ABSTRACT
Rajasthan is the second largest state in the country, with a relatively low population density. Most of its approximately forty-four million people reside in rural areas, making for a figure of over thirty-three million people in the 33,000 villages in the state. Environmental and historical factors especially set the state apart from other states in the Indian union. In India as elsewhere, issues of women's ideological devaluation were not addressed by the early efforts in development, which were instead driven by women's nutritional and reproductive roles. 'Training', one of the few English words to be used in the programme, was a complex term whose meaning varied according to the gathering of participants at any point of time. For women, the act of creating songs together around an issue was not only a means of focusing on the nature of the issue at hand but also an effective way of bonding for the women of a single village.
