaud, ’Keepers of the ’Truth’: Producing ‘Transparent’ Documents for the Universal Periodic Review’ in Hilary Charlesworth and Emma Larking (eds), Human Rights and the Universal Periodic Review: Rituals and Ritualism (Cambridge University Press 2015) 63; Joshua Clark and Miia Halme-Tuomisaari, ‘Introduction: Anthropology, Human Rights, and Three (Miniature) Generations’ (2016) PoLAR Virtual Edition; Ronald Niezen and Maria Sapignoli, Palaces of Hope: The Anthropology of Global Organizations (Cambridge University Press 2017).
23 For excellent arguments on why ethnography is more than simply contextualizations, see Allaine Cerwonka and Liisa Malkki, Improvising Theory. Process and Temporality in Ethnographic Fieldwork (University of Chicago Press 2007); Laura Nader, ‘Ethnography as Theory’ (2011) 1 HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 211.
24 See e.g. Jane K. Cowan, ‘Culture and Rights after Culture and Rights’ in Mark Goodale (ed), Human Rights: An Anthropological Reader (Wiley-Blackwell 2009) 306; Sonia Sikka, ‘Rights and Relativity’ in Ashwani Peetush and Jay Drydyk (eds), Human Rights: India and the West (Oxford University Press 2015) 19.
25 Goodale (n 19); Goodale (n 20).
26 Goodale (n 19) 26-27.
27 Cowan (n 24) 325. Some scholars are already connecting the two fields in relation to human rights. See Sikka (n 24), Goodale (n 19) and Cowan (n 24).
28 Simmons and Feldman (n 21) 130.
29 Jane K. Cowan, ‘An Obligation to ’Support Human Rights’ Unconditionally is Misguided Moralism’ in Mark Goodale (ed), Human Rights: An Anthropological Reader (Wiley-Blackwell 2009) 204, 204.
30 Levitt and Merry (n 17).
31 Goodale (n 19) 32.
32 Sumi Madhok, ’On Vernacular Rights Cultures and the Political Imaginaries of Haq’ (2017) 8 Humanity 485, 501-502.
33 Madhok (n 4) 35.
34 ibid 51.
35 Sally Engle Merry, ’Transnational Human Rights and Local Activism: Mapping the Middle’ (2006) 108 American Anthropologist 39.
36 Goodale (n 19) 29.
37 Madhok (n 32).
38 A semantic field is a cluster of concepts within a discourse, obtaining meaning from the concepts around it (Jan Ifversen, ‘Text, Discourse, Concept: Approaches to Textual Analysis’ (2003) 7 KONTUR 60, 67).
39 For a thorough history of the concept, see Srivatsan (n 2) and Carey Watt, Serving the Nation: Cultures of Service, Association, and Citizenship (Oxford University Press 2005).
40 Ronald Stuart McGregor, Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary (Oxford University Press 1993).
41 Srivatsan (n 2) ix; Malini Bhattacharjee, ‘Sevā, Hindutva, and the Politics of Post-Earthquake Relief and Reconstruction in Rural Kutch’ (2016) 75 Asian Ethnology 75, 80.
42 Bhattacharjee (n 40) 80.
43 Srivatsan (n 2) 3-4.
44 ibid 4; 14; Ajay Skaria, ’Gandhi’s Politics: Liberalism and the Question of the Ashram’ (2002) 101 The South Atlantic Quarterly 955.
45 Srivatsan (n 2) viii.
46 Skaria (n 44) 957; 976.
47 ibid 982.
48 Srivatsan (n 2) 4-5.
49 Nehru, as quoted in Stuart Corbridge et al, Seeing the State: Governance and Governmentality in India (Cambridge University Press 2005) 55.
50 Corbridge et al (n 49) 55.
51 Srivatsan (n 2) 4.
52 ibid 5; 17.
