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:
“But however the forms of family life have changed and the number expanded, the role of the family has remained constant and it continues to be the major institution through which children pass en route to adulthood.”
—Bernice Weissbourd (20th century)
“Nothing is ever simple. What do you do when you discover you like parts of the role youre trying to escape?”
—Marilyn French (b. 1929)
“I used to join the murmurings about Where are the qualified women? As we murmured, we would all gaze about the room, up toward the chandelier, into the corner behind the potted palm, under the napkin, hoping perhaps that qualified women would pop out like leprechauns.”
—Jane OReilly, U.S. feminist and humorist. The Girl I Left Behind, ch. 5 (1980)
“As the global expansion of Indian and Chinese restaurants suggests, xenophobia is directed against foreign people, not foreign cultural imports.”
—Eric J. Hobsbawm (b. 1917)
“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 (18971960)
“Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society. Who shall say that this is not the golden age of mutual trust, of unlimited reliance upon human promises? That is a peculiar condition of society which enables a whole nation to instantly recognize point and meaning in the familiar newspaper anecdote, which puts into the mouth of a distinguished speculator in lands and mines this remark:MI wasnt worth a cent two years ago, and now I owe two millions of dollars.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910)