Women Reinventing Development: The Odisha Experience

334 Pages·2021·1.984 MB·English

by  Asha Hans, Amrita Patel, Bidyut Mohanty, Swarnamayee Tripathy

Women Reinventing Development
The Odisha Experience

Women Reinventing Development
The Odisha Experience
Edited by
Asha Hans
Amrita Patel
Bidyut Mohanty
Swarnamayee Tripathy
First published 2022
by Routledge
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© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Asha Hans, Amrita Patel, Bidyut
Mohanty and Swarnmayee Tripathy; individual chapters, the contributors;
and Aakar Books
The right of Asha Hans, Amrita Patel, Bidyut Mohanty and Swarnmayee
Tripathy to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the
authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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ISBN: 9781032051710 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781003196402 (ebk)
Typeset in Palatino
by Arpit Printographers, Delhi
Dedicated to the
Memory of
Amrita Patel
(17.04.1965 – 27.01.2020)

Contents
Foreword by Manoranjan Mohanty 9
Introduction 13
Bionotes of the Editors and Authors 20
I. Roles, Identities and Agency
1. Multiple Authorship and the Gendered Narrative:
Basanti and the Woman Question in Odisha 25
Sachidananda Mohanty
2. Women’s Movement for Land and Livelihood:
A Case Study of Odisha 39
Smita Mishra Panda and Annapurna Devi Pandey
II. Gendered Discriminations
3. Gender Discrimination and the Role of the State:
A Case Study of Sex Selective Abortion in Odisha 67
Bijayalaxmi Nanda
4. Correlates of Health Care Among Women and Children
in Odisha: Understanding Barriers in Access 95
Sanghamitra S Acharya, Mala Mukherjee and Golak Patro
5. Women and Underage Marriages in Odisha:
A Developmental Perspective 127
Monica Das
III. Development and Equality
6. Poverty and Food Security in Rural Odisha:
The Gender Dimension 149
Deepak K Mishra
8 Women Reinventing Development: The Odisha Experience
7. Inclusive Education: Fact or Fiction? 184
Supriya Pattanayak
8. Regional Disparity and Women in Local Government:
Implications for Sustainable Development 207
Bidyut Mohanty and Sibabrata Das
IV. On the Margins
9. Skills for Employment Programme in Apparel
Industries and Trends in Female Migration:
A Study on SEAM of Odisha 237
Manasi Mohanty
10. Caste Narratives: Odia Dalit Women in Literature
and Society 273
Raj Kumar
11. Social Security and Unorganized Sector: An Overview
of the Women Construction Workers in Odisha 300
Amrita Patel and Swarnamayee Tripathy
Foreword
Women are indeed reinventing development, the discourse,
the policy and the practice all over the world. The Odisha
story presented in this volume largely captures some crucial
dimensions of that trend. Expanding inequalities and
environmental degradation continue to accompany economic
growth under neo-liberal reforms, and their effects on day-to­
day lives of common people look most evident seen from the
perspective of women.
As these papers by scholars who bring in years of
empirical work on concrete issues show, there is a big gap
between the principles proclaimed as the policy objectives and
the actual situation on the ground. From the United Nations’
Sustainable Development Goals down to the countries,
provinces and districts, even panchayats, this hiatus between
the agreed values and actual practice continues to stare at us.
Constitutional provisions, laws and policies and institutional
safeguards continue to multiply. But vast magnitude of gender
disparity in employment, increasing incidence of sexual
violence and meagre share in political power have persisted.
Women’s labour, especially in the domestic sphere and care-
economy, remain undervalued, even unrecognized. The
cultural milieu remained predominantly patriarchal despite
the traditions of goddess-worship. The Odisha experience
particularly illustrates this because, its leaders cutting across
political parties had eloquently committed themselves to
gender equality and women’s empowerment in the recent
years more than other States of India. The authors of this
volume investigate this process and ask why the women’s