Abstract
The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act enacted by the Indian Parliament in 2005, created a legal, justiciable “right to work” for all households in rural India and effected the implementation of the largest public works programme of its kind in the world. Adult members of all rural households were now legally entitled to “demand” work on publicly funded worksites, for “at least” 100 days per household per financial year. The enactment of the NREGA was significant, since this was the first Parliamentary statute that introduced a framework of universal, justiciable rights for the implementation of a “developmental” or poverty-alleviation program in post-independence India. This chapter discusses the significance of the NREGA for women workers. It also looks at the potential and limitations of collective action in enabling women workers to access their rights.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Agarwal, B. (1997). ‘Bargaining’ and gender relations within and beyond their household. Feminist Economics, 3(1), 1–51.
Bahuguna, V. (1990). The Chipko Movement. In I. Sen (ed.), A Space Within the Struggle. New Delhi. Kali for Women.
Baviskar, A. (1997). Tribal politics and discourses of environmentalism. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 31(2), 195–223.
Baviskar, A. (2004). In the belly of the river: Tribal Conflicts over development in the Narmada valley (2nd ed.). New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Baxi, U. (1998). Voices of suffering and the future of human rights. Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems, 8, 125–169.
Bhatia, B. (2005). The Naxalite movement in central Bihar. Economic and Political Weekly, 40(15), 1536–1549.
Dasgupta, S., & Sudarshan, R. (2011). Issues in labour market inequality and women’s participation in India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (Working Paper 98). Geneva: ILO.
Drèze, J. (1990). Famine prevention in India. In J. Drèze & A. Sen (Eds.), The political economy of hunger: Famine prevention (Vol. 2). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Drèze, J., & Khera, R. (2011). The battle for employment guarantee. In R. Khera (Ed.), The battle for employment guarantee. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Harriss, J. (2010). The Naxalite/Maoist movement in India: A review of recent literature (Working Paper No. 109), Institute of South Asian Studies Working Paper Series. Singapore: National University of Singapore.
Kabeer, N. (Ed.) (2004). Inclusive citizenship: Meanings and expressions. London: Zed Books.
Kandiyoti, D. (1988). Bargaining with patriarchy. Gender and Society, 2(3), 274–290.
Kapur, R., & Crossman, B. (1996). Subversive sites: Feminist engagement with law in India. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Kelkar, G., & Gala, C. (1990). The Bodhgaya land struggle. In I. Sen (Ed.), A space within the struggle. New Delhi: Kali for Women.
Khera, R. (2013). Democratic politics and legal rights: Employment guarantee and food security in India (Working Paper No. 327). New Delhi: Institute of Economic Growth.
Khera, R., & Nayak, N. (2009). Women workers and perceptions of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. Economic & Political Weekly, 44(43), 49–57.
Kunnath, G. (2006). Becoming a Naxalite in rural Bihar: Class struggle and its contradictions. Journal of Peasant Studies, 33(1), 89–123.
Menon, N. (2004). Recovering subversion: Feminist politics beyond the law. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Ministry of Rural Development (2015). NREGA report to the people. New Delhi: Government of India.
Narayanan, S. (2008). Employment guarantee, women’s work and childcare. Economic and Political Weekly, 43(9), 10–13.
Nayak, N. (forthcoming). ‘Workers’ or ‘Beneficiaries’: The varied politics of NREGA implementation in South-West Madhya Pradesh. in R. Nagaraj and Sripad Motiram (eds.). Political Economy of Contemporary India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nayak, N. (2012). Flexing legal texts: The politics of claiming a right to work. Unpublished PhD thesis, SOAS, University of London, London.
Nayak, N. (1990). The Kerala fishworkers struggle. In I. Sen (Ed.), A space within the struggle. New Delhi: Kali for Women.
Nayak, N. (2008). Songs of hope. The Hindu Sunday Magazine.
Nielsen, K. B. (2014). Women’s participation in the Singur movement, West Bengal. In K. B. Nielsen & A. Waldrop (Eds.), Women, gender and everyday social transformation in India. London: Anthem Press.
Nilsen, A. G. (2010). Dispossession and resistance in India: The river and the rage. New Delhi: Routledge.
Nilsen, A. G. (2012). Adivasis in and against the state: Subaltern politics and state power in contemporary India. Critical Asian Studies, 44(2), 251–282.
Rahul (1998). Bhil women of Nimad: Growing assertion. Economic and Political Weekly, 33(9), 445–446.
Ray, R., & Korteweg, A. C. (1999). Women’s movements in the third world: Identity, mobilization, and autonomy. Annual Review of Sociology, 25, 47–71.
Ruparelia, S. (2013). A progressive juristocracy? The unexpected social activism of India’s Supreme Court (Working Paper No. 391). Notre Dame, IN: Kellogg Institute.
Sainath, P. (2007). NREGP: No place for single women. The Hindu.
Samaddar, R. (2010). Emergence of the political subject. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Santos, B. S. (2002). Toward a new legal common sense: Law, globalization and emancipation (2nd ed.). London: Butterworths LexisNexis.
Sen, A. (1990). Gender and cooperative conflicts. In I. Tinker (Ed.), Persistent inequalities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sen, I. (Ed.) (1990). A space within the struggle. New Delhi: Kali for Women.
Shah, M. (2008). Radicalism of NREGA [Letter to the Editor]. Economic and Political Weekly, 43/23.
Sinha, S. (1996). Common property, community and collective action: Social movements and sustainable development in India. Unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Political Science, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University.
Tilly, C. (1978). From mobilisation to revolution. New York: Random House.
World Bank. (2015). The state of social safety nets. New York: World Bank.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Nayak, N. (2016). Women Workers, Collective Action and the “Right to Work” in Madhya Pradesh. In: Nielsen, K., Nilsen, A. (eds) Social Movements and the State in India. Rethinking International Development series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59133-3_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59133-3_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-59132-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-59133-3
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)