Escaping Muscular Humanitarianism

I thought I had begun my fellowship with no expectations, with a clear, open mind, but really, that was not the case. Once I got to my project sight, I realized I had been imagining myself doing Swades* style- muscular humanitarianism**, involving big muscles, big bucks, and big technological and political knowledge. Guess how many of those things I have? None. I did, however, bring a certain sense of determination and ambition, and some very silly subconscious daydreams.

I envisioned myself creating a study group for girls, bringing vocational and art classes to the village, bringing women into the public arena: ‘arre wah!’ I saw myself transforming a small town! I am the hero in my own Bollywood superhit! These subconscious reveries began to break down as I realized how village pace worked. No one would come to my meetings, people already knew about child marriage laws and just chose to ignore them, and even my host mother was a corrupt ex-president of the Gram Panchayat. Despite these deeply troubling issues, the biggest obstacle I felt I faced was housework. Housework, of all things. I hated those two words more than anything. Girls are often restricted in their activities because their mothers need them to do house work. Then I began to actually observe my surroundings, to see that in my own host family’s home, housework was central to every day life. From drinking chai to turning on the TV, the work that women do in the house is essential to every drop of water I drink and every morsel I consume. When I had to bring the water in myself, in a giant pot balanced on my hip, it began to sink in that housework was not just feather dusting the windowsill. It is about survival.

Survivalists! What an epiphany (I hope my sarcasm conveys itself on paper)! People work so they can eat, so they can drink, so they can raise children. I have never had to work this hard for a cup of water. A month and a half in, I still don’t do a fraction of the house work the average village woman does every day.

I wondered if technology could liberate women (i.e. washing machines, dishwashers), I wondered if education would allow women to be seen differently, if higher incomes would gain women the legitimacy they deserved, but deep inside, I know that the only way for women to break the shackles of patriarchy is a change in mentality, and that’s the most difficult change to catalyze. I was blaming housework for women’s limitations because it was easier than attempting to conceptualize and implement solutions for a less tangible culprit. Housework was not my enemy. Really, would a washing machine solve women’s problems? It certainly didn’t serve as a sustainable weapon for battling patriarchy elsewhere.

My sister asked me if my idealism is being ripped to shreds here. I said no, but I had to think about it first. The hesitation comes from the recognition that while I still cling to my idealism, I must modify it to fit with the needs of the community and not my own egotistical, impatient visions for change. Muscular humanitarianism loves the dam that generates clean water, loves the solar panels, and the paved roads, the quick, easy-to-recognize signs of development. But MH is silent in the face of social norms, patriarchy, and invisible oppression. I need to re-design my ideas of change and transform the Swades daydreams to fit with my capabilities, and most importantly, with Ukkali’s reality. As obvious as this conclusion may seem, it took me a while to shed these egotistical vision of change and opt for a subtler, and infinitely more powerful approach to development, in which the development of the self is necessary to occur.

*Swades: We, the people, is a Bollywood film starring Shah Rukh Khan in which an NRI returns to India and ends up building a small hydro-electric plant through his own personal funds and initiative in a small village.

**Note: Muscular humanitarianism is a term used by Political Scientist Anne Orford in her critique of humanitarian military intervention. I am utilizing the term in relation to international service work.