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ABSTRACT
The golden past of the feminist conference is eclipsed by the present cynicism around depoliticisation of feminism, ‘NGO-isation’ and the cooption of such spaces by the state, large INGOs and donor organisations. With inter-generational conflicts and identity-based mobilisation, the current moment in the Indian women’s movement has been termed by Indian scholars as one of a ‘feminist civil war’. In this article, I reflect on the elements that made past processes such as the National Conferences on Autonomous Women’s Movements in India an empowering experience for activists, and that created spaces where the movement could resolve – or at least make visible – its ‘sticky’ issues. I ask: what can we learn about feminist conferences as a driving force for feminist activism in the past for creating inclusive and safe spaces for dialogue in the future? Can they be the spaces where feminist dilemmas of the time can be resolved? Through examining archival materials and personal reflections in dialogue with theoretical discussions on new feminisms, autonomy, diversity and intersectionality, I argue that the feminist conference had a critical role to play in the personal journeys of activists in the Indian women’s movement, and in collectively resolving some of the tensions in the movement through practices such as endorsement of co-written ‘resolutions’ and ‘declarations’ with purposefully diverse grassroots constituencies. In any new avatar, the feminist conference needs to retain such strengths but also take into account the feminist movement’s new, young membership and a changed context by re-aligning its values, modes and materials of engagement to this landscape, so that dialogue on difficult themes is made possible in productive, caring and pleasurable ways.
Le passé glorieux de la « conférence féministe » est en passe de perdre de son éclat en raison du cynisme actuel autour de la dépolitisation du féminisme, l’« ONG-isation » et la cooptation de ces espaces par l’État, les grandes ONGI et les organisations donatrices. Étant donné les conflits intergénérationnels et la mobilisation basée sur l’identité au sein du mouvement, le moment actuel au sein du mouvement féministe indien a été désigné par les experts indiens comme un moment de « guerre civile féministe ». Je choisis ce moment pour examiner et réfléchir aux éléments qui ont fait de processus passés comme les Conférences nationales sur les mouvements autonomes des femmes en Inde une expérience autonomisante pour les activistes et un tremplin pour comprendre comment pratiquer la politique féministe. Un aspect important est que ces conférences ont créé des espaces permettant au mouvement de résoudre — ou tout au moins de rendre visibles — ses propres questions « délicates ». Dans le présent article je pose la question suivante: que pouvons-nous apprendre sur les rencontres ou les conférences féministes en tant que moteurs de l’activisme féministe du passé pour créer un espace inclusif et sûr qui impulse le dialogue à l’avenir? Peut-il y avoir des espaces dans lesquels les « dilemmes féministes » du moment peuvent être résolus de manière productive? Ayant examiné des documents d’archive dotés de « mémoires du mouvement » et mené des réflexions personnelles dans le cadre d’un dialogue avec des discussions théoriques sur les nouveaux féminismes, les mouvements sociaux et l’intersectionnalité, je soutiens que la conférence féministe avait un rôle crucial à jouer dans les parcours personnels des activistes et participants des mouvements féministes indiens. Sous son nouvel avatar, cependant, elle doit tenir compte des nouveaux membres et du contexte différent en réalignant ses valeurs, ses modes et ses matériels de mobilisation sur le nouveau paysage, en maintenant l’activiste individuel au centre, encadré par une éthique d’attention à autrui et un esprit de joie et de plaisir.
