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By Huned Contractor Travelling through the villages of Gujarat, Huned Contractor finds that women have shrugged off the tradition of centuries to assume the dual roles of wage-earners and housewives. Women who had never travelled outside their villages now speak about their work at international fora. Harijan women who had to sit on the floor now proudly occupy the chair of the deputy sarpanch. It's nothing short of a revolution
 It is like any other day. For Baluben, not for me. The midday sun lashes out with a wave of heat. The desert sand swirls around the feet, settles temporarily and rises again. In a village called Gokhantar in the state of Gujarat, the men squat on their haunches and smoke beedis. They are waiting for the monsoon, they explain. They are always waiting. Sometimes for two to three years at a stretch. The men seem to know of no other occupation. And so they wait, staring at the dusty, barren landscape. But the women are busy. Like Baluben, they venture into a distant clump of trees to collect gum. It is a walk of upto ten kilometres. Starting at six in the morning, they work till two or three in the afternoon. The collection is a mere 300 to 400 grams of white or red gum which fetches them not more than ten rupees a day. Life is not just tough but almost impossible. And yet, Baluben can manage a smile.
"What can we do? The land is like that. Earlier, we used to sell our gum to traders for a pittance. But with the help of the Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA), we have managed to organise our activities so that they buy the entire produce from us and then sell it to the government at a fixed rate," says Baluben. The smiling face, however, cannot hide the scars on the body. Gum extraction is a most difficult task. It requires the women to make their way through thorny bushes which tear at the skin and clothes. Since new clothes are unaffordable, the women would rather let their bodies bear the brunt. "A woman recently lost her eye when she was accidentally pricked by a thorn," states Baluben, who has been at the forefront of getting the women of Gokhantar to join the SEWA movement. For me, Gokhantar is a completely new experience. Just like the scores of other villages which I visit during my trip to Gujarat. Travelling into the heartland with Ami and Shahnaz of SEWA, I find here fascinating tales of gritty existence made possible only by the resilience of these women who have shrugged off centuries of tradition and conditioning to assume the dual roles of wage-earners and housewives. They had it in them to do this. All they needed was guidance. That guidance came from SEWA.  In 1972, a group of women headloaders and handcart-pullers approached Ela Bhatt, a lawyer heading the Textile Labour Association's Women's Wing, to get them more benefits through unionisation. Out of this grew SEWA, an organisation which, under the leadership of Elaben, committed itself to empowering women and making them aware of their rights as citizens of this country
"SEWA," explains Ami, "has always worked at the grassroots level. What we are doing is using available resources to the best advantage in order to bring about the required empowerment. Thus, if in a certain place it is the embroidery which is good, SEWA finds a market for the products. If in another region, there is a good presence of buffaloes, we start a dairy co-operative." That the past 27 years have yielded tremendous benefits is evident. In Puriben's neat courtyard in Vouva village we sit on a khatiya looking through her album of photographs. There are some of her visit to Australia. It does not surprise me any longer to hear of illiterate women from unknown villages talking about their visit to foreign countries. Dayavatiben, who lives under a bridge in Ahmedabad, has been to Istanbul. Jamuben of Dhokawada is waiting for her visa to Holland. Helped by SEWA, they have stepped forth to make a presentation of their achievements at international seminars organised by NGOs and other bodies. For Puriben who, ten years ago, had never crossed the boundaries of her tiny village, going to Delhi is now a matter of routine. "Sometimes we go there to participate in exhibitions or to attend meetings," she says. Puriben's craft is embroidery with mirror-work. Termed Banaskantha, her exquisite art is showcased through cushion covers, razais, wall hangings, kurtas, dupattas and whatever may catch the fancy of buyers. Orders come in from SEWA which has found a burgeoning market, both here and abroad. Today, Puriben has managed to get 70 other women from the village to earn a decent living from their traditional crafts. The scene is repeated in Bhuj and the villages of Kutch where embroidery fetches good returns.
But there are tears behind these success stories. It is sheer desperation which drives the people of this land to try the most extreme measures. Like Jamuben of Dhokawada who, at ten o'clock in the night, lowered her 12-year-old daughter into a 75 feet deep dry well to remove the stones and see if any water would trickle out. Wasn't she afraid? "I was," she says, "but what option did I have? The well had dried up and so had the pond. There was not a drop of water to drink. I couldn't bear the sight of my children crying for water. And since the village sarpanch wasn't too keen on lowering any man into the well I decided to take the lead." Water did spring forth that night and today the village has two wells. And Jamuben? She is the toast of the village. SEWA, clarifies Amiben, is not an NGO. It has no political affiliations and does not root for funds. Any woman can become a member of SEWA with a yearly subscription of five rupees. What SEWA gives in return are opportunities for training, avenues for generation of income and support in critical situations. The Manek Chowk issue of Ahmedabad is one of the most well-known examples of the latter. The chowk, a congested area in the city, was being used by vegetable vendors -- a situation which generated opposition in the municipal corporation. The police were asked to evict the vendors. "Don't we have the right to earn a living?" was the question posed by the underprivileged vendors who, with the help of SEWA, decided to launch a satyagraha. After all, it is the land of Mahatma Gandhi. So successful was this movement that now the corporation has given each woman vendor a fixed place to sell vegetables. Business is good and most of the women have built pukka houses after taking loans from the SEWA Bank. But the struggle never ends. It must begin time and again. As with the beedi workers at Rakhial Road. Chandraben, one of more than 10,000 beedi workers in Ahmedabad, has gone to court demanding social security from the company which hires them to roll beedis. "We are getting a rate of less than 30 rupees per thousand beedis and the employer has cheated us of our provident fund and other dues. Now he has devised a new system under which we have to buy the tobacco and the leaves from a contractor and sell the finished products to him. That way, the company has washed its hands of the entire issue. But we are going to continue our fight," says Chandraben, whose son is a teacher in a local school. Stories abound. Of subjugation. Of poverty. Of ill-treatment. Of having to succumb to the vagaries of nature. And of success. Whether it be the dai of Valthera village who is now a deputy sarpanch and has finally been given a chair to sit on (being a Harijan she had to sit on the floor during the panchayat meetings) or Rajulben at Adalaj who fears a takeover of the milk co-operative movement by the men of the village. One evening, dining on a simple meal of rotlas and dal with the setting sun creating a mesmeric pattern on the desert sands, Shahnaz looks up and says, "What is wrong in our country is the beneficiary approach of the government. What is needed is involvement. Only then will the desert create an oasis." How true these words ring in the silence of the night. (Huned Contractor is a journalist with The Times of India in Pune. He is also a film critic and scriptwriter.)
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