category called women farmers, but only women cultivators. Mamta Chitnis Sen, who is also an artist, highlights the plight of the invisible women farmers of India, through her paintings, and the written word.
The idea of exploring, documenting and writing about women farmers of my country took shape through a personal experience. A few years ago, I inherited some ancestral farming land owned by my father’s side. While I was entitled to the land legally through birth, I soon found myself defending my rights in courts of law mainly because members of my extended family, (mostly male), believed that ancestral rights to property belonged to men alone.
Excluding women
In the following two years, I had to legally fight the matter (and won too), but during those numerous visits to the court which was based in a remote rural area of Konkan in Maharashtra state, where the matter was being heard out, I came across several such cases of women being denied inheritance of their own properties. A majority of them hailed from underprivileged backgrounds, and were mainly agricultural workers or cultivators. Interestingly, while they too toiled equally hard as their husbands, fathers, and brothers, a majority of these women were categorically kept away from being legal heirs on the lands the family owned. Even when division of land happened, the distribution would mainly take place amongst the men in the family.
In rare cases, when few women did get property on their names on paper, in reality, they were refrained from taking decision of their own land. It was the men who were decision makers. The women ended up merely as caretakers. Unfortunately, most women in rural areas despite being educated up to primary level, are not aware on how to use their vacant land to their benefit. The situation isn’t just restricted to Konkan. I found women farmers in a similar quandary in the states of West Bengal and Chhattisgarh where I would often travel for work. In West Bengal, women were expected to take ‘permission’ to toil their land, if they actually ended up owning one. While in Chhattisgarh, they largely worked as agriculture labourers on fields other than theirs, for a pittance. The agrarian crises in India and farmers committing suicide further compounded the problems of women in agriculture, as they have been left without any source of livelihood. Reasons for farmers committing suicides are many – drought, debt, poor irrigation, genetically modified seeds, use of pesticides, failure of crops, stress etc., being the major ones. Widows of farmers who have committed suicide again are at the mercy of the government machinery to get compensation or loan waivers.
Reality of women farmers
In official terminology, there is no category called women farmers, but only women cultivators. For purpose of the census, a person is classified as cultivator if he or she is engaged in cultivation of land owned or held from government, or held from private persons or institutions for payment in money, kind, or share. Cultivation includes effective supervision or direction in cultivation. A person working on another person’s land for wages in cash or kind or a combination of both (agricultural labourer), is not treated as a cultivator. In practical terms, a woman is not treated as a cultivator because she does not hold the patta (a legal document issued by the government establishing the ownership of a person over a particular piece of land); the husband owns it. So, technically, he is the cultivator, not she. Even if she owns the patta, the patriarchal society/family does not treat her as a farmer.
As per the 2011 government census report, there are about 41,896,000 female cultivators in India, out of 127,313,000 cultivators, i.e., 32 per cent are women cultivators (farmers). Following are some interesting statistics on active women farmers in Maharashtra, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh. While Maharashtra has 1.27 percent of women cultivators, (50779 out of 4000724), West Bengal has 2.32 per cent, (8678 out of 373138) and Chhattisgarh has 1.1 per cent (13218 out of 1241967), respectively.
The percentage of women farmers with land in their own names is dismal. According to expert agrarian economist from Tata Institute of Social Sciences Prof. R. Ramakumar, as many as 87 percent women in India do not own their land; only 12.7 percent of them do. And since these women farmers do not own land they are not entitled for a bank loan since banks insist on land as collateral in return for sanctioning loans. And women farmers hardly have patta in their name. While patriarchal social/family structures deny them inheritance, neglect by official rules/laws do not provide them patta over their land, and because of which they are denied a bank loan. All of these problems make the presence of women farmers in agriculture invisible.
The percentage of women inheriting land is also sketchy. Prof. Ramakumar points out that there is no data on this. Till the Hindu Religious Act 2005 came into force, it was not even mandatory for a father to give any asset to the daughters. Even after 2005, this law, due to strong patriarchal structures in family, is violated. As a result, daughters hardly get rights of inheritance. The problems women face when inheriting lands from their fathers/ husbands is the same. In most cases, sons argue that as dowry has already been given to their female siblings while they were married off, they can’t claim land in the father’s family any more. Further, women farmers who do have land in their names are not allowed to take decisions for themselves. That decision is taken either by their brothers or husbands.
Interestingly, not only is there no data available on how much a woman farmer earns compared to her male counterpart on the fields, but there are also no safety measures like gloves, masks etc., when they handle fertilisers/pesticides/weedicides on the field.
Furthermore, the condition of women farmers in India differs from state to state because the agro-ecological regions and crops grown differ. For example, the condition of women farmers in a sugarcane growing region of Maharashtra are different from those of women growing ‘ragi’ or paddy in a tribal region of West Bengal.
Translating social issues on canvas
I believe art is a universal language and social subjects like the above when portrayed through art (painting in my case), connect well with different audiences.
Documenting the inequality and issues of women farmers through art came naturally to me following my first-hand experiences. The inspiration behind my first set of paintings ‘Sawantwadi Series’ were the women farmers from Sawantwadi – a former princely state in the Konkan district of Maharashtra. The series was an attempt to document the plight of these women farmers through art. My paintings depicted women either solo or in groups, going about their daily chores on the fields of Sawantwadi. This was followed by my second series, ‘Women in Fields’. The paintings showcased women farmers (of all ages and stages in life—single, married, ageing), attending to their daily chores in life in the fields – either alone or with companions, or in conversations with each other with the lush green fields forming the backdrop for their activity.
In ‘Silent Brides’, I tackled the subject of marriage amongst the tribal communities of Bengal and Chhattisgarh wherein again women farmers from the poor and marginalised communities were married off for a price by their parents. Again, these women did not have a say in their choice of partners. The blank faces of these women in my paintings are an indication of how women farmers in India are devoid of their own voice and identity, and how they continue to remain a minority, neglected and ignored. Interestingly, these very paintings when exhibited in countries other than India, connected with the audiences instantly. In European countries like France, Denmark, Lithuania and Germany, both men and women seemed to identify with the issue.
Artists in the past and present too have used woman as subjects to invoke various passions in the viewer. My idea of documenting this subject through art is an attempt to create a revolution of change in their lives and making the world aware that even in progressive times like ours, certain sections of society do need upliftment. And art is one way of doing it.
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Mamta Chitnis Sen
A journalist for over two decades, Mamta Chitnis Sen has worked with reputed publications, reporting on crime, politics, religion, art, community, human interest, and general news. She was Executive Editor of Dignity Dialogue, and presently handles media advocacy for Child Rights and You (CRY) – an NGO working for the rights of underprivileged children in India. Mamta is also an artist, and has exhibited her works in India and abroad. [/column]