social movement, action and change: the influence of women's movements on city government in...

Social Movement, Action andChange: The Influence of Women’sMovements on City Government inMumbai and London

Jim Barry, Trudie Honour and Sneha Palnitkar*

This article reports on a research investigation into gender and local gov-ernment in Mumbai in India and London in England. In both these citiesfemale representation at the political level stands at around one third,achieved in London slowly in recent years and in Mumbai more rapidlythrough the adoption of a quota, or seat reservation system, implementedin 1992. In considering the experience of the women concerned it is arguedthat their presence and aspirations have been influenced through the net-works of their respective women’s movements, operating through civilsociety and the local state. In considering the ways in which they organizeand manage the duties of office and their gendered identities, as well asin their focus on the most disadvantaged in their communities and in theirdealings with others, the part played by social movements in influencingchange is examined.

Keywords: gender, women’s movements, social movements, local government, identity

Introductory comments

This article reports findings from a research investigation into gender andlocal government which has been in progress for a number of years.

Beginning in England in the late 1980s, the investigation was extended toIndia in order to consider the impact of the 30 per cent seat reservation, orquota system, for local women politicians which has been in operation in

Gender, Work and Organization. Vol. 11 No. 2 March 2004

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Address for correspondence (please contact Jim Barry in the first instance): *Jim Barry and TrudieHonour, Organization Studies Research Group/ELBS, University of East London, LongbridgeRoad, Dagenham Essex RM8 2AS UK, e-mail: [email protected]

Mumbai (formerly Bombay) since 1992. The high profile given to gender bythis innovation has enabled a widening of the initial brief to include theadministrative or managerial arm of public service in order to explore indepth the role of gender in the management and organization of local gov-ernment. Whilst the main aim of the article is to consider the impact of thewomen’s movement on local government in Mumbai, some comparison ismade with London, which has a little under 30 per cent local female politi-cians (Local Government Management Board, 1998).

The research investigation takes place at a time when questions have beenraised about the relation between those elected and appointed to enact publicservice, on behalf of their constituents. These questions reflect aspirations,expressed worldwide in recent years, to establish respectable forms of gov-ernment in the face of pressures for market reforms and concerns about cor-ruption or clientalism, and the threat to what has been called a public serviceethos (Khilnani, 1997; Pratchett and Wingfield 1996).1 There have also beenworries voiced internationally about the under-representation of women inpositions of responsibility and decision-making (Beijing Declaration, 1995;see also Ashworth, 1995; Pietila and Vickers, 1994). It is in this context thatrecent interest in locality becomes significant as concerns about women andlocal government connect with growing global awareness about humanrights and the rights of women more generally, revealing them as translocal.It also renders transparent the links between different levels of analysis, suchas those between state and civil society, in line with approaches to the studyof governance (Kooiman, 2000).2

Our research investigation, on which the article draws, began with a seriesof informal discussions with a number of people involved in local govern-ment, including politicians, administrators, managers and women activists,in both Mumbai and London. This was followed by a survey of all womenpoliticians and a numerically equal number of men in the two cities, withresponse rates of 80 per cent in London and 53 per cent in Mumbai. Finally,a semi-structured interviewing programme was conducted with 46 femaleand male politicians in the two cities from a range of different political partiesincluding, in London, Labour, Conservative and (the then) Liberal partiesand, in Mumbai, Congress I, BJP and Shiv Sena. In both cases the politicalrepresentatives were responsible for city government in its broadest sense,covering areas from planning and roads, to parks, open spaces and refusecollection.

The empirical work is used to consider the role and impact of the women’smovements in Mumbai and London. In particular it is used to examine theprocesses of political mobilization for the women involved and to explorethe degree to which a ‘critical mass’ of women (Dahlerup, 1988; see alsoKanter, 1977) can make a difference to local government.3 In the presentcontext, as India faces the many challenges arising from the legacy of post-colonial rule bestowed by Britain (Breckenridge and van der Veer, 1993;

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Ludden, 1993; see also Hall, 1996 on post-colonialism) it is argued thatwomen in Mumbai, as in London, are held in high regard and seen as highlycompetent, fair and evenhanded in their dealings with others. It is furthercontended that they focus on the needs of the most disadvantaged in thecommunity and, in Mumbai where the issue of corruption or clientalism hasbeen explored, are far less involved in questionable practices.

The article thus explores the influence and impact of women’s movementson local government in Mumbai and London. By conceptualizing women’smovements as social movements it is contended that insights are providedinto historical processes of change. It is shown how the respective women’smovements have moved over time through a series of phases. These includenetworking, followed by the development of public campaigns to raiseawareness about women’s disadvantage, and their subsequent engagementwith the local state. In reporting some of the major findings of the researchinvestigation in Mumbai, and offering some comparisons and contrasts withthat undertaken some years previously in London, it is contended that therecently empowered women, in earning esteem for their contribution topublic service, are restoring the respect which many see as having beeneroded in the past.

