HUM SAB EK
“Poverty is powerlessness. Poverty cannot be removed unless the poor have power to make decisions that affect their lives.”
- Ela Bhatt
CURATORIAL NOTE
This project is inspired by the actions of poor working women in India, who have survived societal and state indiference through half a century of relentless organizing. Hum Sab Ek (We Are One) is the rallying cry of the 2.9 million strong Self Employed Women’s Association, situated at the confuence of the labor movement, the cooperative movement, and the women’s movement.
In 2022, Dr. Balsari’s team studied SEWA’s response to the impact of the pandemic on its members. The study comprised 30 hours of oral histories and a survey of over 1000 households. Unburdened by the luxury of conformation, these disadvantaged but extremely empowered women were found to have implemented solutions that were practical, expedient, and mutually benefcial. The origins, scale, and impact of public health emergencies, like the COVID-19 pandemic, are determ-ined by underlying societal, economic, and political arrangements.
The vast resources mobilized in response to the pandemic were unable to ofset long years of poor investments in communities.
The story of SEWA’s response to the pandemic is important because it elucidates alternative approaches to preparing us for the intractable challenges that lie ahead.
Hum Sab Ek, the exhibition, has been designed by an interdisciplinary team of graduate students working closely with women leaders at the forefront of the pandemic response. The oral histories will be donated to the Harvard Countway Library’s History of Medicine archives and can also be accessed throughout the exhibit. CGIS will be the frst stop in a longer journey of storytelling and change, where global artists and scholars will be invited to explore the archival material and with SEWA’s members, to retell, reinterpret and rebuild futures.
April 01
August 20
LAUNCH
Center for Government and International Studies, Harvard University
SPRING 2024
ELA BHATT
Celebration of the National Policy for Street Vendors, Ahmedabad, 2004
In November 1995, representatives of street vendors from five continents held the inaugural meeting of the International Alliance of Street Vendors in Bellagio, Italy, calling on governments to establish national street vending policies. Over the next decade, SEWA worked with the National Association of Street Vendors in India (NASVI), and the government, to help draft the National Policy on Urban Street Vendors in India.
This ebullient photograph captures the moment Elaben Bhatt (19332022), SEWA founder, shares her joy with her “sisters” (bens), Manjulaben Patelai to her left, and Manaliben Shah
(now National Secretary, SEWA) in the background to the right, when the Policy was finally announced in 2004. Elaben has noted in her writings that “organizing, the basis of SEWA, is the process by which women come together in solidarity with one another. It strengthens each woman, releases her from her fears and creates bonds of sisterhood across castes, religions, districts, states and even countries.”
SEWA’s principles of solidarity and cooperation seem particularly relevant in today’s climate of anger and division, even here in the United States.
Media: Ela Bhatt’s photograph stretched over a 65” x 84” canvas.
WOVEN TOGETHER
Each warp at the base of this exhibit represents a woman’s often lonely emergence from childhood to embrace the unbidden responsibilities of woman hood. The warp and weft unite as the women come together in mutual cooperation, their lives enriched in SEWA’s many trade unions and cooperatives. The fabric rises to gain strength, form, and beauty until the pandemic drains the textile of its color. But only momentarily. Fingers that embroidered blouses, stoles, and bags learned to deftly stitch masks to protect lives and livelihoods. Seventy percent of the householdsinterviewed received masks from SEWA in 2020-21.
Media: An 18’ x 9’ embroidered tapestry with provisions for suspension on a wall, from the ceiling, or can be floor-mounted.
AN ECONOMY OF NURTURANCE
Nearly three million working women in India belong to the Self Employed Women’s Association that began as a trade union in 1972. Since then, SEWA has organized poor women across India, seeking “full employment” for its members. Through solidarity, mutual cooperation, and women leadership, these home-based artisans, vegetable vendors, junk recyclers, farmers, construction workers, and cooks have started small businesses, established microfnance institutions, infuenced domestic laws, and informed international policies. Their actions have disrupted the structural stranglehold on their lives, providing freedoms that allow them to move towards better futures. The
timeline illuminates how ffty years of organizing, of women’s empowerment, of problem-solving, and of centering the needs of the poor in all decisionmaking, allowed the women to navigate the greatest public health emergency of our times, when society and state failed them. The actions of SEWA’s members unveil alternative imaginations of social contracts, mutual obligations, and dignity in work. These lessons from the poorest amongst us, remind us that the new paradigms we seek to replace the current rules of engagement, are already in bloom.
