Introduction

Every year hundreds of Manjhis from Jharkhand travel to the irrigated high productivity agricultural areas of north-west India, the so-called Green Revolution belt, working arduously long hours to earn what they can. Circular migration, much of it seasonal, comprises an integral part of the livelihood strategies of a large number of poor people living in agriculturally marginal areas (Deshingkar and Farrington, 2009: 1). Some households barely manage to survive, while a few with some resources accumulate wealth over time (Mosse et al., 2002). It is contended that most would be worse off if they depended solely on local employment (Kothari, 2003; Rogaly and Rafique, 2003), yet the progression from survival to security of livelihoods cannot be taken for granted. Households and individuals are not unified entities. Earnings and savings from migration vary by ethnic group, gender, occupation, wage rates, living costs, contracting arrangements, and debts. In addition to the access to material resources and social networks, individual aspirations and perceptions of work and leisure, time horizons and rates of time preference, and strategies for ensuring future security are central to the experience and outcomes of migration.

Important in shaping livelihood opportunities, choices and outcomes are the nature and role of the democratic state in India. While claiming to be responsible and accountable to the people, especially the poor and vulnerable, it is far from this in its ‘everyday practice’ (Fuller and Benei, 2001). Notwithstanding processes of liberalisation and democratic decentralisation, the Indian state continues to be driven by elite interests and patronage ties (Corbridge and Harriss, 2000; Corbridge et al., 2005), with informal structures of caste dominance, patronage and brokerage influencing the nature and terms of inclusion in the migration process (Mosse, 2007), especially in a context where spatial, regional, caste and gender inequalities have intensified over the last two decades, as admitted by the Approach Paper to the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (Rao, 2010a).

Introduction

Narratives of paid domestic work across time and space point to the dilemmas and contradictions faced by domestic workers seeking respect in their lives. Contemporary accounts of paid domestic work, striving to understand global economic and demographic changes, rarely consider the domestics’ desire for prestige and upward social mobility, important constituents of the notion of respect. Rather, they are driven by the expansion of young female migrant workers from poor, undeveloped regions to service the affluent across the world. This process of globalisation and feminisation of paid domestic work has been attributed to shifts in the structure of the labour market in the developed world with a rise in dual career households (cf. Standing, 1999; Kabeer, 2007) alongside cuts in public services limiting the provision of care services to the elderly and young, in a context of both declining fertility and ageing populations (Yeates, 2005; Razavi, 2007).

Respectability is a signifier of class, but always inscribed in gender identities. It involves a complex set of practices, defined by appropriate behaviour, language and appearance, apart from social rules and moral codes, which enable the framing of people and thereby justify the unequal distribution of resources (Skeggs, 1997). Women domestic workers do have a clear knowledge of their class position and social place; yet in their struggle for social mobility, they invest in symbols of respectability as defined by the dominant. This is, however, not a straightforward process, but highlights the ambivalence about giving up their ethnic identities and symbols of respect for elite, middle-class norms of respectability. The ambivalence persists as they realise that gaining the outward signs of material respectability does not automatically lead to a notion of respect as reflected in the treatment meted out by others (Sennett and Cobb, 1973). Respect involves mutuality, which emerges equally from the development of the self and the interaction with and recognition from others (Sennett, 2003), but for these women, there remains a hidden anxiety about the quality of their experience and its legitimisation in society.

Introduction: Land, Kinship and Identity

This chapter discusses the processes by which kinship relations, particularly patrilineages, are being strengthened amongst the Santal community in a village, called here Chuapara, in Dumka district, Jharkhand (see Figure 2.1). The rise of a democratic state, accepting the notion of equal rights for all citizens, alongside the creation of market institutions (wage labour and land markets, for instance) to meet production requirements, is expected to lead to an erosion of men's base of power in terms of both caste- and kinship-based control over land. However, writings in the field of anthropology have demonstrated the continuing importance of kinship in determining property rights and gendered access to resources, social rights and obligations, and in organising power and authority.2Rather than withering away, social structures of kinship and caste have been re-fashioned, with the upper-caste elite diversifying and dominating non-agricultural assets, not just land. Women, who face disadvantages in terms of education, capital and mobility while continuing to be held responsible for household maintenance, are further marginalised in this diversification process (Epstein, Suryanarayana and Thimmegowda, 1998; Harriss-White and Janakarajan, 2004). Sacks notes that

In this chapter, I examine the ways in which kinship relations are being reformulated and their implications for gender in a context where the struggle for a separate state of Jharkhand emphasises not just a class or proletarian identity but also a tribal, or adivasi, identity. There has been considerable debate on the use of different terms when representing the tribes, as these have varying political connotations. Hardiman notes that the term adivasi is preferable in the Indian context – with over 400 such communities representing close to 8 per cent of the total population – as it relates to ‘a particular historical development: that of subjugation’ (1987: 15) by traders, moneylenders and landlords who established themselves under the protection of colonial authorities.

Introduction

Jharkhand, created as an independent state in November 2000, produced Vision 2010 – a statement of policy directions for the new state. The state's first chief minister, Babulal Marandi, had identified increasing socio-economic disparities – more than 56.8 per cent of the population living below the poverty line (as against 36 per cent for India in 1996–97), lack of road connectivity in more than 60 per cent of villages, 54 per cent literacy rate (42 per cent in the tribal sub-plan area that includes 112 out of 221 blocks in Jharkhand, spread in eleven districts out of twenty-two) and 85 per cent of villages having no electricity – as key problems confronting the state, along with the challenge of extremism.

Marandi, during his tenure, had seemed increasingly attracted by the ‘Asian strategy’ for development, particularly that adopted by Singapore. Along with an eleven-member team, he undertook a tour of Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand in December 2002 (Prasad, 2002b). Thereafter he proposed a trip for Jharkhand legislators to China and South-East Asia: ‘Legislators will be sent to foreign countries to observe the developments there to change their mindset’ (Indo-Asian News Service [IANS], 2003). These trips have been funded from the state's exigency fund, meant for emergency purposes (Prasad, 2002b).

Turning Jharkhand into another Singapore is indeed a commendable objective, but perhaps it is time to reflect on the key ingredients of Singapore's success and ask whether these are reflected in the actions or even in Jharkhand's vision document. What have been the measures taken to counter the human costs in terms of displacement and shrinking access to natural resources that would accompany a process of rapid growth? With many thousands starving to death or dying of diarrhoea and malaria, the answer sadly is predictable.

I discuss briefly in this chapter the key elements of the East Asian ‘miracle’, and then point towards the lack of both clarity and commitment in the Vision 2010 document as well as in the actions of the state government to date, in terms of these key elements.

Development Strategies in Asia

Remarking on Singapore's achievements in the introduction to his lecture at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, Amartya Sen said, ‘This country's success in economic development as well as in building a vibrant and harmonious multicultural society has been exceptional’ (1999a: 3).

Introduction

Out of the millions uprooted from their habitats involuntarily or otherwise deprived of their livelihood due to development initiatives in post-independent India, the worst affected have been the Scheduled Tribes (STs), or adivasis. They make up about 40 per cent of the displaced even though they account for only 8 per cent of India's total population (Fernandes and Thukral, 1989). The displacement of adivasis from their land is neither a new phenomenon nor is it solely due to infrastructure projects. As we demonstrate in this chapter, with changes in land systems and agrarian relations, adivasis have historically been the losers and have had to migrate to other locations. As outlined by Rebbapragada and Kalluri (2009), the alienation of adivasi land to non-adivasi traders and moneylenders has been a slow and ongoing process. Thus, forced displacement due to infrastructure projects needs analysing along with slower processes of displacement, often considered to be ‘voluntary’ processes of out-migration.

This chapter, based on extensive fieldwork in Dumka district in 1996–97, 1999–2000 and 2003, explores the gendered implications of different types of displacement on the Santals comprising 40 per cent of the population of Dumka district, Santal Parganas. Displacement is examined historically, specifically pointing to the implications of displacement on gendered roles and spaces. The analysis takes into account the spatial patterning of resources and their management, the temporal and historical dynamics of land use and livelihood systems, and the gendered relationships between micro and macro processes (McDowell, 2002).

This longitudinal view of gender and displacement, which links macro and micro perspectives, can contribute to development planning and displacement debates. This is because infrastructure development is often ‘project’ focused and geared towards macro-economic growth. Local micro-factors such as household-level assets and livelihood strategies, levels of education and human capacity or the village-level power distribution are rarely considered, leave alone integrating the project into comprehensive area development plans. An important consequence of this ‘project’ fixation is that once a project is announced and certain areas demarcated, all developmental activities (such as income generation activities and the provision of basic services) come to a halt, sometimes even before land acquisition. The processes of land acquisition and relocation take years to complete, but the populations are deprived of livelihood activities and basic infrastructure in the interim.

Introduction

The state of Jharkhand was formed in August 2000, a result of the long-standing movement against large imbalances in the distribution of resources – with contestations over ownership of jal (water), jangal (forest) and jamin (land) – and an assertion of tribal identity and self-determination (Jewitt, 2008). Jharkhand was faced with adverse initial conditions – low average income, high incidence of poverty and little social development (World Bank, 2001). More than twenty years after its formation, there have been significant improvements in human development and multidimensional poverty indicators like literacy, health, sanitation and nutrition. But what has this meant for the adivasi populations of the state, their identity, culture and knowledge? What has it meant for the aspirations and well-being of women and youth?

The Vision 2010 document of Jharkhand, while recognising a 52 per cent deficit in food grain production, with half the per capita availability of food in comparison to the national average, aspired to convert Jharkhand into another ‘Singapore’ (see Chapter 11). At the same time, in line with the government of India's priorities, the government launched a State Agriculture Plan (2008–09 to 2011–12) to improve agriculture infrastructure, ensure adequate credit flow and implement capacity-building measures (Nabard Consultancy Services, n.d.). The Jharkhand Economic Survey, 2016–17, points to the impressive growth rate of the state between 2011–16, higher than the national average (6.8 per cent) and only lower than that of Gujarat, Mizoram and Tripura between the financial years 2011–12 and 2015–16 (8.8 per cent). For the financial year 2015–16, the growth rate at over 12 per cent was much higher than the national average at 7.6 per cent.

Following the NITI Aayog's (National Institution for Transforming India) ambitious blueprint for 2032 (published in 2016), the Chief Minister of Jharkhand committed to working on eliminating poverty, doubling farmer's income by 2022 and ensuring sustainable development in Jharkhand (Swaniti, 2017). A new Vision document prepared by the Confederation of Indian Industry in 2011 emphasised three key areas: minimum quality of life, governance, and sustainable economic development. The vision remains a top-down one, driven by the elites, largely non-adivasi, bureaucrats and the private sector. Adivasi voices and priorities are largely missing.

Research on ‘well-being’ has progressed from an exclusive focus on individual, ‘objective’ outcomes (such as literacy and schooling, health and nutrition, and the ability to work and earn an income, as conceptualised in the Human Development Report) to being ‘a process that comprises material, relational and subjective dimensions’ (White, 2010: 170). Varying with history, geography, across time, space and life cycle, the concept of well-being captures the dynamics of the relationships between these different elements in people's lives (White, 2010: 170).

However, a focus on binaries of poverty–wealth, well-being–ill-being, happiness–unhappiness persists in development discourses. Efforts to move people out of poverty (Narayan, 2009) often stress the material dimensions of people's lives, ignoring the relational, emotional and non-material, which are equally important for a person's well-being.

Families are major sites of gendered socialisation during childhood. Children observe the actions of their parents and as they grow older are socialised into gender roles, learning and reproducing, but sometimes challenging, particular roles and responsibilities. Relationships are crucial in this process – with parents, siblings, peers and others. One of the key concerns expressed by parents relates to the life chances and future well-being of their children. The normative expectation of ‘maternal altruism’, where mothers are primarily responsible for the care of children and maintenance of the household, however, poses a dilemma for women. While the well-being of her children is indeed a very important priority for a mother, she has to make choices: how far can she really be herself, how important is it to socialise the child, especially the daughter, to lead a life without bearing some of her own trials and tribulations, or is it preferable to sacrifice her own identity and possibly emotional well-being for the sake of the material well-being of her children and gaining a life of peace (cf. Ahmed, 2014)? Women have to negotiate functional boundaries and work out the extent to which deviations are permissible, within the larger context of patriarchy. When my own daughter was born, a dear friend of the family, now no more, sent me a congratulatory card, in which she wrote, ‘Never stop being yourself for the sake of your daughter. She will appreciate you for who you are, not what you gave up for her sake’.

Introduction

The historic United Nations (UN) statement of the mid-1980s that women, comprising 50 per cent of the world's population, own just 1 per cent of its property, generated considerable research and policy interest in property and land rights, particularly in rural, agrarian societies. Women's land rights now constitute the magic potion for poverty reduction, agricultural growth and women's empowerment. The shift, partly due to feminist advocacy (Agarwal, 1994, 1998), has conflated gender inequality with inequality in resource allocation, particularly land. Other critical constraints that women face are disregarded (Razavi, 2003).

Women's land rights are seen as particularly important in the context of demographic changes in occupational patterns, with more and more men migrating to urban areas or looking for non-farm work in rural areas. In India, for instance, Visaria (1996) analyses National Sample Survey (NSS) data to show that while the proportion of rural male workers in agriculture declined from 83.7 per cent to 74 per cent from 1961 to 1993–94, the proportion of women dropped only marginally from 89.7 per cent to 86.1 per cent during this period. Given that the relative share of women in the agricultural labour force is higher than that of men, lack of women's land rights is seen as a major bottleneck in improving agricultural production.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)'s Rural Poverty Report argues that ‘the strength of custom and male power make it difficult to identify practical changes to land systems that will improve women's land rights’ [2001: 87], consequently enhance production and lead to a reduction in poverty. Within this framework, the problem of land distribution is presented as a struggle for control between men and women, or between modern and customary law. Such oppositional positioning and dichotomisation between genders or legal frameworks, each presented as internally united and homogenous, ignores the mutuality and interdependence between men and women, as well as between the state and community institutions. These are not autonomous individuals or spheres, but constantly adapting in relation to each other (S. F. Moore, 1978), when seen from a historical perspective.

Introduction

Contests over property reflect and shape relationships between people over a period of time as much as between people and resources. They also reflect competing representations of these relationships and notions of the ‘community’ in specific political–economic contexts (Li, 1996). In many instances, women occupy a disadvantaged position in terms of property rights within the traditional social structures, and in contexts of scarcity, their rights are likely to be the first to be challenged, necessitating the need to protect them. The claims for women's rights to landed property also represent struggles over institutions, status, identities, roles, rules and practices, not just between men and women, but between different groups of men as well. However, the debate is often presented in a polarised, either–or manner – as a struggle between men and women or between statutory law and custom (International Fund for Agricultural Development [IFAD], 2001). I have discussed the problems of presenting the issue of women's land claims and secure access as a male-versus-female struggle in Chapter 3; in this chapter I examine the second strand of this polarisation, namely the nature of the legitimisation system. Is there really a choice to be made between statutory codes and customary practices to ensure women's rights?

Internationally, land rights for women gained visibility in the women's movement with the dramatic statement at the United Nations (UN) Women's Conference in Copenhagen in 1980 that women owned only one per cent of the world's resources while constituting 50 per cent of the world's population (UN, 1980: 8). The ground for this had been prepared in 1979 by the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). This included specific clauses on the equal treatment of women in agrarian reform as well as similar rights for both spouses in the ownership, management and disposition of property. With the strengthening of women's movements globally during the UN Decade for Women (1976–85), the exclusion of women from the ownership of land has been increasingly questioned, and legal reform sought to change this position.

In India, this line of argument was articulated in the policy process for the first time in the Sixth Five-Year Plan in 1980 (Government of India, 1980).

Introduction

The Santal Parganas in Jharkhand (erstwhile south-eastern Bihar) was reorganised in 1981 into five districts, Dumka (which is the divisional headquarters), Deoghar, Godda, Sahebganj and Pakur. The Santal tribals constitute a large proportion of the population and are also spread across several adjacent districts of Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. The Santal Parganas have three distinct tracts. About a third of the area consists of partially forested hills, running from north to south, and valleys with small villages and clearings for cultivation. Half is rolling country in the west and south-west, with long ridges, intervening depressions, rocks or scrub jungle. The third tract is the rice-cultivating plain between the Ganga and the hills. The area was once rich in forests of different types, which are now restricted to small pockets.

Dumka was connected to the rail network only in 2011, but the division has a fairly good system of roadways. Major towns are linked by buses; yet the bullock cart remains the main form of local transport, particularly for goods. As ordinary carts cannot negotiate the steep hills and boulders, people generally walk. Bicycles are gradually increasing but are exclusively used by men. Women have no option but to walk from their village, at least up to the roadside.

The population is mostly rural; three towns were recorded in 1901, rising to twelve in 1981. Many missionary societies run educational and medical institutions in the district. Mainstream society considers the Santals as labourers in agriculture and construction. For generations they have been employed to clear the land and work in the tea plantations of the north-east, as well as in agriculture and construction in eastern India. Literacy was low at 37.26 per cent for men and 14 per cent for women in the region in 1991. This is likely to be even lower for the Santals and Paharias despite the designated tribal schools. In 1993–94, there was great enthusiasm for the National Literacy Mission's adult literacy campaign. Women were also organised to form savings groups named Jaago Behena (Awaken Women) and Didi Bank (Elder Sister's Bank). However, the lack of adequate post-literacy and continuing education programmes have led to a rapid decline into illiteracy.

Introduction

The Indian Agricultural Research Institute celebrated its centenary in 2005. Having spent my early childhood at the institute's campus in New Delhi, I was tempted on this occasion to explore the original intention of the institute, set up in 1905 in Pusa in Darbhanga district of Bihar, and the state of agricultural research and extension now, 100 years later, in parts of Bihar that now constitute Jharkhand. This chapter is divided into two sections. The first, based on archival research, provides a historical account of the setting up of the institute – the motivations and purpose as well as the choice of site in Bihar. The second part is based on primary research in Dumka district of the Santal Parganas. The research, however, was conducted in 1999–2000, prior to the formation of Jharkhand, and presents both village-level data on agricultural production and constraints to productivity gains as well as the current status of agricultural extension, reorganised as part of the National Agricultural Technology Project (NATP), supported by a loan from the World Bank.

The Historical Context

Different parts of India had faced serious famine conditions in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In response to the reports of Famine Commissioners in 1878 and 1898, and John Augustus Voelcker's mission in 1889–90, the imperial government of the time, which had already reconstituted the Department of Revenue and Agriculture and initiated some measures for agricultural improvement, decided to focus more specifically on agricultural research and extension. In October 1901, J. Mollison, Deputy Director of Agriculture, Bombay, was appointed as Inspector General of Agriculture for India, and for his assistance, a botanist and an entomologist were also appointed. But still a need was felt for a full-fledged research laboratory, in order to find ways to combat the famine situation. The idea of a research centre was thus already under consideration when Henry Phipps of the United States visited India, and on seeing the conditions, he came forward with a donation of 20,000 pounds to be devoted to ‘whatever object of public utility (preferably scientific research)’. In accepting this generous offer, it appeared to then British Viceroy, George Nathanie Curzon, that ‘no more practical or useful object could be found to which to devote a portion of this gift, nor one more entirely consonant with the wishes of the donor, than the erection of a laboratory for agricultural research’.