We will argue that women’s movements have been actively involved in(re)creating identities of gender and challenging images and stereotypesfrom the past. They have also played a not insignificant part in the processesof political mobilization, linking civil society and the local state closelytogether. And it is to the role of social and political movements for change(Byrne, 1997; Della Porter and Diani, 1999; Pakulski, 1991; Scott, 1990) thatwe now turn.

Theories of social movements

Theories of social movements, such as the peace and civil rights movements,have developed apace in recent years, even if only recently in Britain (Bagguley, 1997), away from earlier work inspired by functionalism (Gusfield,1968) and later neo-marxism (Castells, 1977), to embrace a numberof different schools of thinking. One of these is post-materialism (Inglehartand Rabier, 1986), an approach which has contributed some useful insightsinto environmental movements and the oligarchic tendencies which mayderive from the incorporation of those involved (Michels, 1911), as well asthe compromise and subversion of the original purpose which led, forexample, to Bahro’s ‘despair’ and resignation from the West German Greenparty (Bahro, 1986; see also Frankel, 1987, p. 229). Nonetheless, twoapproaches presently stand out as having developed major lines of enquiry.These are the resource mobilization and identity-oriented, or new socialmovement, schools.

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Resource mobilization theory (RMT) is American in origin, associatedwith the seminal work of authors such as Zald and McCarthy (1987) and Tilly(1985), and has focused on rational action and the organizational forms,observable activities and goals and the routine processes of social movementorganizations. Its advocates have highlighted the role of activists and polit-ical entrepreneurs (movement leaders) as well as the public activities of sup-porters. It is perhaps no surprise that this school of thought, which derivesintellectual inspiration from neo-classical economics, open-systems theoriesof organization and political science, should originate in America, wherepressure group politics tends to characterize the polity (Kitschelt, 1985, pp.289–92). The work by Piven and Cloward (1974, 1977) represents a moresophisticated variant of RMT, focusing on opportunity structures. Theyshow, for example, how poor people’s movements have benefited from takingopportunities when they, albeit infrequently, become available (1977, p. 7 and p. 22).

By contrast the identity-oriented school, or new social movement (NSM)approach as it is often called, developed in Europe. It has been linked prin-cipally with work by Touraine (1985) and Melucci (1989). This approach haslooked to movements such as environmentalism and women’s movementsand the 1960s’ experiences of social, cultural and political upheaval in thewest, leading Touraine (1985, p. 786) to argue that ‘sociology as a whole hasmoved from a study of social system and its principle of integration to ananalysis of social action and social change’. For these theorists participationin the submerged networks of small movement groups is an end in itself,rather than simply a means, as it helps to develop new identities and facili-tate symbolic challenges to dominant values and ‘language, to the codes thatorganize information and shape social practice’ (Melucci, 1995, p. 41; see alsoMelucci, 1997, p. 60; Welsh, 2000, pp. 27–31 and pp. 225–7).

It will be clear that social movement theorists draw their primary intellectual inspiration from modernist western thought, rather than post-structuralist or postmodern approaches, and that they identify a range ofprivate individual acts and public displays of concern to raise awarenessabout disadvantage and inequality. Furthermore, they are concerned withmovement, action and change, in line with the approach adopted here. This inter-est in what can be characterized as the notion of agency is perhaps what theseapproaches share above all else, despite their differences of focus and empha-sis. Yet whilst many theorists continue to embrace just one of these schools, theapproach adopted here is slightly different, intended as it is to contribute to aliterature which has been exploring possibilities for synthesis (Ruggiero, 2000,p. 169). Although the NSM approach, particularly of the Melucci variety, isfavoured over the RMT in this article, it is argued that an analysis of women’smovements is best served by attempting to draw on aspects of each.

Rather than attempting somehow to unify the two schools of thought,however, we adopt a processual approach which focuses on social relation-



ships and conceptualizes identity as a ‘field comprising freedoms and con-straints’, in line with Melucci’s (1997, p. 65; see also Melucci, 1995, p. 43)recent work. In this we consider questions of values and the changing natureof taken-for-granted assumptions, whilst seeking to take account of the moreorganized and routinized aspects of movement activity, showing their com-plementary character in helping to explain the why and how respectively ofsocial change. At the same time an attempt is made to consider linkagesbetween (local) state and civil society in order to show how the influence ofsocial movements impacts on political decision-making (Martin, 2001, p.366). This is done through an examination of processes within the local statesof Mumbai and London (as non-social movement organizations), where anumber of activists from autonomous women’s groups can presently befound. So what does the literature tell us about women’s movements in Indiaand England?

