This article was first published in the print edition of Manushi Journal. (Issue-56, Jan-Feb 1990)
One of the most important things I have learnt is that even the most well meaning efforts to help improve people’s lives can end up in disaster if you do not take people’s own lives and perceptions sufficiently seriously, or fail to understand the effects of any particular effort at change on other parts of a complex situation and society. Contributing to social change involves deliberate attempts at mobilising opinion in particular direction – but if the conclusions are predetermined by the activist’s own predilections and ideas, without taking into account the situation, perceptions, wishes and aspirations of those on whose behalf we seek to help bring change about, we can easily end up either being irrelevant, pompous impostors or authoritarian manipulators. One reason for the failure of the antidowry campaign during the years since independence is that it was a well intentioned effort at social change based on an inadequate understanding of social reality…