Playing With Fire: Feminist Thought and Activism through Seven Lives in India (review)

In Awadhi, a language spoken in parts of rural Uttar Pradesh (UP), India, sangtin means friendship. As with any translation, such literalness masks the deeper, more powerful, implications of words. Sangtin also denotes enduring friendship among women, and invokes closeness, solidarity, and reciprocal relations. Intended for a diverse readership, and not to be missed, Playing With Fire: Feminist Thought and Activism through Seven Lives in India, traces nine sangtins' yatra (or sangtins' journey) through the struggles against social, economic, religious, and caste hierarchy and privilege; the perils of NGO (nongovernmental organization) activism; and the wonders of feminist friendship.

The Sangtin Writers consist of seven village-level activists (Anupamlata, Ramsheela, Reshma Ansari, Shashi Vaish, Shashibala, Surbala, Vibha Bajpayee), one district level NGO activist (Richa Singh), and a University of Minnesota scholar (Richa Nagar) who came together as workers at an NGO called Nari Samato Yohana, or NSY, in the Sitapur District of UP. NSY (a pseudonym) is an organization working to empower rural women. It spawned a new NGO named Sangtin, begun by these eight NGO workers in 1998 (Nagar joined the group in 2002). Playing with Fire is the English publication of their yatra as rural activists working together to understand both the differences that mold their lives, and the paradoxes of NGO politics which can be both empowering and elitist.

The seven women began their journey by writing and sharing personal diaries on designated topics chosen collectively by the group, including childhood, adolescence, marriage, motherhood, and NGO employment (the book's chapters are largely organized by these themes). Their reflexive debate on their writings and experiences, coupled with growing trust and respect, allowed the women to face painful memories together and to grapple with the differences of caste, religion, and privilege that often divided them. Years later, the group began work on the book, first published in Hindi in early 2004 with the title, Sangtin Yatra. Through their collective authorship, their seven voices merge, disperse, and regroup to create what the writers call a "blended we." Solidarity was forged in the joys of friendship and love, and the oppressions, violence, and hunger encountered by women; yet, the processes of sharing, challenging, sympathizing, and finally, authoring, illuminate the durability of their alliance. This solidarity became even more vital to the women after the publication of Sangtin Yatra, when a storm of angry backlash erupted from NSY. These village activists, who had so deeply challenged the hierarchy of NGO organizations that often discount rural women's knowledge and expertise, now faced the daunting task of countering the NGO's international reprisals.

Throughout the book, the collective's candid accounts reveal the complex intersections of difference that distinctively imbue all aspects of their lives and work. Even admitting that there are limits to empathy, the sangtins starkly reflect on the difficulty of overcoming each of their own caste and religious prejudices through reflexivity. Nevertheless, the sangtins refused to allow the social stratification ingrained by caste, religion, language, and other differences to hinder the pursuit of social justice in their battles against poor women's disempowerment. The biggest lesson of the book is not to refuse complexity in the service of an easy analysis or specialization.

The challenge of these words also relates to the women's commitment and labors for NSY, and to the structures of funding and administering NGOs more generally. The women's diary-writing and reflexive work as a collective allowed the sangtins to assess critically such issues as privilege, casteism, and knowledge production within NSY. Using their experiences as NGO employees, the authors evaluate NSY's movement away from grassroots activism towards donor-driven priorities and evaluations. The sangtins condemn the lack of communication to marginalized groups that NSY serves by calling to the fore the caste and class biases that...