Middle class is becoming more selfish: Ela Bhatt

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Keywords: Ela Bhatt, Being Ela Bhatt

Ahmedabad: It is not just a coincidence that the acronym of the self-employed women's association adds on to SEWA, which in most Indian languages means service.

In Ahmedabad 36-years ago Ela Bhatt started the first trade union for women in the unorganised sector. In Manik Chowk, Ila Bhatt waged the first battle of SEWA. And it was fought to find some women just a little bit of space and with it a chance to live another day.

Like most markets, Manik Chowk is chaotic, dirty, and yet a reality. It sees vendors, rag pickers, garment makers and embroiders that SEWA has stitched in the tapestry of working women. A day here is still hard as the tug-of war with the city officials still continues. But these women are no longer alone.

Anuradha SenGupta: All over the world, it seems accepted that women are perhaps the most potent source of social change. Was it because you yourself are a woman? Is that one of the reasons you decided to focus on women in the unorganised sector.

Ela Bhatt: I don’t think so. There are two reasons. One is because in Ahmedabad city some textile mills had started closing down. In the seventies mills were closing down. Our leader asked me to go find out what was happening at the workers’ homes. I saw that the homes of closed textile mills were supported by women. Those women were all working as home based producers working for contractors, petty vendors, hawkers or pure laborers. That opened my eyes. In 1975, Mexico City held a UN conference on women and there intellectually, I saw how the work of these women was invisible. That has remained with me until now.

Anuradha SenGupta: When you went to set up the trade union and when you set up the SEWA bank, it was very difficult for you to get all that registered. It was also because no one could relate to what you wanted to do. Give us a sense of mindsets that you had to deal with or what you had to explain to people to get these ideas through.

Ela Bhatt: Registration has always been a big impediment because of certain mindsets. Your members have to be put in a category. Something called jurisdiction and definition. When we went to the Labour Commissioner to register SEWA as a union, the registrar said how can you have a trade union because where is the employer, he asked. Who are you going to agitate against? Your workers are at home. We had to plead for nine months and try to convince that they are economically active and they are earning and putting in their labor. So it is a gainful work. And that a union is not only meant for agitation or against anybody.

Anuradha SenGupta: Collective bargaining?

Ela Bhatt: Yes and it is also to come together and built up your solidarity of workers.

Today over ten lakh women have responded to SEWA's call. But over half of them are in Gujarat. Ela Bhatt says that she is not in the numbers game and even 30-years later, it is still tough to get her kind of union going. Breaking mental blocks is as tough today as it ever was.

Ela Bhatt: They said that women are not the decision makers. It is a very middle class idea. That has been the hardest struggle for me. I find middle class, bureaucratic mindset of the policy makers and also the employers as the most difficult to handle. Employers see only that work which is under employer-employee relationship.

Anuradha SenGupta: Today we are talking of 8 per cent GDP growth. The middle class is witnessing huge levels of optimism and a sense that there will be a better tomorrow and that there will be opportunities. And that there is prosperity. Are you seeing it trickled down to the people that SEWA represents?

Ela Bhatt: It does not trickle down on its own or automatically. Whenever it trickles down, it trickles very slowly. If I may generalise that in the last decades, the poor has not become poorer but the gap has increased. However I am not pessimistic because the working poor also needs to get organised. SEWA has been able to enter the mainstream and availed the opportunities. The poor also come up to a certain level but beyond that they can't. When they need to collect the necessary capital for a corporative insurance, poor can collect to a certain extent. We are a large number so we can collect a capital of thirty crores. But rules demand that you should have more than 100 crores.

Anuradha SenGupta: How do you react to private sector enterprises wanting to get into this space?

Ela Bhatt: One would naturally wish to go for the government. But that is changing. Government power is declining. Government is depending on corporates and it is them that are dominant forces today. So, in that case we look up to private partners. We have been making partners. We see ourselves also as private sector. Home made producers, making quilts or making beedis at home is also a home-based production. State vendor is also a private sector. Why I made organised SEWA into trade union and why SEWA bank into corporate is because right from the beginning I always wanted to be in the mainstream and not like the ideal NGO's.