Media: A vinyl timeline documenting 5 decades of SEWA, representing key milestones and the increase in membership, which can be reprinted on khadi or digitized for modularity.
Media:
A vinyl-based photo collage of Teen Darwaza representing urban informality in Ahmedabad and contrasting the same area during lockdown.
A graph, two academic articles, data visualization showing the increase in labor migration in major cities of India between 2001 and 2011, and a video compilation of news channels reporting one of the largest internal migrations in India due to the government-announced lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020.
HOME BOUND
The national lockdown on March 24, 2020, came with-out warning, and had few plans for accommodating the migrants. Having definitively lost their already precarious jobs, and unable to process the new idioms of distancing, isolation, testing, and sanitation, they yearned to reunite with their families - often hundreds of miles away. HOME BOUND. National highways turned into thoroughfares for one of the greatest exoduses India has ever witnessed, with an estimated 43.3 million interstate migrants returning home in the ensuing weeks. 4,621 special trains transported over 6 million migrants home, some of whom were hosed down with sanitizer before they entered their villages, while others were tested for COVID-19. An estimated 35 million migrants made this journey on foot, with some communities they passed through providing them with food and others turning their backs.
LIFE IN THE RED ZONE
During the lockdown, homes of hundreds of millions of Indians were classifed into red, yellow, or green zones based on limited data on the burden of COVID-19 in the community. Households with COVID-19 positive patients were identifed, and entire neighborhoods barricaded and sealed. In India’s urban cores, where millions inhabit less than nine square meters each, the need for social distancing collided with the lived realities of urban slums where densely packed one-room dwellings, home to an average of fve people, serve dual roles as both living and workspaces. Bathrooms are often communal and shared with as many as 200 people. These shunned neighborhoods of the poor are the crucible of India’s dreams, where physical distancing is impossible, and social distancing unimaginable.
As migrants returned home, children stayed home from school, and summer temperatures rose, the cramped quarters —normally a respite from the outside world—sufocated their inhabitants. By April, domestic violence was on the rise. Stepping outside invited police brutality. At SEWA, the anxieties and uncertainties fueled by a novel disease and unprecedented restrictions on life were compounded by the women’s inability to be present for each other in times of distress. Even amidst natural disasters and communal riots in the state of Gujarat, solidarity had frst been expressed simply by showing up, and by bearing witness. Isolation had never been a remedy.
Media: A photograph representing the interiors of informal housing in India.
Photographs of the lockdown and the state’s brutality on informal housing in India by a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer.
A map representing localities marked as Red-Zones, in Ahemedabad.
Graphical representation of findings from the 1000-household study.
Oral history testimonies of SEWA women.
YOU ARE ON MUTE
Within days of the lockdown, SEWA went online, training members to use smartphones, create accounts, meet online, administer surveys, and rebuild their networks of solidarity and support. Hours were spent on mobile devices taking stock of the impact of the lockdown and then the delta waves on the lives and livelihoods of the members.
SEWA launched a digital financial literacy program linking beneficiaries with the formal financial system and access to digital relief that would follow. They uploaded 14 multilingual e-modules and virtually trained 4,188 master trainers across India. By September, 350 zero-percent interest loans were given to street vendors to stabilize their livelihoods, and by December, an additional 1,354 loans with 2.5% interest were disbursed, all of which have since been repaid.
Recognizing that Zoom school was not feasible for the vast majority of children in India, an asynchronous digital program was launched within a week of the lockdown. Assignments were sent digitally encouraging children to engage with their home environment, learn about the histories of their neighborhoods and their families, participate in household chores, complete school readings, and upcycle waste to create art. Their online program was called Samany no Samman–Respecting Time.
By March-end, SEWA launched a telemedicine helpline that had been used by one third of all surveyed households that had sought help. Their health app Swasthya Samudaya maintained vaccination logs and tracked reasons for hesitancy. Today, the app provides nudges, reminders, and health education content. This installation celebrates the extraordinary digital technology that held societies together as the pandemic ravaged communities around the world. The fragmented display echoes the fractured existence of those uncertain times.
Media: A multimedia installation with 70 devices and a data visualization of the spike in cellular subscriptions in India during the Pandemic.
EVERY BODY COUNTS
The public health profession has long recognized that social determinants drive health outcomes. In the United States, race, poverty and age are key mediators.The diferential access to care in India across class and caste divides could not be obliterated by the herculean mobilization of oxygen cylinders and the rushed building of new hospitals and ICUs. In 2020, in response to the lockdown SEWA launched a telemedicine consulting service free of charge for all their members.