Women in movement: essentialisms and identities

In the countries in question, according to the literature and confirmed in theresearch investigation, a number of parallel developments appear to haveoccurred, albeit a few years apart. To begin with, the growth of autonomouswomen’s groups seems to have developed out of an often dispiriting expe-rience with oppressive male colleagues in other, invariably left-wing, move-ments in India (Desai, 1996, p. 161) and England (Rowland, 1984, p. 4). Thesegroups took many forms, some close in size and non-hierarchical structureto the small consciousness-raising (CR) groups found in America in the 1960swhich followed the Chinese revolutionary practice of ‘speaking bitterness’in a supportive environment to confirm the shared experience of maleoppression and female disadvantage (Freeman, 1975, p. 118; John, 1999, p. 197; Spender, 1986, p. 211).

The initiation of campaigns, demonstrations and marches, which havedrawn attention to the enduring aspects of gender inequality and disadvan-tage (Melucci, 1995, p. 45) and attracted the attention of the media, appearto have been another common feature. In recent times India has seen the‘emergence of a range of rural and urban movements’ (John, 1999, p. 197; seealso Kumar, 1993, pp. 96–114) and a number of celebrated media campaignsconcerning, for example, rape and sati, or immolation of widows (Desai,1996, p. 162 and p. 164), as well as agitation in respect of ‘hazardous contra-ceptives [and] bad working conditions’ (John, 1999, p. 198). In respect ofmarches, some 3000 women from across the state of Maharashtra, whereMumbai is located, attended a rally in Pune in 1990 to protest about inequal-ity (Lele et al., 1993, pp. 160–4). In England in the late 1960s media atten-tion focused on the Hull fishermen’s wives and sewing machinists at the Ford motor company plant just outside London at Dagenham in Essex



(Rowbotham, 1983, p. 33). The plight of the wives of miners involved in thebitter industrial dispute of the mid 1980s (Miller, 1986) has also been noted.Protests have included the ‘reclaim the night’ initiative which attempted toensure safety for women on public streets in places such as London (Holland,1988, pp. 136–7).

In both countries a series of national conferences were organized. In India,these began in 1980 and were held every three years thereafter (Desai, 1996,p. 165) and, in England, they were held from 1970 to 1978 (Bouchier, 1983)and a series of ‘demands’ was developed through joint manifestos. In India,for example, at the rally in Pune referred to earlier, the Stree Mukti AndolanSampark Samiti:

joined hands with other social organizations . . . [a]t the end of the day, ademonstration was held which winded its way through the city . . . [witha] manifesto of the women’s movement . . . brought out by the SamparkSamiti . . . Lele et al. (1993, pp. 161–2)

Manifesto items included equal pay, the joint ownership of family propertyand the recognition of domestic work as productive work. In some respects,though by no means in all, these are similar to the ‘Seven Demands of theWomen’s Liberation Movement’ (Feminist Anthology Collective, 1981, p. 4)which were established in England in the 1970s. This is not to suggest thesimple influence on one country by the activities and intellectual productionof another, although it is certainly evident that in India western feminismhas been a topic of discussion (Desai, 1996, p. 161) and that, according torespondents in our research investigation in Mumbai, western feminist textshave circulated between interested women — where the lower economiclevel of so-called ‘development’ presented no real barrier to the lending,reading and discussing of books. We also noted the observation by Ray (1999)of the influence of western feminism in Mumbai, at least in contrast to Calcutta where left-wing ideas have been more noticeable.

Nor do the similarities stop here. In both India and England intense dis-cussion and debate have followed the cultural turn, as academics influencedby recent scholarship have engaged with questions of epistemology in theirattempts to understand the development of issues affecting women. Whetherthese discussions were sparked by the insistent voices of post-structuralismand postmodernism, or by a growing appreciation within the movementsconcerned that women are not all the same, is unclear. Certainly, in England,a questioning of the essentialisms of gendered analyses and an awareness of the dominant white, western, middle-class bias of feminist thought began to emerge following an appreciation of differing liberal, socialist,marxist, radical, revolutionary, ‘post’ and other feminist perspectives. Theætiology is difficult to establish, although it seems likely that the debates in the movement, the academy and the press fed into one another, facilit-ated by feminist academics and journalists who were active over issues



concerning gender inequality. Whatever the source of these reflections, theconcerns which grew about the applicability of the aspirations of these move-ment to, for example, black women in Britain (Carby, 1982) could find readyparallel in Kishwar’s (1990) telling piece, ‘Why I do not call myself a femi-nist’, published in New Delhi’s Manushi. There has also been acknowledge-ment, in some quarters, of the misleading ‘reconstruction of historicalmemory’ of India through popular culture in England (Ware, 1992, p. 230;see also Burton, 1999) and an appreciation that women as well as men benefited in material terms from colonialism.