Hoy, el pasado dorado de la ‘conferencia feminista’ se ve empañado por el cinismo actual visible en torno a la despolitización del feminismo, la ‘ONG-ización’ y la cooptación de estos espacios por el Estado, las grandes ONGI y las organizaciones donantes. Como consecuencia de los conflictos intergeneracionales y la movilización basada en la identidad dentro del movimiento, los académicos indios califican el momento actual del movimiento feminista indio como una ‘guerra civil feminista’. Considerando este contexto, analizo y reflexiono sobre los elementos que hicieron que procesos pasados, como las Conferencias Nacionales sobre Movimientos Autónomos de Mujeres en India, fueran una vivencia empoderadora para las activistas, además de un terreno de aprendizaje para entender cómo practicar la política feminista. De manera significativa, dichas conferencias crearon espacios en los que el movimiento pudo resolver —o al menos hacer visibles— cuestiones problemáticas. En este artículo me pregunto: ¿qué podemos aprender de las convocatorias o las conferencias feministas como motor del activismo feminista del pasado para crear un espacio incluyente y seguro que impulse el diálogo en el futuro? ¿Podrán ser los espacios en que se resuelvan productivamente los ‘dilemas feministas’ de la época? A partir de la revisión de materiales de archivo que reúnen ‘memorias del movimiento’ y de reflexiones personales en diálogo con discusiones teóricas sobre los nuevos feminismos, los movimientos sociales y la interseccionalidad, sostengo que la conferencia feminista tuvo un papel fundamental en las trayectorias personales de activistas y participantes en los movimientos feministas indios. Sin embargo, en su nuevo avatar, debe tener en cuenta tanto a las nuevas participantes como el cambio de contexto, reajustando sus valores, sus materiales y sus modos de participación al nuevo panorama, manteniendo a la activista individual en el centro, enmarcada por una ética del cuidado y un espíritu de diversión y placer.
Notes
1 Most scholarship has however focused on the UN global conference (Bunch Citation2012), especially the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing that led to the unprecedented feminist mobilisation in many countries that became the foundation on which women’s rights work was built (Forester et al. Citation2019). In India too, ‘the Beijing process’ mobilised thousands of activists from diverse contexts and identities across the country. There has been no world conference on women since Beijing because of a weak UN with polarised stands on gender equality, and ‘women’s rights’ reduced to a few development goals (the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals) (Sandler and Goetz Citation2020).
2 Practical interests or needs refer to needs based on the actual conditions that women experience because of their gendered status in society, for example, being denied education and expected to do only housework. They do not generally challenge the status quo or unequal power relations. Strategic interests or needs are the needs required to overcome the subordinate position of women to men in society, and relate to the empowerment of women (Moser Citation1989).
3 The last few years have seen an incredible variety of protests in the streets, from the citizenship protests to the farmers’ protests, before the COVID-19 lockdown pushed protesters back home. New mobilisations of women were visible, for example, ordinary Muslim housewives – who had no connection as such with the women’s movement – occupying public spaces like Shaheen Bagh. However, women’s movement members participated in these protests, organising speaking spaces, and bringing movement energies, speakers, activist songs, and organisational capabilities to the women gathered there, forging new alliances.
4 The Beijing+25 process recently initiated by UN agencies did not attempt another World Conference, preferring to focus on a process called the Generation Equality Forum, ‘an intergenerational and intersectional gathering … that generates action and accountability for full implementation of the Beijing Declaration and intersecting issues for gender equality’ (Sandler and Goetz Citation2020, 241).
5 Intersectionality is an analytical framework rooted in Black feminist politics that describes how race, gender, class and other axes intersect in a person’s life to give them distinct experiences. The term is attributed to Kimberle Crenshaw (Citation1991) who used it to describe legal discrimination in the USA, although Kimberle Crenshaw herself noted it was not a new concept or term. The concept went ‘viral’ after Crenshaw was invited to speak at the 2001 UN World Conference on Racism in Durban and led to debates called ‘the intersectionality wars’. For more see Jennifer Nash’s lecture on ‘The Institutional Life of Intersectionality’ for Centre for Women in Development Studies, New Delhi, 30 April 2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJiVJnkRf2w (last checked 11 October 2021).
6 Neoliberalism is often painted as a kind of villain at the root of depoliticisation of feminism into a ‘feminism lite’, with new tactics being deployed by young feminists around the world (Eschle and Maiguashca Citation2018). Much has been made of the neoliberal Indian feminist’s project of ‘entrepreneurial self-making that foregrounds citizenship and consumption’ (Gupta Citation2016, 164). Others have observed that this is not ‘feminism lite’ but feminist politics with distinct strategies of mobilising which have effectively shaken the status quo in select domains (Moraes and Sahasranaman Citation2018).
7 Akin to parental generational divides, with the perception that older ‘offline’ feminists are an ‘aunty brigade’ (what Bangladeshi younger feminists call the ‘Khalamma brigade’, Nazneen and Sultan Citation2017) given to policing and disapproval of the younger ‘online’ generation.
8 A resolution was passed demanding the withdrawal of a notification passed by the central and state government that unmarried women would not get maternity benefits. Another resolution challenged a state directive excluding from state benefits women who haven’t changed their name to their husband’s name after marriage.
