© 2023 IJNRD | Volume 8, Issue 2 February 2023 | ISSN: 2456-4184 | IJNRD.ORG IJNRD2302268 International Journal of Novel Research and Development ( www.ijnrd.org ) c586 Invisible women’s cooperatives in Gujarat empowering the marginalized James C. Dabhi Dhananjay Kumar Introduction In the simplest sense, when people come together and organize around a common goal, they form a cooperative. The common primary goal is usually economic. The savings and credit cooperatives of Gujarat is what the article is about. Cooperatives came to existence and operated from 19 th Century but the savings and credit cooperatives have become more popular in the last few decades and more so among the rural and urban economically deprived and socially marginalized communities. The article briefly examines the cooperatives initiated in 1990 beginning from the nanu bhal (small Bhal, Bhal in Gujarati means forehead where nothing grows) along the town of Khambhat, coastal area in central west Gujarat and later on spread over Gujarat especially among Dalit, Tribal and Muslim women. This article highlights valuable contribution made by some of the savings and credit cooperatives (S&CCs) promoted and supported by the faith inspired social organisations among the Adivasis of Gujarat. These cooperatives of women emerged at different times beginning from early 1990s and have helped the women of the community and empowered them (Dabhi, Jimmy, 1999), (Canis, Arokiasamy, & Dabhi, 2012). These cooperatives and what they have contributed to the lives of their women have often remained invisible in the eyes of the main stream media, government agencies and other national and international organisations working for and with women including United Nations bodies. One of the reasons for their lack of recognition and invisibility I believe is that these women’s groups and cooperatives do not have Godmothers and fathers, ex-bureaucrats and influential people supporting them. This article acknowledges their contribution and provides some visibility to the service these cooperatives and faith inspired organisations have offered in empowering the marginalized women. Cooperatives a long tradition in Gujarat The cooperative movement in India was started by far-sighted colonial officials and later became an instrument of the development state in the post-Independence era, never really becoming a members driven popular movement. Gradually, the scope got extended beyond agricultural credit to cover numerous other activities including production, finance, marketing and processing in a wide range of sectors, as well as trading of several important farm products, consumer stores and housing. The scale of operations of cooperatives in India has grown enormously in this one hundred years. As the cooperatives have become central to government policy on rural credit, they have come to be entrenched power centres for doling out patronage, financial help and political support (Vaidyanathan, 2013). In 1951 the country, it is reported, had 1,81,000 cooperatives of all kinds with a total membership of 15.5 million. In 2007-08, according to the National Cooperative Union of India, there were some 1,50,000 primary credit cooperatives with a membership of 180 million, which disbursed over Rs.2,000 billion in that year. There were some 2,60,000