53 Bhattacharjee (n 41).
54 See also Hansen (n 9).
55 Devika Bordia, ‘The ethics of des seva: Hindu nationalism, tribal leadership and modes of sociality in Rajasthan’ (2015) 49 Contributions to Indian Sociology 52, 53.
56 Bordia (n 55) 66.
57 Interview with Roshan (CHILDLINE Team Member), Prashant (CHILDLINE Team Member) and Radha (CHILDLINE Team Member) (Madhya Pradesh 29 March 2019).
58 Field notes, 8 February 2019.
59 Shirin Rai and Sumi Madhok, ‘Agency, Injury, and Transgressive Politics in Neoliberal Times’ (2012) 37 Signs 645; Sharma, as quoted in Merry (n 34) 46; Krishnamurthy, as quoted in Sally Engle Merry, ‘Legal Transplants and Cultural Translation’ in Mark Goodale (ed), Human Rights: An Anthropological Reader (Wiley-Blackwell 2009) 282.
60 Rai and Madhok (n 59) 653-54.
61 Interview with Bhavesh, CHILDLINE Volunteer (Madhya Pradesh 28 March 2019).
62 Goodale (n 19) 32.
63 Interview with Kunal, CHILDLINE Team Member (Madhya Pradesh 3 March 2019).
64 Interview with Basanti, CHILDLINE Team Member (Madhya Pradesh 26 February 2019).
65 Interview with Kunal (CHILDLINE Team Member), Pradeep (CHILDLINE District Coordinator) and Basanti (CHILDLINE Team Member) (Madhya Pradesh 23 April 2019).
66 Bhattacharjee (n 41) 77.
67 Srivatsan (n 2) 32.
68 Interview with Jagadish, Director of the NGO Suraj (Madhya Pradesh 24 April 2019).
69 N Rajaram and V Zararia, ‘Translating women’s human rights in a globalizing world: the spiral process in reducing gender injustice in Baroda, India’ (2009) 9(4) Global Networks 462.
70 Interview with Pradeep, CHILDLINE District Coordinator (Madhya Pradesh 28 February 2019).
71 Interview with Aditya, CHILDLINE Team Member (Madhya Pradesh 4 March 2019).
72 ibid.
73 Merry (n 35) 39.
74 Interview with Prashant, CHILDLINE Team Member (Madhya Pradesh 27 March 2019).
75 Field notes, 3 March 2019.
76 Field notes, 16 February 2019.
77 Field notes, 5 February 2019.
78 See for instance Michael Freeman, ‘Why it remains important to take children’s rights seriously’ (2007) 15(1) International Journal of Children’s Rights 5; Didier Reynaert et al., ‘Between “believers” and “opponents”: Critical discussions on children’s rights’ (2012) 20(1) International Journal of Children’s Rights 155; Eugeen Verhellen, ‘The Convention on the Rights of the Child: Reflections from a historical, social policy and educational perspective’ in Wouter Vandenhole et al. (eds), Routledge International Handbook of Children’s Rights Studies (Routledge 2015) 43.
79 Interview with Kunal (CHILDLINE Team Member), Pradeep (CHILDLINE District Coordinator) and Basanti (CHILDLINE Team Member) (Madhya Pradesh 23 April 2019).
80 Interview with Radha, CHILDLINE Team Member (Madhya Pradesh 27 February 2019).
81 As I have shown elsewhere, those voluntary organizations working closer to sangharṣ (see above) than to sevā are likely to affect the rights conception in a different direction (Therese Boje Mortensen, ‘NGOs as child rights implementers in India: How NGO workers negotiate human rights responsibility in “partnership” with a neoliberal and restrictive state’ (PhD thesis, Lund University 2023).
82 Mortensen (n 81) chapter 6.
83 The few accounts that take NGOs seriously in human rights claims usually still refer to them as ‘non-state’, assuming the state as the ‘original’ duty bearer. See for instance Philip Alston, Non-State Actors and Human Rights (Oxford University Press 2005); Andrew Kuper, Global Responsibilities: Who Must Deliver on Human Rights? (Routledge 2005).