Abstract
Abstract
The complexities of studying informal sector labour can be dealt with bringing a wide range of identities and ideas used by the workers, which encompass beyond the socio-economic and political identities. 2
This article is based on my MPhil dissertation, ‘Conditions of Informality: Beedi Industry in Colonial and Post 1947 Central India’, submitted to the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2015.
Introduction
The structure of the Indian economy has widely been divided into formal/organised and informal/unorganised sectors. More than 90 per cent of the workforce is engaged in the informal sector and the rest of them in formal sector. However, the labour studies are largely confined to the formal sector; informal sector in labour studies is a recent one. It is to be pointed out that informality is operated in multiple ways from the structure of the establishments to regulations extended to them. The beedi industry is located within informality, which raises new questions about conceptualising the heterogeneous production regimes. This industry operates through both factory- and home-based productions and therefore forms a unique case. A rigid division and separation of the two phases of production ignores the complex layers in the relations of production and organisation of the industry. They reduce these complexities to binaries of factory- and home-based productions. The present article will begin the discussion with a description of the multiplicities of establishments and the implications it had for the workers involved in beedi industries.
For the study, Central Province was selected because of the heavy concentration of beedi work. The availability of raw materials, such as tendu leaves, was the reason for emerging beedi work in this province. A Member of the Legislative Assembly brings out the association, ‘[…] the industry which has developed in our province on account of gift of nature in the shape of leaves and on account of the fact that our province can supply cheap labour, this industry should not be killed’. 3
Central Provinces and Berar, Legislative Assembly Proceedings, 5 March 1947, 3 vols (Nagpur: Government Printing Central Provinces and Berar, 1948), 1–28: 316.
Central Provinces and Berar, Report of the Bidi Industry Committee (Nagpur: Government Printing, 1941), 5.
Ibid.
Central Provinces and United Provinces, Report of Royal Commission on Labour in India: Written Evidence, 3 vols (London: H.M. Stationary Office, 1931), 1: 41.
A verandah is an open courtyard in front of houses.
D.V. Rege, The Report on an Enquiry into Conditions of Labour in Bidi, Cigar and Cigarette Industries (Shimla: Government of India Press, 1946), 14.
The bidi industry has various unique features of its own and is different from rather than similar to other types of industries in more ways. It is very difficult to categorise this industry into one particular class, namely, large, small scale or cottage industry. 9
Government of India, Report of Marketing of Bidi tobacco, tendu leaf in India, Marketing Series 169 (Nagpur: Government of India, 1969), 126.
What marked beedi establishments out was lack of separation between a workshop and the house of a worker. Even in the initial descriptions of the beedi industry, we find instances of such an overlap, Supplementary Evidence of Royal Commission on Labour (1931) wrote:
decided overcrowding is reported but lighting and ventilation are generally to be satisfactory as verandahs sometimes enclosed by bamboo lattice screen, constitute the most common and perhaps the favourite workshop specially in villages where suitable houses are not available on rent.
10
J.H. Whitley, Royal Commission on Labour, Report of Royal Commission on Labour in India, Supplementary Evidence, 11 vols (London: H.M. Stationary office, 1931), 237.
In addition, the Central Provinces and Berar Legislative Assembly (1939) stated that ‘A bidi factory means nothing more than a hut or a hall, as the case may be, which affords sitting accommodation for the labourers to work in the day’. 11
Central Provinces and Berar, Legislative Assembly Proceedings, 1st April, Vol. V (Nagpur: Government Printing, 1939), 823.
See Ela Bhatt, ‘The Invisibility of Home Based Work: The Case of Piece Rate Workers in India’ in Invisible Hands: Women in Home-Based Production, eds. Andrea Menefee Singh and Anita Kelles-Viitanen (New Delhi: SAGE Publication, 1987), 29.
The government reports describe informal sector as one that does not have any protection.
The category of informal workers covers ‘Thus workers in the unorganised sector include all the workers of the unorganised sector as well as the casual and contract workers in the organised sector who, for one reason or another, have failed to get the benefits of protective legislation or laws on social security’ (Government of India, Report of the Second National Commission on Labour, (Governmentof India: Ministry of Labour, 2002), 603).