This has resulted in a serious reconsideration in the academies of east andwest of the essentialisms of gender, problematizng the categories ‘woman’and ‘man’ which led, in turn, to some interesting intellectual gymnastics.These seem designed to keep women in view, while acknowledging, schol-arly fashion, a strategy to find yet another third way, so popular in currentwestern discourse. Alcoff’s (1988) trenchant discussion and reconsiderationof the politics of identity is perhaps a seminal work in this respect. In hertext Alcoff seeks to find a middle way between what she sees as the extremesof Derrida’s postmodernism, which challenges binary opposition, on the onehand, and cultural feminism, which celebrates gender difference, on theother, anxious not to abandon or lose women in the process. Yet her charac-terization of the elements of postmodernism and cultural feminism is not justanother conceptualization of false dichotomies. For Alcoff, women are notall the same, yet nor are they simply bearers of rigid subjectivities. As sheexplains:

Gender is not a point to start from in the sense of being a given thing but is, instead, a posit or construct, formalizable in a non-arbitrary waythrough a matrix of habits, practices, and discourses. Further, it is an inter-pretation of our history within a particular discursive constellation, ahistory in which we are both subjects of and subjected to social construc-tion. (Alcoff, 1988, p. 431)

There would seem to be something of a debt to Foucauldian post-structuralism in these comments, though the overtones of social construc-tionism ring through. Perhaps, above all, Alcoff seeks to retain a femalesubject, at least of sorts. The women conceptualized here are not the ‘sisters’of the 1960s. Yet, if they are all different in certain respects from one another,nonetheless they share the experience of structured gender inequality. It isperhaps not surprising that Alcoff’s work should both draw on and find sub-sequent favour with De Lauretis (1990) whose conceptualization of women’smovements postulates their diversity, their internal strife and their vigorousdebates as indicative of vibrant movement, activity and agency, rather thanevidence of a sclerotic gridlock and postfeminism.

This matter has also engaged commentators interested in issues of genderin India. In recent years a number of approaches, outlined by Forbes in



relation to the conceptualization of women historically, have been identified.In the west she identifies the approaches as:

additive history . . . to discover the contributions and the role of women . . .genderized history . . . to . . . make gender difference a key to the analysis ofsocial relations . . . [and] . . . contributory history . . . [which] . . . privilegesfemale agency while recognizing how patriarchy impedes women’sactions [our emphases]. (Forbes, 1996, pp. 2–3)

Writing about women in a colonial setting has, she says, presented ‘addi-tional challenges’. Indeed, the representation of Indian women has, accord-ing to Forbes (1996, p. 1), essentialized a ‘unique female nature’, with womenidealized as ‘devoted and self-sacrificing, yet occasionally rebellious anddangerous . . . [as well as] . . . subordinate [and] supportive’. But India hasnot been alone in its stereotypical representation of women. The notion of a‘female ethic’ in western moral philosophy can be traced to societies under-going industrialization in the 19th century where the idea of womanly virtue,engaged through family life, reigned supreme (Grimshaw, 1993). Though the binary conceptualization of female identity, as paragon and monstrousvirago, is perhaps best known from the work of de Sade (1965 [1791]; 1968[1797]; see also Carter, 1979) through his characterization of the sisters Justineand Juliette respectively. The idea that women should be subordinate andsupportive to men and that they can also be highly dangerous is thus whatthese notions share with the Indian conceptualization.

Forbes (1996, p. 2) further notes that colonial histories have frequently nar-rated the ‘civilising mission of the British as rescuing Indian women fromtheir own culture and society’ although, as John (1999, p. 201) has argued, a‘newly emergent diaspora . . . [whose members have begun to] affirm . . . theIndian within themselves’. Yet in other recent work, such as that of the influ-ential subaltern school from Calcutta, which seeks to recover the resistancesof colonized non-elites, insufficient attention seems to have been paid to thepart played by women (Spivak, 1988, pp. 26–32; see also Forbes, 1996, pp.3–4). It is to authors such as Kumar (1994) that the task of conceptualizingthe subject of women, or ‘woman as subject’, has fallen. Drawing on exam-ples of everyday practice and meaning and examining them as expressionsof subversion and challenge, in a way reminiscent of Melucci’s approach con-sidered earlier, Kumar is able to reconceptualize gender relations accord-ingly. As she argues:

Even when the terms of the discourse seem unchanged, the slight dis-placement of a symbol from its conventional positioning is enough tocodify completely different, opposing meanings for the subject. This couldbe one expression of her agency . . . At another extreme there could beaction, or invocation to action, that is positively challenging. The whole



spectrum of protest, from daily ‘private’ acts and intentionally ambiguouslanguage to elaborate myths and execution of violent oppositional deeds,should be seen as part of the same structure of power as that which createsthe dominant discourse. Kumar (1994, p. 21)

Kumar’s concern, like Alcoff’s, is with the potential loss of ‘women’, not leastin conceptual terms. Even if intellectual fashion favours decentring, the aban-donment of the female subject so soon after its conceptual ‘discovery’ mightbe considered careless and, in any event, this way of approaching the subjectmay only be the latest in a long line of academic fads which will pass. AsKumar tellingly observes, ‘For the relatively new approach of a feministsocial science (and for the relatively new politics of feminism) the postmod-ern questioning of subjecthood is a luxury, it seems at times, we cannotafford’, Kumar (1994, p. 8).

Kumar is not alone in her concern to retain a female subject (Hartsock,1990, pp. 163–4; Pringle and Watson, 1992, p. 54; Sum, 2000), however posi-tioned and constrained that subject may be, in a climate which, not least inorganizational terms, can be characterized as hostile to women (Liff andWajcman, 1996, p. 91). There is an acknowledgement here of the importanceof ‘cultural and symbolic issues’, highlighted by Melucci, as we saw earlier,alongside a particular concern to keep sight of socially structured inequality(Martin, 2001, p. 378). The very reason it could be argued that there is aninterest in empowering women in positions of decision-making and respon-sibility worldwide, and providing role models to act as encouragement toothers, is in order to redress the imbalance which has existed for so long.Such concern has been evident through the activity of non-governmentalorganizations (Commonwealth Local Government Forum, 2001, p. 5). It hasalso been apparent in the UN’s 1947 Commission on the Status of Women,its 1967 Declaration on Women’s Rights, the 1976 first world conference onwomen held in Mexico City, the 1976–1985 Decade for Women and the 1995Beijing Declaration. These are just a few of the international landmarks thathave helped make 8 March, International Women’s Day, ‘now the mostwidely celebrated day in the world’ (Ashworth, 1995, pp. 19–20).

It is in this respect that the final point of similarity between the two coun-tries considered here becomes significant. This was the decision, taken inautonomous women’s groups, to enter the bastions of elite male privilege,not least the local state. This occurred after much discussion and debate, withthose involved mindful of the legacy of Michels’ (1911) cautionary tale of oli-garchy and the potential dangers of incorporation. In this they graspedopportunities which were available to them to make their mark on their local communities (Piven and Cloward, 1997). In Mumbai this was effectedthrough a quota, with women acknowledging that they would ‘not gainentry into the corridors of power otherwise’ (Commonwealth Local Government Forum, 2001, p. 9). In London, where quotas have proved more



controversial (Milne, 1997; Squires, 1996), their entry into the local state hap-pened at a time when local government had come under hostile scrutiny andpressure from national politicians. From the literature published, and con-firmed in our empirical investigation, we know that this occurred in India(Kumari, 1993, p. 6; Singh et al., 1993, p. 100) and England (Brueghal andKean, 1995, p. 150; Coote and Campbell, 1987, p. 258), with similar action, ormovement, taking place in many other countries around the world (Basu,1995, p. 15) in order to effect change from within the so-called establishment— thereby linking awareness of gender inequality and disadvantage acrosstime and space and rendering them translocal (Sheth, 1995; see also Ali et al.,2000, pp. 3–4).

Despite the fact that many of them lacked the knowledge of the ways oflocal government and in contrast to many of the men involved who wereexpected to run for political office or were ‘sponsored’, in Turner’s terms(1960), their subsequent influence on the local state from within not onlydemonstrated the connectivity between the state and civil society but alsowidened the parameters of democracy, as conventionally understood. It alsobroadened the conception of politics beyond the party political and recastidentities of women, which problematized stereotypes, in the process.

The 30 per cent seat reservation system for local politicians was introducedin Mumbai in this context, amidst much public interest. There was also abelief, rooted in the images of Indian women which we noted earlier, thatthey were finally being offered an opportunity to prove their worth. It wasexpected that they would, at the very least, restore some of the respectabil-ity to the public sector which had been sacrificed over the years to self-interest, with public service and politics viewed as a ‘dirty’ business whichneeded to be cleaned up. For women, images and (re)presentations of theiressential purity were thus in evidence from very early on in the electoralprocess, in contrast to men, who not only found their motives called intoquestion but also saw their political positions threatened, leaving open pos-sibilities for a future backlash (Faludi, 1992). The women concerned tookwith them the shared experience of gender inequality and a desire to addressissues of social disadvantage in the service of their local communities wherethey felt they could make a difference. It is their experience of office andothers’ experience of them which we now consider.

