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Via WOMEN'S FEATURE SERVICE
India - New Delhi
Photo Attached: India
- Rukiyaben using the 'dhantar' in the saltpans in Little Rann of Kutch in
Gujarat. The 'dhantar', or a rake-like plough, is used to smoothen the salt
crystals as they form on the saltbed. (Credit: Geeta Seshu\WFS)
India:
Pinch of Salt: Wrinkled Faces, Wasted Lives
Hardships
for Women Workers of Saltpans (Agars)
By Geeta Seshu
Kutch (Women's Feature Service) - The picturesque television advertisements for
salt - cascading waterfalls of white, a cheerful sea-captain or the happy
family at the dinner table - are a far cry from the searing heat and the
dazzling white, blinding light of saltpans, where women work long,
back-breaking hours without even a mirage of hope for consolation.
"For eight months of the year, we know of no other life, save that of the
salt. Our feet are callused, our hands hard as stone, our backs are gone. I am
so wrinkled; will anyone look at me and say that I'm only 35 years old? We are
up by 5 a.m., do the housework and are at the saltpans from 7 a.m. till noon
when it is too hot for any living creature. Then, we are back again till the
sun goes down. Tell me, is this any life? I am tired. I can't do this any more.
Teach me a new skill, any new skill. I want to get out of this life."
Rukiyaben, who works on saltpans near Sukhpar village in the Little Rann of
Kutch in Gujarat, is tired and angry. Sitting in a pit dug into the desert to
fend off the heat, with a roof and walls of torn gunnysack, she is full of woe.
"I have been blinded by the salt and my eyesight has gone so weak, I can't
thread a needle. My parents did this work and so do I. But I don't want our
children to do the same," she rues.
Life is very tough for over 100,000 women and men of the saltpans in the Little
Rann of Kutch, a unique salt marsh desert located east of the Gulf of Kutch.
India is among the five largest salt-producing nations in the world and a study
conducted for Care-India, an NGO, by Ahmedabad-based Saline Area Vitalisation
Enterprise Ltd reveals that at least 70 per cent of the salt is produced by the
salt workers of Kutch using the evaporation method.
The Chuwalia Koli agarias, the community that work in the 'agars' or saltpans,
occupy the borders of the desert and tap into the briny groundwater, shifting
sites according to its availability. "We draw water from saline bore
wells, let them into the salt-beds and rake the beds for the salt crystals that
form every eight days, carefully making small hills of salt for the contractor
to take away. Everybody works in the saltpans - my husband, my sons, our hired
labour and I," says Rukiyaben.
The saltpans are located in what is a declared wildlife sanctuary for the last
surviving species of the Asiatic wild ass and are, therefore, considered
illegal. This has rendered the existence of the agarias even more precarious,
as they cannot articulate a demand for basic amenities like drinking water,
houses, electricity or schooling for their children.
Civil society initiatives have provided some glimmer of hope. "Tankers
supply drinking water but its quality is so poor, everyone here suffers from
kidney stones," says Bharat Dodiya, an activist with Setu, a civil society
organisation that was formed by the Kutch Nav Nirman Abhiyan (KNNA) to
initially work on relief and rehabilitation after a massive earthquake of 2001.
Today, the KNNA, a unique functional network of organisations working for the
development of the region, has set in motion a number of development
initiatives, including providing credit facilities to women through SNEHAL, a
multi-dimensional project of CARE-Gujarat; schooling for children through the
Yusuf Meherally Centre, Setu's community mobilisation work; and the community
radio programme, Radio Ujjhas, an initiative of Kutch Mahila Vikas Sanghatana.
Setu also helped form an Agaria Vikas Samiti (AVS) to organise the saltpan
workers and articulate the demands of the agarias. Initially, the organisation,
along with volunteers of the Yusuf Meherally Centre, set up a small school for
the children. "It was difficult as older children work in the saltpans and
parents were reluctant to send them to school. But we persisted," says
Dodiya.
Their ambiguous status is the biggest handicap to securing any rights for the
agarias. Suleiman Ahmed Bhatti, 50, a saltpan owner and member of AVS, gave
evidence before a parliamentary committee on the salt industry, over six years
ago, but nothing came out of it. "The salt owners asked for proof that we
produced salt for them. But none of us have any identity cards and there was a
lot of pressure on us to withdraw," he says. Lal Mohammed Kasam, 55,
another saltpan owner, adds that the "salt companies blacklist us and
refuse to buy our salt if we speak up".
Generally, a family works on the saltpans but the quantum of work forces them
to hire migrant labour - usually from neighbouring Madhya Pradesh. The migrant
labour, which may comprise a couple and their children, are paid daily wages,
according to the amount of salt they process and may get up to Rs 50 to Rs 100
(US$1=Rs 43.1) on a good day. "By sunset, I shall make at least 400 trips
back and forth from the saltpan 'paatas' (low mud-walled reservoirs that trap
the saline water to form the saltpan bed) to the mound of salt at its
edge," says Manju, 19, a labourer from MP who, along with Khalaben, works
non-stop to fill a saltpan.
They don't stop to take a breath, not even to answer my questions. Every minute
lost means less salt collected, so less money from the 'mukadam' (contractor).
The two women work on 'paatas' owned by Akbarbhai, 30, an agaria. The latter
says that the labourers also live on the land in separate huts just like the
agarias.
Rosa, 22, Akbar's wife, is expecting their third child. "The desert is a
lonely place. Our clothes and food are covered with the salt and dust,
everything spoils in this heat." Like others, her family lives in a tented
mud pit dug into the ground to beat the heat. Sanitation is non-existent and
the women can only relieve themselves under cover of darkness in the shrubbery
bordering the desert. Even this is fast disappearing as the thorny scrub,
prosopis juliflora, is used to make charcoal. Medical aid is also inaccessible
as the nearest hospital is in Adesar, at least 30 to 40 kilometres away.
Rukiyaben reveals that a child died only last month as the mother was unable to
get to hospital in time.
Jannatbai, 25, Akbar's sister, who married an agaria, talks of the dreams she
had of pursuing an education. "I had studied till the seventh standard. I
never wanted to marry an agaria but my family said that I needed to work. The
salt has taken away my dreams..."
For the women of this generation, there seems no escape. Rukiyaben recalls that
she told her father she did not want to get married. "But he said that it
would be for five days only and then the Almighty would be kind to me and call
me. Till today, the Almighty hasn't done so, I'm still waiting," she says,
even as her husband jokingly asks her how she can think of leaving him!
But Rukiyaben is not mollified. She has two daughters, who live in the village
and she is determined that they get an education and a better life. "We
will not bring them to the desert to work on the saltpans. We have to break
this circle somewhere," she said. With better awareness, the future
generations, at least, will see a difference.
Courtesy:
Women's Feature Service
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