Initially, two acts were extended to the beedi industry, the ‘Central Provinces Unregulated Factories Act of 1936’ and the ‘Beedi and Cigar Act of 1966’. Both the acts were preceded by discussion on the need for such acts in the informal sector. Members of the Assembly feared that beedi employers would evade the provisions of the acts by splitting or breaking down their units of production. Even then legislation partially covered the category of home–based production and focused on factory or workshop.
Government of India, Report on Survey of Labour Conditions in Beedi Factories in India (Chandigarh: Labour Bureau, 1965–66), 5.
Government of India, Report on Working and Living Conditions of Workers in Beedi Industry in India (Chandigarh/Shimla: Labour Bureau, 1995), 140.
What is important for the present discussion is to understand the connection between home-based production and women. The status of a home-based woman worker is reduced to that of passivity. The Report of 1966 states that the ‘trade unionism in the industry was not found to be satisfactory and was generally weak because of the conservatism of women who formed the major part of labour employed in the industry’. 17
Report on Survey of Labour Conditions in Beedi Factories in India, 41.
Although beyond the scope of this article, the testimonies of the workers have instances of collective action. Most of the protests are independently organised and led by the women workers through colonial and post-colonial phase. In the interviews of women workers from Chandbarh, we find instances of protest where they organised protests outside their contractor’s house. These were locally organised by the women for better wages for their work. Group interview in Chandbarh on 23 June 2014.
The status of women, for Vinod Sen, is restricted to home–based production, largely owing to their illiteracy: ‘The home based beedi workers, mostly women, have no bargaining power and they usually roll beedis with the limited purpose of supplementing their family incomes to the extent possible. Women working conditions are quite miserable in this industry’ (Labour in an Informal Sector: A Study of Beedi Rolling Industry in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh (Delhi: Segment Books, 2012), 216).
The increase in informalisation was possible by employing women. Women were perceived to have preferred home-based production as their domestic responsibilities and cultural conservatism did not allow them to work outside of their home. Gender affiliations were either completely absent or they were hindrances to collective union action. It is to be pointed out that the existing scholarship in this field has made no effort to understand the preferences of workers or how they were managing domestic responsibilities alongside beedi work. The correlation between women and home-based production is strengthened in the debates of beedi industry making the arrangement appear as a natural division of labour. Meena Gopal looks at the everyday interactions of the women workers and the contractors in Tamil Nadu. According to Gopal, ‘Despite the beedi work being home-based and women separated from one another due to the individual responsibilities of their homes, they do sit and work in small groups within or outside the homes’. 20
Meena Gopal ‘Disempowered Despite Wage Work: Women Workers in Beedi Industry’, Economic and Political Weekly 34, no. 16/17 (April 17–30, 1999): 19.
Ela Bhatt argues that ‘home based workers are presently invisible. There are no official or even unofficial records of their existence, their conditions and their contribution to the national economy’, in ‘The Invisibility of Home based Work’, 33.
The Report on Labour Conditions in Beedi Factories in India, 1965–66 (p. 10) mentions the proportion of women workers in factories. In 1965, for the state of Madhya Pradesh, in 51 large factories was 27.6 per cent (5,260).
By turning to the process of gendering and the space of women’s work, we can explore the meaning that women attach to their own work and to the production process both in work/public and residence/private spaces. The implications beedi work had on the lives of workers were beyond mere wage supplement. 23
Shram Shakti, Report by National Commission on Self-Employed and Women Employed in the Informal Sector (New Delhi: Government of India, 1988). In Shakti, Report by National Commission on Self-Employed and Women Employed in the Informal Sector, we have interviews of women working under contract system at home. In the interviews, they speak about the ways through which contract system opened spaces for them. They spoke at what point in their lives they take up this work, how dynamics within their community and families changed because of this work.
These instances were present in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha discussions for the Beedi and Cigar Act of 1966. As it was suggested, ‘beedi ka kaam mashakat ka kaam nhi hai. Usse ghar mein bethe ladkiyan bhi kar sakti hai. Isse yeh hoga ki rojgar paeda hoga aur bachchon mein kaam karne ka shauk paeda hoga’ (Beedi work does not involve hard physical labour girls could easily do this work from their homes. This will create new employment opportunities for them and girls will also get interested in working). Lok Sabha Debates, Sixteenth session, 60 vols, Third Series, 1 November 1966, column, 233 (New Delhi: Lok Sabha Secretariat).
The ways in which workers talk about their work and the identities that they form through this description are important to understand the overlap/interaction between domestic responsibilities and the home production of beedis. The differences or even the similarities in informal work patterns can be better contextualised using everyday experiences of the workers. The fluidity makes it important to study the ways in which workers react and reconfigure in relation to the demands from their work. The significance of this fluidity is discussed primarily in the context of organised work. The problem comes with the need to conceptualise these aspects with informal work. The meaning and value this work has for the workers is an important factor in the growth and continuance of this industry. Falling outside the purview of conventional sites of work, that is, factory floors; the home site offers new ways of understanding informal work and the significance it may hold for the workers involved.
Based on the interviews of women workers in Bhopal, 25
We focus on Bhopal city within the Madhya Pradesh state. As being the capital of the state, it had migration of people from other neighbouring cities and villages. It also has a significant population of its own involved in the beedi work. Some of the respondents were born in Bhopal, and their entire generations were involved in beedi work, while others had recently started engaging in beedi work.
By understanding the differences in the family setup and regional movement of the workers, we can begin to understand their preferences and experiences with beedi work.
Socialisation and Community Relations of Women Beedi Workers
The process of making beedi and the way work is introduced to workers helps in understanding the perceptions about this work. The age of workers is one of the many variables which determine the terms of eligibility and the attitude towards it. The early phase is crucial, especially for those who are introduced to this work at a young age. The narratives of women who began such work when young are quite different from those who began later in life. The differences in the initial experiences of women allow for speculation on the different trajectories that are traced by women. Two groups of women from Sagar and Bhopal districts revealed how and when they started this work and the factors which were responsible for it. In their accounts of how they started beedi work, it is interesting to note how they mark the time of the past. To the question of when they began beedi-making, the workers usually responded that:
I do not remember the time or year now only the rate of beedi. I started making beedis when the rate was nine rupees fifty paisa over here [Bhopal] and four rupees and fifty paisa in Vidisha—since then I have been making beedis. From that it went on increasing and now it is seventy rupees.
26
This interview was taken on 20 December 2014 in the Chola region of Bhopal. It was conducted at the house of SS, and her children were also present at that time. She also learnt stitching and focuses on tailoring more than beedi work. She moved to Bhopal after her marriage and she spoke about the differences she felt in working at Vidisha and Bhopal. As I discuss in the next section how the process of learning beedis was tied to place where you learnt it. It is relevant to note for the present discussion that Chitra Joshi similarly shows in her interviews with beedi workers of Kanpur that ‘The chronology of rates in their statement—we made bidis at 10 annas [per 1000] (‘Humne 10 anna bidi banayi’)—was a way of narrating time, a reference to the long years of bidi making for them’ (Chitra Joshi, ‘Notes on the Breadwinner Debate: Gender and Household Strategies in Working Class Families’, Studies in History 18 (2002): 273).
The changes in the rates of beedis also help to record the progress made over the years. A group of women recalled that ‘Initially it [beedi] was made for five rupees, then it was for ten rupees, then for fifteen. The rates kept on increasing; now it has reached sixty rupees’. 27
Group interview in Bhim Nagar, on 17 June 2014. It was a group of women who belonged to the same family. They moved to Bhopal from Pali from Uttar Pradesh when they lost their farms in a fire. Women started working together, and their husbands had small food stalls or vegetable carts in the areas close by. Some of the families were entirely dependent on beedi work. Their male members worked as sorters and checkers with the contractors. There was internal competition and tensions within the family members over the number submitted and rejected at the contractor’s office. Interview was conducted over two days at their house where they collectively spoke of their experiences over the years.
When they recall about how rates of the beedis changed they also talk about changes in the conditions of their work. A worker from Sagar said that ‘Earlier when we used to make then we used to get sufficient amount of the Zarda [tobacco to be filled in beedis] and leaves. The contractors were also good it used to be nice but now there is no return on our labour. We invest our money then also there is no profit’. Interview in Chandbarh, on 23 June 2014. They also repeat the changes in the attitude towards education, during the times they were growing up education was not given importance the way it is done at present.
Among the initial memories of beedi work is the way they were introduced to this work and extent to which they voluntarily learn beedi-making. A worker said, ‘Initially we felt that once we learn this work then we will be able to earn some money, we learnt it so that through this work we will get something’ (‘Acha shuru shuru mein aisa lagta tha ki paise aayenge aayenge. Sikh liya ki iss mein kuch milega’). 29
Group interview in Chandbarh, on 23 June 2014.
Group interview, at Bhim Nagar, on 17 June 2014.
Interview with MD, in Bhim Nagar area of Bhopal, on 17 June 2014. She belongs to the Chaurasia community. The interview was conducted at her relative’s house where other beedi workers were also present. She was oldest in the group. She recounts her experiences of the time when she started making beedis. This statement can be placed within the context of disappointment and fears she faced while struggling to sustain an entire family. This work for her did not have positive results. Her husband was also involved with this work. She recounts everyday anxieties they faced at the time of the submission of the beedis. There were differences in the responses of the workers within the same group. However, as she was the oldest, she dominated the discussion and other respondents also gave her space to speak.
Group interview, Chola road, on 22 June 2014. This group had women from different regions and family backgrounds working in the same area. I will bring out the differences in the responses within group in the next sections.
Once beedi rolling was introduced in a neighbourhood, it did not necessarily mean that all the family members took up this work. Acceptance and adaption to this work was determined by the economic setting and social structure of the family. The work may start and discontinue at different time depending on the economic situation, but knowing the skill of beedi-making becomes a part of their lives. This knowledge is passed on to the younger generation, mostly to girls before getting married, as a reserve from which they can draw when the need arises.
These varying economic backgrounds may be situated against the time when they learnt to understand their attitudes towards this work. An example of this was the difference in the responses of two workers to the question of what they thought about this work. The one who has been making beedis for about 35 years, says, ‘I started making at the age of 15 years. It is King’s work; it feels nice to sit at home and not labour for anyone. I still feel like making beedis’. 33
Group interview, Chandbarh, on 22 June 2014. Respondent SM came from a family where everyone used to make beedis and she learnt it at an early age with her friends. Even after her marriage, she continued with this work with her husband. I will use extracts of her interview throughout the article to show how she talks about beedi work. As she feels not only did this work make possible for her to educate her children and sustain her family, but it also gave her space without any constant surveillance of any person over her work.
It is reflected that combination of factors account for the differences in the reactions of the workers. From the above discussion, we can see, what does beedi-making symbolise in terms of the sociability of the workers. The extent to which this helps in bringing together a sense of camaraderie is difficult to substantiate but beedi production opened a new sense of sociability among the workers. 34
We can see from the workers’ narratives that they have learnt beedi- making in groups. To continue beedi work, it was essential that others in the neighborhood also took up this work. This made their friendships an integral part of the production process.
Here I refer to the caste hierarchies. In their responses, the workers talked about how and in what ways they still maintain distance from certain communities. They also talk about the problems of cities, where all the communities live together, compared to their villages where communities occupied separate spaces. According to them, it is easier to maintain community relations in the villages, where workers of the same community also lived together.
Skill and Beedi-making Experiences
Many scholars argue that beedi-making is a simple task which does not require any skills. However, Meena Gopal shows the various stages and skill involved in beedi rolling and how women could choose the stage and site where they wished to work. 36
Gopal, ‘Disempowered despite Wage Work’, 15.
A common response among the workers was that making beedi is ‘a bride’s make-up’ (bindani ka shingar) ‘you have to cut the leaves, peel, then fold, then you are able to make them, there is a lot of drama’ (katao patti, chilo, thopo sudharo jab bana pao kitne natak hai). 37
Interview with R Chaurasia, on 18 June 2014, in her house Bhim Nagar. She speaks of her struggles when she tried to organise the workers. As we mentioned earlier that in Bhim Nagar, workers were from the same family, which, lead to heighten tensions over the rates of beedis. These tensions made it difficult for the workers to come together in their negotiations with the contractors. Contrasted to this, the Chandbarh region workers from different regions had witnessed collective action of the workers. However, for this present discussion it is important to note the role of community relations with every stage of informal work. This role was significant for beedi industry as it grew with the help of neighbourhood ties and community relations.
Interview with SH, on 24 June 2014, Chola road in Bhopal. It was a part of group interview in which the ones which made maximum beedis spoke the most about their speed. There was a sense of pride and achievement with the way and number of good beedis the workers could make in a day.
This limited the space for workers with low daily output of beedis.
Interview with SK at Kenchi, taken on 21 December 2014. The advantage with making beedis with your hands was that worker could put the tobacco simultaneously. This helped in saving the time while rolling the beedis.
A group interview of the workers from Sagar and Bhopal in Chandbarh, 23 June 2014. The interview was taken in Chandbarh, Bhopal where the workers were living for 20 years and make the beedis together. In the group, there were also some women who could not make beedis after years of practicing. She said that ‘everyone is able to make it but I do not know how to make it. I do not get to know which is the leaf that is used for beedi. All the women who were there used to make it’ (Bana lete hai sab log par hum nhi bana paye, haan yeh nhi sikhi hai. Hum patta hi nhi pachan pate hai beedi ka kaunsa hai. Jitni aurate hai sab bana li thi.).
It takes a month to learn it, first you learn how to cut it, then you have to learn how to peel it, then you learn how to fold it. There is a lot of work with the beedis and it takes a month to learn it. There is no one work with beedi. Beedi work never gets over, even if you are done for the day. You have to start preparing for the next day. You also have to make beedi very carefully so that beedi is not rejected and we get good money from it. 41
Group interview, in Chola road, 21 June 2014.
The organisation of time, whether dictated through skill or with other responsibilities forms a crucial aspect of this work as it is carried out at home. This differentiation helps in pointing out the efficiency or the skill in learning the work and managing other responsibilities simultaneously with it. In their narratives, the workers constantly complain about the difficulties of managing domestic work and home–based production of beedis. A worker describes that how she struggles between these two tasks, ‘you finish the house work then you sit and cut the leaves, you have to do double work. We have to make beedi, till the midnight’. 42
Ibid.
For the workers, it was not about taking a few hours to do beedi work. They restructure their day’s work according to the requirements of beedi work. Every stage of beedi-making was complex in its own way; and the workers’ wages depended on the extent to which they could carry out these tasks of beedi work properly. A woman said that ‘there is constant tension if beedis are rejected and we are not able to do domestic work. Our husbands fight with us that you wasted all your time making beedis’. 43
Group interview in Chandbarh, Bhopal on 22 June 2014.
GM says in her interview that ‘my mother in law used to always fight with me if beedis did not come out perfectly. I leant it over here from her and she was screaming at me if I could not make beedis well like she did’. Interview in Chandbarh, 23 June 2014. If women were married to a house where they make beedis, then it was a constant source of tension in the family. The daughter-in-law was expected to make as much if not more number of beedis as the mother-in-law. Contributing in beedi work and domestic work were two roles that the daughter-in-laws had to manage.
Interview, with CC, Chola road, 18 June 2014. Her mother used to make beedis, but she discontinued due to her ill-health. She also runs a small grocery shop which they opened from their savings with the beedi work. CC still rolls beedis and her husband works at a small factory. CC also knows tailoring and prefers it over beedi work. She and her mother spoke of how beedi work was essential for their subsistence. But CC had stronger dislike for it because there are other options of employment and there is no family pressure to continue with this work after her marriage.
The flexibility to discontinue this work helps them in dealing with the stress and physical discomfort of this work. They further said, ‘For four months, I have not been making beedis; since Holi, I have discontinued, as my head starts hurting. People may say that it is easy but those who have done this work and left it, you should ask them’. 46
Group interview in Bhim Nagar, on 17 June 2014.
Group interview in Bhim Nagar taken on 18 June 2014.
Changing Family Roles Within Informal Work
The process of making beedis involves the labour of all the family members. The way in which it was used varied across families and over the years. At different stages of life, family members were involved with various stages of beedi-making. The patterns emerging in such arrangements and the changes in them help in knowing about work organisation. This can be observed with the statement of a beedi worker, who has been doing this work for the past 45 years. She said, ‘a stupid person cannot do beedi work. You need to know a lot of maths/calculations to make profit. The calculations of how many beedis have to be made, and how they have to be made, to know all this you need brains’. 48
LC, interview taken in Bhopal with her family on 21 December 2014. Her daughters who are now 25 years old also took part in this interview. They talk about how they had to manage their studies around beedi work and household work. In studying these relations, it is important to note that home work needs to be separated from domestic work which is non-wage labour done at home.
The scholars argue that beedi-making is largely carried out by women because of the presence of women in this work in large numbers. From the responses of the workers we know that men also work alongside women. 49
In a group interview taken on 18 June 2014 in Chandbarh. In their narratives, they recall that their husbands used to or still sit with them to make beedis. A worker said that her husband is in the government sector and after coming back from work he makes beedi. ‘He comes back from service, then he sits with me and makes beedis, like if he comes at six then after coming back in the break we can make 200 in an hour’. (Service se aate the aur mere sath bethke beedi banate the jaise service che baje se hai wahan se aake break mein ek ghanta mein dai teen soo beedi bana lete the.).
Interview with UC, a beedi worker from Bhim Nagar on 17 June 2014.
Interview taken in Chandbarh, on 23 June 2014. One example of this was LM, husband of a beedi worker who sat with her in interview said that ‘I used to make beedis all day, I had opened a satta
(it is beedi contract shop where locally produced beedis are submitted from there taken to the factory) but now my health no longer allows me to continue with this work.’ The deterioration in health of workers was an important factor for workers to find other opportunities. Mostly, they took up selling vegetables. They preferred this work as they would go out in the evening and sell vegetables at one location.
Woman works at home handles the children and then makes beedis as well. They are able to manage these tasks, but if they go to pack the beedis, they will have to go there and they cannot take their children along with them. If it comes to doing work then women can do anything and they can be ahead of men. 52
Interview with CC, Chola road, on 18 June 2014.
These everyday responsibilities and expectations limit women’s work options to their homes. The preferences of women need to be contextualised within these pressure/expectations of domestic responsibilities placed on them. The choices and decisions about their work were not natural consequences of their gender. Here we focus on the variables which influence the choices about the place of work for women workers and its implications on their lives.
We begin the discussion with the question—why women chose to work at home and what changes did this bring out within their family. The different financial settings of the families made it necessary for some women to work at home. For some workers, beedi work was supplementary to the income of their husband and other members in the family. Here again there was a shift with generations, earlier the entire family was involved with beedi work. All the members of the family used to sit together to make beedis but they were submitted under the name of the head of the family. A worker describes the conditions under which she used to make beedis. She said:
I used to make beedis with my children and then we used to get five to ten rupees to meet the expenditure. After working for an entire month, we could get enough to buy vegetables and oil. You could buy a pair of clothes if you work for a whole month. There were so many compulsions. We used to get five rupees that also when we made good beedi.
53
Group interview in Bhim Nagar, on 17 June 2014.
Over the years, there was a shift—every member identified her/himself as a worker and submitted their beedis individually. This made it possible for them to keep a part of or the entire wages with them. It is within these differences that we can place, and try to understand the changes with family set-up. Wages were also used for buying items which they otherwise could not afford. A worker recalls that ‘as young girls we used to make more beedis around the time of festivals so that we could buy new clothes or some cosmetic items. Even now we use the beedi money to buy things for ourselves from the market’. 54
Interview with SS on 22 December 2014 at Chola Road.
Interview with RC at Bhim Nagar, on 25 June 2014.