A massive awareness campaign was launched to educate members about physical distancing, masking, and hand hygiene. SEWA leaders would go to the dairies, milk collection centers and street
markets where their members worked to help enforce physical distancing and masking. They partnered with Yale University researchers to test the efcacy of their masking awareness programs. In 2021, SEWA converted 11 of their existing community centers to COVID-19 Care Centers to provide members–most of whom lived in dense housing–safe and trusted spaces to quarantine.
SEWA’s five-decade long investments in their communities allowed them to mount a response on multiple fronts to protect their members. Their guiding talisman “What do our members need? How will this benefit our members?” ought to be the lodestar that guides our governments.
Media: 2 Articles and a data visualization of homes that availed health services administered by SEWA.
SUPER SPREADERS
To create efcient, fair, and inclusive agricultural market systems, SEWA established the Rural Distribution Network (RUDI) in 2004, linking farmers directly to consumers by aggregating, processing, and distributing over 30 products, generating multiple employment opportunities along the way. Early adopters of digital platforms, RUDIbens have been sending and receiving orders on mobile devices for a decade. RUDI is now a self-reliant agro-producing company with an annual average turn over of USD 1.2m. In 2015, SEWA expanded its operations to reach the urban “last mile” by launching the Kamla project, promoting organic, nutritious, and traditional Indian meals in
residential neighborhoods. The original lunch service and training center now boasts bustling Kamla Cafés, including at the Indian Institute for Management in Ahmedabad.
Ninety percent of surveyed households reported some form of food insecurity during the Lockdown. By late March 2020, SEWA launched a massive food aid operation, ensuring that essential goods and food reached their members. Food delivery routes doubled as supply chains for home-based artisans, mitigating their risk during market closures. In the cities, natural markets faced the ire of the communities they served.
Media: Testimonies from SEWA members and a data visualization of the agricultural production and distribution system.
BURDEN OF PROOF
The construction sector is a critical driver of India’s economic development and the second-largest source of employment, engaging 71 million workers and contributing 18% to the GDP. By 2030, the construction sector is projected to employ over 100 million Indians, providing jobs to the abundant pipeline of laborers migrating from rural areas in search of work.
Ninety-seven percent of construction workers lack formal contracts, and only 2.5% receive social security benefits. To address this widespread informality of the sector, India has special policy provisions to protect construction workers. Each of the 29 Indian states is required by law to establish welfare boards providing workers social welfare like health insurance, child care, and compensation for injuries. During the Covid-19 lockdowns, the Indian government directed these welfare boards to initiate cash transfers to the 35 million registered
construction workers. Only half ended up receiving any transfers. To ensure that each construction worker in Gujarat received 4000 rupees (USD 48), on par with construction workers in other states, SEWA approached the Gujarat High Court. The unforgiving tedium of procedure, the oppressive indiference of bureaucracy, and the enormity of the struggles the poor have to mount to fight for the pittance that is in fact rightfully theirs are encapsulated in the several hundred-page afdavit reproduced here.
The earthen pots known as gullaks or gullas are traditional piggy banks of the poor in western India. The meager amounts of money they hold can only be accessed by breaking them, just as the astronomical wealth generated by real estate is built on the broken backs of ill-paid construction workers. The construction industry in India is expected to reach 1.4 trillion dollars in 2025.
Media: A reprint of a letter to the Construction Workers Welfare Board, two images, testimonies from SEWA members, a representation of a 500page appeal, and 6 Gullaks (terracotta piggy banks).
Render of an adjacent installation with over 500 gullaks and the petition to the Welfare Board.
SALT, WIND & FIRE
Gujarat is the third-largest salt producer in the world. Every year, when the mon- soons recede, thousands of Agariya farmers travel to the Little Rann of Kutch, an expanse of desert with annually replenished subsoil brine. They set up temporary shelters from September to May, from which they return to their villages periodically to replenish food and other supplies. In the Rann, they manually build large, shallow vats to hold the under ground water that is pumped up and left to evaporate. The pans are raked for several months until the salt crystals are “ripe” for harvesting. According to the International Finance Corporation, the farmers earn an average of about two dollars or one hundredth of the market price for a tonne of harvested salt.
In 2021, worsening heat waves in the Rann of Kutch made life in the desert increasingly untenable as temperatures crossed 122°F. Potable water was too hot to drink, and their food spoiled without refrigeration. With customary ingenuity and contextual knowledge, they buried water tanks under
the soil to keep the water cool, and shipped in watermelons to provide temporizing calories and hydration.
