Edited transcript of the episode:

0.27

Saloni: Indian women have been dropping out of the workforce for years. For three decades since liberalisation, the female labour force participation rate, or FLFPR, has been dipping. It reduced from approximately 30 percent in 1990 to approximately 17 percent by 2018.

There was, however, a hope-filled uptick recently when the government released the results of its Periodic Labour Force Survey, or PLFS, an annual exercise started in 2017. According to this data, our FLFPR recently rose to 37 percent. That sounds like good news, but is it really? Our three guests this week have studied the issue closely. They help us unpack the data and look at the real story of Indian women and paid work.

First, we turn to Namita Bhandare. Namita is a journalist who has written about gender issues for a long time. She started looking at women’s participation in economic activity as early as 2017. Her series on women at work with IndiaSpend won a National Award. She walks us through what the recent data on FLFPR tells us, and what it hides.

1.52

Namita: I have seen now, in a post-Covid world, the data varies from anything between 9 percent, [according to] CMIE [Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy]—a very respected think tank that publishes regular data on female labour force participation—and 35 percent, according to the latest PLFS, which is the periodic labour force survey. Regardless of who you choose to believe, I think the important thing is looking at the trend, looking at where we’re going. And the fact is that [as far as] labour force participation [is concerned] I accept the PLFS data because I have no reason to dispute it. I accept it, that female labour force participation is actually at its highest ever in the last five years. But when you’re past the PLFS data, and you say, “Well, where are these women seeking employment? Where are they employed?” So the big bumps are number one, rural India, and number two, self-employed [women], or what they call ‘own account’. This means that if I am sitting at home and rolling agarbattis, and stuffing them into packages and earning INR 100 a day for this labour, I am regarded as employed. If I’m rolling papads in my house, I am regarded as employed. So what has actually happened in a post-Covid world is that economic distress [and] the unemployment has led to women coming back into the workforce at any salary and doing any kind of work to supplement the household income—that is a bigger story than the data. 

03.37

Saloni: Namita refers to the economic think tank CMIE or the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. For 2022–23, CMIE pegged female labour participation at less than 10 percent.

For more on how to read the data, we speak with Shrayana Bhattacharya. Shrayana is an economist and the author of Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh Khan. Her book tracks the economic journeys of women from different regions, age groups, and classes. Shrayana tells us how she interprets the dips and hikes in the FLFPR.

4.15

Shrayana: Since the pandemic, particularly the past four or five years, we’re seeing this increase [in female labour force participation], largely driven by rural areas; I think that’s very important. The urban difference has actually stayed fairly similar; there’s no big increase there. And if you start to slice the rural data and look into it very carefully, you realise that the increase is largely because of self-employment. And in fact, it’s [due to] unpaid family workers, which one would argue is not a very substantive, meaningful, qualitative shift in jobs.

4.53

Saloni: Both Shrayana and Namita point out that the FLFPR has gone up because rural women are resorting to self-employment in times of economic distress. Our third guest Sharon Buteau has worked closely with many women entrepreneurs. Sharon is associated with the Institute for What Works to Advance Gender Equality, or IWWAGE. Based on her research and experience, Sharon sheds light on the landscape for women entrepreneurs in India.

05.23

Sharon: India is historically a country of nano entrepreneurs by and large. For women in particular though, they all coalesced into this very small category [of] a turnover of INR 3 lakh and below [annually]. Compare this with men: In the spectrum of [an annual turnover of] up to INR 10 lakh for both men and women, there are fewer men in the below INR 1 lakh [annual turnover category]. And then there are more and more [men] up to INR 10 lakh. [For] women, it’s the opposite—there are a lot in the less than INR 1 lakh category. And they’re typically fewer and fewer in the higher categories. Women are stuck in that small category.

When you look at the data as well, you see that for most of the enterprises, women are as productive in terms of profit as men; [however,] women tend to get approximately half of the loans, the credit that they do.

06.20

Saloni: So, while more women are starting their own enterprises to climb out of financial holes, women entrepreneurs are unable to grow adequately. Not much to celebrate there.

Here’s a tidbit: On October 9, 2023, the day the government gave us the FLFPR, many feminists were celebrating, but for other reasons. They were happy to hear that the Nobel Prize for Economics was given to Claudia Goldin, the first woman economist to win the prize solo. Namita, Shrayana, and Sharon were among those overjoyed to hear the news because Goldin’s work focuses on exactly the issues we are discussing today: employment and pay for women.

Her U-shaped curve function states that women’s labour force participation does not grow proportionally when the per capita GDP first starts increasing. With economic growth, the FLFPR declines initially. After the initial dip, when the per capita income continues to increase, the FLFPR increases, generating the U-shaped graph.

Here we have Namita reading India’s FLFPR data in the context of Goldin’s work.

07.40

Namita: Claudia Goldin, who won the Nobel Prize this year, [has] spent her entire career documenting how and why women drop out of the workforce. In India, of course, we did not have the U curve that she talks about, which [signifies that] in most developed economies, women will drop out. Factory work leads to women dropping out of the labour force. But then as the services industry picks up, women rejoin. Now, in India, we’ve only seen a downward decline. We have not seen an upward trend—until now. This is, as I said, the self-employed own account, very low-paid work that women are accepting out of desperation. So I would not necessarily see this as good news. I don’t think we can celebrate the numbers going up, because the numbers are going up for very dire reasons. And once household incomes bounce back, or the economy bounces back, as the government says it will, I anticipate these women would drop out for the same reasons that they had dropped out in the first place. Because on the ground, nothing has changed.

08.46

Saloni: Shrayana agrees that, on the ground, it’s more of the same. And it’s discouraging.

08.52

Shrayana: To use the phrase that our recent Nobel Prize winner in economics Claudia Goldin uses, ‘the revolution happens when jobs become careers’. She says that the biggest thing that shifted in America was not actually the period when the labour force participation rates of married women in particular increased, but the biggest qualitative shift, which was the revolution, which is difficult for data to pick up, was when women started seeing their professional identities as being very central to who they were. And then that guided their decisions on marriage markets, on reproductive rights. So many aspects of American society changed with that change in attitude. And if you look at that appetite of young women in particular, who are interested in careers, my sense is, actually, that interest level is very high in India. And I think that’s probably why we have an extremely frustrated female workforce as well, because their talents are not being adequately engaged. So, I read the numbers as alarming still because the gap is just not acceptable by any standards of dignity, or any standards of opportunities, no matter which way the graph is going, up or down. The gap is just too large.

10.20

Saloni: By some estimates, Indian women are 48 percent of the population but contribute to only 18 percent of the GDP. Bridging this gender gap could raise India’s GDP by a whopping 30 percent. So if women are faring well in education, what is keeping them away from paid work, or making them drop out of it? Namita weighs in.

10.51

Namita: Before Covid, there were two cohorts that were dropping out of the labour force faster than the others. The first comprised those who were not literate. And the good news is that they were dropping out of work because many of them were staying on in school. Many of them were actually studying, thanks to a lot of excellent nonprofit work such as by Pratham, thanks to the midday meal, thanks to the cycle scheme, which was a fantastic game changer for girls to remain in school. So girls were studying more and there’s no question that this led to a drop in labour force participation. The second group that was dropping out of work the fastest—very surprising to me, at least—was postgraduates. The most educated were leaving the workplace the fastest. These were engineers, these were doctors. And these were women who were hitting what is called ‘the leaking pipeline’. So the leaking pipeline is a very fancy, nice-sounding academic term, which in a nutshell means that women join the workforce with great enthusiasm, and a great belief that they will do well in their careers, and that they will, in fact, have careers. Then the first bump comes when they get married. So when they get married, there’s a lot of pressure, particularly in India, to a) produce a child, and b) conform to the in-laws’ concept of what a good woman and a good wife does. The second bump comes when she becomes a mother. And she finds it very, very difficult to put in the care work as well as hours in the office. And so if there is a woman, an elder woman at home, either a mother or a mother-in-law to help her, she might stick it out.

12.46

Saloni: Care work includes activities such as cooking, cleaning, and taking care of kids, sick people, or elderly family members. It’s often ignored in policy talks and goes unaccounted for.

12.58

Namita: There was a study some years ago by NASSCOM which very beautifully illustrates this conundrum. And it talks about how mid-career…they compare men and women in the tech industry. So a man will have taken more transfers, he will have taken up more challenging jobs, he will have taken up a foreign assignment, all of which a woman will not have taken up. And so she experiences a plateau in her career. And she says, “I’m not getting anywhere in this job, I may as well sit at home.” And then there’s board exams, then there are parents who are growing older. So all of these are very real challenges for women. And at some point, many would just give up and say it’s not worth it. I can’t do this. Because you know, the fact of the matter is that all women work, but all women are not paid to work.

13.50

Saloni: Shrayana tells us that there are many layers to the challenge.

13.55

Shrayana: Let’s not forget that we still live in a world where marriage is a death sentence, I think, to women’s careers. We want to pretend that that’s not the case. Because we all get very nervous about commenting on marriage. And we don’t want to offend men and our brothers and our husbands and our friends. But all the data tells us that marriage, and in particular caregiving, just kicks women out of the workforce or makes them more precarious in the opportunities that they’re able to access. And this is true as you know from the periodic labour force data, true for not only women with barely any education, but actually even true for women with secondary education or higher education, postgraduate degrees, who tend to be much more prevalent in the workforce. And unless we think very carefully and creatively about the care economy, I don’t think we’re going to solve that problem. And unless we don’t assure young women that you can seek help in your caregiving roles, that there is life without marriage, that marriage doesn’t need to be your full-time job, I think till we don’t socialise women to believe that, it’s going to be difficult.

There is a sense of this triple burden of being unsafe in the world outside, and this is particularly true for women in the north of the country. Feeling unsafe at work, feeling like you have to manage the care role of your house exclusively. And the actual drudgery of regular job routines and office routines, which may not always be fun. I certainly don’t believe all of us have the luxury of having jobs that we absolutely love. I mean, even if we do, there are days that are tough. And navigating the bro club of the office work environment, navigating unsafe travel, or feeling uncomfortable navigating the fact that you will always have to be the one to tell the maid what to cook and when to clean and when to come. That, I think, among our upper middle class creates this sense of drudgery and feeling the chik-chik— that’s the best way to put it. And I think there is this feeling that there’s not an adequate amount of leisure that these women can enjoy, even if they are from a fairly privileged set-up where they can rely on care workers and nannies and cooks and so on.

Our labour programmes, minimum wage laws, and fundamental labour regulations don’t protect some of our most precarious female workers who’re paid a pittance.

So sometimes on the surface, it may not look like [it does] in the movies. The perfect hair and perfect outfits, and everyone’s smoking cigarettes as a sense of how empowered they are. I think it can look far messier than that.

And our first-generation, English-speaking, job-holding middle class… In the book, these are women who are, for example, hospitality workers or women who work in in-flight services, who are often the first in their families to complete an education, to have a job. And for these women, jobs are an adventure. And jobs can be [about] meeting new people, can be [about] meeting new men, can be romance, can be heartbreak, and can be loneliness, can be supporting your father through a difficult health episode, can be buying a property. These are all new facets of personhood that have never been available to these women and their families and that they can suddenly access. And I sense a tremendous amount of anxiety as well as enthusiasm emerging from all those freedoms, so jobs become freedom.

And the last thing I will say where I think it’s a bit mixed in terms of what jobs mean is our precariat. Because you know, our labour programmes and our minimum wage laws and our fundamental labour regulations don’t protect some of our most precarious female workers who’re paid a pittance. And they’re working so tremendously hard that so many of these women would say to me, “I’d much rather just marry someone who has a steady job and opt out.” Their daughters won’t say that, but some of the women in their 40s and 50s might have when they were working a decade ago, or even now. And for them, there is a sense that they will have to work to earn. They don’t even have retirement, you just have to work.

What that working woman looks like and what she feels like, it’s so different and layered in a country as complicated and contradictory as ours. But I do think class has a very huge role to play in mediating it. What I will say is that none of the women I’ve ever met will exclusively just say, “Well, this is all so terrific,” because, you know, the fact is, in a country where 82 percent of the labour income accrues to men, to be part of that tiny minority of women who are receiving that labour income, you are a revolutionary, and being a revolutionary is hard work.

18.59

Saloni: Sharon says that self-employed women and women entrepreneurs also face prejudices and barriers.

19.07

Sharon: Women tend to get about half of the loans, the credit that they [men] do. There could be several explanations, [such as the fact that] they’re in wildly different industries. So when you see men and women, it’s very dichotomic, there’s very little overlap between what men and women do. There are these traditional roles that maybe over time will decrease. But that could explain maybe some years that are less capital-intensive, so the loan [amount taken out by women] can be lower. But I also feel that there’s a mentality when it comes to women entrepreneurs, and I’ve spoken to some agent bankers and they say, “Well, that’s enough for women,” and women tend to believe, they tend to say, “Oh, I don’t need more. That’s enough for me.” It’s kind of like this mentality, it’s just enough, and I’m lucky to get this loan. So the first thing is this mentality of ‘just enough for her’ has to stop. Who is to judge [how much money women can loan]? And it’s really ingrained in the women or the entrepreneurs because these agent bankers will say, “Well, the woman told them themselves,” but who told the woman? [It is the] people in the house or people in the village. How [can it be that for] the same [kind of] business [one of which is owned by a] man and [the other by a] woman, one is just enough loan when it’s half the amount, [but for] the other one, you need more? So the first thing you need to overcome is mentality, social norms. The other thing is, in terms of credit, given that [fewer] women are entrepreneurs—they form approximately 20 percent of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and the great majority among the 20 percent is a very tiny segment, really all coalesce and [are] not able to grow. So when you look at those enterprises, when they go to other banks and formal institutions given that [mainstream] bankers and financial institutions are not aware of those industries too much, women are at a disadvantage, because the banking agents have less insights into their enterprises.

20.56

Saloni: Here too the odds are stacked against women thriving financially. On the one hand, there are prejudices, and on the other, there are policy challenges. We need to address both social norms and structural issues simultaneously. Shrayana weighs in on the shifts we need to make with both.

21.18

Shrayana: Of late, I have been hearing a lot of this kind of binary building: “Oh, is it social norms that are creating problems for women in the economy? Or is it just a lack of jobs and just the economy?” I mean, social norms, as economists understand it, is an interaction term that essentially overlays everything. Norms overlay everything, they overlay our current interaction, Saloni. They govern all our market behaviour. So while absolutely, we need opportunities. But I think the hard work, which is sadly perhaps not the work of policy, I think policy can help, but the hard work of families changing their minds, and I think that’s happening, it’s happening for sure, or popular culture trying to support women in imagining different lives for themselves, in organising, in movements, in politics…I think all of that is going to be really important, while the technocratic work of hopefully more women and men who think differently about distributing opportunities starts to change in our system.