I wanted to go outside and work and I worked also for one year, at a shop, I was responsible for sales. I had to fight and go out because I was not allowed to go out and work. Due to the everyday fights I left my job. His [my husband] thinking it is wrong. 56
Interview with RC on 25 June 2014. I took this interview over 3 days. On the first day, she said that because of her children she cannot go out and work. On second day, she talks about problems with her husband. Even though she was made to quit work, she blames her husband’s wrong thinking or lack of understanding for not allowing her to work outside.
In the responses of other workers also we find instances where they had to fight with their husbands to work outside. 57
In some cases, there is also a difference within the family. The mother-in-law works outside and the daughter-in-law had to work from home. This leads to constant tension within the household. However, there was no direct or linear linkage whether women of the house would work outside or not. As there were also cases, the daughter-in-laws worked outside. Here the variables, that is, economic set up, family relations become the deciding factors.
Interview with RM on 23 December 2014 at Kenchi. Chitra Joshi outlines possible reasons for women continuing this work, ‘Through their work and thrift, women could now dream of a different trajectory for the family. This often became a basis on which women sought to legitimize their work’ (Joshi, ‘Notes on the Breadwinner Debate’, 271).
The second situation was either educating their children or involving them with beedi work. As women were working at home, whether and how they want to include their children with beedi-making, was largely their decision. Here we can use a few examples to bring out the workers’ aspirations for their children. By juxtaposing the responses of the two groups of workers are working at different periods of time. The first group of women belonged to the age group of 50–60, and continued to make beedis since their childhood. She said that
I have made beedi for 20continuous years. I have taught my daughters also to make beedis. Because of that those helpless girls could not study. They are sitting at home. They cannot do anything. If they had studied then they would have been able to do something. But because of beedi they could not even study.
59
Group interview on 18 June 2014, at Bhim Nagar.
Another worker said that ‘all the girls who were at home had to make beedis.
Now they cry that why did you not let us study, we would have jobs by now. If you study till fourth, fifth then what’s the use of that education, nothing’. 60
Ibid.
Interview with SS, interviewed on 21 December 2014, in Kenchi, Bhopal.
Interview with LC and her daughter, Shiv Nagar, on 22 December 2014.
This can be contrasted to the response of the workers in the age-group of 30–45, who are not regularly involved with this work. They said that ‘everyone’s children go to school; they only peel the leaves. They sit next to us and keep looking. They are only able to peel off with a knife and they cannot do anything else. But we will try that they do not learn it’. 63
Interviewer on 19 July 2014, with R in Chola road, this was a group interview.
Our children are not learning this work. Our children are studying. Nobody will learn this for ten-twelve rupees. Beedi work should be limited to us. They should learn some work that will help them in the future. We also want to leave beedi work and do something that will increase our knowledge and we will get to learn new things. 64
Group interview taken on 24 June 2014, in Chola road.
From these examples, we know that beedi work did not lead to any clear or complete shift in the balance of power at home. However, it also did not result in their subordination or isolation vis-à-vis other members of the family. In their everyday dialogues, women engage with the controls and responsibilities placed on them as home-based workers. Financial conditions of a family determined the extent to which women could spend money on themselves. The decisions about how to spend this money were taken by women, which gave them some freedom at home. With the help of this money some women hoped to move away from beedi work. In their narratives when they talk about their hopes for their children or disappointments and dissatisfaction with beedi work we know of their ambitions and the criteria through which they evaluate their work. Therefore, by looking at these, we can understand the significance and meaning of beedi work in the workers’ lives.
Conclusion
The narratives of the women workers begin with descriptions about how they learnt beedi work, how much time did it take, and the method through which they learnt this work. These form significant entry points to understand their experiences and struggles over the years. Each aspect had a significant role in deciding women’s preferences about how they hope to continue, their expectations both financial and emotional, and aspirations for their children. It brings out the differences in the choices and the factors which influence this process. Every worker had a different attitude towards this work, depending on when they learnt and the conditions under which they carried out their work. Interviews of the workers offer a way to understand these differences, and how the flexibilities within informal work were taken advantage of. Women’s community and neighbourhood relations, use of family labour, were all variables which were combined in different ways by the workers. It was therefore, through a combination of contestation and adaption that women could redraw their status within the family and as workers.