The impact of climate change is already being felt by the poor through loss of wages. Mounting temperatures make work unbearable. Unseasonal rains disrupt farming cycles. By 2023, SEWA had collaborated with the Adrienne ArshtRockefeller Foundation Resilience Center and Blue Marble to create a first-of-itskind extreme heat microinsurance product that provided cash transfers to daily wage workers when certain temperature thresholds were reached.
In 2024, SEWA collaborated with Harvard researchers to measure the impact of various heat exposures on the health and livelihoods of its members across several indoor and outdoor trades. This summer, hundreds of microsensors across their homes and workplaces will alert them to rising temperatures, setting thresholds for modifying work times or working conditions.
Media: 3 Photographs; a Comparison of Costs table by the Natural Resources Defense Council; Community HATS Project; 2 Videos: ‘Jamnaben Amarsinh Raking Salt, Surendranagar Salt Pans’ and ‘Cleaner Skies, Gujarat’; a Screen showcasing real-time temperature in the Rann of Kutch; and Climate Stripes visually representing the changes in temperatures in Gujarat since 1874.”
Jamnaben Amarsinh raking salt, Surendranagar salt pans, 2024
iPhone video
Satchit Balsari, Little Rann of Kutch, 2024
HUM SAB EK LAUNCH
Exhibition Launch at Harvard’s Center for International and Government Studies
April 15, 2024
ANNUAL CAMBRIDGE SYMPOSIUM
In conversation with Jyoti Macwan, Secretary-General, SEWA, and the Student Exhibition Design Team
May 3, 2024
Modular Flat Exhibition
Proposed Design System:
Modular Flat Exhibit
PANEL A
Title, 200 word description
PANEL B
Focal Photograph or Large Graphic
PANEL C
Installation details such as maps, diagrams etc.
Please note that the exhibition’s design system involves three panels that are layered and arranged in six unique combinations for the 6 installations. These panels are labeled as A, B, and C: A for title and text, B for focal photographs, and C for body/explanation.
Sample Panel Arrangment 1
Sample Panel Arrangment 2
Sample Panel Arrangment 3
3 DIMENSIONAL MODULAR OPTION
A
Modular cross-pillars with images and text mounted on plywood boards
Dimensions:
Length can range per section between 5ft, 15ft, 20ft, and 25ft.
Width can range between 20in and 48in.
Height is fixed at 8ft.
Modular cross-pillars with plywood boards and video projections on a fabric backdrop
Modular cross-pillars with images on plywood boards and animations on LED screens
Modular cross-pillars with plywood boards, grid-like shelves and and integrated television screen
Free standing modular installation featuring text and graphics mounted on plywood boards, animations on LED screens, and shelves for artifacts.
Dimensions:
Length can range per section between 5ft, 15ft, 20ft, and 25ft.
Width can range between 5ft - 9ft.
Height is fixed at 8ft.
TEAM & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CURATED BY
Satchit Balsari, MD, MPH
Associate Professor, Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Hiteshree Das, MDes ‘25
Harvard Graduate School of Design
TECHNOLOGY LEAD
Robert McCarthy, BA ‘23 (Harvard College)
DESIGN TEAM
William Boles, MLA ‘26 (GSD)
Karthik Girish, MUP ‘25 (GSD)
Selmon Rafey, Mittal Institute
Deepak Ramola, EdM ‘23 (HGSE)
Shariq M. Shah, MDes ‘24 (GSD)
RESEARCH TEAM
Abhishek Bhatia, MS ‘17 (HSPH)
Kartikeya Bhatotia, MPP ‘24 (HKS)
ADVISORS
Dan Borelli, Director of Exhibitions, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Tarun Khanna, Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor, Harvard Business School
Rahul Mehrotra, John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Doris Sommer, Ira Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
MEMBERS OF THE SELF EMPLOYED WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION
We thank our colleagues from across Harvard and India for their counsel:
Mihir Bhatt, Caroline Buckee, Bettina Burch, Amit Dave, Mark Elliott, Lori Gross, Jennifer Leaning, Mitul Kajaria, Deepanjana Klein, Ally Mathan, Nathan Melenbrink, Sabrina Lynn Motley, Heather Mumford, Joseph Nallen, Emily R. Novak Gustainis, Ravi Sadhu, Kathy Schoer, Vishwesh Surve, Chase Van Amburg, Michael Vortmann, Rich Wolfe, and the teams at CGIS, Makepeace, and the Mittal Institute in Delhi and Cambridge.