Gender in(g) government

The quota, or seat reservation system, was introduced in the Indian state ofMaharashtra, where Mumbai is situated, in time for the 1992 local elections,after experimentation in the 1980s in states such as Karnataka, Kerala andWest Bengal (Commonwealth Local Government Forum, 2001, p. 1). Thequota was designed for a limited run, operating as it did on a rotating basis,



with wards reserved for women-only candidates reverting back to ‘open’competition at the next election. The result was that the numbers of femalepoliticians rose from five to 75 (Singh et al., 1993, p. 93) out of a total of 221Corporators, the title given to local representatives in the Municipal Corpo-ration, the Brihanmumbai Mahaagarpalika. Their representation stood,accordingly, at one third. The percentages across London at around this time,achieved over a longer period in the absence of a quota, were slightly lowerat 27 per cent for female politicians, or Councillors. Both figures were high,nonetheless, by international standards (UNDP, 1995, pp. 60–2).

In respect of background the female respondents in our research investi-gation in both cities were relatively affluent and well-qualified, compared totheir constituents — although some of the women in Mumbai were illiterate— and they were more likely to have been asked to stand for office if theyhad no responsibility for dependents at home. This meant that they enteredthe ‘private club’ of party politics at a later date than their male counterparts,whose political aspirations had been realized earlier, with their assimilationof party political values as we have seen being potentially weaker as a result(Turner, 1960). The women’s progress into office was facilitated by supportfrom family members, especially by supportive male partners and by womenalready involved in politics — broadly defined, in line with the positionadopted in this article, to include community and other forms of activity —who acted as role models.

So far these findings are consonant with what might have been expected.But the active involvement of the majority of the female respondents inwomen’s groups or organizations or in support of campaigns over issuesthought to affect women disproportionately to men, prior to standing forelection, was something of a surprise. The kinds of groups and campaignswere many and varied and included autonomous women’s groups and campaigns that concerned gender issues. This may have had some bearingon the expressions of support for women’s movements, indicating thesewomen’s involvement in their networks prior to standing for election. Thisfinding is significant in supporting the argument for links between the stateand civil society that we made earlier, connecting two seemingly differentlevels of analysis.

Yet, despite the support they received and the existence of the quota inMumbai, gaining office for many of the women did not prove easy in eithercity. As they were more likely to be asked to stand when they had no depen-dents, this largely ruled out of consideration those with young children, espe-cially children under the age of five. They also reported that barriers to theiradvancement were constructed by their male colleagues as well as theirrespective political parties. This made it especially difficult for the women,who already viewed politics with some unease, if not distaste, as a dirty andmanipulative business, particularly in Mumbai (Kumari, 1993, pp. 3–4), andwho indicated that they suffered from an initial lack of confidence. They



nonetheless stood for election and pressed on with the job at hand, once inoffice. But the early stages — and this was as true for the women in Londonas in Mumbai — were difficult for the new female incumbents.

Their experience of office was likewise mixed. They did not achieve alltheir aims, failing in Mumbai to increase employment, improve the positionof low-income groups, enhance community participation or improve thecleanliness of the environment. It would have been surprising, of course, if the women concerned had been able to achieve all of their objectives. Certainly, in London the female representatives encountered problems, for example where women’s committees, seen as a precious gain, came underattack. Even so, the women in both cities reported some successes. InMumbai the women politicians indicated that they had been able to givevoice to their concerns and been listened to across a wide range of issueswhich went beyond what might rather dismissively be referred to by someas ‘women’s issues’. They had also been able to improve the service deliv-ery of urban amenities and help to redress grievances. This was confirmedin the Commonwealth Local Government Forum’s (2001, pp. 6–7) review ofresearch undertaken on women in other urban and rural local governmentsin India, concerned as they were with ‘health, education . . . access to cleanwater, monitoring the functions of schools, providing health centres withinreach of all communities, tackling alcohol abuse and domestic violence andproviding effective waste collection and disposal’. This also happened inLondon, where the women were able to address a broad range of questions.Perhaps above all else, it appeared that the women in both cities had focusedtheir attention, by and large, on the most disadvantaged in their respectivecommunities.

