O n the afternoon of August 23, the Chhota Sion urban health centre in the heart of Mumbai’s sprawling Dharavi slum was suddenly awash with...
On the afternoon of August 23, the Chhota Sion urban health centre in the heart of Mumbai’s sprawling Dharavi slum was suddenly awash with pink. Nearly 80 women, all dressed in saris and salwar suits in various shades of the colour, trooped into its lobby.
Breaking up into groups, they spent two chaotic hours packing old Panasonic Eluga i70 cell phones into small cartons, labelling each box with lists of their names. Then, one group at a time, they made their way up to the second floor of the building, marched into a spacious government office and deposited the boxes in the corner of a room. “This is not a protest,” one of them declared emphatically. “We are not raising any slogans or banners. We are just giving the mobiles you gave us back to you.”
The women were workers who helm anganwadis, government-run creches for children below the age of six. These anganwadis, which number over 13 lakh in India, were established under the four-decade-old programme called the Integrated Child Development Services, or ICDS, which aims to improve the health and nutrition status of children in India. The country has one of the worst rates of child undernutrition in the world – in...
