SEWA – The Abodana for Muslim Women

Within the pols of Ahmedabad’s old city area (pols are enclosed residential localities with a maze of winding streets), everything appears to be normal – the narrow lanes with stray cows lingering at corners, hawkers vying for space with the traffic along claustrophobic by lanes, clothes hung to dry out on ramshackle balconies with potted plants in old, rusted tin cans, women busy with house hold work. However in one of the pols, in an old non-descript house there are women doing a different kind of work – block printing, embroidering, designing, stitching and dyeing. As we enter this house we are greeted by Hasinaben, the master craftswoman for block printing of Abodana mandali (co-operative).

The Abodana mandali is one of the many mandalis set up by SEWA – Self Employed Women’s Association, a trade union registered in 1972 and founded by Smt. Elaben Bhatt. Over the years it has become a national union of poor, self-employed woman workers, with members in nine states – Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Bhiar, Kerala, U.P., Rajasthan, Dehi, W.Bengal and Uttarakhand. SEWA works with women who earn a living through their own labour or small businesses. These comprise almost 93% of the labour force of our country, however these women do not get regular salaries with other benefits like the workers of organized sector. Of the female labour force of our country over 94 % are in this informal sector – unprotected, undercounted and invisible. They are poor, often illiterate and vulnerable. However they are hard working making significant contribution to the economy and society.

SEWA aims at organizing, guiding and training these women to become aware of their rights, to fight for them and to become economically and socially self reliant through joint action of unions and co-operatives. Gandhian thinking of satya (truth), ahimsa (non-violence), and sarvadharma (integrating all faiths) are the guiding principles of members of SEWA for organizing social change. SEWA has hawkers, vendors, weavers, potters bidi and agarbatti workers, papad rollers, ready–made garments workers, embroidery workers etc. as its members.  A large number of SEWA members live in the Old Ahmedabad city where majority of Ahmedabad’s Muslim population lives.

Hasinaben told us how the Abodana mandali began several years ago with 200 Muslim women as its members. Hasinaben comes from an illiterate family of traditional block printers. Before joining SEWA she used to work at home but the earnings were not sufficient. After coming in touch with SEWA, in spite of apposition by her in-laws, she joined the Abodana Mandali, and was trained as master craftswomen. Besides block printing embroidery, stitching, puppet making, and other handicrafts making skill are also taught to the mandali members in accordance with their aptitude. SEWA helped Hasinaben and other mandali members to open a savings account and purchase insurance policies. Over the years Hasinaben began to earn well and the apposition from her in-laws ceased. She became an expert block printer and also began to make her own dyes. Thanks to SEWA, she also got an opportunity to go abroad to display her skills. She goes to big cities like Delhi, Chennai, and Bangalore periodically to exhibit and sell the products of Abodana Mandali. Thanks to SEWA, Hasinaben is a confident and self-sufficient woman today who is able to send her children to school.  

After the communal violence of 2002, Shantipath centers were started by SEWA, striving to rebuild peace, trust and communal harmony and restoration of livelihood through women’s leadership. The local members of Shantipath were called Ektabens or sisters of Unity. During the aftermath of the 2002 communal violence, many homes were broken and means of livelihoods destroyed. With the aid of Ektaben and organizers of Shantipath meetings were organized with prospective traders to make them aware of the problems of the riot affected women.  Vocational training and skill up gradation workshops were organized to help the women develop skills in accordance with the demands of the market. Today some of these women are producing trendy and marketable clothes for up market stores. 

The Shantipath Centers are still active and many illiterate Muslim women continue to benefit from them. Sharifaben is a case in point.  Married off at a young age, she did not get the opportunity to educate herself. Her husband died at a young age, living behind the young Sharifaben and their four children to fend for themselves. Sharifaben was forced to go out of the house and earn a living. She joined the Shantipath Center for work. However while boarding a bus on her way to the Center, she was unable to read the bus numbers and had to depend on wayfarers for help and would often be misled. That was when she decided to avail the literacy classes being held at the Center. Now, she proudly claims that she can sign her own name. 

In the last several years, SEWA has expanded its activities to involve women in banking, providing child care and health,  housing facilities and many more.

SEWA has spread its wings in almost all districts of Gujarat building membership-based organizations of women workers. This includes the drought prone northern districts of Surendranagar and Kutch, where earlier the women, in order to fend for their family, had to do relief work of digging pits, building roads etc during the drought period, but now thanks to SEWA, they can sit at home and do embroidery work (a traditional art among these women), and with SEWA’s help, market their produce.

SEWA has also mobilized many campaigns which have taken the SEWA movement forward over the years. These include, the water campaign, the forest workers campaign, clean Ahmedabad campaign, campaign for recognition of dais (traditional mid-wives) as village health workers etc. The home-based workers campaign started by SEWA more than twenty years ago reached its peak at ILO (International Labor Org.) in 1996, when a historical victory was won by home-based workers world wide and ILO voted for a Convention to address the needs and priorities of home-based workers, giving them full rights as workers. Currently SEWA is spearheading a national and South Asian movement for the rights of home-based workers.

SEWA is also opening its doors to oppressed women outside India. At present 35 Afghani women from war torn Afghanistan are being trained at SEWA in textiles and garments, food processing and environment regeneration sectors as a part of a joint project, between SEWA along with Govt. of India and Afghanistan’s ministry of Home Affairs, which aims at   market- led skill building for Afghan women and reconstruction of Afghanistan. Most of these women have lost their men folk in the never ending violence in Afghanistan and are now the sole bread earner of their families. Hafiza Khan aged 26 from Kabul, shivers as she recalls the oppressive life under Taliban. She lost her father and brother in the war, and was left with a family of eight with no one to earn a living. Women were not allowed to go out and work and her mother used to work secretly as a school teacher to feed her family. According to Hafiza, since the new government came to power in Afghanistan, things are changing for good. After completing her training at SEWA she hopes to help other women like her in her country to develop working skills and fight poverty. SEWA, along with the Government of India and Afghanistan is planning to set up a vocational training center for Afghan women at Bagh-e-Zanana at Kabul to create livelihood opportunities for war affected widows.

The photograph at the top shows a mandali member busy with block printing.

The second photo. is that of Hasinaben with one of her masterpieces

Photo credits: Razi Abdi