19 The Life and Struggles of Adivasi Women

Introduction

Who are the Adivasis or the Tribals of India ?

The indigenous people of India or the tribals or the adivasis, as they are popularly called, make up around 8.6 per cent of the national population. Their number might be exceeding 104 million, which is undoubtedly the largest tribal population in any country. They are mostly concentrated in West Bengal, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, the North East, as well as parts of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and the Andaman islands. They are also found in small numbers in other states and UTs.

The status of women in tribal societies is known to be better than that of non-tribal women, although they are also increasingly being oppressed in many ways. Their society is getting influenced by the customs of the Brahminicala system and being impacted by globalization, which is destroying their traditional occupations and culture. The sex ratio of the scheduled tribes in India according to the 2011 census showed 990 females per 1000 males while for the general population it was 943; the child sex ratio among them was 957.

But the educational status of tribal women remains lower than that of women of the non-tribal population. So, while the literacy rate among women in India is 64.64 percent, it is much lower for tribal women at 49.35 percent. And, since tribal women are engaged in all kinds of labour, tribal females in the workforce are 43.49 % while the all-India figure is much lower at 25.51%. However, the number of tribal women who are engaged in agricultural work has been steadily declining in the last 10 years due to the impact of globalization, with the tribals losing their land in the name of development.

Traditions followed by the Adivasis

Marriage and the family

Among the Adivasis, marriage is not a religious sacrament, but a civil contract, and it is performed in different ways depending upon the customs prevalent within a particular community or the circumstances prevailing in the two families. In most marriages, a bride price is paid as compensation to the girl’s father, and many people call this type of marriage as ‘marriage by purchase’, since it is like a one-time purchase of a bride. When, there is a hike in the bride price in order to make it some kind of status symbol, the groom finds it difficult to pay and may have to work in his father-in –law’s house so that he can pay the equivalent of a bride price through his free labour. There is also marriage by capturing the bride, which generally takes place in a fair or festival market. The bride’s parents show mock concern and sometimes wail and make a big show of mock resistance. But they finally accept the groom. A similar custom is that of a bride capturing a groom, not through force but by forcibly entering his house and refusing to leave. The groom and his parents may refuse food and beat up the girl, but if she is able to bear the suffering, she becomes the wife. There are marriages where the boy is put to a physical test before he can claim his partner like the Indian Swayamvarb, and also probationary marriages where the groom lives in his father-in-law’s house for some time and tries to woo his daughter. Couples may also elope after falling in love, and they may marry through an oath before a deity. Here, the parents and other members of the community finally give sanction to the relationship. Divorce is quite common among the Jaunsarisc and it is usually the younger wives who desert their husbands, for other partners. Village Councils many times decide on annulment of marriage, if it is required, through customary laws. In short it is clear that tribal women have the right to choose their partners and leave them if they wish.

In tribal society descent may be traced both through the mother’s line, ( matrilinear system) or through the father’s line, (patrilinear system).With the exception of the Khasis, Jaintias, Garos and Lalungs of Meghalaya in the North-East, who follow the matrilinear system, most of the other tribes in India follow a patrilinear system.. The Mappilas of Kerala are also a matrilineal community. There are very rare cases of bilineal descent within a tribe. But we must understand that matriliny is not equivalent to matriarchy, which means that the women wield power not only with regard to matters related to the family, but also manage the economy and are the main decision makers, i.e. they govern the community and society at large.

The nuclear family formed through monogamous marriage is the most common type of family prevalent among the tribals in India. However, the Todas of Nilgiri or the Bhutias of Ladakh and Sikkim are polyandrous, i.e. one may find more than one husband for a woman. Also, the practice of several women marrying a number of brothers is found among the Jaunsari tribe of Jaunsar Bahar in Uttarakhand. This system is called polygynandry. Here, the eldest woman usually wields greatest power and commands more respect. But now they are also adopting the monogamous marriage system. Of course, this also holds true in the Hindu joint family, where the wife of the eldest brother is the most privileged. But, here the eldest wife usually resides at a dwelling place in the central village, which is called sadar; the younger wives have to toil hard in the farm houses.

Why is the ‘bride-price’ giving way to the system of dowry? This is because the woman’s status in tribal society is also changing rapidly and now she is being treated more as a liability than an asset because of her declining economic status. Actually, the status of tribal women usually depends on the economic roles they play. The tribals in the past were usually forest dwellers and their livelihood to a great extent depended on food-gathering. More than the men, the women were sustaining the economy.

