Appendix-I An Interview of a Dalit woman

Namaste, My name is Lakshmi Narayan Singh and I am doing M. phil. in History; Department of History and Culture; Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi. I am at present conducting an interview or survey on lives of Dalit women in the Mewat region. Today, I have come to meet some Dalit women in your village/area. I would very much appreciate your participation in the interview. Kindly spare some time and give us your responses one by one. I promise that I will keep all the information provided by you utmost secret and it will be utilized only for research purpose. Your name will not be divulged at all. Hope you will cooperate with us.

In this interview, L.N. is Lakshmi Narayan; Premvati, a village woman, an "Untouchable"; And group of Dalit women. and Vijay, a student from a labourer family. Date: 24 February 2009. Place: Kaman, Dist. Bharatpur

L. N.: What time do you get up? Premvati: 5 A.M. L.N.: What do you do then?

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Premvati: Housework.... [General laughter.] L.N.: What is housework? Premvati: Cooking, fetching water, collecting cow pies and cleaning the floor, preparing baths, washing clothes.... L.N.: When do you go to the fields? Premvati: 10:00 A.M. [Others speak, some say 8 A.M., some 10:00 A.M.] L.N.: When do you return? Premvati: 6:00 P.M. L.N.: What do you do then? Premvati: Housework! L.N.: When do you go to sleep? Premvati: About 9 or 10. ... L.N.: Let's see ... that's sixteen hours of work a day. And what is your pay? Premvati AND OTHERS: [Some say ten rupees, some say fifteen, some say they sometimes work for less.] L.N.: ten to fifteen rupees for sixteen hours of work. What pay do the men get? Premvati: fifty rupees for light work, sixty for heavier work. L.N.: What is the difference? Vijay: What is the difference in work? Premvati: Running the plow, cutting ears of corn, collecting the crop, carrying it away, cutting ears of jawar, collecting leftovers for cattle, some mining work [that is men's work].

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L.N.: And women's work? Premvati: Winnowing grain from chaff, weeding, picking cotton and taking out seeds, sowing after the rain is over....

L.N.: And what do you eat? [There is a discussion of the lack of available work; they can't eat, all are like beggars, and prices rise with no change in pay.] Premvati: Bhakri, Jawari bhakri, sometimes lal bhakri (coarse bread made from millet, sometimes from milo). L.N.: And vegetables? Premvati: Vegetables ... what shall we tell you? If we have vegetables we can have spices but no salt, or salt but no spices, such is our poverty! There is no work. Some collect twigs, some collect wood and sell it, use it for fuel. What can we do-we are poor. L.N.: Are these days worse than those of ten years ago? ALL: Worse, worse, worse. L.N.: You work sixteen hours a day, do men work sixteen hours a day? Premvati: No. Women have to do different work ... and men, with a leave [English word] from 4:00 A.M. to 9:00 A.M., have to go to the fields and work and come back at 6:00 P.M. L.N.: And if men don't get work, what do they do? Premvati: Nothing. Only agriculture. L.N.: Do you want more work? Do you have work the whole year?

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Premvati: No, sometimes we get it, sometimes we don't, and sometimes it's available for two days, three days, for the rest of the time we are like this. L.N.: Do you want more work? Premvati: Yes, we want more work, but there is no work.

L.N.: This year is international women's year. Do you know any-thing about that? Vijay: They don't understand anything of that. [Explains.]

Premvati: We know nothing at all, bai. We can't read, can't write, and cant do anything. If you say to sit someplace we sit there, if someone says sleep someplace we sleep there, such is our work. We are jungli people ... (people of the wilderness). L.N.: There should be demands for jungli women too....

Premvati: Yes, there should be demands. You make an effort. You make the attempt. We will follow you. [Vijay and I say that one person can do nothing, there must be a united effort. Vijay mentions the need for a "union."] Premvati: Unity? How can we have unity? There is no united opinion among us. If I don't go to work someone else will go, and I will lose. We have no unity. The farmers have unity.... [Discussion of unity follows.] L.N.: And is liquor a problem? WOMEN: No, no.

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Vijay: Women don't drink. L.N.: No, but the men? Premvati: Oh well, yes, they are men. L.N.: Another question, about divorce. If your husband goes, can you take another husband? Premvati: Yes, sometimes

L.N.: It seems that in your agricultural labourer community there is more equality between men and women compared to the higher communities. ... Premvati: Yes. L.N.: Still, is there male supremacy? Vijay: Yes, there is male supremacy. Still, during the famine relief work days they got equal pay. But in the work they do in the fields, men get more daily wages, they [women] get lower, and the reason for this is that men's work is heavier, more toilsome. Women's work is different. L.N.: but women.... Premvati... have to do double [English word] work! We have to do the housework, and when the housework is finished we have to do field work, and when the field work is finished we have to take care of the children, we have to do all the work. Suppose someone is thinking like this, some reader-and-writer, let him sit down and write an account: what sort of work has to be done, what sort of work the men do. I am ready to tell you. What do men do? They get up, they take a bath, and they eat

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some bread and go to the fields. But understand what their duty is: they only do the work that is allotted to them in the fields. They only do one sort of work.

