Manifestos as tools for inclusion

 

Manifestos are typically positioned as symbols of the direction, program and vision of political parties. They carry in a nutshell the narrative that they want the voters to mull and ponder over as they select their leaders to govern the country. Given the typical lackadaisical attention given by the public to manifestos, one wonders about the role that manifestos continue to play in drawing attention to the parties’ vision. In India in the last 7 decades the focus among the political parties in their manifestos can typically be divided into welfare and development, economic plans among others.  Gender as a category typically emerged in the welfare and development categories. For example, ensuring gender equality in education was an aspect that most political parties included in their manifestos. Over the last few years, there has been a visible focus on gender within political party manifestos. The wide range of gender-related issues focused on political manifestos among political parties ranged from gender equality, rights of women labourers, enhancing safety and security of women against crimes among others

 Since 2017, She Creates Change leaders have advocated for numerous changes that directly impact the wellbeing and safety of women in India. These Change leaders that have emerged from ground-up from all states of India to work on issues closest to them to garner the attention of the public and that of the policymakers and have been successful in bringing in many policy-level changes as well. Our 2024 Inspire Inclusion manifesto advocated for a diverse set of changes needed on ground that directly impact the lives of Indian women every day. The fact that these campaigns together have garnered over 18 lakh signatures, and much media attention is a testimony to the urgency with which these issues need to be focused upon by political parties.

The focus with the Inspire Inclusion manifesto was simple, to ask political parties to include issues that are of interest to women pertaining to their health, safety, menstrual health, sanitation, children rights, education within their own political manifestos. The manifesto focused on ensuring women’s right to health through focused National level preventive health initiatives in government medical facilities like for awareness helplines, free screening of cervical and breast cancer, and treatment of postpartum depression in mothers.. The manifesto also included measures for safe menstruation by way of investing in menstrual friendly public spaces with fully functional toilets, awareness and access to safe menstrual products across all educational institutions. With a view on safety and mobility for women, the manifesto also asked for Free Bus Travel a campaign that received widespread support across diverse states.

The Inspire Inclusion manifesto also included issues around child rights especially around preventing sexual abuse, by way of mandating curricular inputs, conducting special sessions for children on personal safety and recognizing sexual abuse, and educating teachers to create awareness in schools across the country, training teachers in gender sensitization enabling them to become agents in changing gender stereotypical mindsets in the classroom. The aftermath of the pandemic brought in a spotlight on mental health and our manifesto also included how we could find ways to deal with the silent mental health crisis among children that our country is going through which if ignored or undetected can lead to a more depressed younger generation and even a rise in instances of suicide. The manifesto asked for mental health awareness modules to be made compulsory in all schools. Our hope with the manifesto was fairly simple to advocate for those issues that are closest to our women change-leaders and create a buy-in from diverse political parties. We managed to reach out to many national and regional political parties and their manifesto teams, who were open to discussing our needs.