“Tadpoles in Water” versus “Police of Our Fields”
Competing Subjectivities, Women’s Political Agency and Fair Trade
Having described the everyday activities of the women tea farmers and plantation workers, in this chapter I attend to their respective political agency. In my analysis of political agency among women plantation workers and women tea farmers, I give equal weight to their practices and narratives around practice, in order to analyze how women tea farmers and plantation workers read institutional power structures and think about their own capabilities to navigate them. To conceptualize political agency, it is important to see their situated practices and their own subjective interpretation of these practices.
Women use their “practical consciousness” (Williams 1977) to shape their political action and to also reflect on what kind of actors they become as a result of their actions. I also show that women tea farmers’ direct participation in Fair Trade−related awareness workshops have increased their confidence about the purpose of their economic and political activities. While both groups of women take action to deal with the inadequacies of their lives, tea plantation workers’ narratives reveal a sense of decreasing possibility for action, while women tea farmers find new thresholds of action opening up for them, due to the advent of Fair Trade. Even if they do not make concrete gains all the time, the altercations over Fair Trade’s benefits have enabled women tea farmers to create a space for publicizing their role in community development.
It is not my intention to see taking action as the ultimate form of political agency, but I start from the narratives of the women. It is in their narratives that I locate a preoccupation with “doing,” “changing,” and “not being able to do/change/speak” that forms the basis of my argument about political agency. It is their narratives about capacity for action and change that I analyze in this chapter. Women’s political agency is best deciphered by looking at what women subjectively construct as possibility or impossibility. I see women’s political subjectivity as situated understandings of their own gendered projects of value at this given historical moment.
Women’s self-knowledge or subjectivity (Foucault 1994), was shaped by the institutional structures which governed their lives. Their specific self-knowledge affected the way they interpreted their own actions. I have argued throughout this book that women plantation workers found a situation more adverse to large-scale collective organizing, limiting their capacity to mobilize federally granted labor rights. Even individual actions challenging systemic nepotism or workplace hazards—everyday resistance—are rare, as I will show later in this chapter. Women tea farmers, on the other hand, were engaged in activities that challenged male domination in the cooperative. They were refashioning themselves as entrepreneurs, challenging existing cultural productions, trying to undo the exploitation of middlemen and seek respect for their activities in front of household and community members (as seen in the last chapter).
In this chapter, I locate how the difference in the subjectivities of women at two sites impacts the way women plan to use their specific collective organizing efforts. In the cooperative, women’s collective organizing was aimed at gaining a public voice; in the plantation women’s collective, organizing was aimed at surviving a system by not ruffling too many feathers. The distinct goals of their collective organizing influenced how women tea farmers and women plantation workers saw themselves as actors. The institutional structures also influenced the type of resource that each group could mobilize. In the cooperative, women’s husbands owned the legal titles to their land and women felt that they had some ownership of what was produced on that land, as detailed in chapter 3. Since individual tea farmers came together to form the cooperative in 1997 and in every matter each co-op household had an equal vote, women tea farmers had a different understanding of their organization (the cooperative) and its relation to the Women’s Wing. Women plantation workers were much more insecure about the status of their employment and there were limited ways in which they could use the plantation land. Although plantation workers had lived on plantation lands for generations, they feared being ousted due to perceived wrongdoings. They could not use their living quarters the way they wanted and always had to ask for permission. These kinds of differences influenced the way women interpreted their capacities as a group and as individual actors. The social milieu, institutional structures, and types of resource access all combined to produce different kinds of “practical consciousness,” which became part of their political agency—their ability to understand and navigate power through specific action.
Women tea farmers also found themselves in the midst of a less hierarchical organization than the plantation. In the plantation, the strict bureaucratic hierarchy, top-down obedience structure, and corrupt labor union practices limit the ability of the women workers to know and bargain for Fair Trade benefits from the plantation administration. Thus, women in the two plantations neither had a say in the ways in which the Fair Trade premium (that the plantation receives each year) should be used, nor did they have any clear idea of what Fair Trade entailed (its history and benefits). Most women from the plantation described it as zamindāri or feudal domain, and asserted that their grievances mostly remained unheard. Plantations that were certified Fair Trade usually had a Joint Body that decided how the Fair Trade premium money would be spent in various labor welfare and development projects. In my participant observation and interviews, I found the effectiveness of this group to be limited in fulfilling this goal. While more than 50 percent of the members of the Joint Body (ten out of sixteen) at the plantation were women, they hardly ever participated actively in these meetings. While the plantation website and publicity material advertised that women made all Joint Body decisions, the reality was very different. Such an oppressive milieu had given rise to covert practices of economic reciprocity (ghumāuri) among women plantation workers as described in chapter 2.
In the small tea farmers’ communities, the nature of women’s participation was very different from that of women workers on the plantation. Male and female representatives of the cooperative and the Women’s Wing, respectively, were elected through unit-wide public meetings. Cooperative elections were held every year and candidates, whether male or female, had to stand up to the test of leadership skills. Joint Body members in the plantation, on the other hand, were handpicked by the plantation owner as amply demonstrated in chapters 4 and 5.
The more non-hierarchical, democratic structure of the cooperative provided more space for discussion and dissent among its male and female members in the co-op decision-making process. Cooperative meetings were therefore important places where women tea farmers through open debates questioned gender hierarchies. While men outnumbered women in the governing body of the cooperative, some members of the women’s group were always present at meetings. The Women’s Wing had a separate meeting on the eighth day of every month. Women cooperative members felt that the Women’s Wing should receive a separate share of the Fair Trade premium money and were not afraid to claim it, as they knew they could not be ousted from their land. These differences affected how women conceptualized their own capacities in the plantation and the cooperative. In their daily conversation, plantation workers frequently mentioned that they had “lost the power to speak.” Women tea farmers, in recounting the evolution of the Women’s Wing, emphasized that they were now “ready to beat the table,” implying that they were not going to be taken for a ride. Women tea farmers frequently sought out avenues to reduce their dependence on the tea cooperative.
In the rest of this chapter, I analyze how women tea farmers’ and plantation workers’ subjectivities were influenced by the institutional structures where women worked and lived. The latter also affected the scope their collective organizing, through ghumāuri/Women’s Wing. The limits and nature of collective organizing, in turn, reinforced the subjective feelings women had about their own selves and future, affecting the tactics and intensity of women’s negotiations with structural power.
