On a field trip to rural Haryana, what struck me was the dissonance between per capita incomes and living conditions, especially as they affect women. Haryana is a state that varies sharply in its natural endowments with conditions varying from dry to fertile. The villages I visited in the district of Rohtak and neighboring Jind are “milk-producing” villages. Every household has several buffaloes, lovingly looked after. Indeed, it appears that buffaloes count higher than women. While the buffaloes are fed, washed and groomed every day, and this is women’s work, the women themselves are unkempt, with dirty, uncombed hair, weathered skins and faded clothes. One reason is that a woman in Haryana does not get time to attend to her personal well-being until very late in the day. Indeed, it was hard to find the women at home because they had gone to work in the fields or to look after the animals or to wash clothes. The men were found at home, well-groomed, relaxing with playing cards, enjoying the sun or, at most, looking after an infant. This might appear like a role reversal — macho Haryana male looking after a baby — but when compared to the woman’s drudgery, it was in fact a better substitute. It is not surprising, then, if a woman’s first dream is for her daughters (and herself) to be relieved of this drudgery. The syndrome of women’s withdrawal from work, interpreted in several ways in gender studies literature, takes on a new meaning here. A woman definitely wants to withdraw from such work if she possibly can. If Haryanvi prosperity in these areas is being built on the basis of agriculture and animal husbandry, then it is being built on the back of the Haryanvi female. She may not be your East Asian “nimble fingers” woman working in clean industries, leading her country to high growth rates, but were it not for her labour, Haryanvi development would not be where it is. This is a state and a culture where women are even allowed to take up the plough (forbidden to women in most other parts of India), and where you see women driving bullock carts while fetching fodder for the cattle. What will it take for society and governments to recognise these women’s immense contribution to economic development and give them their due? That Haryana’s prosperity, its material development, is not translating into commensurate well-being for women is amply clear. In prosperous households, women do not complain. Indeed, women from poorer states such as Assam, West Bengal, Tripura and even Maharashtra are marrying Haryanvis and settling down to a life organised around doodh-dahi and its all-important generator, the buffalo. Yet, there seems to be little improvement in women’s lifestyles or well-being. There is low literacy, little awareness and the freedom only to work. Indeed, the Haryanvi woman is adept at doing all work with the “datha”, a version of the veil which leaves the face completely covered except for the eyes. The woman of a small land holding family works from the early hours of the day till late evening. This is why women, by the time they are 40, are desperate for a daughter-in-law to take on the burden. For a decent quality of life, women need some time for recreation and grooming. They should not look 50 at 30. If they were better humoured, they’d treat their daughters-in-law better. Since the arrival of the individual hand-pump or piped water, women have been divested of the social networking and entertainment that carried on before. Although there is ease in doing chores at home, nothing has replaced the village well as a place to get together. Men have the village chaupal; women have no such legitimate social space. Hence, they are even more confined to a working life unrelieved of interaction which provides emotional and social support. Social celebrations in Haryanvi culture are also of a limited nature and here, too, prosperity has translated into male social competition via ostentation and consumption of liquor. There’s not much for women. Since men still do the shopping if it involves going to the town and since the itinerant hawker who brought bangles and other sundries has all but disappeared, women do not have much relief from an unrelenting work cycle. Looking at their own lives, women are sometimes forced to provide this as a rationale for not wanting daughters. Women’s work conditions are tied to their “working environment” — homes, streets, fields. The pathetic state of sanitation and lack of sewerage systems and garbage disposal in the villages is turning them into large slums. The unsanitary surroundings especially affect the health of women and children. Women do most water-related work and sick children mean more work for them. The introduction of individual hand-pumps and piped water is a “sign” of development. Yet, without being linked to a sewerage system, it turns into a nightmare. In every village, there are overflowing or clogged drains and piles of garbage at regular intervals. Researchers at Rohtak University offered an explanation; earlier, water was not available in the villages so the garbage was mostly dry, degradable matter that was disposed outside the habitation proper where it disintegrated. Now, everyone has access to water through pipes and taps bringing activities such as washing of clothes and utensils and bathing into the home. The water passes out of the houses into the drains, but the drains lead nowhere. They either spill over into the streets or become large puddles breeding bacteria and disease. Skin infections, seen even on small children and on women’s arms and faces, were evidence of the harm wreaked by such unsanitary surroundings. Gastro-intestinal diseases would likely be a major portion of the illnesses suffered by the villagers. A few simple habitat improvements and technological innovations could make life much more palatable for these women, the most important being the provision of sanitation. Why cannot civil engineers or environmental experts work out simple water and solid waste disposal systems specifically designed for villages? If we can come up with sulabh shauchalayas for the cities, why cannot we put our minds to solving the problem of the villages? The same solution would apply to urban slums, thus providing the investor — government or non-government — with “economies of scale”.
