Women as Nonviolent Peace-builders

 Women as Nonviolent Peace-builders

India has a long history of nonviolent peace-builders. Gautam Buddha, Mahavira of the Jain religion and more recently Mahatma Gandhi are all exemplary nonviolent leaders. In particular Gandhi profiled women as the harbingers of nonviolence when he said:

 

“To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man’s injustice to woman. If by strength what is meant, is brute strength, then, indeed, women’s brute is less than men. If by strength what is meant is moral power, then women are immeasurably men’s superior. Has she not got greater intuition? Is she not more self-sacrificing? Has she not greater courage? …If nonviolence is the law of our being, then the future is with women… Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than women?” (Gandhi in Young India, 10-4-1930, p. 121)

 

Appreciating that Gandhi’s remarks were written almost a century back, it still holds that women in India do play a significant role in the (joint) family and are transmitters of values of nonviolence. In many cases women are not able necessarily to extend these values to the larger community or society because of their confinement to the household or the lack of opportunities to exercise social or societal leadership. Oftentimes they’re remaining invisible leads to more violence.

 

Through the formation of women’s groups in rural and urban settings, women have generated opportunities for political, social and economic participation. When women take up collective action, they are able to bring forward various nonviolent solutions to community or local problems. Group formation is generally seen as consisting of savings and micro-credit schemes and rarely they are attributed with building peace. An example is that one of the most well-known micro-credit groups in India is SEWA or Self-Employed Women’s Association, and it has done enormous work in women’s labour organizing to provide livelihood security; however there work in mitigating the effects of the Hindu-Moslem riots and strengthening communal harmony over the past twenty years has got scant attention.

  Profiling Women’s Capacities as Nonviolent Leaders at the Grassroots-Level

There are numerous women groups across the world carrying out peace in post-conflict situations, in areas ravaged by war or forced exile.  Women also have no doubt a special role in refugee settings. But women who exercise leadership at the grassroots level in places marked by ongoing poverty and oppression is nonviolent peacebuilding. Two examples come to mind where women are countering indirect violence: firstly, Irom Sharmila, a woman who has been on forced feeding for the past fifteen years because she has declared a fast until death against the Indian Special Armed Forces which she maintains, are occupying the state of Manipur in North-eastern India. The second is Krishnammal, a 90 year Dalit woman activist whose struggle for the land rights of the marginalized Dalit poor women in the southern state of Tamilnadu for the past 47 years, continues unabated. These women symbolize nonviolence, so by depicting their endurance and efforts to contain violence, actually creates positive conditions for nonviolence.

 In India, given the multiple oppressions for women, women have developed capacities for nonviolence that goes unrecognized. These can be profiled to help uplift women and redouble their efforts at nonviolent action as a way to preempt conflict.

 Ekta Mahila Manch

 Within the people’s movement struggling for land, namely, Ekta Parishad, there are about 10,000 women leaders. These women are advocating for their land rights in marches, rallies and sit-ins in many states across the country. Only one or two have been recognized for their achievements (Narmadabai received the European Women’s Prize in 2010.) Being a landless woman or a woman coming from the Adivasis (indigenous) community, means that there is a double struggle for dignity and livelihood. If women can break through these barriers and find opportunities to exercise their leadership using nonviolence, this is an amazing feat.

 One of the ways to recognize and strengthen women’s leadership is by carrying out various forms of capacity development, whether training or action programs or mentoring programs. In each case the grassroots leaders have a lot to teach in terms of how they manage their conflicts nonviolently. The capacity development is to get them to extend their skills to a larger set of community-based problems as defined by them.

 Building up for the Jai Jagat 2018/2020 campaign

 The leadership training is focused on a set of events that is part of the Jai Jagat campaign. The Jai Jagat campaign is in two parts: the first is national, with nonviolent economy being centered as the basic structure for building a nonviolent society. The second is a solidarity linking various international efforts in a global campaign. These are events which everyone can participate in.

 Setting up a women’s cooperative

 The idea for the capacity building is to have a group of 30 women trainers from around the country that can support ongoing capacity building of grassroots women. This will be coordinated by the Ekta Mahila Manch out of the Nav Rachna center, an all-women center in central Madhya Pradesh.

 

National Training Courses

 

International Training Courses

 

Friends of Ekta Mahila Manche: