|
India Thinkers Net Archives Index
|
Subscribe
|
|
| << September29, 2004 - [India Thinkers Net]Protest against `untouchability' |
September30, 2004 - [India Thinkers Net]Politics in Demographics >> |
|
From: Shiva Shankar <sshankar@cmi.ac.in> For a life of respect and dignity, The Hindu, 27th Sept 2004, By Our Staff Reporter. NEW DELHI, SEPT. 26. Raj Kapoor Rawat of Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh runs an Ayurvedic clinic in his town and has also successfully organised the scavenger community who are demanding their right to lead a life of respect and dignity. The son of a scavenger himself, he is a postgraduate and is well aware of his rights and responsibilities. Hailing from the same area is Raj Kumar, a successful lawyer, who also has come up by dint of hard work and merit. Burning the midnight oil while his mother worked as a safai karamchari, he has seen very "dark days'' and wants to emancipate many of his folk from the drudgery they have to undergo day in and day out. He runs a school for children of the scavenger community. Indeed, there are many like Raj Kapoor and Raj Kumar, who though born as sons to safai karamcharis, have had a decent education and are now trying to earn a place for themselves in society. The duo try and motivate the safai karamcharis to take to alternate vocations so that they no longer carry on with the occupation with which they have come to be identified with. But respect and honour do not come easily to them in a society which is caste and class conscious and therefore, to retain their pride and self-esteem and to ensure that others like him do so is a daily battle for people like them. And lending support to their struggle is the Delhi-based Social Development Foundation which aims to empower struggling people at the grassroots and to develop their leadership. "I have recently made a film on people like Raj Kapoor and Raj Kumar who though belonging to a community of scavengers have turned their lives into a success,'' said V. B. Rawat, who is also making an attempt to profile such people and bring them to the limelight. However, the odds are still stacked heavily against the scavengers, many of whom have to continue carrying the night soil over their heads despite their being a ban on the practice. And in States like West Bengal, it even has Government sanction. Fighting against the denial of rights to the safai karamcharis in the Howrah Municipal Corporation is Kishan Balmiki, who has been running the "Dalit Salvation Movement'' for two decades now. "People like Kishan are isolated in their struggle. It is our aim to provide them solidarity and to ensure that their movement grows by the strength of networking,'' pointed out Mr. Rawat. With many scavenger families displaced in a recent beautification drive carried out in Howrah, Mr. Rawat argued that the only way to ensure that their voice reaches the "high and mighty'' in Delhi is to ensure that the wider land rights movement across the country incorporated their concerns as well. "We are also trying to ensure that gender concerns are adequately reflected in the struggle for land rights,'' he added. And to step up advocacy so that the scavenger community feel positively empowered, Mr. Rawat has been focussing on the achievers in "Hum Dalit'', a magazine of the Indian Social Institute, as also making an attempt to bring out a white paper on their situation. ------------------------------------------------------------ #2) From: Rupesh Garg <rupeshgarg20@yahoo.com> Date: Wed Sep 29, 2004 Subject: Will a snack do for India what software can't? This IHT.com article has been sent to you by Shadi shadikatyak@y... Madhu here is an idea for gram work. Commentary: Will a snack do for India what software can\'t? Andy Mukherjee Bloomberg News Tuesday, September 28, 2004 http://www.iht.com/articles/540858.html Commentary: Will a snack do for India what software can't? Andy Mukherjee Bloomberg News Tuesday, September 28, 2004 As the barely literate wife of a typesetter in Mumbai, Pratibha Sawant had only two options when she wanted to put her children through school 31 years ago: She could work as a housemaid or start rolling poppadums. . Sawant chose poppadums, a tortilla-like snack made with lentils, rice, chili and spices. Her decision paid off. . "Poppadums paid for my children's education and my daughter's marriage," says Sawant, 58, who earns $2,500 a year as a supervisor at Lijjat poppadums, the world's biggest maker of the snacks that are a staple on Indian dinner tables and a snack with tea or beer. . In terms of international purchasing power, Sawant's wages amount to $13,000, five times higher than India's average per capita income. . Sawant is one of 40,000 Indian women who are defying poverty by working for and jointly owning Lijjat, which has a $66 million global market, including Singapore, London and New York. . Run by a self-help group that shares profit among its all-female members, Lijjat is doing for India what the booming software industry can't: provide the tools of economic improvement to those without formal education. . Four out of five of India's 813,000 computer-software and call-center workers have college degrees, meaning the $16 billion industry brings no succor to the two-fifths of the country's adults who are illiterate and condemned to live in poverty. . "The capacity to earn one's livelihood is the first step in the ladder to economic empowerment," says Malathi Ramanathan, a historian who knows Lijjat well. "If India ignores the need to empower millions of its poor people, the economy won't perform at true potential." . Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad, the official name of the organization behind Lijjat, was founded in Mumbai in 1959 by seven women with capital of less than $2. In 45 years, it has grown into a worldwide brand. . At Lijjat's Vadala branch in suburban Mumbai, work starts at 4 a.m. Workers turn in the dried poppadums they made the previous day, get paid for the ones rolled a day earlier and take home fresh dough to flatten that day. . Working alone, using a rolling pin as her only tool, one woman can turn about five kilograms, or 11 pounds, of dough into poppadums each day. A 200-gram pack of Lijjat poppadums sells for $1.99 in the United States. . Lijjat does not seek, nor accept, donations. Apart from its economic role, the organization symbolizes Asian feminism, says Ramanathan, the historian, referring to its policy of excluding men from membership and profit and restricting them to ancillary roles like lorry drivers and account keepers. . Men are out, and so are machines. . "One machine can do the work of 10 women," says Jyoti Naik, Lijjat's president. "But ours is an organization meant to create work for women. We have to keep machines out." . Curiously, the opposite is happening in India's big factories, where technology is replacing people because of restrictive labor laws that make it difficult for companies to fire workers during dips in the business cycle. . At the same time, jobs with state-owned companies and the government have become scarce. In the 1990s, employment growth outside of agriculture slowed to 1.7 percent, from 2.8 percent in the previous decade. In urban India, employment grew at an even slower pace of 1.3 percent. . So what does India need more, software or snacks? For the economy to sustain last year's growth of 8 percent, it needs both. Software is crucial as much for the relatively higher-paying jobs it provides as for the productivity improvement it is contributing to the broader economy, say the researchers Ashish Arora and Suma Athreye. . Still, software isn't enough because India needs to pull millions out of poverty by creating jobs for the undereducated. Manmohan Singh, the new prime minister, has promised 100 days of guaranteed work annually to one person from every poor rural household. It's clear to see what will happen once the legal guarantee is in force: One set of workers will be digging holes, and another set will be filling them. . If the government is serious about curbing unemployment in a meaningful manner, it should promote private initiative. And the most obvious candidate for large-scale employment generation is the food business. . Lijjat isn't the only success story. Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation has helped turn a milk-importing nation into the world's biggest dairy producer. The cooperative processes and markets more than five million kilograms of milk it sources from more than two million farmers each day. . Lijjat, meanwhile, isn't without flaws. Its "no-machine" strategy works for poppadums. Still, from a health and safety perspective, the organization's diversification into hand-made washing detergent doesn't seem like a good idea. . Lijjat's member-owners are paid strictly according to their daily contributions, following the principle of "no work, no pay." In the case of managers, who don't roll poppadums themselves, a notional production value is multiplied by the "piece rate" to decide compensation. Therefore, there are no retirement benefits, or even paid sick leave. Everyone, including Naik, the president, is at work 365 days a year. . What's heartening, however, is the cheer with which people like Pratibha Sawant have embraced life-long work: "I may not need the money any more," she says, "but if I don't come to work and meet all these women, where will I get the gossip?" . Bloomberg News -------------------------------------------------------------- #3) From: Vijaya Chauhan <vchauhan@unicef.org> Date: Tue Sep 28, 2004 0:15pm Subject: Re: [indiathinkersnet] Seminar invitation :WHY REMEMBER GANDHI TODAY? Thanks for the invitation. I would try to be there but there is also a book release function on the same day in honour of Mrinal Gore. Pl. note my personal mail ID as I would retire from UNICEF wef 30th sept and this address would not be in use. vijayachauhan@h... Thanks again. Vijaya Chauhan. Subject: [indiathinkersnet] Seminar invitation :WHY REMEMBER GANDHI TODAY? 09/26/2004 11:51 PM Please respond to indiathinkersnet ANHAD & Coalition for Secular Democracy Cordially Invite You to a Seminar WHY REMEMBER GANDHI TODAY? Date: Monday, October 4, 2004 Time: 4.00-7.00pm |
|
| << September29, 2004 - [India Thinkers Net]Protest against `untouchability' |
September30, 2004 - [India Thinkers Net]Politics in Demographics >> |
|
India Thinkers Net Archives Index
|
Subscribe
|
|
|
Archives powered by Zinester's Mailing List Service
Details on India Thinkers Net |
Browse for more newsletters at Zinester's Ezine Directory
Managed by Zinester's Mailing List Management |