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. 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.

2 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. 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.

3 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. 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.

4 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. 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. 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.

5 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. 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. 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.

6 In Chhattisgarh male authority and dominanceare quite clearly to be seen in social and cultural life. 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. There is widespread social belief in witchcraft .TheTonhis of Chhattisgarh are inevitably female, often widows, and equally often involved in propertydisputes with their male relatives. Barbaric persecution of Tonhis by entire communities is to be(3)understood in this context, and is really the superimposition of modern forms of patriarchy upon moreancient ones that presuppose that women s access to supernatural forces can be for evil purposes we look at the above scenario, the challenges before the women of Chhattisgarh todaybegin to take concrete shape.

7 Women in Chhattisgarh are today at the crossroads of history. They havea strong prescence in the traditional economic life of the state, but the question is will this presencebe maintained in the years to come? It is extremely important to try to preserve the economic spacesthat exist. Today, when global markets are at our doorstep, we need to think seriously about ourtraditional systems of crop diversity and food security. Any efforts to take advantage of emergingmarket opportunities must keep in mind that cash returns alone do not maintain food security. At thesame time it is important to provide access for women to develop their skills and educational opportunities,so as to have significant access to economic opportunities that may open up in the future. Ourdevelopment policies too often in the past have given priority to male selective training and advancementopportunities.

8 This must change if the women of Chhattisgarh are to maintain their prescience in thepublic life of the new consciousness in Chhattisgarh is a mixture of gender equity and female subservienceand it is upto us to highlight the positive aspects and downplay the negative ones. Today, withincreasing urbanization, industrialization and in- migration , many of the cultural concomitants offemale subservience, common to mainstream India but hitherto unknown in Chhattisgarh, have startedcreeping in here. We can list dowry demands, and female seclusion into private spaces among is important to contain these cultural influences, and to confront the cultural values that givesanction to practices like Tonhi identification and persecution. The challenges before women in thenew state of Chhattisgarh are many and varied. It is only if these are seized head on that the womenof Chhattisgarh will continue to hold up half the , the context of the discussionThe context of our discussion is provided by Chhattisgarh, a state over large parts of which theforest intrudes over many aspects of rural life.

9 The Chhattisgarh region is an area that is ecologically,linguistically, and culturally distinctive. Administratively it comprises of 16 districts, carved out of theoriginal seven, viz., Raipur, Durg, Rajnandgaon, Bilaspur, Surguja, Raigarh and last threedistricts lie on the fringes of the region and are considerably influenced by the culture and ecologyof the areas they border, Mirzapur, Ranchi, Gumla, Gadchiroli, the KBK districts of Orissa, and theTelengana districts of Andhra Chhattisgarh region, has a large area under forest cover,rich mineral reserves (limestone,quartzite, iron ore, bauxite alexandrite), and a large tribal Mahanadi flows through the central part of the region, and the plains areas in the river valleyare famous for rice cultivation, with input intensive HYVs having replaced traditional seeds in muchof this region.

10 Along the railway, that passes through the valley centre , there has sprung up over thelast twenty years, an industrial belt with the public sector giant Bhilai Steel Plant, several large cementplants, steel rolling and re-rolling mills and a large mixed industrial estate. This massive industrial(4)endeavor is backed up by a series of dams on the upper Mahanadi and electric power from theNational Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) unit at population is mixed around this industrial and urban belt. In the rural areas of the Mahanadivalley, OBCs like the Sahus and the Kurmis dominate agriculture, and the Satnamis constitute a majorscheduled caste group. Chhattisgarh has approximately 34% Scheduled Tribe population, 12% ScheduledCaste population, and more than 50% Other Backward Classes. While the process of modernizationseems to be apparent in the valley areas, the situation in the forest and hill areas on the peripheryof the district is quite different.