Bengaluru, India – lata. G. assured the responsibilities of his marital home and his finances very early. She raised two children, who are now teenagers, while her husband has struggled to hold a stable job.
“Food, clothes, shelter, education – I take care of everything,” she says.
LATA has a manual sewing machine in a small room in his house in the Vyalikaval district of the center of Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka. It is a tailor that sometimes helps other tailors for additional money: sewing pimples, embroidery – everything they need.
After working for more than 12 hours a day, it manufactures an average of 7,000 Indian rupees (US $ 83) per month, she says. But in August 2023, his income increased by 30%, thanks to 2,000 additional rupees per month of the Karnataka government. During the campaign season, the Congress Party promised all women whose annual family income was less than 120,000 rupees (US 1,424) a basic income if they took power. Qualified lata.
The cash transfer program is one of the more than a dozen in the states of India. The names of the programs result in variations in “my dear sister” or bear the name of Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of money.
Money strengthens the confidence of women, according to some community workers. But others say that the government deals with cash transfers as a favor.
“The attitude of the government is paternalistic,” explains Rajeshwari Deshpande, professor at Savitribai Phule university, who studied the vote of women in India for years. “The government can be generous today but can withdraw it tomorrow.”
Paternalistic promises
When India obtained the independence of colonial domination in 1947, it adopted a universal franchise for adults, giving each adult citizen – including women – the right to vote. But due to the patriarchy and the rooted sexism, women have not voted in greater numbers than men. Even when they did, the researchers found that the men of their house influenced their votes.
In 2019, thanks to decades of work by feminist organizations and basic movements, the female participation rate exceeded male electoral participation by a thin margin, both approaching 70%.
“Political parties have realized that women are a huge block of voting and therefore introduce programs in particular,” explains Sunaina Kumar, who is researching the female participation rate.
In recent years, political parties have perfected programs to attract the votes of women. During the elections of the Karnataka Assembly of 2023, as well as cash transfers, the Congress Party also promised free bus walks to all women residents of the State. Likewise, the government of Janata Dal United, in the state of northern Bihar, promised a ban on alcohol in 2015, after women went down to the street to demand it.
But even if women can vote more, says Kumar, women are not sufficiently represented in politics. There are only 75 women elected to the lower room of the Indian Parliament, which has 542 seats. This means that the policies created for women are not necessarily created by women, says Deshpande.
“But when it comes to treating women as simple beneficiaries,” she says, “no party is left behind.”
Independence generates confidence
Anjali Suresh, 31, is a housewife of two pre -adolescent girls. The 2,000 rupees she receives, like LATA, helped to acquire financial independence.
“For each little thing like a health pad, I should have asked my husband money earlier,” she said.
Now, she even manages to save a small quantity for the future.
“I am grateful to have a good husband and the government deposits money on my account,” explains Suresh. “What would I do otherwise?”
But she wants to make sure that her daughters will never have to depend on their husbands or the state for money.
LATA agrees.
“When I go home with my own money, I feel confident,” she said, trying to put words into a feeling that she calls indescribable. There is, she said, a strange feeling of identity.
LATA understands that money may not come forever. She, like Suresh, saved as much as she can, and she tells her daughter to study well.
“Nothing,” she says, “gives us as much stability as a good job.”