Being “Tadpoles in Water” vs. “Police of our Fields”
In this section, I analyze through narratives, how the different institutional structures have influenced women’s subjectivities at respective sites. I analyze the “patterns of talk” women use to describe their own condition.
In early March 2007, I was in Darjeeling town doing research at the NGO office which has been working with the tea cooperative for many years. As I interviewed one of the male NGO members on his perceptions about the activities of the Women’s Wing, he made a comparison between them and the women workers from Sonākheti. He had seen both groups of women in action at a state-sponsored women’s development workshop in Siliguri. Women from both plantations and non-plantation areas were invited. The male NGO employee,1 who had accompanied Women’s Wing members to Siliguri, was very proud of the confidence and public speaking skills of the Women’s Wing members. He said that the women from Sonākheti kept smiling when asked about women’s development and its effects on their communities. He further added, “Our Women’s Wing members on the other hand were prompt with responses. The workshop leaders were impressed. When asked about women’s activities, Binu immediately sketched a brief history of the community’s engagement with FLO and what the Women’s Wing was doing. I could not believe how clear their understanding of Fair Trade−organic was.” I suspected that this comparison was a publicity stunt, until the NGO worker’s observations were corroborated by women plantation workers themselves.
Months after I had heard this comparison from the NGO employee, I was at a ghumāuri meeting in Sonākheti. The meeting was taking place after a Joint Body meeting, where I was also present. In the ghumāuri discussion, Sita asked me about my work with the women tea farmers. The plantation workers always spoke of basti2 people (women tea farmers) with envy. Shinu, another plantation worker, teased me, saying that every time I returned from the basti I looked fresh because the basti people grew their own organic vegetables, which made me look good. Plantation workers had to depend on the bad quality vegetables of Kurseong town, the bad ration rice and dāl (lentils); they did not have their own land. I used to get the plantation workers’ vegetables from the cooperative area as gifts, which they otherwise had to buy at high prices in the market shops. Whenever I ate a meal with women plantation workers, they would ask me what I ate when I was in the cooperative area.
Sita (the nurse) had arrived to the meeting late because she had to make a couple of house visits to distribute medicine. Sita joined the conversation by declaring that women in the basti were more aware about FLO. She soon started talking about a workshop at Siliguri that she had attended where there were women from the basti. I confirmed the dates with her and knew immediately that she was talking about the same workshop discussed by the NGO worker. She said,
I have never been so ashamed of myself. In our Joint Body meetings, we never discuss the history of FLO, we don’t know why the white people are paying more for our tea, and what we are supposed to do with FLO. We only discuss useless (fāltu) things. The sisters from the basti knew it all. They were so smart (chānkho). Not only are the basti girls eating more nutritious food, they know how to speak, they know more about FLO. Bahini (younger sister) you must tell us more about this FLO business; we must learn more before you leave. Please tell us about FLO, we do not want to be lāti (ignorant/stupid) any more.
I was now convinced that the NGO employee was not being partial to the Women’s Wing’s members’ performance at the Siliguri meeting. Sita then asked me the names of the Women’s Wing members. I told them. Sita became very excited when she learnt that I had lived with the two Women’s Wing members she had met at Siliguri. She told me “please take out your camera and show other women present here that you know the bahinis from the basti.” I brought out my camera, and the entire group was excited about seeing the two Women’s Wing members from the co-op. Soon other comparisons ensued between basti and kamān women followed by quizzing me on FLO. I gave them information on FLO and they thought it was very complex. I told them what kinds of activities Women’s Wing members were planning to do with FLO premium in the cooperative. They were very impressed. They regretted that they never had Fair Trade trainings. The management did all the talking at meetings and inspections. In fact, the women told me, they did not understand when the inspections had taken place, although outside officers interviewed them at times. Women plantation workers agreed that the meetings were a big waste of time. Pushpa said, “We attend so many meetings, yet we are still stupid, we have lost our ability to speak effectively. This is why I tell you sister, when you leave, take all of us with you so that we can all escape this dreadful life.”
The above example is one among many narrative instances that revealed women plantation workers’ perceptions about themselves and their capabilities to change the plantation system for their own benefit. They frequently used the word “lāti” (stupid, ignorant) to describe themselves. In their statements, there was emphasis on becoming stupid, almost implying that plantation work produces this negative effect on workers. Another phrase that recurred in their conversation was “hami bolnu birsechu/we have forgotten how to speak.” The latter expressed their fear of arguing with the managers.
These negative reflections were aggravated by the poverty of their daily lives. They blamed the plantation for all their misery and complained incessantly about the lack of proper pay and effective unions. Phulrani, now fifty-two years old, told me, “Of course our condition is a bit better than when I started. Then we were threatened that we will be stripped naked if we did not pluck and clean well. The managers and Chaprāsis were abusive. Even now they are very harsh, but at least we get our salaries.” She then said, “The last good thing that the union did for us was in 1984 (pre-GNLF), when they fought for making most workers permanent,3 and soon after, the retirement benefits started. That was 20 years ago, our wages are little compared to what the times demand, but we have been doing the same work for ages.”4
The references to being “stupid” and “losing the power to speak” were always connected with the lack of options in women plantation workers’ conversations. When I was at a different ghumāuri meeting a month later, Lachchmi made this revealing comment reflecting on the condition of plantation workers. She said,
I try to motivate the women in my group. My group’s record of plucking tea leaves in the factory is very good. These women plantation workers have no new ideas, no new ventures to take. How will they; nothing can happen without the owner’s permission, even if they spent their own money. We follow this dreadful routine every day and are mostly interested in feeding our children and giving them some education, in the hope that they can escape the thikā (wage). If they want anything extra, anything good they have to depend on loans from the money lender. Women who are strong and fit can make some extra income during the plucking season.5 For the average workers, they are tied to the dictate of the thikā (wage).
This notion of being tied to the dictate of the thikā/wage was another recurring theme in many interviews. The phrase implied the discipline imposed by the insufficient wage that made workers’ options limited. The small wage limited the scope of better education for their children. It made them dependent on informal money-saving ventures, like ghumāuri, to stretch their buying power. I also interpreted the use of the phrase, “being tied to the wage,” as a way for plantation workers to express how other systems of patriarchal control worked through the wage. Women workers could never ask for more wages because the management was tied by the state-permitted minimum wage which was uniform through the Darjeeling area. However, the dictate of the thikā was made ever more binding with the male union leaders devoting their attention to party activities (as outlined in chapter 5). Women complained that the shoes, umbrellas, and socks that the plantation was supposed to supply for safety were never replaced in a timely fashion. Women used their own money to keep themselves safe. In many ways the thikā was insufficient.
Thikā was also used to denote the strict disciplining of their work life, the verbal abuses from the male managers and male supervisors which guided how they lived in the plantation premises. Women plantation workers secretly kept their savings through ghumāuri. The long work hours meant that they could not engage in other money-making ventures, such as knitting or rearing animals, as much as they would have liked to. Women plantation workers also used the word thikā as work. I frequently noted them saying, “Hāmilai thikāmā jānu parcha”/ “We have to go to work.” They implied that they were bound by the wage which limited their freedom of movement. The thikā became more binding as it could not be changed easily. A further layer of insecurity was added because thikā (or work) led to household conflicts. While male members of their homes were envious of their work and wage (as demonstrated in chapter 4), women knew that this wage was not enough to meet all household needs. The dictate of the wage was felt at many levels reflected in these sets of comments.
Lachmi concluded her reflections with this statement, “Women workers here are like tadpoles in water; they do not dare to come out of the known waters for the fear of being engulfed.” The tadpole analogy again drew attention to their lack of freedom and work options. Plantation work was the bread and butter; if they left one plantation, it was also very hard to get work in another plantation, especially as a permanent employee. Plantations rarely recruited new workers, since the new workers (whether temporary or permanent) were always recruited from the family of a retired plantation worker. Working in the plantation was also a way of holding on to the house. In spite of the drudgery of plantation work, women rarely left their jobs.
The example of the thikā, when read together with constant references to being stupid or losing the power to speak, points to women plantation workers’ subjective states. As I moved back and forth between the plantation and the cooperative, stark differences emerged as to how these two groups of women thought about their lives, their futures, and the collectives they had formed. Women’s self-reflection about their capability at both sites was important for how they understood their political futures, the role of their collectives (ghumāuri and Women’s Wing), and the power of their collective gendered projects of value.
During my time at the cooperative, life was routinized as well. The 1 p.m. lunch siren from neighboring plantations meant that women tea farmers, working in the mountain slopes, had to now return from work and make lunch as referenced in the introduction. I was surprised that the plantations’ routine had such a hold on the lives of women tea farmers, at least temporally. Tea farmers (whether men or women) always made it a point to remind me that their work lives were very different from plantation people. I asked them why they followed the plantation siren. Premila told me that it helped them organize their day better. If they were away in the field, the siren reminded them that it was now time to go back and eat. After answering my question she paused for a moment and then said, “I know why you asked that question. You want to know what makes us different from your friends in the plantation.” By this time Premila had a good idea of my research objectives; she always complained about my frequent stays in the plantation.
Women tea farmers, however, rarely envied anything about life in the plantation. They knew that being a plantation worker was difficult and was associated with negative gender ideologies in the region. One of the biggest complaints that plantation workers had was about their inability to possess land. In fact, male members of the tea cooperative always had the option of agricultural work. Possession of land provided a disguise to the male unemployment which plagued people in both plantations and the cooperative.
While the siren gave women direction in their lives at both sites, in the plantation the 1 p.m. siren meant that workers had to start their afternoon shift. The women tea farmers had a choice to go back to the field after 1 p.m. or to stay indoors and take a nap. This sense of freedom from a fixed schedule was something that the tea farmers relished and was a defining feature of their identity. They were not bound by the discipline of the thikā. The potential for choosing when and how much to work was critical to the women tea farmers’ sense of freedom, which they shared with men. As the cooperative president explained to me, “Here any day could be a Sunday.” This flexibility meant that tea farmers had more control over their time. Women tea farmers from wealthy households would spend the afternoon watching TV if they had the resources to employ other people from the village to work in their agricultural fields.
People in the two sites spoke about each other as if they came from two very different worlds; hence they were different kinds of people. While outsiders could not distinguish between the lives of the women who pluck tea and appear on the label of tea packets, there is a sharp difference between kamān ko mānche ra basti ko mānche (people of the plantations vs. people of the basti). These were different people, not because they belonged to different ethnic groups, they were all Nepali, but because their daily lives were structured differently. I took it upon myself to analyze these different claims about work and freedom, which brought me to explore the different effect that Fair Trade had on their respective lives. Throughout this book, I have shown that women tea farmers have been able to utilize Fair Trade to their benefit, albeit despite notable failures. For women plantation workers, Fair Trade was something that the management does. In this chapter, I show how the ability to claim some Fair Trade benefits has increased the existing confidence of women tea farmers, unlike women plantation workers.
It can be argued that women tea farmers needed to take aggressive steps because of their economic insecurity and their vulnerability in the tea industry. However, it is important to note that women tea farmers could take aggressive steps, in spite of being shamed, because they could not be fired, and they cultivated their own lands. The cooperative relied on their labor in producing tea and during important cooperative activities. Women tea farmers had de facto ownership of their land and what they produced, as was evident from the comment in the earlier chapter about women being the police of their own fields. Too often, economic well-being becomes a lens to gauge empowerment (Kabeer 1999). Women in the plantation of course had a regular source of income, but women tea farmers’ household income was not terribly different from that of plantation workers. The average income of households at both sites ranged from Rs. 1,800 to 2,000 per month (based on income-related reflections during interviews at respective sites). This economic explanation of political activism is therefore too simplistic as it forecloses the possibility to explore the complexity of how people understand themselves at the two sites and conceive of their capabilities.
Both groups of women played important economic roles in their families and community and had done so for years, yet women tea farmers retaliated against male domination and women plantation workers did not. Women tea farmers directly negotiated practices of defaming and the double standards that existed against women in their community. The difference lay in the way the two groups of women understood themselves, their self-knowledge vis-à-vis existing moral standards to which they were subjected and which impacted their actions. Women plantation workers constantly felt that they had lost their power to speak because of the dictate of the thikā, expressing their alienation from the fruits of their labor. Women tea farmers on the other hand felt that they had rights to everything that they produced. They used Fair Trade to make moral claims on their land and justify their economic ambitions. The two groups of women thought about themselves as different kinds of actors.