Women’s traditional roles and their declining status in a globalized economy

Women, more than men, had to walk long distances to fetch wood and fodder. Besides, they also collected fruits, roots and tubers, lac, gum, tendu patta and leaves for self-consumption and sale. With large scale deforestation, building of big and small dams and power plants as well as SEZs, and other projects, there has been large-scale displacement of tribals, and the roles of women have undergone a sea-change with them having to toil more to maintain the economy. Because women are being displaced from their traditional land and forests, and have to work in brick kilns and construction sites to earn a living, they become extremely vulnerable. Contractors and middlemen sexually and economically exploit them. The men folk having migrated to cities in search of work, the burden of looking after the family falls on the women.

In many parts of the country, swidden cultivationd or slash and burn cultivation or jhum cultivation, as it is called in the North-East, was in vogue. Jhum cultivation was basically a woman’s enterprise. The women were engaged in scattering and sowing the seeds, weeding and harvesting. It was they who preserved the seeds at home for the next season and took all the decisions regarding the crops to be cultivated in the new season. The men mostly guarded the crops from wild animals and hunted for meat. Thus there was a balance between the contributions of the men and the women to keep the community going. Women were doing most were valued in the society as producers. As jhum cultivation is losing its viability and being replaced by permanent terraced wet-rice cultivation and as multi-croppinge practices are being replaced by mono-croppingf and cash crops and horticulture are getting preference, women are the losers. In many areas of the North-East, for example Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, migrant male labourers are being employed in place of women. From West Bengal, Santhal women migrate collectively to the southern districts for weeding and transplanting work after completing cultivation work in their own areas1.

As the rural economy fails to sustain the adivasis, they look for other options. There have been several instances where adivasi girls have been forced to work as housemaids or menial workers and have been starved and brutalized by the employers. The agencies enrolling and supplying them to employers assume no responsibility. Many such women and girls have been isolated from their families with promises of lucrative jobs and sold off to be used as sex slaves in countries of the Middle East and others2.

Weaving was a traditional occupation of women in the North-East. All tribal girls used to learn weaving at home from their elders . They wove beautiful shawls, chadorsG, mekhelasH, pekoksI and pinisJ, phaneksK and innaphisL, jainsensM and gamchasN and other traditional attire with intricate traditional designs. They were also adept in bamboo weaving, and they made hats, baskets, bags, mats, decoration items, and many other articles of daily use. Similarly, traditional weaves and glasswork are common among tribal women in Gujarat and Rajasthan. Some NGOs and Governmental organizations are trying to help them to learn new designs, to cater to international demands, and at the same time keep their traditional crafts and weaving from dying out. These products are marketed through Governmental co-operatives. Yet, with growing commercialization, the women’s indigenous designs are not so much in vogue, as the market demands diverse options in the quality of raw material, design, colour and style. Now the Government has tied up with Snapdeal, the online shopping store, for the marketing of Tribal handicrafts. While it has now become easy to market the goods, which are also being exported abroad, the women get a very small percentage of the market price of the goods produced by them, which is quite high. Hence, they are being exploited due to lack of bargaining strategies and access to the market.

Thus the status of women in tribal society is gradually being eroded. In short male domination is growing even in tribal society and several instances of unruly behaviour due to excessive consumption of cheap liquor have been reported. Domestic violence on women has also increased, though it is less than among non-tribals.

Tribal courts are often the simplest means of getting access to speedy justice and they are far less expensive. But sometimes the decisions of these courts are brutal. For example, the Birbhum gangrape on 21 January 2014, in which a 20-year old tribal girl from Subolpur village was punished with gangrape by a Salishi Sabhao for having an affair with a boy of a different community. However, the Domestic Violence ActP has not banned these kangaroo courts. There are other kinds of violence against tribal women as well. For example, in tribal areas, women have been subjected to violence at the hands of the police, paramilitary and armed forces. Examples are Salwa JudumQ cases of sexual oppression in Bijapur, Bastar, Dantewada and Sukma etc.3, the torture of Soni Sori4. Cases of state repression have also come to light in Narayanpatna as well as the Southern districts of Odisha and Tribal areas of Andhra Pradesh.The gang rape and killing of Thangjam Manorama in Manipur5, State repression in Lalgarh6, West Bengal, and several armed operations in the North East including army excesses under AFSPA7 have also been documented.

