The Hindu Business Line : Elections and burden of women

UNDOUBTEDLY Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee is the trump card of the BJP in this election. Remember the surveys that said that Karnataka Chief Minister S.M. Krishna, was otherwise popular in his State, particularly in urban areas, but when it came to the rural folk in Karnataka comparing him with Ajja (Vajpayee), his popularity dropped immensely? Hence it might come as a shock to the BJP leaders who think they have converted Vajpayee into an unbeatable brand, to know that in Madurai city, he is not exactly a household word.

"My housemaid - 56-year-old Papamma - doesn't know who Vajpayee is, though she is very much aware of who Indira Gandhi is, and by that account, also Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. I believe in Tamil Nadu, people will vote for one of the Dravidian parties and their leaders and not for either Vajpayee or Sonia Gandhi," says Prof L. Tara Bai, Head of the Department of Sociology at Madurai Kamaraj University.

As you drive within Madurai city and in the villages of Dindigul and Theni districts, you realise that in more ways than one, this election is about the rural women of the country. Women whose lives have not changed, who still have to grapple with alcoholic, fickle and errant husbands, a large number of children as well as the elderly members of the family, and cope with the collective frustrations of all of them.

Thirteen Lok Sabhas have come and gone since Independence, with their presiding deities mouthing fancy slogans such as Garibi hatao, Jai jawan, Jai kisan and India Shining. But all these have hardly made a difference to the rural women's lives.

If they had, we wouldn't find even today in Tamil Nadu, or any other drought-prone State, only women being entrusted with the most difficult task of fetching water for the entire family. Whether in Chennai, Madurai or Dindigul, the long queues of water pots you see tell a story of women's struggle, as also why not too many women eagerly come forward to answer journalists' queries on elections. It is invariably the men who find the time to drink a cup of tea with you, dragging on their bidis, as they spin out theories on who will win and who will lose.

Some readers might ask: What about the self-help groups (SHGs)? Aren't they supposed to have improved the lives of women?

Well, yes and no, as we found out in an interaction with two dynamic women managing an SHG sales outlet in Dindigul town, marketing the produce of the members. Right from buttermilk and pickles to packed meals and floor mats.

Mangala Mary and Pandi Devi have the kind of confidence and articulation skills you'd expect in urban professional women. Both are `community organisers' who are paid a pittance of Rs 2,000 a month by the government to organise the SHGs in their division, supervise the sales outlet and some other activities.

"Oh yes, the SHGs have indeed empowered women," says Mary, "but in many homes they have also ended up making the men more lazy, more demanding and more alcoholic. With unemployment growing and jobs becoming more and more difficult to find, many men in these areas are content to stay back at home, becoming drunkards who beat their wives if they don't return home in the evening with enough money for their evening meal."

Whatever money the women might take home, meeting the water needs of the family remains their biggest headache. "We get supply of drinking water in Dindigul once in 15 days, and drinking stale water results in many water-borne diseases. And when anybody falls sick, again it is the woman's responsibility."

Pointing to Chandra, an SHG member, Pandi Devi says that her husband had left her for another woman, to whose name he transferred both his house and land.

"Today he is sick and the other woman has left him. So Chandra is taking care of him. Sometimes I feel that this taali (mangal sutra) is the biggest curse of the Indian woman. The fellow might go chasing 15 women in 25 years after tying a taali around the neck of one woman. But in the end, when he is old and sick, he will return to the wife and she, thanks to the taali, feels obliged to take care of him."

Quite often she does this by taking loans from the local moneylender at phenomenal rates of interest. Sometimes, and in what are called `metre loans,' the interest can be as stiff as Rs 10 a day for a sum of Rs 100.

"How can the woman ever repay such a loan? She can't, with the result that even her children have to work for years, sometimes generations, to return the money," she adds.

But how will the problems faced by women decide which party she votes for? As Prof Tara Bai points out, "The incumbency factor will always come into play, because the people's needs and expectations are not being met." Amuda, a daily wageworker in Sriramnagar in the Periakulam constituency, says last time she voted for the AIADMK, but has decided to vote for the DMK-led Democratic People's Alliance. "I want a change," she says definitely.

But if that alliance wins, that might make Sonia Gandhi the Prime Minister. "So what, let's have a change," says the woman shrugging her shoulder.

But her eyes do not convey the conviction that she expects anything in her life to change during the next five years.

Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in