Recently the Mumbai-based feminist organisation Majlis, founded by well-known lawyer Flavia Agnes and filmmaker and curator Madhushree Dutta, celebrated its 25th anniversary. In the true feminist spirit, Majlis gathered together a group of women — old, middle-aged, young — who held everyone spellbound with life stories that addressed the subject of discussion: the personal is political.

Majlis chose the speakers with a great deal of thought: Nayantara Sahgal, writer and something of an icon, Devaki Jain, activist, writer, institution builder, Gouri Choudhury, one of the founders of Saheli and Action India, Chhaya Datar, whose long history in the women’s movement in Maharashtra needs no introduction, Corinne Kumar, for long associated with the Bengaluru-based organisation Vimochana, and Vasanth Kannabiran, activist, writer, and also someone who has built institutions.

Moving and affirmative as the celebration was — after all, a quarter-century of keeping an organisation alive on little money and a lot of commitment is not to be scoffed at — it was also, sadly, marred by the absence of one of the two founders. Dutta wrote a sort of open letter detailing why she would not be attending the ceremony. For those not privy to the inside discussions in the organisation, the letter was heartbreaking as much as the celebrations were affirming.

Institution building is not an easy job — and it’s no secret that it takes courage, money, initiative, drive, passion, commitment and all of those positive things. But building institutions, even if difficult and frustrating at times, is mostly exciting and positive, because there is always the possibility of success, the next horizon to be reached.

When women build institutions though, there is a difference, especially if these are alternative, feminist institutions. Every brick, whether literal or metaphorical, is imbued with emotion; the borderlines are blurred, and the institution seeps into the home, into their personal lives, into everything they do; the personal and the political come into constant play.

Such institutions also require more effort to pull together because they attempt to create new, inclusive, non-hierarchical and yet professional ways of functioning. Because many are funded, accounting processes have to be in place, administration and management are concepts that need to exist alongside inclusivity, egalitarianism, and more.

And this is why, when feminist institutions break, the heartbreak, the sense of betrayal is so deep, the tragedy so palpable. There’s very little of the dusting of hands and saying, well, this is done with, now let’s start something else.

Is there a way in which feminist institutions and those who make them address break-ups better? Perhaps, although it is difficult to say. At the Majlis celebrations, many of the speakers, and indeed the moderator, referred to the absent co-founder, and the need to address her concerns. And I have no doubt that the questions she raised will lead to much discussion within the feminist movement.

Institutions break, or change, for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it’s simply that people’s lives change and they cannot give the kind of time they need to, to keep the institution alive. Sometimes, as with many feminist institutions, it is that the passion and commitment of the founders or the older generation cannot be taken for granted among those who are new and, of course, younger.

And sometimes it is simply that new managements and new entrants want to bring in new styles of functioning. This seems to be easier to deal with in the corporate world than in the world of feminist politics — or perhaps it is that the corporate world has no time for heartbreak, while the feminist world will refuse to render it invisible.

But sometimes the break-up of institutions is actually not such a tragedy as it first appears to be. Long years ago, when my then business partner and I decided to split Kali for Women, the institution we had so lovingly created, we were both heartbroken and in despair.

But now, more than a decade on, I think we would both acknowledge that in some ways, the break-up freed us to explore other possibilities and expand our reach in the market, to experiment and, basically, just allow change to enter the door.

And perhaps this is the lesson we need to learn, that when we create something with our hearts and our souls, we also always need to be aware that there will come a time when this will have to change. But can we, as feminists, be open to change without carrying with us the baggage of heartbreak and bitterness? That’s a question to which there are no easy answers.

Urvashi Butalia is an editor, publisher and director of Zubaan

blink@thehindu.co.in

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