Mainstreaming is the fourth strand in our conceptualisation of empowerment. What constitutes the mainstream and the relationship of e p werment interventions with the mainstream is explored in this chapter to highlight the scope for sustainable results.

Unlike many other terms of social discourse, mainstreaming has not been properly defined. According to The Chambers 21st Century Dictionary (1996), the term means, ‘The chief trend or direction of development in any activity, business, movement, etc’. The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) says the same thing about it, ‘The ideas, attitudes, or activities that are regarded as normal or conventional; the dominant trend in opinion, fashion or the arts’. Mainstreaming, thus, can be interpreted to mean ‘where the bulk or majority is’. Mainstreaming means enabling people to move from the fringes, peripheries, and margins towards the centre of social, economic, and political life of a community, region, state, or nation. In economic terms it can mean where the bulk of the money is; in sociological terms it can mean where the bulk of people are or the reality of the majority of people. In political terms it can mean where the dominant political forces are active.

Mainstreaming thus involves the convergence of the worlds of money, power, and people. In India these are yet two different worlds though with some overlap, often called India and Bharat. The category referred to as India has the bulk of the money and Bharat has the large proportion of the population which is underprivileged, disadvantaged, marginalised. Mainstreaming means enabling this majority of the population to overcome their handicap of being underprivileged, disadvantaged, marginalised.