Today, I wish to construct a view, a women’s view, of Freedom and Security. And in doing so, I wish to, if I may, point a direction for all of us to work towards. I know, this is overwhelming for me to dare to do so with my limited experience before this mighty Institution of India, Central Bureau of Investigation, (CBI).

         I grew up in Surat, Gujarat, between those years when India was fighting for freedom and building an independent nation. As new youths, we were expected to rebuild the nation, to reconstruct our lives, so that every Indian is able to feel secure and enjoy the freedom. We had no confusion in our minds. Gandhiji had shown us the way. His life itself was a clear message to us. The message was of building India of free and secure Indians. And he wanted us to build bottom up, from our citizens to our country.

         I studied law and on graduation, joined the Legal Department of the Textile Labour Association, (TLA) in 1955, in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. TLA was founded by Ansuya Sarabhai and Gandhiji in 1917 to help the striking mill workers gain more work security and freedom to organize as a union. At TLA I saw the many meanings of freedom and security in the formal employer-employee set up. I also saw that this freedom and security were unequally divided between men and women workers.

         The two major textile mills closed down in 1968 that rendered thousands of workers jobless. I was assigned to take a survey of the families affected by the closures. Then I saw that the burden of running the family had fallen to the women. While the men were busy agitating to reopen the mills, at the end of the day, it was the women’s earnings that fed the family. Security meant having secured meals. Freedom meant freedom to make a living from other means. None were available to these women or their families. Women sold fruits and vegetables in the streets; stitched garments in their homes at piece-rate for middle-men; worked as laborers in wholesale commodity markets, loading and unloading heavy merchandise; or collected recyclable refuse from city streets to sell for small amounts to the junk-shops. The Ahmedabad textile industry was less and less able to provide economic security, then and in the years to come. The Ahmedabad city was less and less able to provide economic freedom to find new or better job for these families and these women.

         A great many children of these mill workers had stopped going to school so they could help their mothers make ends meet. These were informal, home-based, jobs operated outside of any labour laws or regulations. They were jobs without legal or industrial definitions. I learned for the firs time what it meant to be self-employed: on your own, living by your own back-breaking work and wits of a hounded pray.

         As I got to know these women better, I learnt about the various constraints that they faced. Vendors feared harassment by the police and bribed them with small change and fresh fruits or sale items so as to stay secure in the market place. The vendors had no freedom but to be on the right side of the moneylenders from whom they borrowed daily so that they could go to the sabzi mandi and buy vegetables to sell in the newly expanding middle class neighbourhoods. At home husbands or fathers would come home drunk at night, and the women spent nights cuddled around infants, feared beatings. There were cart pullers, migrants from Maharashtra in bright bordered saris, who slept on the dark side walk by night and during the day carried heavy bales of cloth to the wholesalers from the retailers. Half of their income, tied into the end of their sari, directly went from the employer to the contractor who had brought her from her village in Maharashtra to work in the city. She had neither secure income nor freedom to find another job.

         There were women stitchers whose home were their workplace that housed seven family members and two sewing machines in 12 feet by 15 feet brown brick room with a iron grilled window and a flimsy door under tin roof. The women earned a pittance because of the low piece rate. The informal sector, predominantly women, played a major role, in the urban economic growth. And even then they had gained hardly any work security or economic freedom. Why?

         I came to a simple answer: Organise! A union is about coming together. Women did not need to come together against anyone, they needed to come together for themselves. By forming a union—a bond—they affirmed their status as workers, and as a result of coming together, women gained some sort of security as well as freedom. In the face of violence she had other woman to turn to, in the face of loss of job she had other woman to ask for, and in the case of savings, if any, she had other woman to confide in.

         I would always put work as central to the man’s life: ‘karma’ as Bhagvad Gita says, it is the work, productive work that leads to Development and Growth. Work gives meaning to one’s life. Work forges her identity, security and freedom. The work provides livelihoods and thus builds a society. But poverty breaks down the balance. Poverty is violence against individuals, society and nature. Poverty and loss of freedom are not separate.

         Gandhiji had seen, in women a breakthrough. He had faith in women’s leadership in bringing transformation in the society. I too believed that the poor women I was working with had the capacity to change society. We got together in 1972 and formed Self Employed Women’s Association, (SEWA).