The question of institutional structure and resource access was also very important for the way women perceive possibilities and how they imagine their future. Hence, plantation workers see their state-accorded rights to ask for a decent wage, benefits, and health provisions decrease over time because of the changes in the union priorities. Women tea farmers take the opportunity of Fair Trade stipulations to put a price on their labor and efforts to secure the economic future of their families and community.
Ghumāuri vs. Women’s Wing Meetings
At both sites, women were highly aware of the systematic workings of structural power, yet there was a difference in the way women at both sites strategized to negotiate hegemonic practices. Their subjective states influenced the nature of their collective gendered projects of value. Ghumāuri meetings were a safe space to vent anxieties and make exploitation more habitable—a therapeutic space. Women’s Wing meetings provide a place for careful planning to negotiate structural inequality. As I will soon show, Women’s Wing meetings were used to plan how women could benefit from Fair Trade. They were more than places for venting, they provided time and opportunity for careful planning to change attitudes toward Women’s Wing’s ventures and publicly shame the male cooperative members for their double standards and their use of women for raising Fair Trade awareness.
Let me return to my previous example of the Siliguri workshop with which I began the previous section. In explaining the circumstances, Sita mentioned that the Joint Body meetings were useless, and they were not aware of inspections; they were never told about inspections. Fair Trade as a topic was also not part of their ghumāuri meetings, although it was a space where they discussed plantation politics. As I mentioned in an earlier chapter, the ghumāuri groups were very much under cover, having no formal presence. The meetings were held on holidays, every one or two months. Women plantation workers often discussed issues of loyalty and productivity in the ghumāuri meetings. Even when they discussed problems at work they tried to come up with help and solutions within the group. They strategized about ways of placing their concerns with the owner individually, not any organized plan of action to involve union members to take up the issue. There was no paper trail of anything that they proposed. Ghumāuri, as a collective space, had little potential to systematically address the structural constraints placed on women workers through low wages, unsafe work conditions, nepotism, and strict disciplining. In spite of this safe space, women felt that their futures were not going to improve any time soon; hence they are “tadpoles in water.”
In ghumāuri meetings women often discussed the mistrust that the management displayed toward women workers in daily affairs. While otherwise extolling the skill and sincerity of women workers in front of visitors, plantation authorities would often accuse women workers of insincerity when they personally met women at work. One day, in the peak plucking month of June, I was with a group of women workers. The owner was doing his rounds. He came up to two women and made this comment, “timihāru lakshmi chineko chainau.” When translated literally from Nepali, the statement means “You don’t know your Lakshmi.” In Hindu custom, Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth and prosperity. The plantation owner implied that women workers were not loyal to their work, and they did not pluck enough leaves; this was read as disrespect for work. The statement was ironical because in the peak season, women were paid extra rupees, three per kilo of plucked tea, in addition to their eight kilos of daily plucking requirement. Women looked forward to the monsoon months in spite of all the dangers (like landslides, leeches, and slippery terrain), because they could earn a little more. These kinds of comments from the owner really made women angry.
In the next ghumāuri meeting the two women, Nita and Kala, started talking about this comment. They complained that the productivity of tea was much lower than when they started. There was a constant pest problem after pesticide use was stopped in the plantation. One of the retired male supervisors had also told me during an interview that the discontinuation of pesticide use was not beneficial for pluckers because there was loss of productivity, i.e., fewer leaves to pluck in the high season, hence, less extra income. Nita regretted that she could not talk back to the owner. She told the group that the owner thinks that only he knows how to care about tea. Then she said, “It is because we worship tea that he makes so much money. That is why for sāhib the plantation is like Lakshmi. For us, tea is like our second mother, we have to be loyal and careful. We offer the season’s first leaves to god, but he does not understand. We take pride in our work, and that is why we come back to worship our Lakshmi every day. So what if we don’t have a temple in the factory.” She made fun of the daily praying rituals in the factory temple that the owner performed.
The analogy of tea as mother was important. Most of the plantation workers were born and brought up in plantations. This was their social world and their lives had an indelible link with tea plants. The ties between the plantation and women workers were like those between a mother and her daughters—a strong bond. One could never sever ties from one’s mother nor from the plantation because it was one’s source of nourishment. Then Kasturi pointed out the key difference between a real mother and the tea mother. She said, “When a small child is upset, tired or sick, the child can rest on their mother’s lap. They cry and mother soothes their pain, but the second mother (tea) is not that caring. We come to her, rain or shine. We sooth her pain, but she is loyal to her sons.” Kasturi implied that tea as mother was more generous toward her son—the owner—who enjoyed the fruits of women’s labor.
This comment can also be read as the constant neglect of women’s needs within the plantation, which was perpetuated by women’s own cultural production of being obedient, formed against the sexualized tropes through which they were represented.
After this comment, Nita brought out a small container and opened it in front of me. She told me “Younger sister, now I will show you the real thieves of the plantation, we catch them often.” Then as soon as she opened the small container, I could see small mosquito-like insects, some half dead and some alive. These were the pests which drove down the productivity of the plantation. They could not be controlled by organic methods. She continued, “The owner does not have any idea how we protect our mother. She is only Lakshmi (wealth) for him, but she is our mother. We care for her; he is only interested in selling her.” She kept saying that she would continue her work because if they stop then they will die hungry, the plantation will close. We pahādis (hill people) have no other option but to toil in this land. We have to be a good worker; that’s the only way we can survive.” Kala told me, “You have to be sincere, and then you will have no guilt.” Through these kinds of ghumāuri sessions women plantation workers constructed meaning from their toil. The constant reiteration of sincerity was how women formed a parallel moral universe opposed to what people actually thought of them, as promiscuous, insincere and bāthi (street smart). In chapter 1 I demonstrated gendered, sexualized tropes about plantation women in daily life.