Tribal Women’s Role in the Economy

Mostly, the kitchen garden is controlled by the woman and she owns pigs, goats and fowl. The sale proceeds of the domesticated animals are retained by the housewife and she makes purchases according to her own liking when visiting her parental home. Women are also adept at selling fruits and forest products in the weekly markets. Vegetables and horticultural products are usually sold by them in the markets. Women among some of the tribes of the North-East are very proficient in doing business. It is mainly the Khasi women who run shops in the markets of Shillong and Nongpoh in Meghalaya. Many women in Mizoram too manage big shops and large business and many run small family businesses, called micro enterprises, which require very little initial capital and often involve the marketing of food articles and handicrafts produced under the domestic system. No doubt, women’s limited access to capital leads to higher rates of return on their tiny investments. But the unbelievably low capital-labour ratios confine women to low productivity undertakings. The urban, educated and higher class tribal groups can take up businesses and commercial enterprises in the urban centres and same is the case of families of tribal village chiefs who have large land holdings and are able to have access to agri-business. They also manage micro-enterprises in dairy, poultry, fishery, piggeries and forest products. Gender discrimination and patriarchy, in general, is a big hurdle in the way of women’s entrepreneurship. Women do not possess land or capital for investment. The only way out is interest-free loans for women. When women in Nagaland got the right to land, they were able to develop entrepreneurship in agro-based and forest-based products.

Property

Tribal women have little control over immovable property. They very rarely inherit land, especially in the patrilineal societies. Customary tribal law says that the only women who can inherit land are widows and single or unmarried women. These women enjoy two kinds of land rights- first, a life interest in the land, the right to manage the land and its produce; and second, the right to a share in the produce of the land but not to manage or use it as per their own discretion. This share in the produce may be just for maintenance or a little over maintenance. Where the offspring are only daughters, the sons-in-law will reside in the wife’s parental home, and then they can inherit property. Among the Khasis, however, it is mainly the youngest daughter, who inherits the house and property. The adivasi women generally inherit ornaments from their mothers. Because the customary laws do not permit them to own land, often the Santhal widows are declared witches and murdered by close relatives8. The Mizo women in Mizoram were extremely discriminated against with regard to inheritance of property. They were never given rights over landed property. If there is no son in the family, the family property including the ancestral home would go to the nephew of the father. However, in a landmark judgement of the Himanchal Pradesh High Court on June 23, 2015, the tribal women of Himachal Pradesh have acquired the right to inherit land according to the Hindu Succession Act of 1956. In Himachal Pradesh alone, around 81,848 tribal women were benefitted by this judgement.

Adivasi Women’s Role in Society and in the Political Arena

The tribal women in India have not got adequate representation in the Parliament and many state assemblies. Also, their representation is not commensurate with the amount of sacrifice made by them and their struggles. Only now have some come into Panchayats and Atonomous CouncilsR, but in the Councils 33 % reservation for women has not been implemented. Also, there are few tribal women MLAs and MPs in the country. Agatha Sangma, who had become the youngest Union Minister of Social Welfare, was an exception. The Tribal women in the Lok Sabha are- Jyoti Dhruve from Betul Constituency of MP, Dr. Heena Vijaikumar Gavit from Nandurbar constituency of Maharashtra, Geeta Kothapalli from Araku Constituency of A.P., Shakuntala Laguri from Keonjhar Constituency in Orissa, Uma Saren from Jhargram Constituency of WB, Savitri Thakur from Dhar Constituency in MP and MC Marykom nominated for Rajya Sabha from Manipur. There are 49 Tribal women MLAs also. But there is not a single tribal woman MLA from Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerela. Karnataka,West Bengal, Bihar, Puducherry, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana. The maximum women tribal MLAs are from Madhya Pradesh (9) followed by Sikkim (7)

