Self-Employed Women's Association of India

The Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) is a collective organization of women working in the informal urban and rural economy in India. Formed in 1972 in Ahmedabad, a prominent city in the state of Gujarat in western India, SEWA has extended itself across India through the formation of SEWA Bharat. SEWA has emphasized that what women require is not welfare but a strengthening of their position as workers in society. Thus, the exclusion of women who lacked a recognizable employer from the framework of traditional trade unions has been challenged by SEWA. A shift in nomenclature from informal to self-employed also is one of SEWA's contributions to providing visibility to the range of women's work. The fact that SEWA members comprise the poorest and most insecure segment of workers makes such organizing an especially significant imperative.

SEWA is led by Ela Bhatt, a lawyer and social activist, previously associated with the women's wing of the Textile Labor Association (TLA, locally known as Majoor Mahajan) in Ahmedabad. The TLA is a trade union based on Gandhian principles that sought to address capital-labor conflicts through peaceful negotiations. The formation of SEWA was propelled in part by the closure of textile mills in Ahmedabad in 1968 and a realization that the responsibility of providing for the family had now fallen on women. In 1981, TLA and SEWA separated from one another, partly due to the contrast between SEWA's links to international development and the TLA's dependence on local political power. Political differences also came to the fore as SEWA has been outspoken in opposing religious and caste-based violence in [Page 1294]Gujarat, especially since SEWA's members span the spectrum of caste and religious identities.