         At SEWA, we work with women because they are the most vulnerable today. We meet on the basis of work and create networks. We build unions to meet our work needs, to stop economic exploitation by traders, contractor, our governments, the global community and the ‘system’ and ‘structures’. In SEWA, we have come together to build a Bank to meet our financial needs – to save, to borrow, to loan, to build assets, to tap resources, to improve the material quality of life. We have come together to build cooperatives to get integrated into the production process of our country. We build a social security network of our maternity needs, health and life insurance. We have been trying to forge bridges to local and global markets through a trade facilitation network of women farmers and crafts across the world. We create schools to build our capacities to 
manage our affairs and make an impact in the world outside.

         Through my experience of nearly 50 years of working with poor women, I would like to explain what security means to an average woman. Many women live in insecure urban slums. For a woman security means being able to go to the toilet without worrying about snakes in the grass or leering boys. Bathing is done at midday when most men are out at work. Finding privacy in an urban slum is essentially a woman’s art. The weight of darkness is very heavy on women. The lack of streetlights restrict women’s mobility. Well–lit streets is the women’s top priority. 

         Unfortunately very little has changed for informal sector women in the last fifty years. On the contrary with liberalization the informal sector has increased. Work security is closely connected with health security in the case of the informal sector workers. They are not covered by any social security schemes such as insurance against illness, death, accident, loss of equipments. The women work at the cost of their children. The women, poor self employed, are not covered by the childcare. When we started our child care centres most women came to leave their children so that they could go to work feeling secure about their little ones. The childcare has raised their productivity. But on the other hand, now, more and more women come, and even bring their nine year old daughter to the child care centre, because they feel insecure to leave young girls in their own homes and communities.

         Beyond child care, less and less mothers want to send their daughters to school, as they find even the schools, and going and returning from school, insecure. This is not new to you or me. What is new is the fact that economic growth, both, of the state and of the family, does not ensure human security to the citizens or the family members. 

         On an average over 40,000 children in India are reported missing every year and half of them remain untraced. Two third of these children are of the informal sector workers. Where do they go? The official documents record them under heads such as ‘procurement of minor girls’, ‘kidnapping for abduction’, ‘exported’, ‘ransom’ but where are our children—mothers ask the nation. It is a grave matter of human insecurity .

         You may want to know that 90% of India’s working population is not covered by minimum wage. They work at piece rate, hence daughters have to work long hours and late nights. There is no income security as the contractor stops giving them work. Migrants come searching work from Orissa to Surat, for example. They have no identity card, nor voting card. Estimated 60,000 of such migrants—men and women—cannot vote either in Orissa or in Surat. They are politically insecure. They are devoid of any political freedom. Such insecurity, force them to crimes, in the name of caste or religion. 

         Given this larger idea of insecurity, I would like to specifically address the role of the CBI and other security agencies. CBI is the premier investigating agency in India. For us common people, CBI is a major, highest level, police force that ensures the national security for our country. We believe them to be last resort. They are impartial, and unshakable from their task even by major industrial or political powers or external interests, we believe.

         We truly hold CBI in high esteem for ensuring national security of India and guarding India’s freedom. CBI has preserved the sovereignty of India. CBI has found out the truth behind the unlawful acts, political scandals, and spying that undermines India. The CBI efficiently has done the job of building national security for which we hold you in high esteem.

         As a citizen, however, I understand that the task of security for our citizens is only half done. CBI has built national security, rather firmly and effectively, over past decades but building human security so as for the people to enjoy freedom, and human freedom is yet to be attained.

         The life of a nation and that of a citizen is not different. A citizen’s life is the microcosm of the life of a nation. A citizen is the smallest unit of the nation. And to do their job better, security agencies may want to now move deeper into the lives of our nationals. When I read the background material sent to me to prepare for this talk, I was happy to see that the function of the CBI is to play “ a major role in preservation of values in public life and in ensuring the health of the national economy” . As I explained, poverty and an unsustainable economy are the enemies of security and freedom. When people do not have enough to eat, do not have viable work, they become desperate and resort to crime, to violence or to self-destruction. Rather than wait till the violence has occurred, would it not be better to find out what is wrong and act to prevent it.

Let me explain more.

         When the farmers of Vidarbha commit suicide, should not CBI know in advance that the economic security of large number of our farmers is getting eroded as globalization is changing the commodity markets and agriculture sector by pushing national boarders? Global agriculture, dominated by large corporations, is making our own agriculture, especially of the small farmers, insecure. Surely such loss of occupational and economic insecurity at a large-scale must be a part of CBI’s investigations? 