9 Personal laws, given religious interpretation of women’s roles, have been challenged by the movement as being patriarchal, and for being used as a pawn in national politics on identity issues instead of genuinely being in the interest of women.
10 Feedback included: there was too little time for the volume of themes and sub-themes, logistical drawbacks, lack of space for special sessions, unsatisfactory boarding and lodging facilities, lack of local volunteers, not enough preparation by coordinators of themes, poor levels of discussion, low participation in many sessions.
11 For the AWID Forum 2016 (with a budget of around USD4 million), an International Planning Committee with 41 members was set up representative of regions, expertise and 25 ‘special constituencies’. Special working groups were set up to facilitate accessibility for women with disabilities and with trans groups (to ensure they felt welcomed and safe, with gender neutral language, bathroom facilities). A massive outreach strategy was implemented over a two-and-a-half-year preparatory process which ‘resulted in a change in the architects and drivers of the Forum in comparison to previous Forums’ (AWID Citation2017).
12 At AWID Forum 2016, participants repeatedly referenced a performance of a sex workers’ fashion show as an expression of a new openness (‘unthinkable ten years ago’, AWID Citation2017) and exhorted AWID to ‘never get rid of the dancing’, referring to the Forum’s most well attended event: the dance party. My own memory of the first global AWID Forum 2002 in Guadalajara that I attended, is the President of AWID in a pink wig at the closing dance party, the wig and the party both a surprise to me, being accustomed to a more serious demeanour at Indian feminist conferences.
13 At the CREA ‘reconference 2019’ held in Kathmandu and attended by about 700 activists, participating young Indian feminists took the opportunity to dress up and let their hair down at the closing dance party, seeing a different side to one another. Several young feminist activists mentioned in personal interactions that the party allowed them to feel free, to indulge in some ‘bad girl’ behaviour, which they could not do back home having to conform to social expectations of being a ‘good girl’ or professional expectations of being a ‘good feminist’.
14 Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria and Ulka Anjaria write, ‘Dwelling in mazaa (a Hindi-Urdu word meaning fun, pleasure, play) does not mean ignoring inequalities, violence or power but … illuminating how pleasure can generate new communities and political possibilities’ (Citation2020, 232). Fun was considered peripheral to the feminist project in the past, although not irrelevant. The National Conferences were described as ‘a space of feminist fun, laughter and wit’ (Saheli Citation2000). One of the founders of FAOW veteran activist Sonal Shukla famously said, ‘We are not here for just breast beating, we are here for fun’ (Vohra Citation2002), but the ‘maja’ (fun) of the women’s movement then took different forms from that of neoliberal feminism.
15 Some of these ideas are reflected in recent identity-based feminist conferences. For example, a national conference called ‘Dalit Women Speak Out’ was held in 2017 in Pune. Organised largely by young Dalit feminists and attended by 400 women, it aimed to create a space where Dalit women could speak for themselves, rejecting the non-Dalit saviour who had ‘created an industry out of our suffering’ (Dhanaraj Citation2018). The conference included workshops on ‘digital activism, writing, film making, theatre, puppetry and visual arts’, and a ‘care-corner’ that offered ‘methods for self-care, held survivor workshops, and explored questions on dating and relationships’ (Dhanaraj Citation2018). It did not dwell on generational differences, choosing instead to have political discussions across age groups to share Dalit women’s experiences of Brahminical spaces and together envision a transformative politics for the Dalit women’s movement.
16 Origin stories have an automatic permanence and immutability that become problematic (Wright Citation2004). Origin stories are being rewritten and challenged by identity-based women’s movements, who do not see their own struggles reflected in this timeline. For example, while mainstream women’s movement in India might attribute their origin to women in the Indian independence movement, the Dalit feminist movement sees their origin in educationist Savitribai Phule’s struggles for the education of Dalit girls.
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Manjima Bhattacharjya
Manjima Bhattacharjya is a researcher and writer based in Mumbai, India. She has been part of the Indian women’s movement for over two decades. She is the author of Intimate City (Zubaan 2021) and Mannequin: Working in India's Glamour Industry (Zubaan 2018). Manjima can be found at @manzibarr on social media. Postal address: c/o G&D Editorial Office. Email: [email protected]