Attending ghumāuri meetings in both plantations provided me the space to understand how women made exploitation habitable. It is in their reasoning that I saw how they were treated in the plantation and how that affected their self-knowledge. Women saw their labor as indispensable for the prosperity of the plantation in its organic avatar. While they protected their second mother—tea—from harm and blemish, they themselves had to live a scarred existence, always suspected, underpaid. Ghumāuri meetings were like group therapy—women narrated their stories while other women listened. Sometimes the meetings would be charged. Some women would break down, but by the time they left for home, they had new ideas about where to buy the cheapest books for their children on their next visit to Kurseong town.
Women’s Wing meetings were very different. They were more regular (monthly) and provided critical space for planning. Although women tea farmers were subject to norms of obedience and respectability, they also found ways to subvert these norms creatively by participating and using Fair Trade events. The Women’s Wing meetings were not merely safe spaces to vent; they were more. Women tea farmers met on the eighth day of every month at 1 p.m. at the cooperative office. When they started in 1999, they were taught by the NGO to keep detailed minutes of the meetings; they continued this practice. They also had elections every two years when they changed their president, secretary, and treasurer. The Women’s Wing secretary kept written records6 of their requests to the cooperative board and their specific interactions with cooperative members. The cooperative households were spread across steep slopes and women from different villages used the meetings as a way to keep tabs on gossip about the Women’s Wing’s activities. There used to be small votes on issues such as who would be selected to go to training, who would go to the cooperative board meetings, who would collect savings. Women often discussed the adversities they faced in their homes.
Women’s Wing meetings were also critical for consciousness-raising about Fair Trade and how the Women’s Wing could benefit from Fair Trade. Active women would frequently quiz new members or the shy ones to get them to speak up in the meetings. On special occasions, like the International Women’s Day, the Women’s Wing president would urge all the women to reflect on why they had joined the Women’s Wing. Shanta, the new president, was a really timid woman when I first met her. In the beginning of my work she was voted to be the new president so that everyone could share the leadership. In the beginning Shanta used to stammer and kept her speeches very short, but as the months elapsed her speeches grew longer and she stopped asking the other active members, “What shall I say?” Sima told me at the end of one such meeting that she could not believe how far Women’s Wing members had come compared to their state in 1999. She said, “We used to sit at the back of the room during main cooperative meetings; we used to be scared talking to the men from the NGOs and our community. Now, we can also beat the table and argue when we want to.”
If a woman tea farmer repeatedly failed to come for meetings, leaders of the Women’s Wing would make a big deal. If someone missed a meeting and justified her absence saying that her family members got upset if she came to meetings, then the leaders would ask them, “What did you tell them in response? Much of the problem lies with the fact that you all go home and don’t tell your family members what the Women’s Wing is doing. If you explain they will understand. You must tell your daughters and sons about the importance of our work. We are not here to chat; we make plans here. You have to explain what our THulo yojanā (big business) means for the community.” While making these kinds of allegations, women also knew that the problems with the Women’s Wing’s declining membership and the recent smear campaign by the middlemen and rich housewives had its roots in the cooperative. Women’s Wing members were concerned about the existing social and economic differences within the cooperative and how it impacted the future of the Women’s Wing. Meetings were crucial for strategizing on confronting the president of the cooperative.
In March 2007, the governing board of the cooperative learned that the Fair Trade premium they were to get that year was considerably more than the previous year (a 40 percent increase). The sale of their tea had gone up in the Fair Trade−organic market, but there was also a note of caution from FLO. FLO had requested that the cooperative file legal registration with the West Bengal Government Societies Registration Act.7 The letter also mentioned that many people in the cooperative were not clear about the history and specificities of Fair Trade. Among other warnings the letter also mentioned that women would have to be made part of the main cooperative board. If inspectors found these issues unresolved by the next inspection date in December 2007, the cooperative’s premium would be stopped by FLO in 2008.
The letter had caused great alarm for cooperative board members who immediately came up with a FLO Janajāgaran Kāryakram (FLO People’s-awareness campaign). They decided to use some of the 2007 premium money for these events, which would be held in all the neighborhoods within the cooperative. Soon the cooperative sent letters to the Women’s Wing members for a general meeting with them to discuss their formal inclusion in the cooperative board. Women’s Wing members already knew about this warning from FLO; they wanted to discuss the possibility of their participation in the FLO Janajāgaran Karyakram after careful negotiation with the cooperative president. News spread in these villages very fast. Women’s Wing members knew that the president would soon request their labor for the FLO Janajāgaran Kāryakram. It was common for the cooperative president to request Women’s Wing members to help out with the cooperative’s activities. This was another way the cooperative appropriated women’s time and labor in official matters. Officers of the Women’s Wing decided to call a meeting with the co-op board to straighten out the relationship between the Women’s Wing and the cooperative and clear out the air between them. If women were going to give time and labor outside their homes for the awareness campaign, they needed some explanations from the president about his previous actions vis-à-vis the Women’s Wing.
On May 8, 2007, thirty-five women tea farmers gathered at the cooperative office. The president, secretary, and treasurer of the Women’s Wing were all present. It was decided in the April 8th Women’s Wing meeting8 that the agenda of the May meeting would comprise a discussion with the president of the cooperative about the specificities of the relationship between the cooperative and the Women’s Wing, and would include taking stock of the activities of the women’s group. In light of recent decline in the membership of the Women’s Wing, women were concerned and decided that they would use the FLO Janajāgaran Karyakram to further their own goals of recruiting more women into the Women’s Wing. Active members of the Women’s Wing thought that the cooperative’s male members had a role in this declining membership. Some Women’s Wing members rationalized that the opposition women tea farmers faced at home about spending time in the activities of the Women’s Wing, especially after the big business plan was publicized, could not be blamed on individual household members. Women tea farmers were aware of the gender and wealth differences in their community. The cooperative president’s denial of sharing FLO money in 2006 (chapter 6) and then again in 2007 propelled Women’s Wing members to censure the wealth and gender politics within their communities that created impediments for the women’s group who were out to start a new venture. These inequalities also affected household politics (as I show in the last chapter).
