The Swachh Bharat Mission-Rural (SBM-R) is a flagship programme aimed at ending open defecation i... more The Swachh Bharat Mission-Rural (SBM-R) is a flagship programme aimed at ending open defecation in rural India. In this paper, we study institutions and processes using Amartya Sen's conception of justice. We review the outcomes by assessing agencies, actions and processes involved in the implementation of the SBM-R programme. The findings are analysed using the Sanitation Well-being Framework. Sanitation well-being is achieved when an individual is able to experience the sanitation life cycle stages of acceptance, construction, utilisation and maintenance of safe disposal, which are part of the framework. The capability factors grouped under personal, cultural, structural, environmental and service elements of the framework determine the sanitation environment facilitated by the state. Failure in experiencing one of the life stages leads to slippage in sanitation, where people resume open defecation, despite possessing toilets. The paper presents a review of literature on the p...
This is a chapter in a book titled: Democratic Decentralization in India: Experiences, issues and... more This is a chapter in a book titled: Democratic Decentralization in India: Experiences, issues and challenges This book explores experiences, issues and challenges which have emerged since Constitutional status was granted to the local bodies at grassroots level in India in the early 1990s. Among other issues, it focuses on: - the contrasting political ideas of Mahatma Gandhi and B. R. Ambedkar on Panchayati Raj Institutions - the legal and constitutional provisions which were introduced through the 73rd and 74th Amendment Acts - the devolution process, status and challenges of democracy for local governmental bodies - empowerment of the women and lower castes through reservations in the local bodies - governance in Schedule V and VI tribal areas Based on extensive fieldwork across India, this volume will be useful to scholars and researchers of political science, sociology, public administration as well as policymakers and civil society activists.
This article looks closely at the relationship between gender and environment in the context of s... more This article looks closely at the relationship between gender and environment in the context of sustainability. It has been seen that without the inclusion of feminist concerns for gender equality, most environment public policy approaches will be incomplete and may even threaten to intensify women’s subordination. This is illustrated in this article through a case study from Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu, India, wherein local organizations that operate successfully for environmental sustainability and women’s financial inclusion do not achieve gender equality due to the chokehold of patriarchy. The article is theoretically situated in Bina Agarwal’s idea that differences in attitudes to conservation between genders can stem primarily from the gendered division of economic resources, and the gendered division of labor. The article concludes that the relationship between women and nature in the Global South is a political issue that is fraught with power relations that operate at d...
Access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation is considered as a basic human right. Swach... more Access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation is considered as a basic human right. Swachh Bharat Mission – Gramin (Rural), launched by the Government of India in 2014, is hailed as an attempt towards that direction. On 2nd October 2019, India was declared free from open defecation, with rural households having full toilet coverage. However, despite Government claims, the existing literature indicates the presence of slippage: where households practice open defecation despite having access to toilets. Equating progress in sanitation interventions with mere toilet provision presents a partial assessment of sanitation. To address the gap, the ‘Sanitation Well-being’ framework, based on Amartya Sen's concept of justice, has been proposed. It identifies slippage as an outcome of various underlying factors across the sanitation life-cycle. The framework provides a lens to analyse existing frameworks and secondary data sets and finds that they do not capture the dynamism inher...
Within the context of decentralised environmental governance, this article seeks to answer the qu... more Within the context of decentralised environmental governance, this article seeks to answer the question which institutional arrangements may be most effective in delivering the promise of better community-centred forest governance. The specific objective is to analyse the impact that decentralisation of resource management has on the effectiveness of forest governance. Using a comparative case study framework, the article finds that decentralisation functions better when nested structures with a plurality of bodies are in operation. However, the case studies also highlight the need for constant monitoring as a necessarily ongoing crucial process to protect the ecological sustainability of forest resource governance as well as strengthening equitable social structures at the village level.
THE METHODOLOGY behind social science research work invariably depends on the philosophical orien... more THE METHODOLOGY behind social science research work invariably depends on the philosophical orientation one subscribes to. There are two philosophical schools of thought dealt with here, the scientific school that is geared towards "generalisability beyond spatio· temporal context" (Mukherji 2000: 14) and the Hermeneutics approach which involves empathic interpretation of reality, both have their relative strengths and weaknesses.
The Swachh Bharat Mission-Rural (SBM-R) is a flagship programme aimed at ending open defecation i... more The Swachh Bharat Mission-Rural (SBM-R) is a flagship programme aimed at ending open defecation in rural India. In this paper, we study institutions and processes using Amartya Sen's conception of justice. We review the outcomes by assessing agencies, actions and processes involved in the implementation of the SBM-R programme. The findings are analysed using the Sanitation Well-being Framework. Sanitation well-being is achieved when an individual is able to experience the sanitation life cycle stages of acceptance, construction, utilisation and maintenance of safe disposal, which are part of the framework. The capability factors grouped under personal, cultural, structural, environmental and service elements of the framework determine the sanitation environment facilitated by the state. Failure in experiencing one of the life stages leads to slippage in sanitation, where people resume open defecation, despite possessing toilets. The paper presents a review of literature on the p...
