A Rising Trend of Women-led Social Entrepreneurship in India

India is making rapid and relevant movements in the realm of women’s empowerment. India’s progressive policies have empowered women and reduced gender inequality. India is shifting from the concept of women’s growth to women-led development.

Women are creating social enterprises to support other womenAs G20 economies are leaving no stone unturned to lessen gender gaps and inequality as envisioned under the UN Sustainable Development Agenda, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi aptly mentioned at the G20 Summit in Bali that women’s extensive participation is inevitably needed for international growth and development.

The principle of gender equality is already treasured within the Constitution of India, and the Government of India has always been dedicated to encouraging gender equality across levels as well as sectors of governance.

It is no cakewalk to sort gender inequality. However, the current government has been relentlessly putting a strong emphasis on empowering and offering equal opportunities to women in the nation. There is a wide array of progressive policies to encourage women towards their socio-economic engagement and enhance the options of their livelihoods.

India’s Nari Shakti Scheme, the Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP), the Women in Engineering, Science and Technology (WEST) programme, and women-led self-help groups (SHGs) open numerous avenues, persuade women towards holistic advancement, and significantly contribute to women’s as well as national development.

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While the current government is extensively persuading and supporting women towards all-rounded development and enhancement, women are now more cognizant of and actively realise their entrepreneurial aspirations.

Women, in the Amrit Kaal journey, are taking unconventional routes and creating women-led social enterprises, which are further helping other women at the grassroots level. Women are inclined towards social entrepreneurship, and as social entrepreneurs, they intend to do much more than just gain financial freedom.

Women are creating social enterprises to support other women because, with the right rationale, they firmly believe that social entrepreneurship will economically empower women and girls across the world.

Indian women know social enterprises, and will address a simple unmet need or resolve socio-economic and environmental challenges through a market-driven approach.

With the government’s abundance of support and offerings, women are now confidently creating a holistic framework that describes how an organisation creates, delivers, and captures value. They are aware that their business models will provide immediate benefits to the community and bring optimistic transitions into people’s lives.

In general, it has been observed that women-led social enterprises enjoy the highest degree of closeness in interpersonal relationships and social ties, and this embeddedness helps satisfy the specific needs of the local community.

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To cite an instance, Training at the National Police Academy involves attachments with several police stations. It has been observed by us that police stations having women cops at the reception not just take up women’s issues more readily, but also others. One of the constables had even taught her neighbourhood to be the eyes and the ears of the police, thus enabling better community relations.

Indian women are solution-oriented, and with the swift creation of social enterprises, they are now solving long-lasting problems and dealing with the situations that have caused difficulties for societies for many years.

The Government of India is urging women to leverage and utilise the resources, schemes, and policies offered to them so they can redesign the existing business models and create new ones with innovative business approaches to address long-lasting socio-economic and developmental issues, which would certainly refine and enhance existing social structures in the long run.

Undoubtedly, women-led social enterprises will have an immense encouraging, and inspiring effect on other women’s lives, mostly through learning, curbing human trafficking, tackling gender stereotypes, easy access to finance, education, health, skilling, inclusive development, livelihood creation, advocating, and gifting women a strong voice in their communities.

Most of the women-led social enterprises are successful because they practise inclusivity and collective leadership in an innovative manner, and they persistently create fresh roles for girls and women to hasten social impact. Also, women social entrepreneurs include men in the solution to problems that are seen as usually affecting women.

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It has been widely observed that women social entrepreneurs seek ways to embrace the communities they actively work within decision-making and go all-out to integrate different viewpoints. They do not implement the typical top-down approach; in fact, they accelerate to co-create a healthier shared vision of their businesses and are more trusting of youth to lead.

It is a worldwide phenomenon that women social entrepreneurs identify the areas in which girls and women are deficient and then lead new developmental projects to manage those existing holes and gaps.

Women-led social enterprises are deeply rooted in righteousness and fairness. Women social entrepreneurs tend to incorporate humanity and empathy into their approaches. They uncompromisingly work hard with an essence of strength and resilience in the face of hardship. Through their social enterprises, women usually disrupt the frequent patterns of gender inequality.

In fact, they work with the philosophy that a more gender-balanced social innovation ecosystem will lead to more systemic approaches in social entrepreneurship. This constructive and progressive outlook brings together the right voices in the social innovation ecosystem and eventually supports businesses, government, cultural practitioners, international organisations, and the whole ecosystem.

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There is a need to bridge existing gender gaps and introduce a concerted framework for women’s holistic empowerment. Across the world, governments need to put together upgraded policies to support women social entrepreneurs, and global investors must break gender stereotypes and acknowledge these women as true innovators.

We need to deeply understand and cheerfully accept that empowering women is imperative for national as well as global development, and in fact, more notably, it's a human rights issue, and no country should fall short in addressing the issue effectively.

Women's empowerment is recognized both as a prerequisite for and a parameter of sustainable development. The Government of India recognizes that financing gender equality is central to mitigating gender inequalities; hence, the critical strategy of government officials places emphasis on gender budgeting.

Lastly, women need to loudly reiterate to the world that the actual revolution for women’s rights initiates with women themselves; it will only be determined and sustainable if there are more women leaders.

Sumit Kaushik is a Ph.D. candidate at O.P. Jindal Global University. Simran Bhardwaj is IPS Officer Trainee at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy, Hyderabad. Views are personal.