I think what I’m trying to push against is this binary-making. I don’t think it’s one versus the other. I think it is an interaction, it is both. And you don’t have to keep waiting for norms to change to get more jobs for women and to take affirmative action for women. But at the same time, if we just keep focusing on the technocratic questions, we can’t let men and unfair families off the hook either. And we can’t make it seem like our society is terrific when it comes to women and norms. So we have to acknowledge both with clear eyes.

22.56

Saloni: Namita thinks that while there have been small wins, we still have a long way to go.

23.01

Namita: If you remember, when there was a complete lockdown, and your household help was not able to come, men did pitch in. And Professor Ashwini Deshpande, who has [done] a wealth of work, actually documented how men had stepped up. Men were helping, they were chopping the vegetables, they were washing the bartans, they were doing jhaadu–pochha—they were doing everything they could, because they realised that the wife is also working from home, and there is no one to help her. Plus there was children’s homework because the children were at home, they were not going to school. So they did step up. The bad news is that as soon as everything went back to normal, the men also went back to normal, you know that little bump? But it just tells you, that it’s not rocket science that [if] men want to [contribute to domestic work], they can. It’s a question of a change in attitude.

Political parties, at least, are now paying lip service. You know, so you suddenly have announcements, every government is now tripping over the other, announcing monthly allowances for women, or various schemes. Earlier it didn’t exist, but today everybody is talking about unpaid care work, even if we’re not actually doing things.

Free transport for women has proved to be such a great game changer. Earlier, they would walk. The woman who’s working in homes and households cleaning bartans has already spent four hours working at her own house, and must go back and spend another four hours working again in her own house in the evening, getting the dinner [ready] and doing everything that she did in the morning. So earlier she would walk to work, or she would only accept a job very close to her house because she didn’t have the time or the money frankly to spend INR 20 a day on commuting, and one hour as well. So the time, of course, is still the same, but at least now she doesn’t have to spend the INR 20.

24.51

Saloni: We need more such initiatives. However, the woman’s point of view is missing in policymaking, Shrayana says.

24.59

Shrayana: We just have such masculine decision-making systems when it comes to the economy. I’ll use my own example as one of the most privileged people in our country, even I pay a higher rental premium, to live in a neighbourhood that is safe and that is accommodating for single women to live on their own. And you can just imagine, looking at the stories one hears of domestic workers, factory workers, safe housing still remains a big issue. Now, I would argue there are several things we can do to address the housing crisis for women, particularly single women. You can think of tax incentives for landlords, you can think about subsidies for women, you can think about vouchers or housing vouchers targeted at women. The solutions are actually fairly low-hanging fruit and fairly obvious, Saloni. I mean, many countries have done these things. And many states are also trying to experiment with this. But the problem is, when we talk about the economy and jobs, we have a bunch of men who have the same cognitive map and, sadly, some women who have inhabited that same cognitive map, who seem to think that work is only this growth rate, it’s essentially factories, it’s essentially formalisation. And, you know, we can argue about that. But questions about gendering the housing market somehow falls through the cracks. It’s not a priority.

We have to feminise decision-making systems.

If you just look at states—and in my job, I interact with finance secretaries of many states—most finance secretaries are men. There’s a very gendered way in which problems and policy areas are divided. So to me, I think the problem is, it’s not just creating more opportunities, sure, creating more opportunities for women, but the question is, who will do that? Who will take on the political will and the message around that? Who will be accountable for that? And I think for that, we have to feminise those decision-making systems, we need many more women, not just in corporate boards, but also in our decision-making authorities, labour departments, finance departments, in thinking about firm growth as well. Thinking about jobs and job policies.

27.17

Saloni: Sharon shares a few ideas for tweaks in policy that can support self-employed women.

27.23

Sharon: When we look at things that are perceived as gender gaps and what’s unfortunate [is that] sometimes we look at the acceptance rates of loans for women compared to men. It is sort of related to gender but it’s sort of not. I think it’s related to the fact that there are few women who are prepared to apply for a business plan, just out of sheer low numbers. They lack role models, they don’t have access to the same networks. So the outcome seems to be a gender bias. But I think what can be done is to look to that pathway, and what are the low-hanging fruits that can really help a woman. Like this extra support to help business planning, or checking if the documents might [need to] be differently filled [when] the agent banker says, “No, the documents are not complete”—things like that. I think there’s a lot of low-hanging fruits.

This gender divide, it could be lack of devices, it could be lack of opportunity to use a lot of the internet services. I think things need to be tailored and understood at that level.

So we tend to have put a lot on women in terms of social welfare. The government has given money to women because any money they have, they will invest in their family and education; they’ve been a nurturer of their family. But that comes at a cost. They don’t accumulate wealth. And that also puts them at a disadvantage when they want to get a loan. Because men on the other side, they invest, it’s okay. They accumulate their money, they have a pot of money, they have assets, they have investment. Women do not. So given that too, we put this double burden on women and after[wards] we tell them “Sorry, you don’t have assets, and you don’t have any wealth.” Well, you know, that’s a little bit of a ridiculous situation to be in. So I think we need to think better, especially from the financial system perspective.

I hear stories like oh, women don’t like to take risk. They’re not risk takers. Why should we give them [capital]? Maybe we could look better, deeper into the rationale, the reason, and at what you’re offering them. And to see why they’re not taking up some opportunities that people design for them. And sometimes it is just taking a step back and saying, “Hey, let’s think through this a little bit better.” It’s easier to do it now than in 20 years and then say, “Hey, we forgot.”

29.33

Saloni: This is true. It is better to step back and reconsider what we need to do now than realise later that we blundered.

But how do most women themselves think about work? Based on the experiences of the numerous women Shrayana met for her book, she shares some of her insights.

Shrayana: To be honest, for 15 years, I’ve been talking to different sets of women, particularly mother–daughter pairs. And the one thing I have actually seen is this shift from where the mother would think of work as a job—I just need to earn an additional income—and if you talk to their daughters, for them work is of course income, but it’s income that means something very different. It means freedom. It means a sense of personhood. It means being able to invest and cultivate a personality and their sense of taste when it comes to what they wear, what they like to watch. You know, the things they want to do with their bodies and their minds. And I think the other thing that seems to have really happened is that increasingly I only see women who are interested in trying to make care work much more open and less onerous for themselves. And they’re refusing to be locked into this routine of cooking, cleaning, childcare, and elderly care. I think they want more from life, and they want men in their lives who will share that burden. And I think that’s a really important shift.

What remains with me is this idea that I think all these women are waging their own personal independence struggles. Some are successful, some are not. But I think this is a large struggle that’s going on in almost every home, and more power to it.

31.26

Saloni: Namita says that it is imperative for this battle to wage on. Especially now. And we leave you with her words of caution.

31.35

Namita: In fact, we’re not just not where we need to be, and we should be very careful about a slide back. If you look at what is happening in America and the rollback on abortion rights, if you look at the rise of right-wing governments everywhere, whether in South America, whether in Italy, all over the world, it is worrying, and it tells us that we cannot afford complacency, we cannot afford to assume that it’s always a straight road ahead. In fact, where women’s rights are concerned, it often is two steps forward and one step backward.

—

Read more

1. A Statistical Portrait of the Indian Female Labor Force
2. Married women’s share in urban workforce stagnant
3. What’s going on with India’s female labour force participation?
4. Promoting female participation in urban India’s labour force
5. Women’s labour force participation in India: Why is it so low?
6. Illusory or Real? Unpacking the Recent Increase in Women’s Labour Force Participation in India

Edited transcript of the episode:

0.22

Smarinita: The female labour force participation rate, or FLPR, measures the percentage of women actively engaged in the workforce. For years now, policymakers have been digging into the ups and downs of these numbers to figure out what’s going on and what’s driving these changes—is it the economy, society, or is it just certain policies? And while there is much talk about creating employment opportunities for women and the feminisation of the workforce, what often gets overlooked in these conversations is that gender norms and stereotypes play a key role in deciding who works and who doesn’t.

Joining me today on this episode of On the Contrary by IDR are Gayathri Vasudevan and Manak Matiyani. With Manak and Gayathri, we’re going to talk about women in India’s workforce—where they’re working, what kind of opportunities they have access to and which ones they don’t, the societal norms that hold them back, and what needs to change when we address these issues.

Gayathri Vasudevan has worked extensively on issues of labour, gender, and employability. In 2006, she co-founded LabourNet, a social enterprise that aims to enable livelihoods across the informal sector in India. She is also the co-founder of Sambhav Foundation, an organisation dedicated to empowering women, youth, and differently abled individuals—providing them with knowledge and skills and linking them to livelihood opportunities.

Manak Matiyani is a feminist and queer activist who has led programmes, campaigns, and organisations that work on gender-based violence prevention and specifically engage men and boys on issues of gender, sexuality, and violence.

Hi Gayathri, Manak. Welcome to On the Contrary by IDR. I’m looking forward to getting your perspective on this important topic of women in the workforce, and the role that gender norms and masculinities play.

Gayathri, if we could start with you. Could you explain to our listeners what the labour market looks like for young women in India today?

00.36

Gayathri: Thanks, Smarinita. I’m going to restrict my response to young women between the ages of 18 and 30, but I will very briefly refer to the 30–40 years age group too. India is a highly localised labour market. There is the rural, peri-urban, and urban labour market. The one good thing that has happened is that education levels [of women] are rising in India—women are finishing 10th, 12th, and even graduating. However, when they enter the labour market, there’s a huge drop. And this is because if you look at where there is concentration of work—in all the industrial estates and the logistics boom has caused warehouses to come in—wherever there is a larger number of people [overall], women come into the labour market [in greater numbers]. The South and West [of India] are feminising a lot more, wherever they have large numbers. Shop floors in manufacturing are feminising, warehouses are feminising, and so on. But it also means that women have a very short window of working life. That means that when they’re 18–23 years old, they have a working life, and then they are out of the labour market by 23 to 25, which is why I said age becomes very important for women. What happens to a girl who has been working and independent for a few years, oftentimes away from home because she may be a migrant, and then has to stop working? It’s almost like she has come for a holiday, and she has to go back and live her life where she has to [once] again go back to [following] traditional gender norms. It is very clear that there is no path of growth for them. And if there are [growth opportunities], they are so few that they are almost negligible.

04.06

Smarinita: So, what happens after they turn 23 years old?

04.08

Gayathri: I think as a nation, we haven’t really thought about it. Our entire focus is on getting the young woman out [for the first six or nine months of her working life], because it’s the first job that we’re all really worried about. And if she’s good, the job gets extended by three or four years. So, fundamentally, from the perspective of her family, she’s gone there [to the workplace] to earn money for her wedding. From the company’s perspective, I don’t think there is a lot of thought as to what will happen to her after that golden period of 23–25 years. Many women actually go back and become what I would call subsistence entrepreneurs—they try their best because they don’t want to relinquish the economic freedom that they have.

But they become workers for someone else, because they don’t own the land or the kirana shop [they run]. They don’t own it, but they probably manage it and they deliver on it. And that I think is also very problematic, because we haven’t thought about how that will grow as a market.

05.15

Smarinita: You just touched upon the availability of opportunities in the local ecosystem, which are largely only accessible to men. Can you shed light on the kind of opportunities available to men versus women in the workforce? And then, Manak, we can have you speak to that as well.

05.28

Gayathri: Let me start with one thing. Today, electricity and water are two things that are going to reach every household and every economic institution in every village. That means somebody has to maintain water and electricity—plumbing systems, pipe systems, solar and ‘normal’ electricity, renewables in whatever form, etc. Now these [jobs] are completely male-dominated. I feel these are roles women can also perform because a lot of it is maintenance. It is not all about installation. We can create women crews to do painting, plumbing, electricity work, especially because they have not migrated out. To create job opportunities—gig opportunities—platforms are needed. [When it comes to] women’s workforce participation, we are not focusing on what we need to do; we are asking ourselves what is easy to do and feminis[ing] what is convenient. There’s nothing wrong with it. But I feel we can’t be this lazy.

06.46

Smarinita: Thanks, Gayathri. Manak, if I can come to you, what have you been seeing in the way both young women and men access the workforce? 

06.51

Manak: Sure, thank you. A lot of my engagement with young people is through programmes—direct conversation and engagement. And I think what Gayathri was saying about the kinds of jobs that are much more easily available to men is absolutely true. And the reason seems to be that larger, even private systems— such as an Urban Company or any other companies that are creating these kinds of crews—think of women as a much bigger liability. Instead of thinking that a man coming into your house is a threat to somebody who is in the house, it is reversed. Now you have to provide additional systems for [women’s] safety. And a lot of times, companies will not want to invest in ensuring or even having to think about the safety of people who are in their system. Especially for contract workers, things such as sexual harassment policies or safety guidelines don’t exist. And that is always a big deterrent because the managers, the people up the chain in gig work and similar systems, don’t want to think about the safety of people who are not employees. These are just people who are on a very, very short-term contract—typically [working as part of] a target-based model. You [the employer] don’t even want to bother with thinking of what that person [the contract worker] needs. So, I think that entry into a gig-based system is at your own risk, constantly. And that creates a lot of inequality in terms of the ability to access and exist in that kind of system. [For example], whether you can drive late at night, whether you can go into random [people’s] houses, and how that is going to be seen in your own household and community when you walk into an unknown person’s house every day to provide a certain kind of service. These are the kinds of inequalities that exist. 

A lot of opportunity also depends on what your caste or community background might be, because of which you might have much lower access to a safety system.

In addition, of course, is [the fact] that since men’s and boys’ education is typically prioritised in the household, then they do have this additional expectation to use their education to find some kind of a white-collar job. [These are getting] more and more scarce. And that is the other situation where the gig economy seems like a little bit of a step down. There is that additional thought around your own macho, masculine image, that “I have done something [completed education], and I’m still having to do this kind of work.” And that definitely plays on the minds of men. 

I also think entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial opportunity is something important to think about. A lot of that [opportunity] also depends right now in this culture of what your caste or community background might be, because of which you might have much lower access to a safety system—for example, the ability to take out a loan or to actually be considered [for a job], etc. And I think that also plays a role in how even amongst men, different men might be able to access or enter the system differently and puts women at a much lower [level of consideration]. They will not be considered for loans, for entrepreneurship, and will have to access some kind of specialised scheme, etc. So, this is the range of dynamics that people, and especially women, deal with in the workplace.

09.55

Smarinita: Manak, you’ve touched on some crucial points—particularly the safety of young women—and Gayathri, that’s one of the things I wanted to ask you. Painters and plumbers have to enter people’s homes. And for women to take up these jobs raises safety concerns. Families might have a problem ‘allowing’ women to work in these roles. They may instead be more comfortable with certain jobs, such as those in kirana shops and restaurants, which are viewed as safer due to their more public nature. Basically, what I am saying is that social and gender norms on what women should and shouldn’t do play a key role in the kind of jobs women even have access to. And understanding these different nuances, then, is crucial to how we approach labour force participation numbers. 

10:35

Gayathri: Smarinita and Manak, you hit the nail on the head. While I said it is important, let me talk to you about my failure, which is exactly where you hit. We [at LabourNet] didn’t even try [to train women for gig work at home]. We tried it with auto service technicians. We said, “Let’s train women to be auto service technicians because there is a boom.” Be it EVs, two-wheeler, or four-wheeler vehicles, we thought that it would be a great opportunity for women to be in a different occupation. And that’s where we hit a roadblock. When there is a larger number of men in a workspace as compared to women, women are worried, [their] families are worried, and the workspace is not prepared. What Manak said about safety is bang on.

Where I was talking about [women being] electricians, plumbers, painters, this model was actually not even [conceived of] in urban areas. I was talking about rural areas. In rural areas, you don’t have the personnel—it’s a missing middle. The men have migrated, and it’s economically viable [to have women work]. India has created a large self-help group (SHG) cadre. The microfinance industry has actually stood on the back of the self-help group movement, which has been created over the last 40 years. And today, it’s a booming impact investment sector. We need to innovate and really take this [movement] forward. I want to go back to one of the things that Manak spoke about, that is, access to capital. For women, access to capital seems to be linked to joint liability groups. Everybody [the banking ecosystem] says, “You know what? Come as a group, you will each indemnify the other, and only then we will lend.” Why is it so only for women? It seems to be almost like we’ve said that women by themselves cannot guarantee it [repaying the loan]. They need somebody, they need a co-collateral, which is coming from a husband or a father or a brother. And I think that’s a huge, huge mindset deterrent. If I was to address your point straight on, Smarinita, it is a problem, right? It is a safety problem—no doubt about it. But if it is done in large numbers, because you have the self-help groups, that means you actually have a way of ensuring equipment and tools. And working capital is taken care of, because you’ve created that structure. So, everywhere there are services. If you look at urban slums, they are unclean. Primary schools and primary healthcare centres are not well-maintained. We can create a cadre [of women to work in these], which nobody is curating. But you need capital to [do this]. So come up with innovative ways [to find] capital. So have innovative ways in which we’re going [to find] capital. Do outcome funding but do it intelligently.

13.41

Smarinita: This whole thing about leveraging SHGs and focusing on maintenance [work] as employment opportunities sounds great—it seems to offer so many possibilities and solutions. Manak, are you seeing other solutions where there is much more equitable participation of women in the workforce?

13.49

Manak: I am not seeing other very big solutions towards suddenly equalis[ing] the workspace. There are interesting pockets of research and work that are being done. So recently, Zoom commissioned the research on hybrid workforces and women’s participation in the workforce. And what was interesting was that the research revealed how older women, above the age of 35 or 40, would pick working in a hybrid or a home-based kind of remote work model more readily than younger women. And the reasons behind this varied, but the really clear, bang-on ones were around the kind of freedom that is available to women to be able to work at home in peace, if they are in a hybrid workplace situation. In jobs such as call centre work or positions where you require a computer to work, having access to the necessary technology is a must. However, workplaces don’t always provide this technology for work-from-home situations, particularly in hybrid set-ups where employees are expected to have their own [equipment]. This can pose challenges for people in entry-level kind of jobs. The other interesting thing [that was brought out by the research] was that, for a lot of younger women, the idea of work was tied to the freedom to go out of their houses and actually be elsewhere, to be able to get out and make their own lives. That was missing [in a work-from-home set-up] and was a big component of being able to finally be part of a workforce where you’re supposed to go out of the house. And I think that was really important to younger women who were perhaps not married or newly married. There are pockets of information that reveal interesting data about patterns of what kind of a workforce women might choose, what kind of work situations and workplaces might be preferable to women of different ages.

But we were also discussing SHGs. I have experienced working with organisations working in rural areas. The SHG model, which is enabling a collective form for women and men (but mostly women because there are more women’s SHGs and collectivisation interventions than men’s), involves being able to move from being a labourer under employment guarantee schemes to actually becoming contractors because they can take a loan from the SHG. And I think it’s very clear that that kind of shift is easily possible. It is women who can pick up a loan from their own SHG, then learn how to be contractors of that job, and then hold government contractors accountable for the quality of the work that they’re doing in their own village. All of this is easy to do, except that basic access to capital is not available. This is largely in the social entrepreneurship space where there are loans available—microfinance loans to women farmers—but it’s always in that kind of niche space. I do wonder what it would take for a mainstream loan or lending system to actually start considering women as big clients and customers and to create systems for that. This is the kind of change needed in terms of the mindset of people who are providing that kind of capital.

 16.55

Gayathri: Absolutely. What I feel very strongly is that we have to tap into value chains. For example, government contracts have to buy Dulux paint, they have to buy Asian paint, they have to buy Ashirwad paint, they have to buy Sintex tanks, etc. So, the value chain is male-dominated. For example, we did a small pilot with AkzoNobel to create women paint distributors. First, we trained them as painters. The person that runs the kirana shop does not own it. That was a big discovery, right? But for the system to recognise it as a big discovery led us to create 100 paint distributors. It doesn’t sound logically right to me. Women as MGNREGA workers is well known, but women as contractors is not. And it’s the same job. They can be unskilled here [as labour], but suddenly they become skilled there [as contractors]—how does that happen? It doesn’t make sense, right? So, I think that those are the places where we need to go hard with value chain. The pipe comes from Astral or from Ashirvaad, but I’m saying go to the company [and question them], “Why are we only looking at [women as] shop floor [workers]? Why are you looking at only women chat executives and telecallers? That’s a very small workforce. My larger workforce [women workers] is here, so open it [other positions] up for the larger workforce.”

18.40

Smarinita: What’s stopping companies and businesses from doing this? Is it a lack of knowledge or understanding that women could actually be kirana shop owners or plumbers? Is it safety concerns, is it mindsets, a lack of imagination—what is it?

18.50

Gayathri: I think it is about the worry that we’re going to spend more. There’s a huge worry at the back of the companies’ minds about the cost of acquiring a woman. There have been studies, for example, at Zomato, where the cost of acquisition for a [female] rider is 10 times that of a male rider, right? That cost of acquisition is a big worry, because you have to change norms across the board for it to happen. I think the impact investor group is not innovating enough. Because their impact investing is needed to be innovative. You need to see where the market is not growing. If impact investing is going where the market is growing, it actually loses its sheen. Philanthropic money should be catalytic money. And today, we have 2 percent CSR, which should allow it [innovation], whereas philanthropic money is now becoming money that is safe. I am not for one minute saying ‘don’t audit’. But if everybody refuses to take risks, I don’t know how you’re going to increase it [innovation] in the next two decades.

20.12

Smarinita: Manak?

 20.19

Manak: The space that I work in is the mindset. And so, my approach to it is always centred on what needs to change in how the companies, the executives, etc., think. I have worked very little in the private company ecosystem, but what Gayathri just said about the purpose of philanthropic capital is that, I think the moment you switch a project from being a mindset change or a behaviour change project to an economic participation kind of project, there is a demand for that much more solid research, [making everything] foolproof and the exact calculation behind even making a case for that kind of grant to be given. So, this whole ROI (return on investment) system—if you require a big grant for an economic participation or livelihoods participation project, the moment the grants get bigger, the safety nets shrink and you cannot take risks. Before you start the work, you have to commit to the kind of success that you will show. We assume and we work with the assumption that private capital will always follow profit. There is no logic to say philanthropy capital, CSR capital, etc., should take risks, unless it is big-market and return-oriented risk. They are increasingly becoming more and more safe—make a building, make a school, make a toilet, that kind of category. That is, the capital that should definitely be available for risk-taking to be able to switch the market. 

My increasing demand or request to philanthropists is that don’t do your value-based philanthropy work only [with]in the philanthropy system because you also sit on your own business empires, boards, and trusts. That is also where the values need to go back from the philanthropy space. It’s not like you will be a cut-throat capitalist in that [philanthropy] room. And you can be a hardcore philanthropist and human rights person in this [capitalist] room—mix those two. And we need to take some of the learnings and values from philanthropy work—the ability to encourage people to take risks, to make capital available to what seems not-marketable. There is no point in having philanthropy, capital-only service relief [to fulfill] the basic needs of people, if it’s not going to allow a change in the power structure [to promote] being in control of your life instead of being dependent.

22.44

Smarinita: What I’m hearing you both say is that while opportunities in the workforce may exist, they often aren’t viable for most women. In addition to the usual constraints around access to capital, safe working conditions, or the gender-based stereotyping they encounter, women also often get locked into roles that society deems right for them. 

So, in a sense, it’s essential to look beyond just FLPR. What we need is for businesses and policymakers to expand their imaginations and to create opportunities for women that can also help chip away at these existing social constraints around whom should they work with, where can they work, at what stages of their lives, and so on. Because unless it translates to changes on the ground, looking at FLPR data year on year will have little meaning for working women in India. It will just be another data point to report. 

—

Read more

1. Rising female work participation signals stressed livelihoods, not progress
2. A major economic challenge
3. What’s going on with India’s labour force participation?
4. How many women does India’s manufacturing sector employ?
5. Empowering women: Unveiling progress in employment and economic participation
6. Why are Indian women struggling with the gig economy?
7. Harassment, discrimination, extra burden: Women in gig economy

0.53

Shreya: These protest chants were from a climate march around Mumbai’s Dadar area. This march was part of a global climate strike spearheaded by FridaysForFuture, a youth-led movement started by climate activist Greta Thunberg. As part of the strike, people from more than 100 countries took to the streets to raise awareness about the crisis. 

There has been a surge of climate protests over the past couple of years. From blocking roads and airport runways and targeting artworks to filing lawsuits against governments for their failure in curbing carbon emissions, people are rising up and they are demanding change, demanding action, and demanding their right to a safe planet. 

But as climate protests gain momentum, it’s important to question if they’re really benefiting the cause, and whether they’re influencing how climate action shapes up in policy rooms.

Answering these questions and more in this episode of On the Contrary by IDR are three experts— Stalin Dayanand, Disha Ravi, and Mridula Vijairaghavan—who have been playing an active role in India’s fight against climate change. 

Here’s Mridula, an environmental lawyer, on how success in any environmental movement is never black and white.

2.16

Mridula: It’s so rare and so hard to find success, even in the courtroom. And in those rare instances that you do, to [then] see court orders translate to action on the ground is incredibly hard. I’d like to draw your attention to an example here. The Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme was a large project planned in the state of Telangana. And what this project endeavoured to do was to lift 1,000 tmc [thousand million cubic feet] of water from the river Godavari. [It required] constructing a dam on the Godavari, lifting this water, pumping it up to the uplands of the state, and using this water for irrigation. So, it involved complex construction in several districts across the state. It was budgeted at approximately INR 1.25 lakh crore—a figure I can’t quite wrap my head around just yet. [And so] they began to execute this project without statutorily mandated clearances. These include the environmental clearance, the forest clearance, and wildlife clearances because this project would also submerge a wildlife sanctuary. This project also involved the displacement of approximately 34,000 farmers. And there were parallel proceedings going on at the high court in Hyderabad about the state circumventing the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act.

The case that I was involved in was an application before the National Green Tribunal. And our case was fairly simple: It basically said that you cannot start construction of such a large project without obtaining these clearances. And that it’s illegal. 

My client…his name is Mohammed-Hayatud-Din and I have huge respect for him…he was a schoolteacher at a village in Siddipet [Telangana]. He [was] a maths teacher there. And he rallied his village to say that they [the government of Telangana] are taking away our cotton fields. [He told them] they’re taking down standing cotton crops. They’re bringing their earth movers into the village without finishing the land acquisition process. His school was burned down when he began to protest. And these are some of the most powerful visuals that still stay in my mind: the residents [of] this village would sit down peacefully in the middle of the road and say that your earth movers cannot come into our village because [this] project is being executed illegally and we’ve not been consulted. So how are you just taking away our lands? Now, you would expect them to lose steam over time. But these guys were just relentless. They were at it for years. What also stood out about the way in which they held their own was that they tried to engage in fact-based communication with the authorities. [They would tell them that you] don’t have the clearances that are required by law; [that] you [have] not followed procedure, and therefore you cannot displace us. And they were peaceful protesters; there was not one instance of violence incited by the protesters. [During this time] there were large human rights violations [by the authorities]. Their children would be detained at police stations throughout the day, which is illegal. If they detained the kids at the police station, the parents cannot be sitting on the road and protesting; they will have to go and try retrieving their kids. And that will create a window of time when the earth movers would get into the village. So, it was a very, very challenging time, I think.

It takes resilience and commitment to the cause.

[The result of the protest was] a stay on the construction of the project about eight months into filing the case. And we were over the moon about this development. But the next day, my client calls to tell me that the construction has not stopped; we still have earth movers coming into the village. And the residents of the village are still protesting. And they [the government] don’t give a damn about the stay. We’ve provided a copy of this stay order to the collector, but it’s made no difference whatsoever. So how these things translate on the ground is a very grey area. And I think that it takes resilience and commitment to the cause and to the belief that if you keep at it, maybe there will actually be some impact.

6.30

Shreya: Despite the collective efforts of people and the legal pathways available to them, the movement in Kaleshwaram did not yield the expected results. And this is precisely what makes sustaining a movement an uphill task—the fact that victory is not guaranteed. 

Let’s look at the Aarey protests in Mumbai, for instance. They started in 2014 to prevent the felling of numerous trees in the Aarey colony for a Metro car shed construction by the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation. And while the Save Aarey movement is largely considered to be a success, it has had its share of setbacks along the way. For instance, in October 2019, the high court dismissed four petitions that contested the felling of trees in the colony for the car shed. Shortly after the court’s decision, bulldozers were deployed and several protesters—including students who had been vehemently opposing the order—were arrested. 

Stalin Dayanand, whom we spoke to in the context of Aarey, heads a nonprofit called Vanashakti, which has played a key role in this movement.

7.41

Stalin: This has been a roller-coaster ride as far as emotions go. It has been very tough [for] me and a lot of people who have been fighting this from the beginning. There were so many ups and downs, but somehow we managed to pick ourselves up and kept fighting. [But] on the night when the trees were being cut, we almost broke down. We said we put in eight years of fight, and it’s all going [to] vain. But there were law students from Noida who went to the chief justice’s house at night and said that what’s going on is absolutely preposterous and it needs to be stopped. The Supreme Court sat [down for a] hearing on this matter, an environment matter, on a Dussehra holiday. That again is a unique thing. And the court issued a stay order on cutting the trees, which stands even today.

The moment of celebration came when the 800 acres [of land] was declared as forest [land] and [when] the cases against the 29 arrested people were dropped. These came, of course, after two years of follow-up, but all’s well that ends well. Those students and those people who went to jail at least had their cases dropped, especially since it’s for a just public cause. [Of course] there are ups and downs. You know what happens in a movement—there are a lot of people, there will be friction, there will be difference of views, etc. But all said and done, when the moment comes, when the time comes, everyone is standing together. That’s the beauty of it too.

It’s a selfless movement. You will have bad examples here and there, but 90 percent of the Aarey movement is a success story. It’s a success of people who had clean hearts, who came together and fought it out.It’s a great achievement.

9.15

Shreya: Movements can be a tricky business. Like both Mridula and Stalin stated, there is no such thing as an absolute victory because success can come in many forms, and across different timelines. And along the way, there are often many losses. Still, there is both a symbolic and a very real power to climate protests. And given the long haul, activists across time have had to use various tools and resources to achieve the goals of the movement. 

Increasingly, social media is becoming one of those tools that activists, especially young activists, leverage really well to raise awareness and galvanise support. When FridaysForFuture India gathered support to protest against the change in The Environmental Impact Assessment in 2020, they relied heavily on social media to get the word out. And it made all the difference.

Here’s Disha Ravi, founder of the India chapter of FridaysForFuture, on how it all came together.

10.13

Disha: This was right in the middle of lockdown. We couldn’t do anything physically. And this was new to us. We were not good at social media before that. We had to adjust to become good at it because that was the only option. Also, we thought [about it] and we had to use social media very creatively. And we did. And not just FridaysForFuture, it was a coalition of environmental movements around India. And for me personally, it was one of our best campaigns because it was fought on all sides—social media [as well as through] some on-ground actions that were done individually. And it was also [fought] legally where lawyers actually took it up. And there were loopholes that [the lawyers could identify]. [For instance,] they [the government] hadn’t converted it [the Environmental Impact Assessment] into different languages like they’re supposed to. They didn’t give enough time for the actual objection to be sent. And [the lawyers] did pick on all these objections and it was paused, and it is still paused, although they are making some of the amendments as single notices and passing it through the back door.

One thing social media taught us is that there’s no one form of activism.

But back then, it was huge. I believe, just in one night, 2 lakh people came to our website and sent e-mails to object, and that’s huge. And by the end of it, approximately 20 lakh people had objected to it not just from FridaysforFutures, [but also] like I said, from the coalition of environmental movements. And this was because we all collectively stood and explained to the public why this is bad. Because all of this was in legal language, it was also hard for us to understand. We had to get researchers and legal experts on board to explain to us, in layman’s terms, why this is bad. And we did the same on social media. And it got around 20 lakh people. I can’t even imagine 20 lakh people in person. That’d be huge. That’d be amazing. But yeah, it was one of the best campaigns we’ve ever done. And it only happened because all of us came together. One thing social media taught us is that there’s no one form of activism. It’s not just work on the ground. It can also be writing articles. It can be creating content on social media. It can be organising collective social media action like Twitter storms, things like that. 

I think one of the big misconceptions is that online activism, even the social media storms, don’t take effort or time. But the truth is they do take effort and time. And while the interpersonal relationships are built better when you meet the person in real life, online still makes a huge impact. And yes, all actions that we take may not necessarily be ideal or lead to positive results. 

Let’s consider a Twitter storm—it may not necessarily have the impact that you wanted to, but it still brings people together. 

13.02

Shreya: Disha’s views are echoed by her contemporaries. Derrek from our team had a chance to catch up with some climate protestors at the march in Mumbai, and everyone he spoke with insisted that social media provides an important channel for any kind of activism. And that it is strengthened when married with offline strategies. Here’s what Vinita Rodrigues—an environmentalist working in the social sector—and Yash Agrawal—a professor of philosophy, logic, and critical thinking—had to say.

13.38

Vinita: Since we are living in the age of social media, it’s very easy to be present virtually. But it’s also important for us to be present physically, because I think when it comes to politicians or when it comes to anyone in a position of power, [that’s when] they know that they are accountable.

13.50

Yash: Protests are an important part along with other things such as social media that bring about change.

14.00

Shreya: Environmental protests aren’t new to India. There’s the Chipko Movement of 1973 where a group of peasants in a remote Himalayan village stopped loggers from felling a patch of trees. There’s also the Narmada Bachao Andolan  that originated in the 1980s as a protest against the building of dams in the Narmada river. Time and again, people have come together and collectivised for their rights—their [right to], a safe and healthy environment. 

14.29

Stalin: In the case of [the] Aarey movement, whether it was online or offline, citizens responded in equal measure. What was unique about the movement was that people from all walks of life came together. The movement was started by a group of homemakers or women—not all of them were homemakers, some of them are working women also—who came out on the ground and said [we need these] forests for our children. And they are the ones who started this battle. And from that, it went from strength to strength. Initially, it was defamed as being an English-speaking people’s movement. But gradually it really engulfed all of society—tribals, locals, labourers, rickshaw drivers even the dabbawalas (tiffin carriers), as well as doctors, engineers, film actors, everyone. Everyone was standing shoulder to shoulder; people came out with their families to protest on the ground. 

15.32

Shreya: It’s clear that roping in people from different backgrounds and having a multifaceted approach increases the chances of success of a public movement.

15.40

Stalin: If you see, in the history of Mumbai, never has a public hearing for change of land—when land is taken away from no development to something else—[had this many protestors]. You will find 50 to 100 people objecting that, [and usually] it is a [residential] society which has a lot of members. But [in the case of the Aarey movement,] 4,500 people went to the town planning office. And that office has never seen 4,500 people in its entire existence. But people went there in person and told [them] not to destroy this place. There were 80,000 signatures which were sent in the first slot. Then the number went up to 3.5 lakh when it got more organised. And by ‘organised’ I mean that there were nonprofits that came forward and said that we will collect the signatures and we’ll collate it and send it. This shows the volume or the intensity of the fight or the number of people who join the fight. You can’t orchestrate these things.

It is the willingness of civil society to face off with the establishment and [be okay with] police cases against them, which makes a difference. That night when those 4,000 odd trees were cut off, they were being cut [because there] were two days in between, Saturday and Sunday, when the Supreme Court does not work [at full capacity]. And the government at that time knew very well that the citizens would get a stay order from the Supreme Court. And to prevent people from going to the Supreme Court or getting any kind of relief, an attempt was made at night to cut those trees. And then people stormed the site. This is something you don’t see in Mumbai. And people stopped the cutting on that night. And 29 people, which included college students, women, teenagers, got arrested and went to prison. So [it is] the courage shown by the people that drives the movement. It is an inspiring movement. People said that no matter what happens, we will go down in history as the people who were there to stop something which was wrong, and prevented it from happening.

17.56

Shreya: So, what else matters when it comes to having the authorities acknowledge and listen to people’s demands? Courage, of course. People coming together, of course. Are there are strategies that movements apply that serve the cause? Mridula tells us more.

18.10

Mridula: The first step always needs to be to try and engage peacefully and [to] write to the authorities. I believe very strongly in engaging just in facts, so you give them the facts on a platter, simplify it to the best possible extent. And I think there are instances when such representations are taken into consideration, especially by committees that recommend or do not recommend projects for clearances, etc.

Legal awareness is a piece that we need to work on some more.

Apart from this is strength in numbers. And so to have to rally the crowds and have more people engage and communicate clearly in a similar vein is very important. Other than this, if one wants to take legal action, of course, you need the help of legal advisers and lawyers. 

On a side note, I think legal awareness is a piece that we need to work on some more. Because the minute that you’ve placed this demand within the boundaries of the law, it gives legitimacy to whatever you’re asking for.. So legal literacy, knowing how to engage in a dignified manner, and having very clear demands are important. Now to simply say, “Climate change is at our doorstep, you’re doing nothing about it, you need to get your act together, what are you doing?”, may not be as effective as saying “Hey, we don’t have climate legislation and we don’t have clarity on how we will adapt to climate change and it’s already at our door, so how we are going to do this?” Think of it as a negotiation. When you go in for a negotiation, you have in mind a sliding scale of [what] is the best-case scenario and then what may be acceptable to you. And basically, you need to have clarity on what it is that you want.

Let’s take the example of the Dibang Valley, where we had peaceful protests happening. We have to take a multi-pronged approach if we want environmental action. And so, protests were one critical piece of the puzzle. There were also a bunch of scientists who came together and studied the area to describe and quantify the damage that this project would have on the environment. And that had a huge impact on the way that the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) perceived this application for clearance.

So as part of the forest clearance process, the application goes through. There’s a very clear process laid out under the Forest Conservation Act, and it is the FAC that recommends or does not recommend an application for grant to forest clearance. Subsequently, it’s the state government that grants the final clearance. But the FAC recommendations are a key piece because it is also the FAC that prescribes mitigation measures to minimise the environmental impacts of the project in that area or on that forest. You often hear of elephants or tigers getting mowed down on railway tracks that pass through forests. It is the FAC that prescribes to the railways that you need to move at 20 kilometres an hour when you’re passing through this forest patch. So then mitigation measures are an important piece in ensuring that we are truly developing sustainably.

I think looping in environmental lawyers and experts from different walks of life—you could be an illustrator and have a lot to contribute to a protest, you could be a software engineer, you could be a web developer—can contribute to the cause. Taking advantage of your strengths, I think, is a critical piece in leveraging the law and in how you eventually manage to achieve what you set out to achieve.

22.09

Shreya: Social movements are an integral part of India’s democratic fabric. They give us the space and platform to exercise our rights as citizens, while holding those in power accountable. But it’s also important to acknowledge that it’s a long race to the end line, one filled with numerous obstacles. 

22.33

Mridula: I think that protests are an important piece, but I don’t think protests by themselves can influence policy. We also have to remember that policy, in an ideal world, should be driven by science. But I don’t believe that’s how it works. I think there’s so many other factors that influence it. And despite being a democracy, we are a state in which power is [with a] handful [of people]. And that makes it all the more important for you and I to voice our opinions about these larger projects.

22.57

Disha: Social change isn’t going to come out of one small social campaign or one protest that you have. It is going to be collective action from all sides and for a long period. It’s going to be a lot of protests, it’s going to be a lot of social media campaigns, it’s going to be a lot of art, a lot of articles and news by journalists, a lot of music, and a lot of different forms of activism coming together for a prolonged period of time. That is going to bring about change. It’s not going to be one thing, and it’s not going to be in a short span of time. And the sooner we realise that, and we start working in areas that are our strengths, the sooner we’ll be able to bring about social change.

And another thing that’s super important is understanding that no actions are perfect. No activism is perfect. And demanding perfectionism from activism is going to be the death of us. Because people are worried about saying the right things and doing the right things every single time. And in this age of social media, it feels like no one can be right because you get criticised every single time. And that can be daunting. And to me, the biggest takeaway is that the environmental and climate movement is really vast. And all of us are going to have a lot of actions, a lot of plans and ideas, and different forms of activism that we may not necessarily agree with, or even see as activism. But it is necessary for the movement to continue and to achieve justice.

And I think, as a larger movement, we need to give that space to be able to grow and make mistakes. Because that’s what movements are supposed to do. They’re supposed to hold you, while also holding you accountable.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Stalin Dayanand has been arrested on more than one occasion. This was corrected on 16 February 2024.

—

Read more

1. India is trying to criminalise climate activism
2.  How is India tackling climate change
3. What does it take to build an environmental movement
4. Tracing The History Of Forest Rights Protests In India
5. Can India’s Forest Rights Act deliver? Odisha state is trying to find out
6. Is climate change an election issue in India?
7. Preparing for a marathon, not a sprint

0.53
Saloni: A good water conservation model catches on with the local community that needs it. A better one evolves from within a community and is nurtured and championed by collective action. Today we have with us two key stakeholders of water conservation discussing the significance of such an organic and joint effort. Uma Shankar Pandey is a grassroots activist from Bundelkhand, Uttar Pradesh. He was awarded the Padma Shri for mobilising his community to use a traditional water retention technique. It is because of his work that the water-stressed villages in Banda have turned water secure. And our second guest is corporate leader Shraman Jha. He is the CEO of Hindustan Unilever Foundation (HUF), which works with communities vulnerable to water stress and aims to make India water secure.

In today’s episode of On the Contrary by IDR, Shraman and Uma Shankar ji explore how community work and corporate action can intersect for the cause.

We start with Uma Shankar ji, who tells us about his journey as a jal yoddha (water warrior).

02.11
Uma Shankar: I was born in an extremely backward village named Jakhni [part of the Banda district in Uttar Pradesh]. Banda is one of the most backward districts of the country. At the time, the village didn’t used to have any roads, water, schools, transportation. So, my mother said to me that you need to do something for this village. And based on the condition of the village—poverty, starvation, migration…my mother believed that there is prosperity in water. The path to prosperity is through water. You save water and help farmers become prosperous.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Our village suffered from starvation, poverty, migration. 10 young boys like me were ready; we were from relatively better-off families. We took a risk. We started medhbandhi (boundary mound) with our own money. We brought basmati to a village like Bundelkhand where there was no water. The 10 of us cultivated it in 100 bigha of land and produced 500 quintals of basmati. Next time, we planted it in 500 bigha and produced 2,500 quintals. In the third year, we produced 10,000 quintals of basmati. We started this journey in Jakhni, where we produced double the amount of what we planted. If a person got 4,000 quintals of basmati, he would earn INR 25,000 from 1 bigha of land.

The water level in Bundelkhand has increased by 2 metres because of my attempt. This is according to a ground water department report. Water used to be transported to Chitrakoot through a water tanker using a single route; today they use a waterfall to grow paddy. Vegetables are being grown; migration has stopped.

03.52
Saloni: Uma Shankar ji comes from Jakhni village in Banda district, Uttar Pradesh. The area is prone to water scarcity, resulting in poverty and migration in the region. To change this, he shares how, with the help of a small group, he revived a traditional water retention technique. He showed communities in the region that they could alter their life and earnings with this simple practice. Villages that required water tankers are now sending out paddy from the area. This traditional technique is called medhbandhi. Uma Shankar ji explains…

Uma Shankar: We didn’t wait for anyone. We picked up our shovel and basket and collected the raindrops in our farmland. We created a medh (boundary mound) and planted small trees in the soil. A technique like medhbandi doesn’t require any training. It doesn’t require any tool. It doesn’t need technical knowledge. [We just need] baskets made of bamboo that our ancestors used, a shovel—for thousands of years, our shovels have looked the same—and our sickle and hoe. You go to your farm in the morning, place 50 baskets worth of soil on the boundary of your farm, and apply lemon, karaunda, amla. If you can’t apply any of these, then you instead apply yellow arhar lentil, shan or moong, or medicinal plants.

We cannot build a dam or dig a well or form a river by ourselves, but we can create a boundary mound on our own.

05.13
Saloni: As Uma Shankar ji tells us, medhbandhi involves raising the bunds around farmland. Farmers dig up soil with their shovels, carry it in bamboo baskets, and dump it on the boundaries. The bund is then secured against run-off with plants such as lemon, gooseberry, lentils. This arrangement is used to collect rainwater.

Shraman says this is a simple but powerful idea. It is easy to explain and replicate.

Shraman: The beauty of medhbandhi is in its simplicity. It’s not difficult to explain that a farm should have a boundary mound. And the second part of having a medh is that it should have trees. So, it is definitely under consideration because its beauty is in its simplicity and it is a tested model. It’s not an experiment, its results are in front of us. So, we would take it to such areas where its impact can be felt in terms of water conservation.

Saloni: Shraman adds that such community effort is urgently needed.

Shraman: I will take a step back and talk about why we’re conserving water. Everyone is discussing climate change today. But what do we call climate change in Hindi? Or how is it translated in any of the regional languages? It’s very accurate: jalvayu parivartan. So, we have to keep jal (water) in mind if we wish to fight climate change. And we should understand, from every angle, that the available water is not sufficient to fulfil our needs. This means [water availability] at the right time, in the right volume, at the right place. I’m saying this because in July/August of this year, you must have seen that many parts of North India were flooded. Water was everywhere, so how is it scarce? Because there’s no use of that water if it is not available in the right volume at the right place.

07.33
Saloni: As Shraman explains, India may get adequate rainfall but many communities are water stressed because they don’t get usable water at the right time and in the right quantity. Uma Shankar ji adds that erratic rainfall patterns are indeed a matter of concern. 

Uma Shankar: The number of rainy days has reduced from 120 to 41. Monsoon days have reduced. There’s flood in July and no water in October. There’s no water in monsoon season. We have to come together, save water drops, plant trees, and wake up the community. Water conservation is a collective responsibility of 140 crore people. This is not a minor issue. It is the need of the hour and the future—water cannot be created, only saved. This is the time—the entire world is dealing with water insecurity. Groundwater is depleting. We have to make collective efforts to increase it.

Saloni: Community effort is key to conserving water, Uma Shankar ji says. Even traditionally, wells, ponds, stepwells were built and protected by community members.

Uma Shankar: Our techniques are practical. Techniques that have been used for centuries are still relevant. So, I think that saving water is the community’s job. The community used to build ponds, wells, and stepwells in our country and protect them as well. They wouldn’t get any funds for it. Trees were planted by the community. We’ll have to save those wells again. We’ll have to save village boundaries again because every river is created using a boundary. We’ll have to stop the water from running off from our farms to keep our rivers clean. Farm water should stay in the farm, village water in the village, forest water in the forest, and house water in the house.

[Medhbandhi] is known by my name but it is not mine, it is my ancestors’. My efforts of water conservation are equivalent to a drop in the ocean. But I didn’t just talk about the problems. I’ve tried giving solutions. The resources are of the farmer—their diya, their soil, their cotton, their mustard oil. I sat with them, they fed me, they handed me a shovel, they gave me a sickle, spread awareness in the village, and volunteered their labour with me—and the work of water conservation began.

A movement doesn’t start with money. The farmers and the common people of the country participated in this journey in huge numbers. And this participation was without any intervention from the government, nonprofits, or any office.

10.03
Saloni: Uma Shankar ji says that he has gained recognition for medhbandhi,but all the farmers in the villages he worked in contributed to it with resources and labour. They did not turn to the government or to nonprofit organisations. He says that saving water is the job of communities, just like it was in the past when they built and protected the ponds and wells in the villages. 

Shraman goes on to add that the water crisis is not limited to just one person, one household, or one area. It takes different forms in different regions, and each region has to find the way that works best. The solutions have to come from within communities all over the country.

Shraman: Until and unless the society works together…Water scarcity is not an issue for just a single person. It’s not possible that we have sufficient water in our home but our neighbour is facing water scarcity. Water insecurity is a problem for an entire community in an area, and its solution can only be brought by the community. This issue cannot be resolved until we collectively work together. As Uma Shankar ji said, a pond didn’t belong to just one family, it was for the entire village. Or many villages would have one large pond. A pond with water is beneficial for everyone. A pond without water is a problem for everyone. So, this problem cannot be resolved unless everyone works together.

There are many areas where organisations and collectives are doing similar work. And HUF supports a lot of these. Maharashtra’s Marathwada is also a very drought-prone area. There are many tribal areas in central India that are hilly and mountainous where the water cannot be collected or the water is unable to get absorbed in the ground because the land is cracked. We work in many areas such as West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh and they all have their own stories. The uniqueness of geography and society makes every area special.

12.30
Saloni: This is true. Water is a community problem and can be solved only by and with the community. Ponds and lakes are part of the commons in a village. Shraman has seen that many collectives understand this and work together to combat water stress. This is critical because each area is geographically unique and the solution should be suited to the local environment.

This is why generational and traditional knowledge gains importance.

Uma Shankar ji recognises medbandhi as a practice passed down by his forefathers. We ask him about the role of such ancestral wisdom in water conservation.

Uma Shankar: Our ancestors had their own efficient traditional techniques of water conservation. They could create a pond, a well, or a reservoir even on top of a mountain.

We have to combine ancient knowledge and new knowledge. The ancestors’ knowledge can be used to bring water; for example, their knowledge can be used to figure out how to make a pond. But new knowledge will tell us how to take that water to our fields. We can save droplets of water through new techniques. Irrigation at night…and other new techniques that have been innovated. One kg of rice production used to require 3,000 kg water, but today scientists have brought it down to 1,500 kg. One litre of milk production required 1,000 litres of water. Scientists have brought it down to 500 litres. One kg of textile production required 1,000 litres of water. Scientists have brought it down to 1,000 kg.

15.47
Saloni: Uma Shankar ji believes that to conserve water in agriculture, traditional know-how has to be combined with the latest research and technology.

For example, raising bunds secured with plants may help farmers retain water, but drip irrigation will help take it to the farm and use it efficiently. Shraman agrees.

Shraman: Innovation doesn’t have to involve heavy science. Our traditional wisdom can be strengthened through modern technology. We have employed techniques such as remote sensing and GIS and we want new techniques to be adopted because it has the ability to reduce 30 days’ worth of work to perhaps a few minutes. So, we have to use modern technology in a way that strengthens traditional methods instead of standing in opposition to them. Because there’s a reason that traditional methods have existed for thousands of years.

Saloni: Modern technology can definitely be used to strengthen, bolster, and spread traditional practices. According to Uma Shankar ji, businesses can play a crucial role in supporting such grassroots efforts.

Uma Shankar: We alone cannot transform the world. But experimentation can be done in one place and applied to other places. If corporates are doing good work in India in this regard, then we should work with them—such organisations that wish to make an impact and consider it their responsibility that if we’re taking water, then we have to return it, if we’re taking the trees then we have to plant them. If we’re doing business, then it is our responsibility to return to the community in equal measure.

We have to bring awareness to the people. They don’t know that they need 3 litres of water in a single day. They don’t know that you only need 80,000 litres of water in a lifetime. Five hundred litres of water is wasted. We have to motivate them and tell them that this is an issue.

We have to inform students and farmers about water—take it to their classrooms and to the field.

We have to bring awareness to the country. We have 5,58,000 villages with 2.5 lakh gram panchayats. Eighty percent of the population lives in villages. People in villages use water cautiously, but cities misuse it. The young generation doesn’t know that the water they use to wash cars can be used in the fields. They don’t know how to recharge water. You live in the city; you can recharge water in your colonies. So, the young generation isn’t aware and we have to save water with the help of the foundation.

HUF should conduct classes related to water. We have to inform students and farmers about water—take it to their classrooms and to the field. Students are the future citizens of the country. Schools should include the subject of water in their syllabus. We should give them a two-page book about our traditional techniques to read and become water saviours.

18.52
Saloni: Uma Shankar ji appreciates businesses that understand that they have to give back to the communities from whom they take resources. He suggests that business houses help promote water literacy and numeracy. He recommends schools and learning centres to train children on water conservation. Shraman weighs in on the role corporate houses can play to spread awareness about the water crisis.

Shraman: We might not all be able to becomejal yoddhas or water warriors. Uma Shankar ji has dedicated his entire life to water. Each of us can be a jal dhoot or an ambassador for water. Corporates can support this in many ways. First, [corporates] have a huge employee base. The young generation is energetic and enthusiastic and wants to do something for the country. The problem is them being uninformed about how critical the water scarcity issue is. So corporate employees can use social media to make people in the villages aware about this problem and become ‘water messengers’. The reason I say villages specifically is because 80 percent of freshwater is consumed in rural areas and in agriculture, so the impact and difference will be felt here the most. Employees can start a movement using the community’s energy and enthusiasm, which can be extremely helpful.

Second, nowadays there’s a fashionable term being used among corporates called ESG goals. E for environmental, S for social, and G for governance. The corporates’ vision on how to achieve these are clear and can be found in their annual reports. But when we divide these goals and figure out what can we do for the environment as it has many aspects, we find that most of those aspects are somehow related to water. If we categorised them and created a target—mainly because corporates follow an old rule of ‘nothing happened if it wasn’t measured’—it can make a huge difference.  

Third is figuring out how we can support the community and collective that is doing good work. And not just financially, but technically, or helping by connecting them to the right people. For instance, water warrior Uma Shankar ji is with us—we can take him to a collective that we know has the potential to make an impact but doesn’t know where to start. They can absorb his experience and learn what their first, second, and third step should be. Part of those steps would be other organisations and the government coming together to create an impact that will be easily visible.

22.12
Saloni: As Shraman says, business houses can provide not just financial and technological resources to communities but also help grassroots leaders connect with other stakeholders. But do corporates understand the urgency of the issue at hand? Shraman thinks they are getting there.

Shraman: The business world is beginning to understand the importance of water security. Companies that own factories are adopting water-efficient practices. They are creating products that consume less water. We’re starting to hear about water stewardship. The second aspect is a company’s social responsibility, popularly known as CSR (corporate social responsibility), which focuses on the impact that is created in society separate from the company’s factories or products. So, we’re seeing corporates discuss the need for saving every water droplet. We’re also in touch with other corporates to figure if we can do something together. Awareness is definitely increasing and it will keep improving, but it requires constant discussion. Water warriors that experiment and create a difference…their stories should be taken to the people so they understand how impact is created in society.

So, [the understanding is definitely present] in companies’ factories and operations in the form of CSR. All the large corporates and industrial bodies such as CIIs and FICCI are discussing it, so change can be seen.

Saloni: The good news is that awareness about water conservation is increasing among companies and other organisations. Shraman is right, the word of water warriors needs to be spread wider. Building on that positive note, we end with a story of hope and courage from Uma Shankar ji.

Uma Shankar: A forest was ablaze and all the animals, such as elephants and lions, were running to their safety. A little bird was trying to extinguish the fire by taking the water in its beak and pouring it over the fire. An elephant asked the bird, will the fire extinguish with the help of the water in your beak? And the bird gave a beautiful reply: Everything is chronicled in history. This forest fire will also be recorded in history. History will say that when the elephant, lion, and all the animals were running away, a bird was trying to put out the fire with the water in its beak. My name will be among the saviours, not among the runners.

25.11
Saloni: A forest is on fire and all the animals are running to safety. The elephants and lions are also running for their lives. An elephant sees a little bird who refuses to flee. She fills her beak with water and pours it over the raging fire. The elephant asks her: Sister, do you think what you are doing will make a difference? The bird replies: Someday, the history of this jungle fire will be written. In this story, I want to be known as someone who tried to stop the disaster and not as someone who ran away.

I would like to leave all our listeners with that thought. Thank you for tuning in.

—

Read more

1. The business opportunity in water conservation
2. Companies and water: The new social responsibility
3. Corporations are pledging to be ‘water positive’. What does that mean?
4. How to become a water warrior
5. How community ownership sustains water conservation
6. India’s looming water crisis–a call to action for companies
7. Water conservation needs a community solution, not an engineering one

0.44
Sneha: In India, which is one of the largest food-producing countries in the world, heavy rainfall and floods damaged 33.9 million hectares of cropped area between 2015–16 and 2021–22. A similar area of cropped land was damaged due to droughts. And while these numbers are concerning when we consider food security, they’re even more alarming for the Indian farmer, whose job is getting riskier by the day. These climate-induced risks and challenges are just the tip of the iceberg. How is the Indian farmer going to cope? How will Indian agriculture cope?

Naren: One of the things we see in how agriculture is going to emerge is that the pressure on the land is going to increase with the increasing population.

Swapna: The real situation of farmers in the field has not really changed. It’s in fact gone from better to bad to worse now.

Naseem: More and more chemical is being used to increase crop productivity, which has gravely impacted the soil.

1.58
Sneha: Those were the three sector experts I spoke with: Narendranath Damodaran (Naren), Swapna Sarangi, and Naseem Shaikh. They’re going to help us understand how we got to where we are today and where we go from here. And all three of them are going to help us answer the question: What does the future of farming look like in India?

First things first, we’re going to try and understand the ground reality. And we’re also going to unpack current trends that pose a risk for the future of Indian agriculture. Land holdings, for one, are becoming smaller and smaller, making it even more difficult for farmers to sustain themselves off their land. Naren is from Pradan, a nonprofit that has been working on rural livelihoods since the 1980s. He tells us why smaller and fragmented land holdings pose a risk for the future of agriculture.

Naren: One of the things we see in how agriculture is going to emerge is that the pressure on the land is going to increase with the increasing populations, the pressure on the country to feed its nearly 1.6 billion population [which will only increase] by 2030 and 2050. [By then] we’ll be more than 1.6 billion. So, to provide adequate food and nutrition to such a large number of people, the pressure on the land is increasing today. At the household level, the pressure is further increasing because, intergenerationally, the land size is going down and productivity [has remained] where it is or even reduced [due to] lack of resources [such as water because our] agriculture is mostly rainfed.