Women’s Assertion and Organization

During the recent struggles in the North-East and central India, especially Chattisgarh, many tribal women have joined militant groups and their armies. They left their homes and began to take military training. In the North-East, many young girls became part of the movement for self determination. Several of them became victims of brutality at the hands of the armed forces, and many have laid down their lives too. As a protest against the AFSPA, Irom Chanu Sharmila fasted for 15 years and organizations of women working for peace and Associations of Mothers have come up, in which tribal women are playing leading roles. The Nupi Lan (Women’s War) was an uprising against scarcity of rice in the state which was led solely by women, in Manipur in the year 1939. The Meira Paibis demanding a ban on liquor or the nude protest of 40 mothers against the Assam Rifles, with the slogan ‘Indian Army, Rape Us’ have drawn attention. The Naga Mothers Association is another important organization working towards peace and campaigning against bloodshed not only by the armed forces, but also by insurgent groups. Even during the head-hunting days, the Naga women fought bravely to usher in peace between warring villages. Women known as PukhareilasS operated as peacemakers between warring villagers and they were respected for their neutrality. They were known as ambassadors of peace. Though traditionally the women had no political power, their decisions, particularly related to women’s issues, were always respected. The women working in Chattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh (CMSS) have been active and assertive. In Jharkhand, women’s assertion has been seen right from the time of Jani-Shikar (1610), when Oraon womenfolk dressed in male attire and warded off the attacks of the Mughals on their Fort. Today, Maoist women’s organizations are active in many areas where tribal people have their habitations9&10.

Exceptional Tribal Women leaders

An important tribal personality from the freedom movement was Rani Gaidinliu, who had given a call to the Nagas to unite against the British Raj. This brave Naga leader headed a revolt against the British. She also led the Zeliangrong Nagas in a demand for a homeland in the contiguous areas of Manipur, Nagaland and Assam.

She was named as a ‘Rani’ by Jawaharlal Nehru who came to learn about her during the freedom movement.

We may also note that women rulers arose from among the Jaintias in Meghalaya. And, of course, one cannot forget the Bhotia tribal women of Kumaon who arose as a formidable force against the felling of trees. This exemplary struggle for the protection of the environment—the Chipko Andolan (embrace the trees)—against the timber contractors, will have a permanent place in the annals of Indian history. It was the tribal women of Reni village in particular who became famous as they hugged the pine trees to save them from the saws of the loggers11.

Tribal Women Leaders who made a Difference

Sandhya Rani Chakma

She is a member of the TTAADC, the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council, which came into existence on 12 December 1982 under the seventh schedule of the Indian Constitution. She has been holding office in the Chakma Karamchhara (ST) constituency, for the third consecutive term. She is one of the three women in a Council of 30, who got elected to the Council, despite the fact that 10 women members had contested. She is the only woman in the 9-member Executive Committee of the District Council. Sandhya had been an active member of the Students’ Federation of India, the Students wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) since her college days and also the Tripura Tribal Students’ Union. She had also been active in the Party and her name had been proposed for the Council by Party comrades. Sandhya feels that her political role has been significantly enhanced through her participation in the Council. She is a strong protagonist for women’s reservation and has demanded that the provision of 33 % reservation for women should be implemented in the Councils, because without an institutional mechanism, it is impossible to support women politically. She feels that it is an irony that the non-tribal Panchayats have a provision for reservation of one-third seats, while the same has not been extended to the Autonomous Areas District Councils.

Sandhya Rani Chakma (Second from Right)

Damayanti Barla is a social activist, journalist and defender of human rights, whose work is centered in the State of Jharkhand. She has been leading anti-displacement struggles and is a prominent leader in the NAPMT and the INSAFU. Few people know that Damayanti has worked as a housemaid at a point in her life. She has also had the experience of sleeping on railway stations. She had always tried to go to school with whatever savings she had from her work. She joined post graduation and then went into the field of journalism. Damayanti became the first adivasi woman to be a journalist. She has been waging a concerted battle against Arcel and Mittal and her organization, The Adivasi Moolwasi Astitwa Raksha ManchV has been opposing corporate land grab. False cases have been filed against Damayanti and she has been declared an absconder. But Damayanti says it is impossible to compensate the Adivasis for their land because it is not just a means of income for them; land is their prized heritage, it is there for the subsistence of the future generations.

References

1.    http://indiatogether.org/jhum-agriculture–2

2.    http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in:8080/jspui/bitstream/10603/22 597/8/08_chapter1.pdfg

3.    https://wssnet.org/

4.    www.outlookindia.com/…the…/264738

5.    https://en.wikipedia.org/…/Thangjam_…

6.    https://en.wikipedia.org/…/Operation_L…

7. https://en.wikipedia.org/…/Armed_Forc…

8. (Kelkar and Devnathan: 1993) Lalhriatpuii (2010)

9. https://en.wikipedia.org/…/Communist_…

10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naxalite%E2%80%93Maoist _insurgency

11.  http://www.fao.org/docrep/r0465e/r0465e03.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_…