At noon on May 8, 2007, Shanta didi, the current president of the Women’s Wing, started her inaugural speech for the Women’s Wing’s monthly meeting. Shanta didi said that the Women’s Wing will be successful when every household in the cooperative sends their mothers and daughters to the monthly meeting of the Women’s Wing. Then she decided to answer why that was not happening. According to Shanta didi, the Women’s Wing members could not effectively explain what went on in the women’s group meetings to their family members. At the height of her speech, Shanta didi mentioned that women have to learn to better explain “What we do in these meetings.” There was a need to justify the labor/time spent outside the house in a way which made sense to family members. “We have to tell our husbands and elders that we discuss important matters of the community in our meetings which do not just concern women, but concern the well-being of all the villages within the tea cooperative area. It is not just about chatting and taking loans, we are making plans here which will be beneficial for every household.”
At around 1 p.m., the president of the tea cooperative arrived. Women’s Wing members greeted him and requested him to put forth his agenda. The president started explaining that with the new Fair Trade regulations the cooperative would have to include more women. The president of the Women’s Wing would now become the ex-officio member of the cooperative. The Women’s Wing would now have to make a new constitution and bylaws so that their bylaws would not negatively affect the cooperative or its members. In his speech, the president continuously emphasized how the rules of the Women’s Wing will only be effective once the cooperative governing board approves of it. These new Women’s Wing bylaws, which would include a list of Women’s Wing’s future business activities, would have to be approved by the governing body of the cooperative. He also requested that Women’s Wing members should help the cooperative in their FLO Janajāgaran Kāryakram as anticipated by Women’s Wing members even before the president arrived.
At this point Shanta didi interrupted the cooperative president’s speech and informed him that the Women’s Wing wanted to use this Janajāgaran Kāryakram to raise awareness about the Women’s Wing’s activities because the Women’s Wing needed new energy. She emphasized that people needed to know more about the new activities of the Women’s Wing and the economic problems women faced. The president of the cooperative sarcastically replied saying that the Women’s Wing was not doing “rāmro kām” (important work), did not have a proper agenda, and hence people thought it was a waste of time. He started complaining about the difficulties of running an organization; a skill which women were just beginning to learn.
The meeting quickly turned into a heated session between the president and the Women’s Wing members. I was present, but did not speak a word. I was recording the meeting. It was too emotional a moment. I knew from previous Women’s Wing meetings that women were planning such a discussion for the last six months to express their collective anxiety about the cooperative board’s attitude toward women’s business ventures, which they related to the legitimacy crisis women faced in their households and neighborhoods.
Shanta didi continued her questioning of the president and then finally asked the controversial question regarding the president’s household matters. At this point other Women’s Wing members joined in and cornered the president. The Women’s Wing members questioned the president about his and the cooperative’s role in defaming the Women’s Wing’s business and reputation. Here I quote a section of my recordings from this significant meeting to demonstrate how Women’s Wing members related household politics and the cooperative president’s actions. The cooperative president’s constant disavowal of his and the cooperative boards role in neglecting the Women’s Wing was clear from his utterances. Women’s constant repetition of references to the politics in the president’s own home was an indication of their collective desire to shame the president for his actions. This kind of a meeting was in the books for the Women’s Wing ever since October 2006.
Shanta didi: But you are aware of Women’s Wing’s activities and you just now told us that Women’s Wing was a part of the cooperative registration. Women’s Wing’s president will be an ex-officio member of the cooperative board, and you support the Women’s Wing. Yet your wife, who is the member of our Women’s Wing and has been part of our microcredit ventures, never comes to our meetings; your house is next-door to the office. What do we make of this?
The photograph below captures the mood of the meeting.
Figure 8.1. Big Fight with the Cooperative President. Photo by the author.
The president was angry and grew extremely uncomfortable and some women started smiling (as is evident in this photograph). Local village youth peeped inside from the office windows as they heard loud exchanges in the office. The president pointed a finger at the active Women’s Wing members accusing them of asking personal questions, which he was not required to answer. The president kept insisting that women did not know how to keep organization and household matters separate. At this point Manju replied, “What happens in our homes is important for Women’s Wing’s future.”
President: who is going to take charge of farming and household work? If she does not take care of my home, then how am I going to give my time for the organization? How is the cooperative going to run?
Binu: Dāju (elder brother), you must understand that your actions have far-reaching consequences for the survival and legitimacy of the women’s group. We need to know what happens in your household. If your wife does not come to our meetings, maybe you don’t let her come, maybe she does not like us. We need to know. Maybe other women are thinking the same way as she. You are like our elder brother, a respectable member of our community. Because of your experience and contribution, our cooperative will prosper, but let me reiterate something which you seem to misunderstand. Please do not interrupt me. We need to know where we as a community are making mistakes.
President: You all are blowing my family matters out of proportion. You should not let these feelings of animosity creep into your organization. This is a mistake.
Punita: These are not your personal matters anymore especially if you are the board.9 We want you to know the reason why we need a Women’s Wing. You keep telling us that we are only interested in microcredit money, but your wife also used to take loans by being a member of our group. Now your contracting business is going well, and she does not come. However, your family matters have far-reaching consequences. What happens in our families is important. You all keep saying in public meetings that women should have the same respect as men; they should move forward, be confident. In our homes women should be respected and they should take important decisions in the household. If all these things were happening we would not need a Women’s Wing. Men have some responsibility to support Women’s Wing.
President: My goodness … you are all too emotional … how can you run an organization if you bring up personal matters all the time?
Manju: For once don’t speak to us as the president of the cooperative. Don’t hide behind the cooperative banner. Talk to us as an average man who is the head of the family, who wants women in his family to succeed. Do you ever honestly tell your wife to go to the meetings?
President: She is a human being, not a sheep. Can I force her to come? It is her judgment. If women want to exercise their rights they have to do it themselves … no one will give it to them in a platter … men cannot force them … every individual should take their own decisions … if other people base their decisions on joining Women’s Wing looking at my household, then they are like sheep.
Punita: If it’s all an individual’s own decision, then why have FLO Janjagaran Karyakram about Fair Trade. People will find out for themselves before the next FLO inspection … they do not need awakening, because they all have minds … they are not sheep! Why do you need the Women’s Wing to spread Fair Trade awareness; people can just learn about these things on their own.
President: I am not sure why my wife does not come.
Manju: People need to understand that women’s work is important both inside and outside the home … this should also be one of the messages about your upcoming Janjagaran (awareness) program. You have a duty towards Women’s Wing. When you give your speeches please tell other people not to emulate your wife, because Women’s Wing is doing important work … tell every women in your village it is time to awaken.
