Every yr earlier than Dussehra, a mukadam (contractor) exhibits up in Maharashtra’s drought-hit Beed district, the place Durga (title modified to guard privateness), 34, and her household of 4 dwell. He provides them a mortgage of about ₹1 lakh, thereby ‘booking’ the couple right into a contract that can lock them for the subsequent a number of months. The mortgage shall be repaid — deducted from wages — together with a 5% curiosity.
After Deepavali, Ms. Durga’s household, together with her three kids, will bundle up their sparse belongings, spherical up their goats, and board a tractor trailer to go to Kolhapur, inside the State, to chop sugarcane. Every yr, the household hopes its fortune will change. They’ve been doing this ever since she bought married at 17 or 18.
For a long time now, about 12 lakh to fifteen lakh folks migrate inside the State, from dry Marathwada, to western Maharashtra’s Sangli, Kolhapur, Pune, Satara, Solapur, and Ahmednagar — often known as the sugar belt. About 80,000 staff come from elements of Madhya Pradesh too.
They work in the sugarcane fields yearly, ending the season in March with not more than ₹50,000 to ₹60,000 for about 150 days of work. They will use this cash over the subsequent six or seven months, till Dussehra.
About 70% of 500-odd villages in Beed, Osmanabad, Jalna, Latur, and a few elements of Nanded and Parbhani districts are emptied each winter, with everybody from the native kirana (provisions) retailer to the barber shifting. Just the aged are left behind.
The mukadam is a person with political affect. The extra highly effective he’s, the extra sub-contractors he has. Once farmers (who personal the land) prepared the sugarcane for harvest, mukadams take over. Sugar factories rent them, and so they in flip rent labour, making preparations for his or her transport and keep. Mukadams additionally tie up with tractor house owners to switch the cane from farm to manufacturing facility. These middlemen are paid by the sugar manufacturing facility and pocket not less than 30% of what’s earned.
The worth of desk sugar is paid by this hidden workforce, very like it was in seventeenth century America, with sugarcane ushering in the slave commerce, and far of Europe constructed on its revenue.
A day in the life…
The tolis, teams of staff, both keep on the sugar manufacturing facility premises or in the sugarcane fields. Families transfer into momentary constructions that present little shelter as winter turns to summer season after which the rains arrive, flooding their makeshift houses. The kids don’t go to highschool, and assist their dad and mom bundle the cane.
“We come to Kolhapur in the hope that our lives will change financially. But every year, our woes grow, with low wages, harassment by contractors, and the lack of basic facilities, including toilets. There is no sign of improvement,” cries Ms. Durga, sitting underneath a tarpaulin sheet supported by a number of bamboo poles — her six-foot-long ‘house’ for the season. Cows and goats are tethered shut by. If they’re left behind, they’ll don’t have anything to eat and nobody to take care of them.
After 12 to 13 hours of steady work, Ms. Durga and her husband will get ₹400 to ₹500 collectively each day. In a rustic that’s debating whether or not ladies ought to get menstrual depart, there aren’t any welfare advantages right here — not even medical help or paid days off for pregnant ladies. If somebody dies, nobody takes accountability, and there’s no compensation.
India is immediately the world’s prime producer and client of sugar, and the second largest exporter, as per authorities information. Shekhar Gaikwad, Maharashtra’s Sugar Commissioner, says the State produces the most sugar in the nation.
Families transfer into momentary constructions that present little shelter as winter turns to summer season after which the rains arrive, flooding their makeshift houses. The kids don’t go to highschool, and assist their dad and mom bundle the cane.
| Photo Credit:
EMMANUAL YOGINI
Vagina monologues
Women begin their day at 3.30 a.m., an hour earlier than the males. After they relieve themselves in the open fields and bathe in open loos, they prepare dinner the day’s meals on open chulhas (mud stoves). They acquire firewood and fetch water from a pair of kilometres away. “Getting water is a task,” says one girl.
By 6 a.m., sickles in hand, they’re on the huge sugarcane fields that stretch from 8 to 100 acres. If they fall unwell midway — there is no such thing as a room for exhaustion — their mukadam will verbally abuse and cost them a khada (tremendous), which shall be deducted from the advance fee.
Devappa Anna Shetti alias Raju Shetti, from Kolhapur, is a farmers’ rights activist, former MP and president of Swabhimani Paksha, a regional political occasion. He says that ladies are exploited sexually by contractors, sub-contractors, tractor drivers, even co-workers. “Fearing loss of employment, which would further push them into financial trouble, the women won’t come out, so these incidents go unreported,” he says. “Sexual exploitation has become a common phenomenon. Over the past 25 years, I have come across several such cases, but the victims don’t want to approach the police,” he says.
Mirabai from Osmanabad district, working in a sugarcane subject close to Kapashi in Kolhapur, is one of the few ladies keen to discuss this. She remembers an incident from about six or seven years in the past, when one of her co-workers was repeatedly raped by the contractor in Satara. “She was helpless, but her husband did not ask her or the contractor about it,” Mr. Shetti says.