3.47
Sneha: As Naren explains, smaller land holdings are increasing the pressure on our land and subsequently on the farmers who work on it.

The second expert I spoke to is Swapna Sarangi. She’s a team leader at Foundation for Ecological Security, or FES, a nonprofit that works on the conservation of nature and natural resources through the collective action of local communities. According to her, climate change and erratic weather patterns are making the problem worse for farmers. And over the years, overexploitation of natural resources—be it water, soil, or forests—has meant that yields have either plateaued or diminished. Swapna explains just why the depletion of these natural resources is a growing concern for farmers and what this means for India’s agriculture.

Swapna: When I go and interact with a farmer who lives next to the forest, or next to a protected natural area, that person does not have a big piece of land. He has got a small piece of land [where he’s] growing vegetables in some patches, paddy in others. He’s growing pulses because he thinks that these are things which are essential, because these are things which are coming to his plate. When I ask him why we need to keep this forest, applying his own wisdom he tells me that he invests less in pesticides and fertilisers because of the forest. The forest takes care of that [because] the soil that comes from the forest is rich in nutrients. That’s a farmer’s knowledge, you don’t really need to be a scientist to understand that. It’s not really rocket science.

The farming communities understand that if there is [an] upland forest, the carbon that transmits from the forest goes to your agricultural land. [The farmer] ends up investing less in pesticide because [there are natural pesticides such as] drum flies, butterflies, and birds. He says that his farming is becoming less input-oriented [and] whatever he’s getting, it’s almost a profit—[the only input then] is labour, or seeds. [But if] you walk down 10 kilometres [from there] and come to a township or an urban area, [and] you ask a farmer the same question, you see the calculation—the investment in the same patch of land is so much that the [return] is very less. He is investing [in] soil, investing in manure, investing in pesticides. He’s investing more day by day. [So] we took that entire sovereignty from the farmers, [and] now we are taking the entire farming practice sovereignty too from the farmers. Farmers are [therefore] bound to buy fertilisers, farmers are bound to buy pesticides essentially because we killed these natural interlinkages. This ecosystem interlinkage, the more we break it, the more the investments will start coming to the farming land, the poorer the farmer will become. So this is what we call—in a very technical way—ecosystem services provided by forests or water bodies. It’s not visible, and you can’t really measure [it]. But still, the farming communities realise the role played by the forest or the agriculture ecosystems.

7.10
Sneha: As Swapna explains, agricultural productivity is closely linked to the quality of natural resources around the farmland. Traditionally, factors such as the amount of moisture in the soil, the availability of water and other nutrients in the immediate environment played a key role in helping a farmer decide what crop to grow and when. Farmers exercised their agency and knowledge to decide what was best for their land. But overexploitation of resources through the years has led to the loss of a healthy ecosystem, which in turn is leading to reduced productivity and lower yields for the farmers. And therefore, to improve productivity, farmers are resorting to poor cropping practices such as the excessive use of fertilisers and pesticides, which only aggravates the problem.

Naseem, our third speaker, leads programmes at Swayam Shikshan Prayog, or SSP, a Pune-based organisation that focuses on women-led entrepreneurship and leadership in rural India.

SSP has been working with women farmers in the drought-prone region of Marathwada in Maharashtra for many years, and Naseem explains just how these cropping practices pose a risk for the Indian farmer and the future of Indian agriculture.

Naseem: Earlier, major cultivation used to be of food crops such as pulses, vegetables, oil seeds, but in the past 15 years, people think cash crops such as onion, grapes, and sugarcane need to be cultivated more for better income. Sugarcane is highly cultivated but all these aren’t food crops. Yes, they result in more money but these are water-intensive crops—their cultivation requires a lot of water, which is a problem. For instance, Marathwada, where I come from—and where our organisation Swayam Shikshan Prayog is working—that region is considered vulnerable in terms of water, and is drought-prone. So in an area which is drought-prone, where access to water is a difficulty, and which experiences a drought every three years, farmers still want to opt for [water-intensive] cash crops for better income.

More and more chemical is being used to increase productivity, which has gravely impacted the soil.

The use of chemicals has [also] skyrocketed. The farmers’ ability to think and understand has disappeared. They see land as a machine and think that this much investment will give us this much return. More and more chemical is being used to increase productivity, which has gravely impacted the soil. So if this continues, I feel the fertility and capability of our soil will fade.

10.34
Sneha: Farmers have moved to cultivating cash crops rather than food crops in order to earn better incomes. The unrestricted use of chemicals to increase production, alongside the depletion of natural resources, doesn’t bode well for India’s farmers or for our agricultural future. Like Naren, Swapna, and Naseem have pointed out, if we don’t change our ways, it could be disastrous.

So we have some understanding of where we are now, and what perhaps is going wrong. But what lies ahead? Could evolving technologies provide a glimmer of hope? According to experts, AgTech has been growing significantly. And this could potentially be a silver lining. Naren tells us about some of these emerging innovations.

Naren: The technology, AgTech as it is called, it’s moving very fast. It is expanding, it is exploding as one could say—both production technologies in terms of hydroponics and greenhouses, and genetically modified crops and new ways of practices. So that is one side, and the second is AgStack and the mobile-telephone-based technologies and, you know, the drones and artificial intelligence and weather forecasting. There are so many of these kinds of support technologies and more coming. So there’s a lot of explosion happening.

But it is getting limited to a certain set of people, and [this] agriculture therefore is [only present in] urban [spaces]. All this new kind of produce [is] happening more for the urban market and not so much for the common people’s market, which is much bigger in size. [There is only a] limited number of urban market versus a very large number of people in villages and small towns.

Therefore, I think one fallout of this that is being seen in smaller numbers—and if you don’t really address this issue, it will further exacerbate—is land consolidation and contract farming.

12.34
Sneha: To give our listeners some context, contract farming refers to a system of agricultural production which is carried out under a contract between the farmer/producer and the buyer—who could be a private sector company or the land owner. Under the contract, the farmer has to provide an agricultural commodity of a specific quality, in the quantity required by the buyer. In turn, the farmer has a guaranteed buyer.

Now, the jury’s still out about the pros and cons of contract farming, but what Naren is saying is that if access to AgTech remains in the hands of a few, it can shift the focus of farming away from growing food crops and towards cultivating exotic produce and commercial cash crops for urban markets. This would shift the focus of farming from production for food and nutrition to production for profits. And doesn’t this then take us back to the very same challenges—of increasing pressure on land and natural resources—that Naseem, Naren, and Swapna laid out for us.

So then, what does the future hold for farming in India?

Let’s go back to something that Naren just said—that AgTech is reaching only a limited number of farmers. And perhaps, that’s where we may find some solutions. But to understand why the majority of farmers may not be able to capitalise on AgTech, we need to understand just who the Indian farmer is. Naseem, Naren, and Swapna have all worked with farmers across the country and shed some light on the profile of the Indian farmer.

Naseem: Wherever you go in the world, be it Marathwada or Maharashtra, if you say farmer, everyone visualises a male farmer. But wherever SSP is working, and in our global network of 46 countries, we’re seeing that more that 80 percent of tasks related to farming are done by women. But they remain invisible in a farmer’s profile.

Naren: I’m seeing more and more women, small landholders, and rainfed dependent farmers. Are we only going to look at the urbanised and industrialised farmer? You can have two ways of looking at the farmer. And my preference is that we look at a farmer as the traditional artisanal farmer, the small farmer, and let’s have millions of them because that is the only way we can actually bring these millions out of poverty together.

Swapna: Eighty percent of our farmers are marginal and small farmers, hardly 20 percent farmers would own more than five acres of land. Land fragmentation is happening every year, the next generation comes and then the land gets fragmented. So that’s one big challenge that we have. Our land holdings are very, very small. We have not been able to really get into technology innovations or mechanisation processes. It has not really been adopted by farmers.

15.50
Sneha: Swapna draws our attention to small and marginal farmers, those who have access to only one or two hectares of land to cultivate. Almost 80 percent of India’s farmers fall in this category. And as Swapna goes on to say, these small and marginal farmers haven’t really taken to AgTech.

This could be a problem.

Because it means that small and marginal farmers aren’t leveraging the available technology to produce more. And additionally, depleting natural resources, pressure on land, the climate emergency—everything that we spoke about at the start—is further aggravating the problem; yields are low, as are farmer incomes.

Can this situation be averted? According to Naren, it can be.

Naren: I can see it happening but we have to make it happen, it won’t automatically happen. Depends on what we do from now to 2030. If you don’t do anything, it can be a disaster. Each farming household only has one to two hectares of land. That’s very small holdings. And if these are well utilised, they’re highly adequate to provide a bit more than a decent income to the household, provided we bring in many, many other changes. So each of these households can actually reach a lower-middle-class level, and not necessarily lie at the bottom of the pile.

It is possible through agriculture to bring in farmer equality into our highly unequal society today.

So therefore if we pursue the trajectory of agriculture being far more dispersed than getting consolidated and becoming industrialised—it becomes artisanal and it remains the way it is today—distributed across millions of households, [we can then] make it more productive for each household, through collectivisation, through introduction of technology, [and] through various other capital and technology support and market linkages. It is possible through agriculture to bring in farmer equality into our highly unequal society today. India is a smallholder agriculture economy, [we must] keep it a smallholder agriculture economy, but [we must focus on] making a smallholder a prosperous farmer.

Our food systems [also] need to be far more local. Agriculture needs to be predominantly for food because agriculture was originally meant for food. It should continue to be more food [oriented]. And through this integrated farming cluster approach, what we need to do is to help families produce the various food and nutrition requirements of the household and locality. And we need to have far more localisation of production, processing, and consumption, rather than looking at production at one level and then taking it all across the country to some other part. There will be certain crops—some exotic crops and some fruits and certain things—that might need to move large distances, but otherwise the essential food and nutrition that any people require, it should be as closely available as possible.

18.57
Sneha: Essentially, Naren is saying that there is strength in numbers. Collectivising small and marginal farmers is key to strengthening our agrarian economy. But that’s not all.

In order to ensure that these farmers themselves don’t go hungry, the entire production system needs a shake-up. We need to move away from large-scale production and supply chains and towards processing and consuming food locally. This can help us meet domestic food requirements while replenishing soil fertility and water sources.

That may sound like a tall order, but we now have a better understanding of what needs to happen to ensure agricultural productivity in the country while reducing risks and increasing incomes for farmers. The question is—how is any of this going to happen and, most importantly, who is going to make it happen? While the ‘how’ is pretty complicated, the ‘who’ is perhaps slightly easier to grasp. When it comes to agriculture in India, the government is one of the biggest actors. Whether it’s drafting policies and implementing them or mobilising funds, very little can change without the government’s involvement.

However, Swapna highlights that there is much room for improvement and tells us what needs to change.

Swapna: I think over a period of time, what I’ve seen is that agriculture as a sector is getting less and less attention. Maybe if you look at the budget in the last four or five years, the amount that is invested in the agricultural sector might be increasing, but the percentage of our investment from the total budget allocation is decreasing. So maybe we think that we [have become] self-sufficient in producing some crops, and we have started exporting crops, but the real situation of farmers in the field has not really changed. In fact, it’s gone from bad to worse now.

What we have not really figured out is the basic infrastructure that should have been built.

Essentially, because in the last 70 years, even after Independence, what we have not really figured out is the basic infrastructure that should have been built. Look at the progress that we’ve made in the last 70 years. If we consider irrigation, the maximum potential created is 30 percent. That’s on pen and paper. [In] reality, the actual land irrigated is not more than 5 to 10 percent. Similarly, if you look at soil investment, no programme has happened around soil. We have soil health cards, and all that. But still, the predominant idea is to follow the same model that we adopted after Independence—the Green Revolution. [We keep introducing] pesticides, keep on investing to increase the soil capability beyond the soil’s actual capacity.

21.46
Sneha: Naseem goes on to add that while we do have policies in place, there remains a gap in implementation.

Naseem: I don’t think India has any shortage of policies. We have great policies with clear goals and objectives. But in my experience of more than 30 years in this sector, I’ve noticed an implementation gap. Policies aren’t implemented properly; their understanding differs on an individual basis. So this needs to be worked on along with accountability of all stakeholders within the ecosystem. For instance, [we need to have a framework for] how the processes and systems of financial institutions can work for marginal farmers and their collectives.

I will share an example. We received a letter from the district office that the women FPO we had created was eligible for a loan under a programme. I went with the FPO director in case she needed help with writing or anything else. When we went to talk [about the loan], they said you can have a loan of INR 10 lakh without collateral, but under the condition that the director-secretary will be unable to avail any government schemes on an individual level, because she’s a director in a collective. Now this is a huge challenge for us because we’ve already done so much work in convincing the woman and her family for collectivisation, and then started the process. However, her family will be against [the decision] if the director-secretary and her family is unable to avail government schemes personally [without the FPO]. So we can’t avail this scheme.

23.51
Sneha: An FPO, or a farmer producer organisation, is an entity formed by farmers who grow their produce individually and come together to collectively sell their output. For small and marginal farmers, FPOs are an effective way to access investment, technology, inputs, and markets at a subsidised cost. But Naseem points out that it isn’t as well thought out as it seems on paper.

And that’s evident from her example. If the director of the FPO chooses to avail a collateral-free government loan, then she cannot access any other government schemes as an individual.

This is a huge challenge, because women have to overcome tremendous odds to reach a stage where they can take on positions like being the director of an FPO. And a clause that prevents them from accessing government schemes as individuals is likely to turn their families against the decision. It’s counterproductive.

Naseem: The second issue is that although the government has great schemes for processing units and other requirements of FPOs, they all need investment and are dependent upon infrastructure. However, any kind of business requires not just infrastructure but also daily cash or revolving fund—which we have a shortage of. So policy-level change is required for support to FPOs in the early stage, in the three–five-year stage. Because we see this even in a child—a newborn’s food requirement is different in the first six months from that in the first year, and different in the first five years. So if we create packages of support containing policies and programmes as per the requirement of FPOs in their early stage, that will be beneficial.

26.01
Sneha: So we’ve spoken about the role that government and policy must play to ensure the future of farming in the country. And based on what we know now, the focus needs to be on supporting small and marginal farmers so that they can leverage the emerging AgTech better and increase their output and their incomes.

And what about nonprofits and other organisations that work on the ground with farmers? What can they do to enable some of these shifts? I asked all three of our guests to weigh in on this, based on their experiences of working with farming communities.

