Role of Women in Indian Coal Mines
Women played a key role in building the coal industry in India since its early days. They were part of a family unit of labour and worked as partners, usually in loading jobs in shallow undergropund mines with a male coal cutter, usually a husband, a father or a brother. The need to fuel the urban–industrial engine from mid-nineteenth century onwards encouraged the British Raj to expand coal mining in Raniganj and Jharia in undivided Bengal. In Giridih, Jharia and Raniganj collieries about 10 per cent of the labourers were Santhals and Kols, around 60 per cent from ‘semi-Hinduised’ castes such as Bauris, Bagdis, Chamars, Telis, Turis, Musahars and Jolhas (weavers) and the rest were Mohammedans (Chief Inspector of Mines Report, 1902). Theselocal communities became known to colonial administrators as ‘hereditary miners’ or ‘traditional coal cutters’. In an inspection report, Stonier (1902: 2) observed: ‘he bauris have cut coal for so long a time—probably for several generations—that they now consider coal cutting to be a caste-occupation.’ Of the various caste groups, the Bauris were the first to bring their women into the collieries followed later by Santhals, Kols, Koras and Bhuinyas. Upper caste Hindu women stayed away from the collieries and were largely confined to their homes. Women worked in early coal mines as shale-pickers and breakers, wagon and truck loaders, helpers in construction, pellet makers, brick carriers and sweepers. Women in collieries were initially employed as ‘gin girls’ (from the term ‘engine’), who had the responsibility of winding the engines to bring to surface the coal baskets from the pits, but they preferred to work in company of other women. Women also performed other surface and underground work when the mechanical system of lifting coal from shallow shafts was phased out (see Lahiri-Dutt 2010; 2006; 1999).
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