         CBI keeps vigils over the spread of terrorism in urban centers, industrial units, and border areas. But the rapid “urban renewal” and industrial development through Special Economic Zones will soon demand such vigil, through out India, as this type of economic growth is not ‘inclusive.’ Thousands of the working poor are losing their home and work security in small and larger towns as much needed investments in urban infrastructures are being made. Does urban renewal mean removing urban poor? Already many street vendors and slum dwellers are committing suicide, sometimes in public in front of the television cameras. Surely, these are issues which affect the health of the national economy as well as the security of the people. These are governance issues, which can be easily solved by the political leaders, and civic administrators sitting with the poor and plan renewal. Can it not be the role of the CBI, of security agencies to investigate these major insecurities and to ask the political leaders to soleve them, rather than wait till the people lose faith in the system and turn to more violent means.

         Cannot CBI provide early-warning to the nation of the possible loss of political freedom in small and large pockets? Should not CBI inform the decision makers how economic growth, at least in some areas and in some ways spreading insecurity amongst social relationships. Will CBI investigate only after the human security is in danger or destroyed? What about “anticipated investigation?” Or should it be called pro-active investigation? Or “early-warning investigation?” We must find such or similar ways to go to the cause of investigation, that is, go to “preventive investigation?” You may think about it.

         Institutions like the CBI and the police force go a long way in building the confidence of the weak and giving them freedom. During any disturbance in the lives of poor women – big or small, they look upto the Police and the Government.. But that earlier confidence is lost today. Police are keepers of law and safety but parents tell their daughters not to go to a police station even if you a problem. We must do everything to regain that earlier confidence.

         Once I asked village women, “What comes to your mind when I mention ‘government’, to you?” Most people in the village promptly said ‘Police’! Why do they think police as the symbol of Government or Governance and not an aanganwadi in their village or the bus service they daily use or the hospital nearby? They fear police. The confidence in police as ‘protector’ has almost completely eroded In the times of disturbances or curfews, residents now rely on their own night-vigils and self defence mechanism rather than the police. In daily life, the police is seen as collecting haftas rather than protecting the weak. 

         Also the Governance (By governance, I mean how the government relates to its people, citizens,) is symbolized by local government officers who would not do a single service for the poor without receiving a ‘fee’. The villagers say that the local government collects money for toilets or for paving roads or housing, but the works remain incomplete, and badly done or nothing done. When we go to a government hospital, we already know that there will be no supplies of drugs or other supplies. We hear news that in that in that hospital, there is no security of inner organs – our organs are removed and sold in the market. “In our district, doctors insist on removing the uterus after delivery.” This is very sad. The Givernment sees itself as ‘rulers’ in governance who perceive people as a ‘subject’ that is ignorant, mindless, idle, who need to be managed, controlled, reformed, disciplined and at times to be taught a lesson. In earlier days, the poor looked up to the government for support, even though accepting its inefficiency. But now, the government is considered to be not on the side of the poor but on the rich, the corporate. 

         On the other hand, the government would invariably say that we want to give the benefits due to the poor but no one comes to take. The fact is that the poor know very little about how to go about getting the benefits that are due to them. The information is kept from them by vested interests, and the know-how is used to siphon off these benefits to inappropriate sections.

         I especially want to mention about prohibition in Gujarat as there is a lot of misunderstanding about it. Recently there has been much in the newspapers about lifting prohibition in Gujarat so that industry and investments will find Gujarat a favourable state. However, when the costs and benefits of removing prohibition are being discussed, one of the issues rarely taken into account is the impact of prohibition on the security of women and their physical movement. Compared to other cities women in cities in Gujarat feel safer to move around alone. It is not as if there is no alcoholism in the state. In fact, poor women suffer much due to drunken male household members. However, due to prohibition there is no open sale and consumption of liquor and public spaces are mostly free from the ills of drunkenness. Prohibition thus contributes in a big way to a safe environment for women. From the women’s point of view prohibition means security, surely this is enough cause to promote rather than malign prohibition.

         I would like to end leaving you with the request that in this age of globalization, when large corporates are taking over the economy and when people are seeing and suffering from the corruption in the public systems, we women, especially the poor women would like to have the security agencies as protectors and promoters of security. 

         We would like to see CBI match national security to human security so as to make both, India and the Indians feel more secure and free. Security means people being able to move around without being afraid of being assaulted, and at the same time it means enough that the system enhances rather than snatches away employment. “Freedom means being able to send my daughter to school and not worry that she will be abused on the road or in the school. Security means that I and my husband have enough work that we can feed our children and send them to school” said Sushilaben of village Chikodra. If we do not recognize her agony, what we will be left with, is hunger and violence.