Naseem, who has worked extensively with women farmers in Marathwada, tells us that the sector must pay special attention to women farmers as they carry the torch for change—be it socially, economically, or environmentally.

Naseem: When a man thinks of farming, they think about how to earn more money, more profit with less hard work. But women think of their ration first, how they can save money, and how they can conserve natural resources such as land and water. They think of the protection of the natural resources in the same way that they think of protecting their own child. This is the massive difference in their thought process.

Food security is the first priority for women.

Food security is the first priority for women. They think of food security and cash flow and manage with small-scale work and small crops such as vegetables—which is a short-cycle crop but requires a lot of work every week, and requires replanting and sowing every three months. This kind of time-consuming work isn’t preferred by men. They want to work once—you sow once, keep sprinkling water and fertilisers, and use the harvester to harvest the crop. This is the difference between men and women.

We [SSP] tried to achieve diversification [of crops] by thinking of water first. [Our first priority became] crops that require less water. The second priority was food crops; third was short-cycle crops to manage the climate crisis more easily. With the application of these three priorities, the crops we ended up with were pulses, oilseeds, and vegetables. Even within vegetables we had leafy and fruit vegetables. Women were cultivating these and were able to maintain their cash flow through vegetables. Cereals help with food security. I believe they achieve both food security and cash flow through vegetables. Through cereals, they achieve food security and a substantial income if they are able to do two- or three-acre land cultivation of black gram or green gram—which sells well. They cultivate as per their family requirement and sell the surplus product in the market. That is how they balance.

29.40
Sneha: One can’t then argue with the fact that women play a key role in food production and ensuring food security. They must be at the centre of any conversation or programme about the future of farming in India.

Swapna, speaking from her experience with FES, shares how participating in self-help groups or women’s collectives has empowered women farmers to step up to the forefront.

Swapna: Many women, after coming from self-help group meetings, getting to know the world, [participating in] training programmes, and interacting with other actors, have started believing that they can do this. And there’s support from the families saying you can go and do that. And there’s a pull from the state as well, they’re giving a voice to the women. [Giving] agency to the women [and] investing in [them]. States [such as] Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal, where women self-help groups were successful, have started looking at bigger opportunity. Because women were practically [always] the farmers. It’s just that they never had a land title in their name. But they were the ones doing all of the activities in the agricultural sector.

31.06
Sneha: This means that nonprofits need to continue working with women farmers to truly reimagine our agricultural systems and processes. They must ensure that the efforts of women farmers are recognised and that they can avail their rights. Naren shares a slightly different vision for the role of the development sector in the agricultural ecosystem.

Naren: There’s a lot of requirements for active facilitation, maybe not very high-level but medium-to-high-level human touch at the farmer level. So, we need to have people at the cutting edge who are experts in agriculture and technology [and are] able to understand issues and respond to [them] in a local way. I think that kind of support from civil society will be important.

Once the system is set and running, then the facilitation, training, and hand-holding might reduce because the farmers [have] themselves become experts. They get linked with the suppliers, the markets, and even knowledge institutions. There are local KVKs(Krishi Vigyan Kendras) and agricultural research institutions. So, the farmer organisations are directly in touch with them. A lot of things that nonprofits provide in terms of knowledge, in terms of technology, and in terms of new linkages will gradually start getting established without their help at some point. But these linkages are necessary. So, these linkages need to be continuously nurtured and replenished. We [Pradan] do maintain an oversight, but we also see that once the systems are in place, we don’t need to be there all the time. The bank is there, there are government linkages, there are various government programmes. But setting up these linkages, these multistakeholder partnerships, etc. are very important.

32.54
Sneha: It’s clear from our conversation today that agriculture in India is in crisis. Climate change, the degradation of natural resources, and the poor implementation of policies are further exacerbating this. The move towards more productivity for markets and cash crops isn’t helping our land or the farmers who cultivate it.

But if we were to put the small and marginal farmer, and the woman farmer, at the front and centre of our agricultural policies and programmes, we could alter the course we’re on and ensure equitable and inclusive growth both for the sector and for the farmers.

Naseem reiterates that we’re at the cusp of a change and what we have before us is an opportunity to build a new, more sustainable future for agriculture in India.

Naseem: India’s agriculture will globally be at the forefront in 2050. The collectives of marginal farmers will lead, and our next generation will be involved in the agricultural sector with skills and knowledge of fields such as engineering. If we visualise the previous generation of farmers, they were not that educated and had no technical expertise. They practised farming through traditional methods. But the coming generation will work on agriculture through skills and knowledge.

We have a huge opportunity in front of us because only the agriculture sector can fulfil the needs of our increasing population size. Our economy is dependent on agriculture, so our investment should also prioritise this sector. However, the technology should be used to help the farmer, not replace them.

—

Read more

1. Decentralised solar setups give power access to small farmers, facilitate innovations
2. GrAMs: Market access scheme for farmers still weighed down after three years
3. Structural reforms and governance issues in Indian agriculture
4. Dietary diversity, nutrition, and food safety
5. Interesting times ahead for Indian agri-tech, adaptability the key for companies
6. Making agriculture viable for small and marginal farmers
7. Women hold the key to building a world free from hunger and poverty

00.42
Smarinita: Globally, more than 400 million women are engaged in farm work. This includes everything from sowing, winnowing, and harvesting to other forms of labour-intensive processes such as rice transplantation. Even in India, a majority of farm work in the country is done by women. Approximately 80 percent of all economically active women are employed by the agricultural sector. Despite this, when we talk about agriculture in India, we don’t necessarily talk about women farmers. We don’t talk about the women who work on their family lands, who work as daily wage labourers, or who look after livestock. Our schemes and policies almost always leave out this invisible yet extremely valuable workforce.

But while we fail to acknowledge or value their work, can we really imagine a world in which women stop farming? Can we even exist in a world where women aren’t involved in agricultural production? Answering this question and more today are our two guests, Ireena Vittal and Kavitha Kuruganti.

Ireena is one of India’s most respected independent consultants and advisers on emerging markets, agriculture, and urban development. She currently sits on the board of some of India’s largest companies, including HDFC and Diageo. Previously, she was a partner at McKinsey and Company, where she was a founding member of the global development and emerging markets practice.

Kavitha is a social activist known for her work on sustainable farm livelihoods and farmers’ rights. She is the founder-convener of Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture, which is a pan-Indian alliance of more than 400 farmer organisations. Kavitha has also served on several Government of India committees and task forces in advisory roles.

02.25
Smarinita: Hi Kavitha, hi Ireena. Welcome to the ‘On the Contrary’ podcast yet again. It’s nice to have both of you here. Kavitha, if I can start with you, when we talk about farmers in our country, the dominant image tends to be that of a man with a hull in the middle of his fields, but approximately 40 percent of our agricultural workforce is women. So, can you briefly explain to our listeners the role that women play in agriculture today?

Kavitha: I just want to point out that even the number that is stated—of 40 percent of all agricultural workers being women—is questionable. There is probably no woman out there who’s not a worker and no rural woman out there who’s not associated, at least peripherally, with agriculture. So that’s a questionable number. But among women who are counted as workers by our official data systems, at least 73 percent (as per the latest numbers) are engaged in agriculture. And they are engaged in agriculture in what is called as a self-employed category, or as a casual labourer, [or as] agricultural labourer. Different kinds of surveys in India have different terminologies that they deploy—cultivators, self-employed, agricultural labourer, and so on. So, we are talking about a very important category of workers engaged in agriculture, and that’s women. And Indian agriculture is driven mostly because [of] women putting in their labour. And Indian rural women are mostly surviving off agriculture. It is almost a symbiotic relationship. Agriculture needs women farmers and women farmers need agriculture. But the problem really is that no one actually visibilises these women as farmers in their own right. [This is] despite the fact that we have an official national policy for farmers [that was launched] in 2007. [This policy], for the first time, delinked the definition of farmers, at least as far as policymakers are theoretically concerned, from land ownership. Otherwise the definition of a farmer is you have land, or the census definition requires a farmer to be risk taking—somebody who takes risks to be entrepreneurial in the field of agriculture. For the first time, the national policy for farmers recognises that those who are putting in work and getting something out of productive resources can be termed as farmers. And many women out there—we’re talking about crores and crores of women—will then get classified as farmers.

05.24
Smarinita: Thanks, Kavitha. If I can come to you, Ireena, talking about agricultural policies in India, what is the government world view? What is some of their thinking when they’re drafting policies for the agricultural sector? Kavitha touched upon it a little. But to whom are they catering and what are their considerations when they’re framing these policies?

Ireena: I find it fascinating to think of four mindsets that the government has. The first one is price of agriculture versus inflation. The price [for] the consumer is the margin of the farmer. But our government focuses a lot more on inflation management than on ensuring the right price for the farmer. And at the drop of a hat, we will manage price down because CPI (consumer price index) should not go [up]. CPI is the calculation of inflation, and India is one of the unique countries where 50 percent of the weightage of inflation is food. So we ourselves have created a monster, where we have 50 percent of weightage in food.

The second mindset is food security versus the business of agriculture. We are so fixated on food security—we still haven’t gotten over the Bengal famine, we haven’t gotten over the Green Revolution—that we are not able to recognise that this is actually a business. By the way, it is the single largest private business in the Indian economy. It’s 14–16 percent of the GDP. Even if I take dairy, which is one component of it—and livestock, dairy, fisheries is anywhere between 35 and 38 percent of this—even if I just take dairy, it is as large as the single largest manufacturing sector in this country, which is automobile. But nobody thinks of farming as a business. We think of it as food security.

Worldwide, agriculture is subsidised not because farmers are poor but because they are taking a risk on behalf of all the citizens.

And this brings me to the third mindset—subsidy versus investment. Worldwide, agriculture is subsidised not because farmers are poor but because they are taking a risk on behalf of all the citizens. Who runs a business where you’re dependent on a pest not [attacking] your crop, a hailstorm not happening 10 days before you were going to harvest wheat, or Avian flu not [affecting] your crop, right? So, by definition, agriculture—which is dependent on nature—has inherent risk, very high beta, which no normal businessman would take. Our farmers take the biggest risk of all. And therefore, everybody subsidises agriculture. Even the most open market in the world, EU, has one sector subsidised—agriculture. So it’s not that we don’t need to subsidise it, [but] that we also need to invest. [We need to] invest in R&D, invest in capital, invest in supply chain. But we don’t have this mindset. We make it subsidy versus investment rather than subsidy and investment.

And the final thing for me is actually food versus nutrition. There is such a huge focus on food that we are creating the world’s largest market for diabetes, we’re creating the world’s largest market for obesity, for heart, and [also for] underweight and stunted children. I’m glad to see the year of the millet happening, but to me these are the mindsets which drive a lot of our policy decisions much more than thinking of this as a vibrant sector run by entrepreneurs on behalf of the country taking risks, focusing on nutrition, driving investment, and most importantly balancing the need for profitability with the need for managing inflation for the average man.

08.51
Smarinita: Thanks, Ireena. Kavitha, what do you think the government thinks of or considers when they are drafting policy and frameworks for agriculture?

Kavitha: Let me talk about both what the government ought to be thinking of and what it is actually doing. So I believe that nutrition security has a solution in agriculture, and policymakers ought to be oriented towards that. Similarly, solutions for resource regeneration on a very large scale—and we’re talking about natural resources and productive resources that form the very basis of the livelihoods of crores of people in this country—lie in agriculture largely. So resource regeneration has to be addressed through agriculture. Climate change, both in terms of mitigation and adaptation, [has to be addressed through] agriculture. If you’re a good policymaker, [you need to] look at fixing the livelihoods of millions of people. For food safety, we are going wrong big time in terms of the kind of food that we’re eating. I’m not talking about just the nutritional composition. It’s closely linked to how you’re farming [and] whether there are toxins in your food or not. That’s linked to what you do in this sector. What you do with the huge, burgeoning problem of public financing, and how you will reorient subsidies, which will also include investments, is something that can be fixed in this sector.

The government has to think about people and the planet when it thinks about agriculture.

So all of these are issues that any policymaker ought to be thinking about. But unfortunately, what we have, as government policies, as state policies, are related to the fact that the government thinks about the agricultural sector as one more part of the economy, almost an irrelevant part of the economy. So, the government has to think about people and the planet when it thinks about agriculture. As Ireena mentioned, there’s a heavy consumer bias and that actually reflects a policy-ignorance of not acknowledging that most of our consumers are actually producers. This dichotomy of consumers at the end of a supply chain is to this day not true in India. The hungriest and the most malnourished are partaking in the food production process. So they are not different households, they are not different people.

And the fact that we are not addressing risk in agriculture—it’s one of the riskiest private enterprises out there. Nothing is in the control of farmers, not even the land that you inherit. The government ought to be looking at reducing risks; they’re not doing it. Most importantly, they are not looking at who is invisible among the producers, and therein come women farmers. To this day, a lot of activities in agriculture—except for some gendered roles that have been thrust on men, and not allowed to women too easily—most of the work, such as transplanting, harvesting, weeding, sowing, all of these are done by women. But for the government, they are not visible. They’re not the ones that the government keeps in mind when it creates policies. To this day, when the government creates policies, it does [so using] a one-size-fits-all approach. And it’s going completely wrong there. Just as there is diversity in the number of ways in which farming happens, [there] is diversity in the kinds of farmers that exist out there. And women farmers, they’re not one category either but they are one of those invisible categories. And you’ve got to scratch the surface to understand the categories among women farmers.

14.54
Smarinita: Ireena, when we talk about the invisibilisation of women farmers, what do you think would happen if we intentionally started recognising the 73 percent of the population involved in agriculture, and started thinking about them while framing policies and government schemes?

Ireena: So, if you look at the 130 million or so estimated farms, 82 percent of them are less than a hectare. What’s interesting to note is that there are 30–40 million farmers who [have large-scale operations] and produce for the market, and the rest of them are subsistence. If you really look at a rich fruits-and-vegetable farmer in Punjab, he has imported labour from Bihar, or he used to. But if you look at the average guy, his wife does the labour work. He might own the land. So, one is you must be very clear that we’re not talking of the 30–40 million rich farmers who use a lot of labour. We’re talking of the 100 million where the woman is the labour. The second thing is 35–38 percent [of agriculture] is livestock. Livestock in this country, whether it is dairy or poultry, or selling of fish, is completely handled by women. If you look at Amul, its stories are built around women and one of the consequence of the cooperative movement in Gujarat was that as they improved the hygiene of the animal, they improved the hygiene of the family and of the children. And there’s research which shows that because women were the ones who led that whole piece of work, the overall hygiene of villages went up. In the livestock sector, nothing would happen if the women were not involved. Even in rich households that might have six to 10 milch animals, the mental ownership of the animals is always with the woman. So one is to keep in mind Kavitha’s point that we are talking of multiple segments: rich and poor farmers, grain and non-grain, livestock and on field. And everywhere women are important and obviously they are most central where they are unpaid and they are most central in livestock.

