Why Women Exit Politics: The Case of Two Grassroots Activists in a Slum in New Delhi

Anne Waldrop

Journal of South Asian Development, 2024, vol. 19, issue 3, 408-428

Abstract: This article investigates why it is so difficult for women to succeed in politics in India, and it analyses this from a grassroots perspective in a slum in New Delhi. Based on longitudinal ethnographic research, I explore and compare in-depth the political trajectories of two women activists and examine why, despite being successful leaders of women and allied with male political ‘godfathers’, they have ended up leaving grassroots activism altogether. I show that both women were first pulled into political activism by NGOs working on women’s empowerment, that both later allied with male politicians to help draw ‘the women’s vote’ and that both women’s respective success largely rested on their concern with so-called women’s causes. However, neither of them was able to build up their own patronage networks, which is necessary to gain an independent political standing in politics. They remained dependent on their male political mentors and on family support; losing one or both of these instigated their respective exits from activism and politics.

Keywords: Family-household; New Delhi; patronage; slum; women and politics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09731741241264069 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:soudev:v:19:y:2024:i:3:p:408-428

DOI: 10.1177/09731741241264069

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of South Asian Development
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().