A neoliberalisation of civil society? Self-help groups and the labouring class poor in rural South India

Abstract

This paper notes the prominence of self-help groups (SHGs) within current anti-poverty policy in India, and analyses the impacts of government- and NGO-backed SHGs in rural North Karnataka. It argues that self-help groups represent a partial neoliberalisation of civil society in that they address poverty through low-cost methods that do not challenge the existing distribution of power and resources between the dominant class and the labouring class poor. It finds that intra-group savings and loans and external loans/subsidies can provide marginal economic and political gains for members of the dominant class and those members of the labouring classes whose insecure employment patterns currently provide above poverty line consumption levels, but provide neither material nor political gains for the labouring class poor. Target-oriented SHG catalysts are inattentive to how the social relations of production reproduce poverty and tend to overlook class relations and socio-economic and political differentiation within and outside of groups, which are subject to interference by dominant class local politicians and landowners.

Alienated Enclaves: Economic Crisis and Neo-bondage in a South Indian Plantation Belt

“…In a cycle of debt, the workers had to borrow from money lenders to pay back a loan amount borrowed through their self-help groups. As Pattenden (2010) points out in a similar case from the south Indian state of Karnataka, this enforcement of debt cycle upon the rural poor in effect makes the self-help groups a proxy money lender (p. 498).…”

Rethinking dependency and development between international and indigenous non-governmental organisations

“…Pattenden (2010) supports this approach as he suggests that self-help initiatives like the one found in UMABU address poverty through low-cost methods that do not challenge the global elite or longstanding economic social relations. In the case of UMABU and other NGOs around the world, these kinds of selfhelp initiatives fit nicely within the worldview of Western development organisations.…”

Women's Empowerment: Power to Act or Power over Other Women? Lessons from Indian Microfinance

“…Aminur Rahman has revealed how female borrowers in Bangladesh have physically attacked small businesses developed with microcredit schemes, either out of jealousy or when women borrowers have failed to return loans on time (Rahman, 1999, p. 57-82). In southern India, three recent studies have clearly shown that caste and class relationships influence micro-credit outcomes, women from low castes and low classes being either excluded from or unable to make effective use of SHG schemes (Garikipati, 2008;Rao, 2008;Pattenden, 2010).…”