Women's movements use mouse pad as launch pad
Meenakshi Shedde
[ Monday, June 02, 2003 10:52:03 pmTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
MUMBAI: The Internet is lending wings to activist movements around the world.
Indian women's activists are speeding past their jholawala days, getting
Net-savvy, and employing the Web to create faster and greater impact.
In fact, Akshara, a city-based women's resource centre, has gone one step
further. In February, it launched StreeNet, a five- month course on women's
rights and issues, conducted over the Internet. About 50 women from
organisations in Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Kerala have enrolled in the programme.
"The course aims to provide women activists a chance to learn about women's
rights and issues," said Nandita Gandhi of Akshara.
"It encourages them to shed their resistance to technology while building
solidarity." The course is being held in collaboration with other NGOs—
Jagori in New Delhi, Aalochana in Pune and Sakhi in Thiruvananthapuram.
The students,who have been learning, chatting and writing assignments on the
Net, met in person in the city last fortnight.
"Access to information is the key to women's empowerment," said
Shabana Azmi, actress-activist-MP, at a recent StreeNet meeting.
"It is the revolution we need. When the women's reservation bill came up in
Parliament, there was not even a proper discussion on it. The bill was scuttled
by sheer lung power. So, it is important to look at alternative means of
addressing the issue. Women's groups should consider posting Internet sites to
help women MPs participate through well- informed debates and take the
discussions forward. Women can then cut across party lines not only on the
women's reservation bill, but other issues as well."
The Internet has considerably boosted activism, connecting people and helping
petitions to snowball rapidly, largely circumventing physical meetings, with
enormous savings in time, money and effort.
Said journalist and author Kalpana Sharma, "A number of recent signature
campaigns have been largely e-mail driven. These include the campaigns on the
bombing of Iraq and the related boycott of American goods, the Narmada dam
campaign, as well as those on sexual harassment and the domestic violence bill.
More importantly, during the Iraq war, while TV offered the dominant view, one
relied on the Internet for alternative reports and views on the war."
According to Ajit Balakrishnan, chairman of Rediff.com, who made a presentation
at the meeting, "India has 15-18 million e-mail users. Many Web- based
e-mail accounts are free, and with the Internet being available in every Indian
language, its potential in nurturing communities of interest is great. However,
it is important to remember that it is services, not only information, that are
true community builders."
Indeed, the Internet has been used to build and galvanise communities
challenging global policies affecting women. As Kalpana Vishwanath of Jagori
pointed out, "In the case of a recent anti-fertility vaccine that was
deemed unsuitable, NGOs mobilised an Internet campaign and got the World Health
Organisation to slow down the research for it, so that it cannot be marketed
easily. During the Taliban occupation of Afghanistan, the Revolutionary
Association of the Women of Afghanistan regularly put out information on ground
realities, which lobby groups used to pressurise the US into action. During a
campaign last November to reduce violence against women, joint protests were
launched by a number of groups associated with the South Asian Network of Gender
Activists and Trainers, in Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Mumbai, Baroda, Hyderabad,
Calcutta, Colombo, Dhaka, Kathmandu and elsewhere."
E-mail and e-group-driven campaigns are finding an echo nearer home as well.
Said Medha Kotwal of Aalochana, "Recently, when the local authorities in
Nippani, Maharashtra, attacked and drove out the sex workers, NGOs used the Net
to mobilise activists in Mumbai and Delhi,who went to Nippani to protest. Now
the sex workers have returned. Similarly, following protests in the Baroda case
of sexual harassment of a student by her academic guide, the case was converted
into a public interest litigation by the Supreme Court."
[Times Of India, Monday, June 02, 2003]
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