Abstract

The ownership of land is so essential to all social policy endeavours in India that it simply cannot
be done away with. The case-study on the effects of land ownership by female beedi workers in
Kengeri, a satellite town on the outskirts of Bengalooru, is an example of the spillover effect the
ownership of land has on an overall improvement of socio-economic indicators of these women.
The Beedi Workers Housing Colony in Kengeri became a reality owing to the sustained efforts
of Mr. Afroz Pasha, the President of the Karnataka State Beedi Workers Multipurpose Co-
operative Society (Ltd.), and their work continues with the community now looking at securing
second-generation reforms. The housing model that has been adopted by the beedi workers of
Kengeri also presents a useful model that can be replicated in housing projects for other special
occupation groups.

Keywords:

Land-ownership, women, beedi, housing, feminism, minimum wages.

Land ownership and women's empowerment: A case study of the

land-owning beedi workers in Kengeri, Bengalooru
-Varun Panickar1

Any inquiry into the presence or absence of feminist virtues must necessarily source from and be
juxtaposed with some form of patriarchal vice. This has always been the nature of feminist
studies, its understanding and theorizing forever bound to its nemesis patriarchy. The perpetual
presence of patriarchy in all feminist studies must not however mean that its form remain
unexplained. It must not be the case then that the factual context, the details of the manner in
which the patriarchy realizes itself are left out, to concentrate entirely on the breakthroughs made
by feminist notions and ideas. This idea of not allowing a universal understanding of patriarchy
to hold in feminist studies was first drawn attention to by Sheila Rowbotham (1973) and later
modified by Deniz Kandiyota (1997). Rowbotham cultivated this culture for contextualizing

1 Varun Panickar is an independent researcher and an alumnus of the Masters in Public Policy
programme at the National Law School of India University, Bengalooru.
patriarchy by stressing on the social history of patriarchy, within the confines of the society being
scrutinized for the purposes of the feminism-based study.

This was taken a step further by Kandiyota who stated that the historical framework of patriarchy
in a certain context must include the distinct arrangements between the genders in that context
and the womens strategies of dealing with these arrangements. These strategies employed by the
women give rise to the patriarchal bargain which is based on the distinctions of class, caste and
ethnicity. Such patriarchal bargains influence the nature and form of womens resistance to
various forms of oppression while pointing out the transformations that can be sought and the
scope for renegotiation of relations between genders (Kandiyota 1997). Kandiyotas submission
is especially important for the purposes of this case-study since all the workers, barring two
families, residing in Beedi Workers Colony are muslims. The Islamic religion is often derided by
feminists for its practices which blatantly subordinate the position of the woman with respect to
the man. These practices tend to be even more exploitative in nature when the economic
conditions and educational status of the group are lowly.

All such poor socio-economic conditions along with a very lowly educational status are present
among the inhabitants of the Beedi Workers Colony. While in other cases the presence of all
these factors would have led to poor conditions of the women in the habitation, the ownership of
land upon which their house stands, has influenced an interesting set of gender relations within
the community. In Kandiyotas words the ownership of land and thereby the home, has given the
women of the Beedi Workers Colony greater leverage in negotiating their relations vis--vis the
men, than they would otherwise have enjoyed under similar circumstances. The renegotiated
space for the women in the Beedi Workers Colony must not however be attributed solely to their
ownership of the land, another crucial factor in effecting this change has been the fact that all the
beedi workers are women. This is of great significance firstly, because it provides these women
with employment, making them earning members of the family and secondly, the fact that all of
them are employed as beedi workers makes them a homogenous group which can improve
conditions for women across the community. Despite these factors the extent of the positive
impact that could have been had, has been restrained to a large extent due to the looming
presence of restrictive social practices dictated by religion. The fact that this case-study seeks to
understand the changes brought about by the women owning the land, which is a fairly recent
phenomenon [the project for the construction of the houses in the Colony began in 2003] no
drastic changes have been effected. However the nuances of the smaller, incremental changes
taking place below the surface must be duly noted as markers for a promising future for equal
gender relations in the community. More promise is also lent from the findings of other gender-
relations studies which studied the impact of land ownership by women and found that over a
long period time, mostly extending beyond the lifetime of the first land owners, land ownership
has a significant impact in equalizing relations between men and women.

Once such a study was a study conducted by Judith Soares and Cecilia Batson-Rollock (2010)
titled Rethinking Patriarchy in a Rural Context. This study conducted in the rural farming
community of St. Vincent and the Grenadines revealed that equal access to material resources,
especially land played a crucial role in the men recognizing women as equals. Because the
ownership of land brought with it the notion that women just like men were capable of
controlling their own destiny. This idea that women were no longer dependents of men owing to
their ownership of land is important to the context of the Beedi Workers Colony in Bangalore.
This idea is presently in a fledgling state in the Beedi Workers Colony, since the transition of the
women into landowners is too recent for instances where women have taken decisions
independent of the men in their family, to have emerged.

In order to observe the emerging trends in the colony owing to women owning the land, the
research methodology adopted involved short interviews with female beedi workers, men
belonging to different age groups and a long interview with the President of the Karnataka State
Beedi Workers Multipurpose Co-operative Society (Ltd.), Mr. Afroz Pasha. Secondary sources
that have been utilized include reports covering the Beedi Workers Colony as a best practice
emerging in the area of providing social security to special occupation groups belonging to the
economically weaker sections, ILO reports on the condition of Beedi Workers in India and
academic works of feminists in an effort to lend a feminist perspective to the developments in the
colony.

The following two chapters provide: first, a detailed insight into the Beedi industry in India, the
facts surrounding the construction of the Beedi Workers Colony in Bangalore, measures
undertaken in the colony for womens empowerment and steps to be taken in the future; second,
an understanding of the developments taking place within the colony from the prism of feminist
perspectives on land.

Chapter 2

Nature and Conditions of Beedi work in India. Beedi is a forest product and is also known as the
poor mans cigarette. A standard beedi consists of about 0.2 grams of rolled tobacco leaves also
known as tendu leaves (National Commission for Womens Report on Beedi Workers 2005).
The work done by the beedi workers follows a four-step process although the entire process is
loosely referred to as rolling beedis. The four steps are as follows:

(i) Rewinding the thread: this step requires no skill or training and is often undertaken by
children as well. All that is required is the re-rolling of the thread from a small bundle
onto an object, usually, an empty match-box or a pulley-type object;

(ii) Cutting the beedi leaves: this step requires some skill because the maximum number
of pieces cut from a leaf depends on the skill of the worker;

(iii) Rolling the beedi leaves: rolling the beedi leaves with tobacco is the main job in the
process. The tobacco must be rolled into the leaf and tied with a thread;

(iv) Folding the beedi head: this is the final step and requires no skills or training (ibid).

The rolling of beedis is an occupation which falls within the definition of the informal sector as
defined by the 15th International Labor Conference of Labor Statisticians which is as follows:

The informal sector is broadly characterized as consisting of units engaged in the production of
goods or services with the primary objective of generating employment and incomes to the
persons concerned.

These units typically operate at a low level of organization, with little or no division between
labor and capital as factors of production and on a small scale. Labor relations where they exist
are based mostly on casual employment, kinship or personal and social relations rather than
contractual arrangements with formal guarantees. (International Labor Organisation (ILO)
Resolutions Concerning Statistics of Employment in the Informal Sector Adopted by the 15 th
International Labor Conference of Labor Statisticians January 1993: para 3).

In India the informality of the beedi industry takes the form of home-based or cottage industries.
Since rolling beedis is a task that can be done at home, it has been accepted as a source of
livelihood among women on a large scale. This is especially the case in rural areas where women
are entrusted with all the household chores and women frequently stepping out of their houses is
frowned upon. This has led to about 80% of the total workforce in this sector being women. The
informal nature of employment of these women beedi workers increases manifold when the
production of beedis is home-based as opposed to when it is factory-based. This is because in
instances of home-based beedi work, the relationship of employer-employee is not as clear cut.
Many brands of beedis engage with contractors and sub-contractors who in turn make
arrangements with these home-based beedi workers. The nature of employment is casual and is
renewed on a mid-weekly basis, with every worker being given a specific amount of material
required for making a specific number of beedis, usually this number is between 700 to 1000
beedis a day. The contractor then returns to collect the beedis and pay the workers. The workers
frequently end up getting paid lesser than what is due to them for the number of beedis rolled by
them. This is because the contractors cut their wages for what is deemed to be wastage of
material, for instance a worker receiving material for rolling a 1500 beedis may end up rolling up
only 1000 beedis, due to loss of leaves in the cutting process. However such discrepancy is
usually down to the contractor claiming that the material is for a much higher number of beedis
than it is actually for. The end result of this kind of unfair treatment of the beedi workers is that
their daily wages which is inclusive of the basic component and the dearness allowance is as low
as 100 Rs/-. This is also unfair because the daily wages for rolling 1000 beedis, which is the
maximum average that a woman beedi worker can roll in a day along with completing her other
household chores, is 160 Rs/-.

Beedi workers are also vulnerable to many health risks during the course of their work as they
are constantly exposed to unburnt tobacco dust. A study conducted on beedi workers in Mumbai
(Sabale, Kowli and Chowdhary 2012) revealed that otitis externa and media, fingertip
thickening, pharyngitis and lower respiratory tract infections were common among the women
beedi workers. The beedi workers are usually avid smokers of beedis themselves and are hence
vulnerable to tuberculosis and cancer. Both, the Central as well as the state governments have
made provision to include beedi workers under various health schemes. These include the
Rastriya Swasthya Bima Yojana and the Karnataka governments Yeshaswini scheme. However
instances of beedi workers actually utilizing these schemes is not widespread as awareness about
these schemes is low. The beedi workers co-operative societies and NGOs play a crucial role in
enabling the beedi workers to avail of these schemes.

In fact it is only down to the interventions of the Karnataka State Beedi Workers Multipurpose
Co-operative Society (Ltd.) that the Beedi Workers Colony in Bangalore has become a reality.

Construction of the Beedi Workers Colony and special arrangements for the female beedi
workers. The construction of the Beedi Workers Colony was an idea that was first pushed forth
by the Karnataka Housing Board at the behest of Mr. Afroz Pasha in the year 1990. Back then the
Beedi Workers were not organized in a cooperative society, but in a workers association. The
Karnataka Housing Board accepted the proposal and collected a deposit of Rs. 5,000/- from each
of the members of the Beedi Workers Association. The project would comprise a total of 1000
houses at this stage. However much to the dismay of the Association the Karnataka Housing
Board took no constructive steps towards implementing this project despite repeated calls on
them to do so by the Association. Finally in 1998, 8 years later the Karnataka Housing Board
reacted by asking the Association to register as a cooperative society before they could engage in
any project with the Board. The Association agreed to fulfil this requirement and registered itself
as the Karnataka State Beedi Workers Multipurpose Co-operative Society (Ltd.) under the
Karnataka Co-operative Societies Act, 1959. In 2000 when the Association returned to meet the
Board their proposal was rejected, despite them having registered as a cooperative society which
put the livelihoods of many of the Beedi workers who were living in different slums of
Bangalore and were banking on this project, in a very difficult position. It was then that the co-
operative society approached the Rajiv Gandhi Rural Housing Corporation Limited (RGRHCL)
for help in the construction of the Beedi Workers Colony. The RGRHCL agreed to assist the co-
operative society in building affordable houses for the workers so long as the workers would
fund the project and identify and acquire the land necessary for the project. In order to fund the
acquisition of the land the co-operative society withdrew the funds that it had provided to the
Karnataka Housing Board, amounting to Rs. 10 lakhs/-. The land identified was a 11 acre, 13
gunthas site at the Bandimutt village in Kengeri, on the outskirts of Bangalore. The co-operative
society procured the land in the 10 lakhs that it had withdrawn from the Housing Board. The
RGRHCL commenced the work on the site under the scheme titled Ashraya Housing for
Special Occupation Groups Beedi Workers. The costs for the construction of each house in the
first phase of construction, was met in the following manner:

- 20,000 Rs/- received as subsidy from Beedi Workers Welfare Cess Act, 1976 and the
Beedi Workers Welfare Fund Act.2

- A loan of 40,000 Rs/- from the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO)
at a nominal rate of interest.

- A contribution of 25,000 Rs/- from a fund maintained by beneficiaries.

In the first phase of construction a total of 570 houses were constructed at a construction estimate
of 75,000 Rs/- for each house. In the next phase 196 houses were constructed, in this phase the
contribution from the beneficiaries was not there and hence the contribution from the Beedi
Workers Welfare Cess Act 1976, was increased to 40,000 Rs/- accordingly.

2 The Beedi Workers Welfare Cess Act 1976 aims to collect taxes by way of cess or by imposing
excise duty on manufactured beedis.The Beedi Workers Welfare Fund Act 1976 was enacted
with the objective of providing financial aid to the workers. While such aid is mostly extended in
conditions of sickness and ill-health, in the present case it came to be used for the construction of
their houses due to the presence of a strong collective bargaining mechanism in the form of the
co-operative society. These measures of providing social security to the workers is an attempt to
formalise work in the Beedi manufacturing industry. Other provisions for increasing the extent of
formalisation of beedi-work have been provided in the rules framed under this Act known as the
Beedi Workers Welfare Fund Rules 1978 which require the owner of each establishment or
factory or contractor to maintain a register of works and furnish statistics and other information
as required by the government from time to time. Employers are also mandated to provide photo
identity cards to every worker (National Commission for Women Report on Beedi Workers
2005).
The ownership of the entire house and the financial aid received for its construction were all
made in the name of the female beedi worker in the household. This was done for every single
house in the colony.

Provisions for education and vocational training of women and girls. The granting of the
ownership of the houses in the name of the female beedi worker in the household was a
relatively progressive step to have been taken considering the inhabitants of the colony are all
Muslims of low economic and educational status. However this along with many other measures
for womens empowerment were implemented at the behest of Mr. Afroz Pasha- President of the
co-operative society. His efforts have received recognition at the national level, with the society
even receiving the President of Indias medal for their work around womens empowerment.

The other notable steps taken to improve the conditions of women in the colony focused on their
education. When the colony had just been established the children of the inhabitants and
especially the girl children were unaccustomed with the routine of attending a school daily. In
order to get them familiarized with the idea of going to school on a daily basis, the Society began
a School on Wheels service for 6 months prior to the beedi workers moving into the colony and
occupying their houses. This service entailed a bus picking up children from their places of
residence in slums spread across the city. The teacher would engage in classes as the bus
travelled across the city. This engaging, out-of-classroom learning experience worked in
increasing the childrens interest levels in joining school and got them used to the routine of
attending regular school. When the construction of the colony was complete a government
school was also constructed within the premises of the colony. This was soon followed by an
English-medium school, an anganwadi and a college. The sustained efforts of the community
leaders like Afroz Pasha has seen the education levels in the community rise sharply over the last
decade. Currently there are about 300 children in the community who go to school in the schools
on the premises of the colony. All the girl children in the colony are sent to school and every
single one of them completes at least her elementary education. Beyond that many of the girls
have received college educations and hold undergraduate degrees. Almost all the girls who have
received college degrees have taken to teaching as a profession in the community schools. This is
a great example of members of community ensuring the continuation of essential services in the
community. A few of the girls with college degrees are also employed at desk jobs in other parts
of the city. The success that initiatives for increasing education amongst girls has in turn inspired
the older women in the colony to gain an education themselves. In order to facilitate these female
beedi workers the co-operative society introduced adult education programs and vocational
training programs in the colony. These programs have only received participation from the
women in the colony. This has resulted in the vocational training programs being fashioned to
suit the womens interests. These programs have resulted in about 200 female beedi workers
moving away from rolling beedis to engaging in tailoring and artificial jewelry making. The co-
operative societys declared end objective is to completely wean the community of beedi-work as
a source of livelihood.

Chapter 3

Land Ownership by Women what does it entail? According to Afroz Pasha, the President of the
Karnataka State Beedi Workers Multipurpose Co-operative Society, the empowerment of the
female beedi workers and their female children on all fronts would not have been possible had
these women not been owners of the land and the house in which the family resides. He claims
it forces the men in the household to consult with the women on all matters. It is the level of
social security that the ownership of land affords to the women that enables them to seek their
advancement on other fronts. This is especially true of the colony. The practice of triple talak is
rampant among muslim communities belonging to lower economic and educational levels but the
colony has been an exception to this unfortunate trend. Mr. Pasha puts this down to the land
being owned by the women. He pointed out a recent instance of where a woman forced her
husband to vacate the house following an altercation. This represents a drastic change not just in
the context of the colony but in the context of Indian society at large. He also pointed out other
instances of how the security that owning the house gave the women resulted in them bargaining
better terms with their contractors. They managed to successfully bargain for the factory to
provide them with provident fund, bonus and a change in the Dearness Allowance once a year.

A Man leading the way. Another observation that must be made in the context of the Beedi
Workers Colony, which is of significant relevance to the global feminist movement is that of
male leadership in causes for womens empowerment. While there are strands of radical feminist
theory which identify such involvement of men in the womens struggle as a sign of patriarchy
imposing itself, the contemporary, mainstream feminist movement has welcomed the
involvement of men in achieving womens empowerment (Flood 2007). The argument put forth
by the mainstream movement is that the feminist movement must not persist with treating men as
generic entities and be more sensitive to the gendering of men in society. This is especially true
in this context as Mr. Pasha reflected on how it was witnessing the hardships his mother, a beedi
worker, had to endure which inspired him to dedicate his life to securing their betterment.

The success of the Beedi Workers Colony in emerging as a best practice in housing solutions for
the informal sector has led to it being replicated in other parts of Karnataka. The co-operative
society themselves have overseen the construction of a Beedi Workers Colony in Mandya.

References:

Flood Michael. 2007. Involving Men in Gender Policy and Practice, Critical Half, 5(1): 9-14.
Kandiyota Deniz. 1997. Beginning with Patriarchy in Nalini Vishwanathan, Lynn Duggan, Laurie Nisonoff and
Nan Wiegersma (eds.): The Women, Gender and Development Reader. Dhaka: University Press Ltd.
National Commission for Women. 2005. Report of the National Commission for Women on Beedi Workers, N.D.
International Labour Organisation. 1993. Resolutions Concerning Statistics of Employment in the Informal Sector
Adopted by the 15th International Labor Conference of Labor Statisticians, January: ILO Publications.
Rowbotham Sheila. 1973. Womens Consciousness, Mans World. London: Pelican Press.
Sabale, Kowli and Padmaja Chowdhary. 2012. Working conditions and health hazards in beedi rollers residing in
the urban slums of Mumbai, Indian Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 16(2): 72-74.
Soares and Cecelia Batson-Rollock. 2010. Rethinking Patriarchy in a Rural Context, Occasional Paper Series, 2.