"This NGO is Now a Company": NGO-isation of the Contemporary Indian Women's Movement

Violence against women was the rallying point of the contemporary Indian women's movement of the 1970s and 1980s. The movement achieved several wins including the enactment of legislation aimed at deterring violence. However, the movement began to fragment when political differences among the activists began to widen. Gradually, autonomous women’s groups of likeminded activists emerged. These groups were largely constituted of urban, middle-class and upper caste women who turned towards organising intersectionally disadvantaged women from marginalised communities. The realisation soon dawned that sustained activism and creating alternative structures to aid women required resources, and acquiring resources required a formal institutional structure. This sentiment spurred an NGO boom during the 1970s and 1980s, a phenomenon that could be dubbed as the NGO-isation of the contemporary Indian women's movement. This paper draws upon findings from my doctoral fieldwork with two case study NGOs in New Delhi which were established at the peak of the contemporary Indian women's movement. It delves deeper into the pull factors which encouraged movement activists who formed autonomous groups to institutionalise as NGOs. This is followed by a critical analysis of the consequences of NGO-isation, which include donor dependency, precarity and survival in project mode, as well as depoliticisation. How institutionalisation and professionalisation impact inter-organisational dynamics is also explored. Finally, the implications of these realities on empowerment of not only the grassroots women that the NGOs work with, but also the field staff of these NGOs are examined.