Caring Administration with Gender-centricity: Interrogating Kanyashree Programme in West Bengal
| Published date | 01 September 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00195561231177037 |
| Author | Pratip Chattopadhyay |
| Date | 01 September 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Caring Administration
with Gender-centricity:
Interrogating
Kanyashree
Programme in
West Bengal
Pratip Chattopadhyay1
Abstract
Gender remains an important issue area in governance in post-colonial democ-
racies like India, which have a long past of patriarchal social structure. In
West Bengal even after thirty-four years of continuous Left Front rule, gender
never became the mainstay of Bengal politics. Trinamul Congress government
in West Bengal from 2011 addressed the issue of gender parity perspective.
During the period of Mamata Banerjee, as Chief Minister, women candidates
were fielded in large numbers while girls were also encouraged to be economi-
cally self-dependent and socially aware. Taking policy perspective of women’s
empowerment, this article deals with Kanyashree programme. Experience of the
last ten years indicates that social violence against women and empowerment-
centric progammes go together in creating a puzzle regarding awards received
by GoWB on women-centric programmes. This article argues that the degree
of inclusiveness of Kanyashree dodges initial politicisation, gradual normalisation
and recurring criticisms and translates ‘development as freedom’ in practice in a
highly politicised democratic milieu of our time.
Keywords
Gender, care, administration, West Bengal, Kanyashree
Introduction
Constitutional democracy presupposes the existence of a milieu of democratic
governance, which, in order to be a successful venture, must create policies add-
ressed to specic issues for specic target groups through a mix of decentralisation ,
Article
Indian Journal of Public
Administration
69(3) 609–623, 2023
© 2023 IIPA
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/00195561231177037
journals.sagepub.com/home/ipa
1 Department of Political Science, University of Kalyani, West Bengal, India.
Corresponding author:
Pratip Chattopadhyay, Department of Political Science, University of Kalyani, West Bengal 741235,
India.
E-mail: chatterjee23_pratip@yahoo.co.in
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