This is a chapter in a book titled: Democratic Decentralization in India: Experiences, issues and... more This is a chapter in a book titled: Democratic Decentralization in India: Experiences, issues and challenges This book explores experiences, issues and challenges which have emerged since Constitutional status was granted to the local bodies at grassroots level in India in the early 1990s. Among other issues, it focuses on: - the contrasting political ideas of Mahatma Gandhi and B. R. Ambedkar on Panchayati Raj Institutions - the legal and constitutional provisions which were introduced through the 73rd and 74th Amendment Acts - the devolution process, status and challenges of democracy for local governmental bodies - empowerment of the women and lower castes through reservations in the local bodies - governance in Schedule V and VI tribal areas Based on extensive fieldwork across India, this volume will be useful to scholars and researchers of political science, sociology, public administration as well as policymakers and civil society activists.
This article looks closely at the relationship between gender and environment in the context of s... more This article looks closely at the relationship between gender and environment in the context of sustainability. It has been seen that without the inclusion of feminist concerns for gender equality, most environment public policy approaches will be incomplete and may even threaten to intensify women’s subordination. This is illustrated in this article through a case study from Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu, India, wherein local organizations that operate successfully for environmental sustainability and women’s financial inclusion do not achieve gender equality due to the chokehold of patriarchy. The article is theoretically situated in Bina Agarwal’s idea that differences in attitudes to conservation between genders can stem primarily from the gendered division of economic resources, and the gendered division of labor. The article concludes that the relationship between women and nature in the Global South is a political issue that is fraught with power relations that operate at d...
Access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation is considered as a basic human right. Swach... more Access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation is considered as a basic human right. Swachh Bharat Mission – Gramin (Rural), launched by the Government of India in 2014, is hailed as an attempt towards that direction. On 2nd October 2019, India was declared free from open defecation, with rural households having full toilet coverage. However, despite Government claims, the existing literature indicates the presence of slippage: where households practice open defecation despite having access to toilets. Equating progress in sanitation interventions with mere toilet provision presents a partial assessment of sanitation. To address the gap, the ‘Sanitation Well-being’ framework, based on Amartya Sen's concept of justice, has been proposed. It identifies slippage as an outcome of various underlying factors across the sanitation life-cycle. The framework provides a lens to analyse existing frameworks and secondary data sets and finds that they do not capture the dynamism inher...
Within the context of decentralised environmental governance, this article seeks to answer the qu... more Within the context of decentralised environmental governance, this article seeks to answer the question which institutional arrangements may be most effective in delivering the promise of better community-centred forest governance. The specific objective is to analyse the impact that decentralisation of resource management has on the effectiveness of forest governance. Using a comparative case study framework, the article finds that decentralisation functions better when nested structures with a plurality of bodies are in operation. However, the case studies also highlight the need for constant monitoring as a necessarily ongoing crucial process to protect the ecological sustainability of forest resource governance as well as strengthening equitable social structures at the village level.
THE METHODOLOGY behind social science research work invariably depends on the philosophical orien... more THE METHODOLOGY behind social science research work invariably depends on the philosophical orientation one subscribes to. There are two philosophical schools of thought dealt with here, the scientific school that is geared towards "generalisability beyond spatio· temporal context" (Mukherji 2000: 14) and the Hermeneutics approach which involves empathic interpretation of reality, both have their relative strengths and weaknesses.
Sivanna, N., & Suresh, L. (2016). Urban Governance and Organizational Restructuring: The Case of ... more Sivanna, N., & Suresh, L. (2016). Urban Governance and Organizational Restructuring: The Case of Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). In A. K. Vaddiraju, S. Sangita, & K. S. Sridhar (Eds.), Urban Governance in Karnataka and Bengaluru: Global Changes and Local Impacts (pp. 190-207). Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Book Review
Suresh, Lavanya., (2014). Books at a Glance. (Review of the book Environment and Tri... more Book Review
Suresh, Lavanya., (2014). Books at a Glance. (Review of the book Environment and Tribes in India: Resource Conflicts and Adaptations. Vineetha Menon (ed)). Journal of Social and Economic Development,16(1), 386-387.
This is the second in the series resulting from the small research projects supported by the Rese... more This is the second in the series resulting from the small research projects supported by the Research Unit on Local Self-Government at the Centre for Development Studies on Kerala’s emergent ecological challenges and the preparedness of our local democracy to tackle on them. The study area is situated in Idukki District and seeks to understand how far ecologyis included in local governance, in the context of the discourse around the protests against the recommendations of the Gadgil and the Kasturirangan committees. In this work, a journalist and a researcher collaborate to present the underlying social, political and economic factors that drive local resistance to ecological conservation.
This book provides a vantage point of comparison, of the actual reality of decentralisation in In... more This book provides a vantage point of comparison, of the actual reality of decentralisation in India with Gandhi’s vision of decentralised democracy, or what he referred to as Gram Swaraj. It looks at the historical evolution of panchayats from ancient times to India’s independence, and critically discusses the developments after. It examines the functioning of the present Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) and the performances of urban local bodies. The basic thrust of this work is the need for constitutional reforms meant to strengthen and deepen democracy.
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Papers by Lavanya Suresh
Suresh, Lavanya., (2014). Books at a Glance. (Review of the book Environment and Tribes in India: Resource Conflicts and Adaptations. Vineetha Menon (ed)). Journal of Social and Economic Development,16(1), 386-387.