CHAPTER ΠI INTRODUCTION

1 (1) CHAPTER IINTRODUCTIONW omen in chhattisgarh : Prospects and ChallengesIn many ways, the women of chhattisgarh enjoy a unique position within the country. Theproportion of women in the population (the sex ratio or the number of women per 1000 men) standsat 990 according to the 2001 census. The sex ratio is universally acknowledged as an indicator ofwomen s well being, survival and status, and in this the position of chhattisgarh is second amongstates in the country (after Kerala s 1058) and well above the national undivided Madhya Pradesh also, chhattisgarh enjoyed a special place where women wereconcerned.

2 Unlike women in many other parts of India where the culture of exclusion and seclusionseems to prevail, women in chhattisgarh are articulate, visible, and play a major role in publicproduction. This can be understood with reference to the role that women play in different areas oflivelihood chhattisgarh , women are the major agricultural workers. This is so in the productionof rice our main food crop, as well as in pulses, millets and the many oilseeds. They work in each andevery aspect of crop production, preservation and storage.

3 In certain parts of the state like Abujhmarand Sihawa, women are also known to use the plough, a function that is taboo and prohibited for themin almost all other parts of the country, indeed the world. Apart from crop weeding, manuring,harvesting, women are the leading players in all post harvest and storage operations. Women also playa major role in the collection and processing of the many kinds of uncultivated foods and medicinalplants found in chhattisgarh . Many of these foods are collections from the forest, and women usethem for maintaining household food security and nutrition needs outside the market are the primary gatherers of all uncultivated foods, and inheritors of an ancient knowledgesystem about food bio diversity.

4 Women are also the keepers of the seeds. As stated above, womenare responsible for all post harvest operations. In traditional chhattisgarh , the crop to be harvestedas seed is identified in the field of standing crop, and women take special care while reaping extremely complex knowledge of seed storage and preservation including its technical aspects isin the hands of the important economic position of women can be seen also among migrant workers fromChhattisgarh who are major contributors to the construction industry nationwide.

5 Many of the metropolitanhighways, buildings and national industries have been built by the migrant workers from chhattisgarh ,and the women of chhattisgarh have been more than equal contributors in these efforts.(2)In urban chhattisgarh too, women have played an important part in the economy. In all aspectsof city based wage labour, be it cart pulling, load bearing or as unskilled workers in industry, women sprescence is significant. However, the situation is not so good when we come to modern work in many of our large scale industries including the Bhilai Steel Plant, although, theirpresence is as unskilled workers in the slag dump and in the mines.

6 Women are seen as mine workersin open cast dolomite, iron ore and bauxite mines in the Bilaspur, Durg and Surguja districts of thestate. It is important to note that women are almost non existent as skilled workers, are in managementpositions in the same industries that they woman so steadily. Today, with the state poised for majorindustrial development, this becomes an area of women worldwide, the women of chhattisgarh are also the major nurturers, care providers,and builders of our future , the situation is far more complex when it comes to the social and political spaces thatwomen traditionally enjoy.

7 Women s position in this regard presents a contrasting and complex pictureof unrestricted and restricted women do not wear purdah, and except among upper castes do not observesignificant seclusion. Although the freedom to make and end marriages is socially acceptable for bothsexes, the practice of contracting second relationships through the Churhi Pratha is showing somedistortion in favour of men in recent times. Traditionally the freedom was more or less equitablyavailable for both men and women in a society that was relatively egalitarian.

8 Today, the freedom isoften misused by men to desert their spouses who are left without support in a time of shrinkingeconomic opportunities. In the case of women it is customary law with regard to custody of thechildren that acts as a control mechanism in women s otherwise total freedom to end heterosexualrelationships. For it is considered that the father and his family have a primary claim to the custodyof the children and the male children have a right to his property.

9 In practice, all kinds of complexcustodial arrangements are worked out, because the fact is that fathers are often unable and unwillingto care for the children but are keen to exercise their rightful women in chhattisgarh enjoy many freedoms denied to their sisters elsewhere in thecountry, this is not in any way to suggest that the ideology of female subservience does not exist is just that patriarchy takes somewhat different forms. In chhattisgarh male authority and dominanceare quite clearly to be seen in social and cultural life.

10 Wife beating is common, with or without theintoxicating effects of liquor. Increasing alcoholism among men and a concomitant increase in violenceagainst women has emerged as a major issue in rural and urban chhattisgarh . Women s groups havebeen in the forefront of anti liquor agitations in many parts of the state. Women lack politicalrepresentation in traditional social decision making structures and are not sufficiently integrated in thedecision making mechanisms at community level.