That’s not the solely downside ladies face. One girl in her early 30s says she had a hysterectomy a number of years in the past. “I underwent the surgery to prevent income loss due to menstruation,” she explains. When a girl misses work, she is fined between ₹500 and ₹1,000 per day. “I can’t miss work three or four days in a month, so like many others from Beed district, I too underwent the surgery,” she says.
On January 17 this yr, the National Human Rights Commission took suo motu cognisance of a media report on the plight of ladies labourers engaged in reducing sugarcane for factories at Shrigonda tehsil in Ahmednagar district. At least 10% of them are pregnant however unaware of their lawful rights and the advantages ensured underneath numerous authorities schemes. The fee noticed that the contents of the information report, if true, increase severe points of human rights violations. It has issued a discover to the Chief Secretary of Maharashtra calling for an in depth report.
Devappa Anna Shetti alias Raju Shetti, from Kolhapur, is a farmers’ rights activist, former MP and president of Swabhimani Paksha, a regional political occasion.
| Photo Credit:
EMMANUAL YOGINI
Zooming out and in
Maharashtra authorities officers say that this yr, 202 sugar factories, together with 102 cooperative factories, are in operation in the State and there’s a 10% crop decline attributable to unseasonal rain in September and October 2022. Of the 202 factories, 141 are in western Maharashtra — 49 in Solapur, 35 in Kolhapur and Sangli, 31 in Pune area, and 26 in Ahmednagar. Of the remaining, 29 are in Nanded, 25 in Aurangabad, 4 in Nagpur, and three in Amravati. Each manufacturing facility not directly employs about 8,000 staff to chop sugarcane.
“There is no doubt that the workers are being exploited by the mukadams. They harass the workers and pay them very little. The working and living conditions violate basic human rights,” says Mr. Shetti. He says one pair of labourers harvests not less than two tonnes of sugarcane per day. If the amount is lower than what was anticipated or the tractor is just not loaded, the labour contractor cuts wages to ₹300 or ₹350 per pair. “Their wages are inhuman. The government should take up this issue seriously. It should also make sure they are provided with basic facilities like proper shelter, toilets, health care and, most importantly, schools for the children,” Mr. Shetti says.
Women should journey lengthy distances to entry water.
| Photo Credit:
EMMANUAL YOGINI
Ground actuality
Located at Kagal, a 30-minute drive from Kolhapur, Shree Chhatrapati Shahu Cooperative Sugar Factory Limited is one of the largest sugar industries in the area. The labourers keep on the open floor subsequent to the manufacturing facility and are given primary supplies like bamboo and tarpaulin sheets to arrange huts. There are a number of moveable bathrooms and a college for the kids.
Smitha Mahadev Navade from Sakshal Pimpri in Beed, the district from which 4 to 5 lakh staff migrate every year, is making rotis for her household. In her 50s, she could be very far, each in physique and thoughts, from Parliament, the place elevating the age of marriage for girls to 21 is into consideration. Ms. Navade was married at 14 or 15.
“I’ve been coming since I got married. My parents never did this work. They had agricultural land. Since my husband has no land, we are forced to work in sugarcane fields. It’s extremely intense and risky with little payment,” she laments, including that sickle harm and sunstroke is frequent, and snakebites occur too.
Her toli harvests 5 to 6 tonnes of sugarcane every day and is paid solely ₹400 to ₹500 per pair, she says. The campsite, which has greater than 500 huts, has kirana shops, small eating places, and a barbershop. However, there is no such thing as a electrical energy, which makes life troublesome.
A brief distance away, Sadashiv Sadu Khavle and his spouse, Kamal, are busy harvesting the cane to be equipped to the manufacturing facility. The couple from Giralgaon in Osmanabad has been coming right here for a number of years now. This yr, they’re sub-contractors, with staff underneath them. “Employing people didn’t change our fate,” says Mr. Khavle, silently supervising the work.
Sugar firms are conscious of the exploitation. “Yes, we know that they are harassed and exploited by the mukadam. We have around 800 workers on the payroll. Employing all migrant labour can lead to huge financial loss to the factories,” says a senior officer at a cooperative sugar manufacturing facility in the district. Cooperatives are largely managed by political heavyweights in the State.
Mr. Shetti says that final yr over 13.20 crore metric tonnes of sugarcane was harvested by practically 12.5 lakh labourers. “An average of ₹324 per tonne was paid to the contractors. The total amount for the season comes to more than ₹4,000 crore. Of this, over ₹800 crore was the commission earned by the contractors,” he says.
“When such a huge amount is involved, the Central government should constitute a committee for the welfare of these workers. The government should give employment to at least 80% of these workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act,” the farmers’ rights activist says, unrealistically.
Despite every part, the staff see this seasonal life as a chance. “We have neither work nor water back home. There’s no income or opportunity there,” says Shankar Ranganath Kuchekar from Barkheda in Beed. “Here at least, we earn something, however meagre.”
About 12 lakh to fifteen lakh folks migrate inside the State, from dry Marathwada, to western Maharashtra’s Sangli, Kolhapur, Pune, Satara, Solapur, and Ahmednagar — often known as the sugar belt.
| Photo Credit:
EMMANUAL YOGINI