President: Do you think if I order women in my village they will listen?
Binu: Why do you think they won’t? When you gather women in your village and put them to work on your farm or on your road-work business, they listen don’t they? They all listen because they know they will get money; everyone understands the significance of money … if we tell everyone that Women’s Wing is doing something profitable just like the cooperative, I am confident, they will understand.
Manju: Please go and start a Janajāgaran (Awareness Campaign) about the Women’s Wing in your own village before you ask us to participate in the cooperative’s business.
The Women’s Wing meetings were extremely important for women to address economic and social inequalities in their communities which persist to the present. The president constantly tried to put forth that the weakening of the Women’s Wing and its present impediments were in no way related to the activities of the main cooperative. He emphasized that women have to become powerful by themselves; they could not ask for help. In the meeting, women’s constant emphasis on the president’s household matters and its relation to the defaming and weakening of the Women’s Wing was a critical connection to expose the attitudes of upwardly mobile wealthy families toward the Women’s Wing.
The Women’s Wing members constantly made the president feel conscious about his double standards and opportunism. He sent his wife to Women’s Wing as long as they needed loans. I had interviewed the cooperative president’s wife, Hema, in 2004, which the president had forgotten. In 2004 Hema’s husband was not the president of the cooperative. I had met her at the Women’s Wing’s monthly meeting. She was introduced to me as an active Women’s Wing member. She had told me in that interview that women had to do more work in the home and there was constant need for money and she was taking loans. When I returned in 2006 for my formal fieldwork, Hema was a different woman. She would never come to meetings. She watched TV in the afternoon when the Women’s Wing had meetings. Hema’s house had more expensive furniture, her husband was thinking of buying a Jeep (secondhand car). She told me one day in 2006 that she did not have time for any organization work because she had to entertain her husband’s clients in his new constructing business by making lunch and tea, and she could not come to meetings because they were held at lunchtime. Hema’s comments about her preoccupation with helping her husband’s business reflected discourses and practices of upward mobility in Nepali Hindu households in rural Darjeeling. Wives of rich villagers withdrew from manual labor in their own house and community.
Ghumāuri and Women’s Wing were different kinds of spaces. They were shaped by the larger institutional structures in which they were embedded. Ghumāuri was largely underground, whereas Women’s Wing saw itself as a parallel organization to that of the cooperative. This positioning gave women tea farmers a different kind of motivation, which affected the way they dealt with structural inequalities. Women’s Wing directly participated in Fair Trade activities, they questioned it, whereas ghumāuri members had very little to do with Fair Trade. Women’s Wing members identified the socioeconomic inequalities manifested itself in the sexism of cooperative board members. Ghumāuri members collectively narrated the indispensability of their labor for the plantation’s wealth and found new hope and motivation.
The Politics of Clean Hands vs. the Politics of Clean Trade
Both women plantation workers and women tea farmers aspired to be economically better off, but their battles were pitched at different levels. As I mentioned before, instances of “everyday resistance” were sporadic among women plantation workers, but they found novel ways of protecting their bodies and souls. The focus of activism for women tea farmers was not merely protection, but also seeking economic justice and respect within their community and families for their labor and efforts. While both groups were highly conscious of the limits of their action, I contend that women tea farmers could take their struggle to a level higher than the women plantation workers. Women tea farmers used more confrontational tactics than women plantation workers to question their exploitation.
As I spent time with plantation workers for days on end, I gradually started noticing what tea plantation workers did and said to make their harsh work environments more bearable. These acts were often reflections on the plantation surveillance structure and became evident after the first couple of months of fieldwork. I would start my days waking up with them in their homes, going to work, sharing lunch, returning from work, washing, cooking, watching TV, going to worship, and chatting. I was close enough to also see how they kept themselves motivated and went about their daily work routines, which they frequently described to me as drudgery.
One such day I set out to the tea fields with Lachmi didi’s group. After lunch we all sat in the shade till the 1 p.m. siren blew. During lunch hour (between noon and 1 p.m.) the conversation centered on what these women did to protect themselves, particularly their bodies, from plantation work. Working in the plantation meant long hours away from home; the so-called “nimble fingers” were frequently scratched and there were dark red marks on their fingers from tealeaf stains. Women often wore plastic boots, supplied by the plantation, and layers of socks to protect themselves from leeches, which were a daily threat to their health. Women had to carry umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun and rain. They also carried local medicinal herbs with them in case of a slight stomach pain or fever in the field.
During the time I spent in the plantation health centers10 the most common complaint from workers were fever, headache, and body ache. A medical report in the plantation dispensary also noted that “women were thought to report more illness than men.” Being sick was a way for them to get a day off. Their work involved heavy climbing through the steep hillslopes leading to fatigue. Women consumed a lot of painkillers. When I told one of them that painkillers were not good, I was told, “If we had enough time to rest our feet and hands we might not have consumed these medicines.” If women lived too far from the health center, they would just drink a glass of warm homemade rice wine to ease their pain.
Women were very interested in cleanliness. At 7 a.m., they would be immaculately dressed, with their sindoor (vermillion used by married women), bindi, powder, and lipstick, and most importantly they would keep long polished nails. Plantations forbade the latter. Organic certification rules forbade any use of knife, blade, or plucking with nails. The correct way to pluck was with one’s fingertips. Women’s obsession with clean manicured hands was a way of concealing their drudgery. When I used to travel to town with the plantation workers, they would never fail to buy a nail color. Bindu told me that keeping clean hands was very important, especially when they went to town. They did not want people to know that they were plantation workers. “Our hands give out our occupation. When we go to town, we want to momentarily forget our lives of misery and hardship. We want to be clean for some time.”
Women plantation workers often wore gloves while plucking leaves. If they were caught in the act of using gloves while plucking, they could be suspended. They stitched these gloves at home from old umbrella cloth, because the material for the gloves had to be waterproof. They never bought gloves in town because word might spread that gloves are being used in the plantation. The obsession with a clean appearance was more pronounced among the young women workers, who were between the ages of eighteen and forty-five. Older women rarely wore nail polish. Lachmi didi, their group leader, explained why these little ways of protecting their bodies were important. She further explained that the thikā/wage allowed women to take these small steps to keep them happy; there is no one to care for them. The Darjeeling tea logo, which distinguishes it from other Indian teas, displays the hands of the plantation workers as perfect, not showing bruises or stains, making this representation different from the actual physical appearance of the workers. Official advertisements of Darjeeling tea on billboards also depict well-dressed women plantation workers concealing their painful toil.
