1.1 Research question
Urban poor living in the megacities of India already face lots of hardships in their daily life, and the consequences of local environmental change are likely to
exacerbate these hardships even further. Some of the changes that are likely to affect the urban poor most are increased flooding, limited fresh water supply, an increase in food-prices, and population movements. Within this group of urban poor there is one specific group that is even more vulnerable: women. In a lot of cultures women are likely to feel insecure due to ‘subjugated social position, limited education, and restricted economic freedom and social capital’ (Goldsworthy, 2010, p. 215), which will most likely be further exacerbated by the consequences of environmental problems. The local leaders and politicians are the people the poor turn to for help, and when they do not provide a solution, the poor have to take matter into their own hands, and rely on themselves or other institutions. This is where Non Governmental Organizations (NGO) and self-help groups (SHG) enter the picture. Through these agencies, the poor have the opportunity to gain both financial and knowledge-based empowerment, thus being able to rely on themselves to a larger extent. In this paper, I investigate further the role of NGOs and SHGs with regards to women and local environmental problems, and my hypothesis for this paper is:
The women in the unrecognized area Saboli in Delhi use the local NGO and SHGs in order to empower themselves, and thus deal with some of the environmental issues in the area, as well as acquiring the strength to talk to, and stand up to politicians and local leaders, who seldom provides the help needed.
In order to do this, I will contribute with my own material from my fieldwork in the area. Through this material I hope to shed some light on these issues, with first hand opinions from the people who are actually affected, as well as my own observations in relation to these issues. I thought it would be interesting to do a fieldwork in this
area because I wanted to see for myself what the situation was like, and not only rely on what I had read or heard on these topics. The situation was not as I had anticipated on beforehand, and I feel that my material has provided me with useful information that helps me to see a more nuanced picture of the situation in a Delhi slum.
1.2 Structure of the thesis
The first section of this paper deals with the methodology part. The methodology section includes how and where my fieldwork was conducted, as well as some of the challenges I faced during this fieldwork. In this chapter I also address some of the methodological problems that occurred during my fieldwork, and investigate how these problems may have affected the results.
In the second part of the paper I address the vulnerability of the urban poor in connection with the consequences of environmental change, with special focus on women. As my title states, I focus on women in a specific slum area in Delhi, called Saboli. However, I feel it is necessary to present a more general understanding of slum areas and unrecognized colonies in Delhi in order to give an overview of the situation before I focus on describing the situation in Saboli. Hence, in the second part the reader will first get an overview of slum areas in Delhi, then information on some of the most important environmental issues in Saboli. Here, I will also mention how the women I interview are affected by these issues, as well as the ways they deal with them. After discussing the current situation regarding the urban poor in Delhi, I will turn to how this current situation has been created. A lot has changed since Independence, changes that have affected the situation of the urban poor. In order to understand the current situation, I will present the history of Delhi with regards to the attitudes towards the poor. These changes are both within the political sphere, as well as a part of the general opinion of society. Because of these changes in opinions I take a closer look at the concepts of ‘self-responsibilization’ and ‘aestheticization’.
The third part of the paper will focus on the political aspect with regards to the current situation for urban poor in Delhi. In the first section I include a short section
on responsibility, in order to establish the informants’ opinion on this matter.
Following this, I take a closer look at slum dwellers’ relationship with their local leaders and politicians, in order to share how the inhabitants feel about their leaders. I looked at this relationship in order to find out if the local leaders and politicians provide any sort of help to the inhabitants, or if they are absent and lack initiatives.
This section also includes both opinions regarding the existing leaders, as well as what kind of characteristics the informants would assign to the ‘ideal leader’. At the end of this chapter, I also include a section on democracy in India with both
background information on this subject as well as the informants’ views on this matter.
The last chapter of the thesis focuses on the role of NGOs and SHGs. To create a backdrop for this chapter, I first present information on the history of NGOs in India, as well as looking into the complex relationship between the state and the NGOs.
Ever since independence, NGOs have played an important part in India’s
development, and at the same time the Indian government have played a key role in shaping Indian NGOs (Kilby, 2011, p. 4, 11, 124). Then, I take a closer look at
FODRA’s (Fountain of Development Research and Action) work in Saboli, and focus on how they have changed the situation for the women in the area. What kind of changes have arisen from their work? The last section focuses on the SHGs and microfinance in Saboli. Here I discuss the consequences of being a member of the SHGs in relation to empowerment of women. This empowerment includes both knowledge-based empowerment as well as financial empowerment.