In enacting the duties of office, the women in Mumbai indicated that theyhad received support from female and male officers and from female politi-cians. Some male politicians, however, tended to make life difficult for them.It was reported that on one occasion a male Corporator had deliberately feda new female politician misleading advice in order to unsettle her andbesmirch her reputation. This action was thought to be explicable as he, alongwith other male Corporators, were under threat from the women at futureelections; it is also readily understandable, of course, from Faludi’s (1992)discussion of the backlash, noted earlier. This may also help to explain con-versely why all male officers had not acted in similar ways. They were notin competition with the women and had even been supportive by provid-ing, in one instance, secretarial services to inexperienced (and some illiter-ate) female representatives. Similar concerns about male politicians wereexpressed in London.

Gender differences were also noted in respect of the ways in which politi-cians and officers managed and organized their various responsibilities.Whilst men compartmentalized their paid employment, domestic life, offi-cial duties and, where appropriate, political responsibilities, dealing with



each in turn, the women balanced their various roles with little separationbetween them. If one of their children needed care it was they who tookresponsibility, re-arranging other responsibilities accordingly — and remain-ing aware of the similar needs of their subordinates. Equally, if late eveningwork were required, for example to attend a meeting or visit a site wherecontractors were carrying out construction work, they re-organized theirdomestic lives, often (re)arranging childcare at short notice, as necessary. Inshort, the women saw no real distinction between their public and privatelives, or state and civil society, in contrast to the men, who tended to keepthem apart, expecting others to do the same.

The ways in which the female representatives carried out the duties ofoffice, we were told, were also similar in both cities, with women reportedas fair and flexible in their dealings with others — constituents, officers andpoliticians alike — and prepared to be tough when circumstances required.This extended to female officers. Male politicians, on the other hand, seemedmore inclined to act in tough, aggressive and arbitrary ways, being less pre-pared than their female counterparts to take account of human needs andact sensitively to problems when the situation called for it. This was exacer-bated by their tendency to compartmentalize and require others to leave anydomestic ‘problems’ at home. Again this extended to male officers. Ourrespondents accordingly recounted instances where women representativesand officers were sought out, precisely because they were women, who weretherefore thought to be more likely than men to understand human prob-lems and respond appropriately, in respect of housing needs, for example.Their willingness to be tough and unyielding in the face of unreasonablerequests and demands, however, earned them considerable respect from allconcerned. On this count the women were both tender and tough, calling intoquestion the findings of a number of studies into gender and managerialstyles (Rosener, 1990; White, 1995). They treated leadership and managementas a process, to be (re)negotiated on a regular basis, rather than a series ofstrategies or techniques to be applied in abstract ways.

Women, at least in Mumbai where this issue was explored, were also seenas far less likely than men to be involved in corruption or clientalism. Men,we were informed, often entered politics to further their commercial inter-ests in seeking, for example, to gain inside knowledge of the process of ten-dering for contracts. Female Corporators, whose experience prior to officehad been gained within their families and women’s movement networks,and as constituents whose needs they understood, had no such links, at leastas yet, and were less vulnerable to the temptations of corruption. As theirexperience of office grew reports of their involvement in corruption beganto appear in media headlines, although the level of involvement was report-edly low, relative to the men. Once more, the stereotypes were foundwanting. The women, it appeared, were less corrupt than the men, but theywere not as ethically pure as had been expected.



There is nonetheless reason to think that their exposure to the temptationsand pressures associated with corrupt or clientalist behaviour is likely toinfluence their behaviour in the future. One of our female Indian contactscommented that the women were ‘learning fast’ and would, perhaps soonerrather than later, be seen in much the same light as the men with respect tocorruption. Although, as she acknowledged, ‘only time will tell’.

How then are we to read media reports about the increasing involvementof female Corporators in corruption? One way is to recall to mind the tradi-tional image of Indian women considered earlier as not only ‘devoted andself-sacrificing’ but also ‘occasionally rebellious and dangerous’, and invokethe notion of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Another is to question the motivesof predominantly male journalists in bringing these stories to the attentionof the public, as some of our respondents did. Or we might interpret theiractions, in respect of clientalism as well as in the ways they organize theduties of office, as the juggling of aspects of their identities, as they maketheir mark felt in public service.

But what of the long term? Research into the experience of the quota inthe Indian state of Karnataka may just be significant. Here the representationof women rose from 25 to over 46 per cent ‘even after the abandonment ofthe reservation system’, suggesting that the ‘more women get involved, themore other women feel able to join them’ (Commonwealth Local Govern-ment Forum, 2001, pp. 2–3 and 7). On this count, even if they do succumbto increasing levels of corruption or clientalism over time, their impact onlocal government will, at the very least, have left its mark.

