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).
Read more about this topic: Coal Mining In India
Famous quotes containing the words role of, role, women, indian, coal and/or mines:
“The traditional American husband and father had the responsibilities—and the privileges—of playing the role of primary provider. Sharing that role is not easy. To yield exclusive access to the role is to surrender some of the potential for fulfilling the hero fantasy—a fantasy that appeals to us all. The loss is far from trivial.”
—Faye J. Crosby (20th century)
“All of the assumptions once made about a parent’s role have been undercut by the specialists. The psychiatric specialists, the psychological specialists, the educational specialists, all have mystified child development. They have fostered the idea that understanding children and promoting their intellectual well-being is too complex for mothers and requires the intervention of experts.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“We must conclude that it is not only a particular political ideology that has failed, but the idea that men and women could ever define themselves in terms that exclude their spiritual needs.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1948)
“Music is so much a part of their daily lives that if an Indian visits another reservation one of the first questions asked on his return is: “What new songs did you learn?””
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“This island is made mainly of coal and surrounded by fish. Only an organizing genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish at the same time.”
—Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960)
“The humblest observer who goes to the mines sees and says that gold-digging is of the character of a lottery; the gold thus obtained is not the same thing with the wages of honest toil. But, practically, he forgets what he has seen, for he has seen only the fact, not the principle, and goes into trade there, that is, buys a ticket in what commonly proves another lottery, where the fact is not so obvious.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)