L.N.: It's the same to America and European countries also. Women work in factories and offices, but they get less pay than men. And when they finish in the factories and offices they have to do housework-and housework is without pay. Premvati: Oho. That is the case here too. We remain without pay. If it would have been paid work we would have gotten double pay. If housework were paid it would go to the women. Are you men listening? Then say it: if there is competition about housework we would completely defeat them! L.N.: What about dowry? Is there dowry among you? Premvati: Dowry, yes, gold chains, horses, motor-cycles, money, wristwatches.... L.N.: You know in the Indian constitution-which was written by Baba Saheb Ambedkar-dowry is illegal. Untouchability is illegal, dowry is illegal, there are rights, but in reality.... Premvati: There are no rights. Yes, correct. Vijay: It's written in the constitution. Premvati: It's written, but it's not like that.

L.N.: AND Vijay: In this country there's a woman prime minister. So in other countries people feel that women in India must have some rights, that you have made progress.

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Premvati: Not at all, not at all, not even one anna in a rupee (i.e., not even onesixteenth). he's doing politics, and it's all right, it's not for us, our life has not changed. Premvati: Now he has come, so he'll do something for us, perhaps for one anna in a rupee, forget the other fifteen.

Vijay: he's going to study the conditions here; and at that time whatever obstacles there are to your building an organization, how to overcome them, in what way to build it, he'll write something.... Premvati: Yes, but will he write to us? Hell write something worth reading and writing, but it will be in thin small letters and we won't be able to read it, not at all, there will be no profit or loss to us. [General laughter.] Is this true or false? is what I am saying a mistake? Understand, we show our difficulties to you, you send from there some paper and some educated person will read, some children, and we know nothing, whatever they tell us or explain to us, we will understand. If we even have the time. L.N.: Well, it's been a good discussion. Premvati: O yes, our India has reached a good state, it's ahead of all. Vijay: You're being sarcastic. Premvati: You can take it that way; I'm talking out of anger. But it's not false, they've done nothing for us, there's no happiness for us. Vijay: In the time of the English, was that raj better than this one or not? ALL: Yes, yes, yes.

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Premvati: We were small, then, but we were getting every-thing, grain, food, everything. Money was less but our stomachs were full. Tell me: if there is no grain, if there is nothing for our stomachs, what have we to do with the state? Nothing at all. We condemn it. Because we are miserable we say the state is miserable. Isn't our life miserable? Then, whatever it does it does for them; it does nothing for the poor. Then tell us ... we are expressing our sorrows to you, but up to this day no one has come to ask us about our sorrows. Vijay: But in the time of the English wasn't there casteism? Premvati: Now it's better, about four annas in a rupee.

[Vijay mentions foreign ownership of factories, asking whether there is really true independence.] Premvati: What can we understand of that, we don't know how to read and write, we have no information at all about the country, who runs the factories, we have no information. Only that we don't get anything, that our wages are less, that our food and clothes are insufficient, that everything we get is short, only that we know and try to discuss. If I had been educated, I would have been a leader. But as it is I am only a bull for a festival [i.e., to be ceremoniously honoured for one day of the year and worked the rest]. [More discussion on casteism follows.] What do you think, with Bhangi, Chamar, Teli, and other agricultural labourers, is unity possible?

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Premvati: No. We need unity, but it won't be. If we don't go to work, others will go and we will fall. What can we do? If the leaders go ahead, of course we'll follow them, but if they stay behind, they sit in their big houses, so where can we go? And if there's some money, the big people eat it up. They eat up votes. So they take money, we give votes, but we remain starving all the time. L.N.: New leaders are needed.... Premvati: Yes, leaders of pure metal... Vijay: Like Ambedkar? Premvati: Yes, he's great, there's none like that now. Now they want dhotis costing 50 rupees and their wives want saris, and we have to endure rags. L.N.: Is there anything more you want to say? Premvati: No, whatever you have asked we have answered, and to whatever extent you ask we will answer, we have endless sorrows. *** The speaker in this interview is a Dalit (downtrodden or Untouchable) woman agricultural labourer in Mewat.

Her remarks were part of a session recorded during a visit to a village of about 4,000 people in Mewat. Although the striking expression of this woman in her forties makes the interview somewhat unusual, in group after group with which I met during the year and a half that I spent engaging lower-class and lower-caste women in discussions and meetings it was not unusual to find one or more such outspoken and

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bold local women leaders. Most of these discussions took place in a somewhat unconventional context

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