Concluding thoughts: movement, action and change

In this article we have reported on the impact of the quota on local politicswhich enabled a relatively large number of women in Mumbai to enterpublic service. We have examined the accomplishments of the ‘critical mass’of empowered women and compared their experiences with those in Londonwho are present in similar numbers. The main findings of the research inves-tigation indicate that many of the women who have drawn inspiration fromtheir respective women’s movements, have been acting to change the image ofpublic service and bring enhanced levels of respectability to local govern-ment. This was as true for London as it was for Mumbai, with women seenas fair and balanced in their dealings with others and concerned with themost disadvantaged in their communities. In Mumbai, where the issue ofcorruption or clientalism was explored, it also transpired that the womenwere far less likely to be involved in questionable activities than the men.

This would appear at least to call into question the dominant stereotypesand conventional wisdom on gender and public service, as well as manage-rial style. This is not to suggest that the stereotypes are entirely without



explanatory value. If nothing else, they at least go some way to confirmingthe power of the self-fulfilling prophecy, as the expectation and (re)presen-tation of images exact their telling influence. Yet the findings reported hereindicate more than this, since the women concerned appear to have beenmanaging their identities as women to their own and others’ advantage.

The role of the respective women’s movements appears to have been sig-nificant in all this, in helping to bring about change slowly through time. Thewomen moved, in Melucci’s (1995, p. 61) terms, from ‘brief and intensepublic mobilization campaigns . . . fed by the submerged life of the networksand their self-reflective resources’, to political mobilization and the realiza-tion of ‘cultural change’ (Melucci, 1997, p. 68). This has been noticeable notleast in respect of political involvement but also in the women’s appreciationof human frailty and concern for and sensitivity to the needs of others, par-ticularly the most disdvantaged in the community and those around themwith whom they come into regular contact.

In this they appear to ‘shift among the regions of [their] experience’(Melucci, 1997, p. 62), drawing on those experiences gained prior to officeand the influence of other women who, like them, have suffered sociallystructured inequality and wish for change. For them the management oforganizations is a socially constructed process which is continually (re)nego-tiated in order to effect change in the routinized aspects of organizationallife, rather than a series of strategies to be imposed in ways abstracted fromhuman experience. It is apparent, too, in their preparedness to connect theirofficial and home lives and in their continuing links with networks of womenwho help sustain them in their endeavours to connect state and civil society.It surfaces, too, in their attempts to redefine their roles and others’ expecta-tions of them, as they manage and (re)construct their identities as femalepublic officials.

The experience that others have of these women, as respected and valuedholders of public office, may thus have something to do, not just with theirhard work and their discerning gaze, but also with their use of symbols andcodes, as Kumar has so trenchantly observed. This could indeed be anexpression of their agency, as they manage their positions to (re)focus atten-tion on the most disadvantaged in their communities. Their image as peoplewho are likely to understand the needs of others is widely appreciated, as isthe growing evidence that they are no easy touch. The enhanced levels ofrespectability the Corporators have been earning are also welcomed, but sotoo is the awareness that everyone seems at least to some degree vulnerableto corruption, which needs to be regulated and monitored if acceptable formsof local government are to be sustained. If these women are increasingly vul-nerable to corrupting influences, as their time in office grows, this should notunduly surprise us. It may be that the influence of social movements, strongat first, wanes as those involved gain new experiences which challenge theirpreviously held values and taken-for-granted assumptions. This is not to



endorse uncritically Michels’ well-worn argument about the strength of oligarchical tendencies within organizations, but to acknowledge the signif-icant part played by imagination and temptation in the changing and oftenmessy compromises of organized life. The women concerned may or maynot become enmeshed in questionable practices over time, but the experi-ences of their respective women’s movements will have helped them, at thevery least, to demonstrate the difference they can make to local government.

Acknowledgements

This is a revised version of a paper presented to the International Sociolog-ical Association and British Sociological Association Conference, held atManchester Metropolitan University, England, 3–5 November 2000 and theRethinking Gender, Work and Organization Conference, held at the Univer-sity of Keele, England, 27–29 June 2001. The authors would like to recordtheir thanks to the participants at these conferences, as well as to HeatherClark and John Chandler of the Organization Studies Research Group basedin the University of East London, England and Elisabeth Berg of Luleå Uni-versity, Sweden, as well as the anonymous Gender, Work and Organizationreviewers for their critical and helpful comments. Any errors remain theresponsibility of the authors.

Notes

1. We do not deal with the public service ethos here. The interested reader is referredto Barry et al. (1998).

2. We do not engage with the literature on governance in this article. The interestedreader is referred to Kooiman (2000) and Newman (2003).

3. Notions of the critical mass and critical acts such as the initiation of the quota(Dahlerup, 1988) are not explored here — the interested reader is referred toHonour et al. (2003).

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