Figure 8.2. Woman Plantation Worker with Gloves On. Courtesy of Sue and Jon Hacking.
Women plantation workers’ perseverance and toil was written on their hands. They were proud of their work, but for them their hands embodied their struggle and their limited options. They never asked me to photograph them with their gloves on. In spite of these ways of protecting themselves, women plantation workers came back to work day after day, without fail. While the plantation owner used essentialisms to explain women’s motivation, women put forward very different reasons for their motivation. Women who worked in the sorting department were exposed to different kinds of hazards; there was so much tea dust that they could develop breathing problems. There were about a dozen women in the sorting department. They would make fun of me and ask whether they would all fit in my kameez (Indian shirt) pocket so that they could escape.
Pluckers envied sorting department women. Plantation workers in the sorting department, who were slightly better paid than plain pluckers, had their own anxieties. Gangā didi, the leader in the sorting department, in her mid-fifties, was a motherly figure. I was more helpful for the sorting department women when I was around. Sorting involved less skill for a novice like me. Gangā told me that I should demand my hazirā (pay) since I spent entire workdays with them. Then she asked me whether I had a breathing ailment. She told me “You think our work is easier than the pluckers’, but the dangers here are silent, don’t you see that many of us wear glasses; we have to sort all the bad leaves out; it’s hard work. Come winter you will not even recognize your Gangā didi. When sickling begins, we spend days in the winter sun, we become black and our skin is burnt.” Gangā didi almost implied that in winter they step down in the plantation hierarchy to join the ranks of ordinary pluckers. A sense of everyday erasure.
The politics of clean hands signified a struggle that women wanted to forget in their everyday lives. They were extremely aware of their misery and the limited options for organized resistance. A lot of thought went into keeping one’s hands clean. The plantation workers would frequently tell me, “The least we could do is keep our hands clean. What else can you do in this life of thikā (wage); maybe my next life will be better?” In the absence of large-scale collective organizing, women plantation workers performed these acts as a form of escaping the governance of the thikā. The subjective understanding of their possibility for action resulted in these small acts, accompanied by their constant lament about losing their ability to speak.
Women plantation workers and tea farmers were engaged in different kinds of visibility politics. Unlike women plantation workers, who were always trying to hide their toil, women tea farmers were engaged in making visible the value of their labor in the prosperity of their community. Male members of the cooperative would frequently talk about the cooperative as a movement of small farmers, reinforced by the rhetoric that they got from the NGO and the plantation to which they sold their tea.
In March 2007, the cooperative had an annual general meeting. During this time festivities were planned to greet the plantation owner and honor him for his support of small farmers. This was a way to ensure the durability of the plantation−co-op contract. The plantation owner was the chief guest and in his public speech he extolled the efforts of the women. He said that women possessed the natural quality of māyā (love/care/compassion), which they infuse in the tea leaves throughout the year. Without the māyā of women, the cooperative movement would not have been successful. He proclaimed that the plantation was their partner in fighting for the rights of small farmers, but it was the women who gave Darjeeling tea its quality through their māyā.
While the plantation owner made his speech, I was with the Women’s Wing members, taking pictures. They wanted a picture of their activities at the ceremony. As soon as the plantation owner spoke of māyā, the women tea farmers laughed out aloud. Then Sushila laughed and said, “We don’t believe in doing things for māyā anymore, those days are gone.” Women’s Wing members had agreed to prepare the feast for the day for a small fee for Rs. 500 ($11). Previously the Women’s Wing would provide such services for free. In a recent confrontation, Binu had told the president of the cooperative, “We are not here to cook your rice and pluck leaves.” The dispute was settled with an agreement through which the cooperative board agreed to pay money for the Women’s Wing’s services.
In the picture on the next page we can see male cooperative members sitting in on the celebrations, while a board member makes his speech. On the speaker’s left there are huge rocks behind which Women’s Wing members were cooking the meal. The smoke coming out from the fire is also seen around the rocks. This time the Women’s Wing members demanded money for their labor, which was previously mostly hidden. Through this act, women made visible their silent work which was important for the cooperative’s success. As Karuna later told me, it is because we have māyā that the men can count on us, but too much māyā will result in the obliteration of our group. It is also because of māyā that women can do swāchchā vyāpar (clean/fair trade). The comments of the plantation owner and the Women’s Wing members were laden with gender essentialisms. Gender essentialisms became a way to communicate the battle over labor and resources in the cooperative. The desire for clean trade drew on a gendered moral economy through which labor was mobilized in the plantations and the cooperative. Women tea farmers, however, were able to cash in on this essentialism by putting a price on cooking for this important occasion.
Figure 8.3. Scene at the SKS Annual General Meeting. Photo by the author.
Conclusion
The institutions in which women worked and lived and resources they could access affected women tea plantation workers’ and smallholder tea farmers’ subjectivities and aspirations. Plantation workers’ subjectivities were affected by an understanding of the limited possibility within the plantation system. Their sense of limited possibility was reinforced because the ghumāuri activities only helped them cope with the discipline of the thikā (wage). Women tea farmers, on the other hand, directly negotiated with the cooperative to fulfill their desires. The possibilities available to them within the cooperative structure gave them relatively more confidence. Women tea farmers’ narratives about their economic and political action revealed a sense of confidence. Women tea farmers frequently mentioned that they had come a long way and were no longer afraid “to beat the table.”
Women plantation workers and women tea farmers were engaged in different kinds of battles—they mobilized at different scales with their gendered projects of value. Also important to note here is the mobilization of Fair Trade ideas by women tea farmers in interpreting themselves and their struggles, through the invocation of swāchchā vyāpar. The greater exposure to Fair Trade training in the cooperative made women aware of what they could do (or not) with Fair Trade. Fair Trade gave them a new language to publicly enact their subjective desires. While both groups exercised agency, their battles took different shapes depending on how they navigated multiple intersecting inequities through their everyday cultural and economic entrepreneurialism and networks of talk.