Women play a critical role in agricultural production in India. In addition to performing diverse, often arduous, farm operations, like sowing, transplanting, weeding, and picking, they are also invariably involved in activities such as the maintenance of kitchen gardens, livestock management, and the collection of agricultural products for family consumption. The crucial contribution of women to agricultural production is gradually being recognized in scholarship. The significant presence of women in the ongoing farmers’ movement in India is further evidence of women’s strong links with the farm economy.

In order to understand these interconnections further, the Foundation of Agrarian Studies (FAS) organized an online discussion titled “Studying Women’s Work: Women Farmers in India” on March 29, 2021. The speakers were Madhura Swaminathan, Professor, Economic Analysis Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore, and Jagmati Sangwan, Vice-President, All India Democratic Women’s Association.

Madhura Swaminathan began by speaking about certain major concerns pertaining to the definition and measurement of women’s work in rural India. Women’s contribution to labour processes and women’s work in general, are severely underestimated in the official sources of data. The decline in female work participation rates reported in the official Labour Force Survey (2018) are an example of such underestimation. The need to widen the concept of women’s work to include all “economic activities” has been recognised by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). ILO has recommended that five forms of work be recognised: own-use production work, employment work, unpaid trainee work, volunteer work, and other work activities.

The Employment and Unemployment Survey (EUS) conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) collects data on a wide range of “specified activities” such as maintenance of kitchen gardens, work in raising household poultry, animal husbandry, collection of agricultural products for household consumption, processing primary products for household consumption, and activities for own consumption but resulting in economic benefits to the household. Such specified activities constitute a significant proportion of women’s work in rural India, but are excluded from the official definition of work. Defining an augmented work participation rate (WPR) for women by including their participation in “specified activities” gives a much more accurate picture of women’s work in rural India. For example, in 2011-12, female work participation was about 35 per cent according to the official NSS data. However, an augmented work participation rate for the corresponding period, calculated by Usami et. al. in a paper recently published in the Review of Agrarian Studies, was almost 62 per cent.

Time-use surveys, Madhura Swaminathan argued, provide a much better methodological apparatus for the accurate measurement of women’s work. An official time-use survey carried out by NSSO in 2019 estimated (on the basis of a 24-hour recall) that 44 per cent of women in rural India are engaged in income-generating activities. The speaker contended that “this is still an under-estimation.” She discussed some findings from the time-use surveys conducted by FAS in 2017-18 in two villages of Karnataka – Alabujanahalli (Mandya district), and Siresandra (Kolar district). The survey collected information on the actual time spent by a sample of women on all activities performed during the course of a day. The uniqueness of this exercise was that FAS collected the information for seven consecutive days, in two agricultural seasons – lean and peak. The ILO defines any woman engaged in an economic activity for at least one hour a day on any one day of the previous week as a worker. FAS surveys used a major time criterion: a woman who engaged in economic activity for more than three days during the reference week was regarded as a worker. The survey found that, during the peak season, 92 per cent of women surveyed were workers, and in the lean season, 64 per cent were defined as workers. The surveys suggest that almost all women in rural India can be categorised as workers in the peak season.

In conclusion, Madhura also discussed data from household surveys in 27 villages across 12 states of the country, conducted by FAS under its Project on Agrarian Relations in India (PARI) that indicate that women comprise two-thirds of all wage workers in manual worker households.

Jagmati Sangwan began her talk by highlighting the enthusiastic participation among rural women in the ongoing farmers movement in India. The women, Jagmati noted, mostly belonged to peasant households. However, there was also some participation from women from agricultural worker households and scheme workers. She also noted the participation of Dalit women, women workers from non-agricultural communities, and urban women workers. In addition, there was a thin layer of women in the leadership of various farmers unions.

Jagmati underlined the region-specific characteristics of gender dynamics in the protest. In Punjab the movement has been organized by farmer unions. There has been a history of women participating actively in such movements. In Haryana, Khaps initiated and controlled the mobilization. This implied that caste configurations continued to guide the protests. The participation of women from the State of Haryana was, therefore, lower than the participation of women from Punjab. However, she noted that these numbers have been gradually increasing. Women from across Haryana participated in huge numbers for the “Dilli Chalo” call of November 26-27. Notwithstanding these regional differences, rural women have steadily become part of the ongoing movement in large numbers. Jagmati observed that there has been further consolidation after the celebration of Women Farmers’ Day on January 18, and the International Women’s Day on March 08, on the call of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha.

Jagmati said that the main motivation for these women was a sense of anger that has accumulated over the years. She described the agrarian crisis in the region that has persisted over the last few decades as a result of neo-liberal policy. Incomes from and employment in agriculture have been rapidly declining, and there has not been any commensurate increase in non-farm employment or incomes. This crisis has pushed many families in the countryside into a cycle of poverty and perpetual indebtedness.

Women from these sections of rural society see themselves as deprived in terms of access to education and basic amenities, and lacking in opportunity. Some of them have witnessed men in their families dying by suicide. There is a palpable feeling among women that their families and children have been excluded from the development and progress they see taking root in urban India. This sentiment, Jagmati noted, had taken the form of an accumulated anger, and has led them to join the movement. According to her, their numbers and zeal has been unprecedented. They continued to come out in protest despite the fact that this participation did not offer them any respite from their regular domestic chores and care work.

The women from the peasant families in Punjab and Haryana, Jagmati underlined, also appreciate the importance of Mandis (Government regulated markets for agricultural produce). Although they did not deal with them directly, they knew that “the breakdown of the mandi system would mean losing a support network that has helped them tide over times of financial distress, through provisioning informal loans for conducting weddings, and for supporting children’s education, among other things.”

Notwithstanding their enthusiasm, Jagmati remarked, these women mostly see themselves participating in the movement “on behalf of their families, for their well-being and for the future of their children.” They were yet to become conscious of their own status as peasants or workers. Such consciousness exists, but in suppressed forms. She gave examples from the folk songs rural women sing during sit-ins. These songs represent men as the primary toilers. Jagmati contrasted this with how, “if one were to try and prod them to reflect on themselves, one finds that they are acutely aware of their own tenuous relationship to work, and of how physically and mentally drained they are.”

In conclusion, she argued that “the problems of rural women are not restricted to the domestic sphere. Their demands should be considered important grievances of active workers in the rural economy.” She underscored the need for raising the working-class consciousness among rural women. It was the duty of the larger Kisan movement and the Women’s movement in the country to change the mainstream discourse, and to emphasise the identity of women as peasants and workers. She concluded by stating the need to bring to the fore issues of gender discrimination within the present farmers’ movement itself.

A lively question-and-answer session followed.

We are thankful Niyati S, and Shruti Nagbhushan for sharing their notes from the online event.