When Literacy Campaigns Gave Birth to a Women Movement: The Case of Jago Bahana in Dumka (Bihar)

Total and Post Literacy Campaigns have launched incidental processes of women’s empowerment in almost every district that witnessed this uniquely Indian innovation. However, these processes have generally tended to fade with the campaigns’ closure. This has prompted suggestions, that, if the incipient women’s empowerment processes originating in the literacy campaigns are to become sustainable, they need to be linked to the women’s movement(s). The central argument of this article is that while linkages with the women’s movement(s) are desirable, they are not a necessary condition for sustainability, as demonstrated by the self-generated, self-sustained, and self-styled women’s movement that was born from the literacy campaigns in Dumka, Bihar ((India). Jago Bahana (JB), continues to enhance its presence and power as a women’s movement, in Dumka, even after the literacy campaigns that crated it have ended. The case of JB is discussed in depth with a focus on the processes that created it, its internal structure, and the activities that earned it legitimacy at every level of the district. Lessons for sustainable women’s empowerment are drawn, relating to the role of a gender-aware district level bureaucracy, the exclusive space cared for women’s participation, and the tangible nature of the benefits delivered to women and families.