So what would happen if women were visibilised? First of all, price of food would go up, because we would account for the cost for this labour. We don’t account for this cost. If you’re a rich farmer paying for migrant labour, you would have accounted for the cost; but just because it’s a woman, you don’t. And this is equally true in poultry. It’s equally true in dairy. It’s very true in horticulture, where so much of the work is done by women. So one, it would cost labour. But the second thing is, if you accounted for the cost of labour, and whether the woman labourer got paid or not, she would have agency. And a woman who has agency starts building assets and starts changing the balance sheet of a family. And again, much more for the 100 million small farmers than for the 30–40 million rich ones. And so some kind of wealth accumulation—intergenerational—will start happening.

18.00
Smarinita: Kavitha, what do you think? What would happen if our policymaking changed to look at women farmers as well?

Kavitha: I want to endorse everything that Ireena has said, that there would be quite a few positive outcomes. But structuring it slightly differently, if policymaking changed to acknowledge that women farmers do matter, I think two broad things will happen. [One] is certainly that the women themselves will be empowered in numerous ways, whether it is related to the rights accruing to them, whether it is related to wage disparities, or even investments that are not being made on them today. There are studies that show that [since] new-age farmer producer organisations—which are being created with much fanfare—are being gender-blind, [they are] increasing the disparity between male and female farmers in a village. But you can imagine that if we had policies as though women mattered, food crops, polycropping, and so on, will come back into farming. Because a woman would naturally tend to make life easier for herself, you know, to perform roles that have been thrust on her. I think that what’s called the strategic needs of women, those will also be met in terms of her decision-making spaces within the household. So one aspect is women’s empowerment per se.

There are studies that show that when women farm together, profitability is actually higher than in family farming where a man and a woman farm together.

The [second] aspect is that I can imagine the paradigm of farming changing significantly. And that includes better pricing for food of course, but it also includes a certain sort of nurturing of natural resources. This is what eco feminists and others argue, that women tend to have a world view and ethos that is different from men. Especially when you thrust them into a market paradigm, there is a certain perspective that they bring in which is not similar to men. There are studies that show that when women farm together, profitability is actually higher than in family farming where a man and a woman farm together.

21.01
Smarinita: From what both of you have said, there seem to be so many benefits, so many upsides to recognising women’s role in agriculture in all forms, and catering to those needs. But what is the likelihood that anything is going to change? What will it take to make this a reality? Ireena?

Ireena: I don’t think this is an agriculture question. I think this is a society question. Because I could ask you the same thing about housework, whether it’s urban India or rural India. A lot of people who work in agriculture, whether it’s agri-economists or scientists, they know that women work. If you speak to any poultry integrator, you speak to any dairy owner, he will talk to you again and again about women. He will talk to you about how they approach them and how in the northern part of India, it’s a tougher job because access to the women is more difficult. And in South India, it’s easier. It’s not that this is unknown among the practitioners. I think you’re asking a bigger social question of ‘do women have rights and do they get acknowledged?’ and it goes back to the age-old thing—and Kavitha will perhaps have a better insight on this than I will—it goes back to who wants to give up power. And till you have money, how do you dictate power? And unfortunately or fortunately, power is never given, power is taken.

And I remember in one of the tribal belts in Madhya Pradesh, Pradan had done some spectacular work with poultry women over 20–30 years. And when we were visiting them, they were getting ready for a trip to Bhopal. All the women, every year, would get into five buses and go to Bhopal. And there’s one particular road on which the local legislature sits and for two days they would just walk up and down. And I asked them why, and it used to cost them a lot, two lakhs in those days, and I said, why do you do this? What do you get out of it? They said when we go and walk up and down, Bhopal knows that we have arrived. The DM knows I’ve arrived and sometimes Shivraj Chauhan comes out to meet us. And when we come back here, the collector and the DM know that we went to Bhopal. Now these were women who had decided this is our life and we’re going to build a voice. This is obviously easier said than done. And it had been a long time and they had the capital. A lot of this changes when you have capital and you have capability. And this was 10–12 years ago, they were all women who had never studied, all their daughters were studying. After 30 years of Pradan doing spectacular work, these women had an almost 100 crore turnover. In retrospect, this story is easy to tell. If you’re a lone woman or you’re part of one SHG in the middle of state A or state B, it’s difficult. I think the reason it doesn’t happen is because you know it’s about power dynamics and about economics. And that will take some more time, and I think that’s what we need to do. We need to take a 20–30-year view and then just say, let’s build it out.

23:57
Smarinita: Kavitha, I’m sure you want to add to this.

Kavitha: Well, I get to see glimpses of great hope. And there are moments of despair too. Even in terms of policy discourse, things have changed. If you look at this great 14-volume report that was brought out on doubling farmers’ incomes in India, if you would go to the agriculture extension–related volume, the kinds of things that have been said about women farmers are extremely progressive. And these are things that we would not have seen even one decade ago, two decades ago. So there are things changing both on the ground and in how some policymakers understand the criticality of women farmers. The entire shift that’s happening in Andhra Pradesh through the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming programme, it’s happening on the strength of women’s collectives. And it’s the women’s collectives that are driving it. If you dip into the experiences of Deccan Development Society or Anandi in Gujarat, or the Working Group for Women and Land Ownership in Gujarat (a network organisation) or Pradan, as Ireena just mentioned, you can see that the way women are organising themselves to assert their identity as farmers, there are quite a few things that they are able to change—very large, collective land leasing and cultivation programmes in Tamil Nadu, in Telangana, and in Kerala. So there is hope. We’ve got to collectively keep alive the visibility of women farmers and their enormous contribution and not let the world forget it. And this will happen by the women farmers themselves finding a voice and space to articulate it, but also many others supporting the struggle. And well, let’s hope.

26:11
Smarinita: And I think we need that hope, right? But to really drive this point home for our listeners, about how urgent and important this issue is, could you paint a picture of what exactly would happen if women stopped farming in India? What would our country look like 20 years from now? Ireena, coming to you first.

Ireena: I don’t think that can ever happen. Because these women are mothers and homemakers as much as they are tenders of sheep, cows, buffaloes, chicken, and grain. I don’t think it will happen. I don’t think any woman will ever stop tending. I think the issue is not this; the real issue is a different one, which is that farming is not exciting. The good news for us is children are getting educated. Even if only 12 percent go up to graduation, we have at least 30 percent who will complete class 10, 11, and 12. And maybe 50–60 percent who will complete class 6, but they don’t want to go back to farming. They don’t want to do poultry. They don’t want to do dairy.

What we really have to do, given the massive numbers, is we need to make farming attractive, both for girls as well as for boys.

And the real worry that I see is if you go to villages today versus villages 10 years ago, in every village, you will find five or 10 youngsters who don’t fit in because they can’t do yesterday’s job. And there’s no place for them in construction, there is no place for them in the small town close by. And I think what we really have to do, given the massive numbers, is we need to make farming attractive, both for girls as well as for boys. If we did this, and women played a role in making sure that farming was reframed as an attractive opportunity, not the back-breaking work, but the value addition—that we don’t do in our agriculture, which we need to do—then I think the next generation of girls and boys will have a better outlook towards something that’s crucial. And that’s where I think celebrating women and acknowledging what they’re doing in agriculture, in its holistic form the way Kavitha laid it out, would be very, very powerful. Because then you would have a narrative and a story. I cannot see a scenario where women would stop working. They’re not going to do it at the expense of their families going hungry. But I do wish that the agency and the voice that they would have will help all of us reframe this sector, which is such a critical sector for the next generation.

28:42
Smarinita: Kavitha, what do you think? What would happen if women stopped farming in India?

Kavitha: Well, the activist in me says that I would actually like women to stay off work, just to show the world what will happen. And you don’t have to wait for 10 years or 15 years to see what will happen. I can imagine that the fact that agriculture and the overall economy itself actually runs on the unpaid, unvalued, unremunerated work of women, I can imagine that it will collapse over just a few seasons. And it will raise very large questions for the nation about our food sovereignty and food security. There’s so many things that one can imagine as the repercussions of women staying off agriculture. Valuable skill sets and knowledge will disappear. In fact, if we were to call someone as our annadaata (food-provider), you know, when we visualise annadaata, it’s really the woman who’s feeding you from the kitchen, as well as actually toiling in the farm. And I can’t imagine farming happening without women. And it’s actually a good thought, Smarinita, to put policymakers, male farmers as well as women farmers, and folks like us, through some role plays to visualise what would happen, and then you will understand, and probably really evaluate the enormity of women’s contribution and take cognizance of it, and start addressing the fact that we have treated them too casually for too long.

30.35
Smarinita: What I’m taking back from our conversation today is that it is high time we start recognising and acknowledging women’s work, especially their work in agriculture. It’s also crucial for us to reorient our current agricultural policies to include women, since in addition to several other things, they also play a key role in making the sector more resilient as we deal with the climate crisis.

And to get people to start paying attention to women’s contribution to farming, Kavitha, like you mentioned, it’s important to build out this worst-case scenario and paint the bleak picture so that people can understand the seriousness of the situation. But at the same time, Ireena, like you said, it’s also important to celebrate the work that’s already happening and visibilise these countless women and their work today. 

—

Read more

1. Why you need to know the female farmers that are revolutionizing agriculture in India
2. India’s invisible women farmers
3. Women farmers of Odisha navigate impacts of extreme weather events while pushing for recognition
4. Increased farm work negatively impacts women’s nutrition
5. Women farmers are losing jobs, earnings, savings even as agriculture ‘booms’
6. The link between women’s land ownership and climate resilience

00:54
Sneha: Today I’m in conversation with Bharat Bhushan and Deo Datt Singh—two civil society leaders belonging to different generations—both of whom have witnessed India’s changing agricultural landscape at different points in time.

Bharat Bhushan is the chief functionary and one of the founders of People’s Action for National Integration (PANI), a nonprofit working with marginalised communities in Uttar Pradesh. Bharatji has been actively involved in social change movements from a very young age and has vast experience in implementing integrated development programmes in rural India.

Deo Datt Singh is an agri-business expert. He is the director of operations at PANI, where he brings in several decades of experience in leading and managing development projects. Deoji’s areas of expertise include ecological farming, climate change, rural economic development, and agri-business development.

Today, we’re going to be speaking about India’s ever-evolving relationship with agriculture. We know that agriculture plays a vital role in India’s development story, be it in terms of the livelihoods it supports, the food security that it ensures, or its contribution to trade and GDP.

In this episode, Bharatji and Deoji will dip into the past, tell us how we got to where we are today, and also discuss the future of farming—particularly in light of the current threats of climate change, water security, and a generation of young people who no longer aspire to be farmers.

02:39
Sneha: Bharatji, you’ve been deeply involved in rural development for several decades—be it through your participation in social movements or your work at PANI. You’ve also worked closely with farmers and advocated for their rights. And so we could say that you’ve witnessed how agriculture has evolved in our country. Could you tell us about the evolution of agriculture in India?

Bharat: Agriculture has a longstanding history [in India]. It has evolved over a span of 1,100 years. Our scriptures also mention it—we have always been a farmer-based or an agrarian country. However, most of our agriculture was monsoon-dependent during that time. Our production was contingent on the monsoon, without which we would have no harvest and would suffer calamities. This dependence resulted in a huge famine in Bengal in 1943—I’m referring to the pre-Independence era. More than 10 lakh people were affected by the famine.

03:41
Sneha: So we’ve been an agrarian country for centuries. But prior to Independence, we weren’t producing enough to meet our needs. What changed post Independence?

Bharat: Realising the severity of the problem, the government that came into power immediately after Independence decided to prioritise and encourage agriculture first. In order to boost agriculture, they adopted the idea of a green revolution. It was worked upon intensively from the first Five-Year Plan itself, and it progressed slowly. In hindsight, we can infer that India was in a period of starvation till 1950. From 1950–70, we had a shortage of food grains. And we became food sufficient from 1970–2000. We experienced this shift because of the Green Revolution. 

We’ve been food secure post 2000. Today, our situation is such that we can export and distribute grains to others. Perhaps this is the reason we’re called an agriculture-based country; no other nation is called a primarily agricultural country, because this is our history. This has been the state of our agriculture in the pre- and post-Independence era. 

05:04
Sneha: Thank you, Bharatji, for tracing the evolution of agriculture in India. From a state of near starvation to now being a food-secure nation that exports grains to other countries, we’ve come a long way. And, of course, the policies that the government adopted post Independence have played an important role in this. The Green Revolution in particular was a turning point. And a lot has changed since it was introduced. Deoji, coming to you, since the Green Revolution was initiated in the ‘60s, how has agriculture changed?

Deo Datt: Agriculture has gone through a lot of changes in the past three to four decades. For instance, after the Green Revolution, our [food grain] production increased, making us food sufficient. But this had other consequences and problems as well. We were unable to conserve our environmental resources, especially land and water, in the race to improve our yield. The unrestrained use of chemicals and pesticides damaged our lands. If we look at the statistics with the awareness of the damage caused, they paint a very bleak picture. Our chemical usage per acre of land might be low compared to Japan and the US, but we still have chemical and pesticide residue, posing a substantial concern for us.

The progress of the past four decades compels us to appreciate ourselves, but at the same time, it asks us to re-evaluate our mistakes to avoid repeating them. 

Our country and our agriculture could have developed, but perhaps it couldn’t happen to that scale, which I must say is quite unfortunate.

07:10
Sneha: So while the Green Revolution successfully increased the output of our land, it also had other repercussions, and we’re still dealing with them. There is a study, for example, that explores how food grain production in India rose from 82 million tonnes in the late 1960s to 264 million tonnes in 2013–14. That’s a lot. But along with this switch to high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat during the Green Revolution, farmers were also encouraged to use chemicals fertilisers and pesticides to increase their yield. And the persistent use of chemicals over time has led to the degradation of our soil and water.

Agriculture has always played an important role; it is the sole catalyst that can bring a balance to our current population.

Shifting gears slightly, Bharatji, if we talk about the rural economy today, how would you describe the role of agriculture in India’s rural economy?

Bharat: Agriculture has always played an important role; it is the sole catalyst that can bring a balance to our current population. Animal husbandry, milk production, fish production, etc. are all connected to agriculture. There is a visible difference in the rural economy of states where these are worked upon together through an integrated approach. However, this attempt is being made at a very small scale. It has the potential to make a significant contribution to the economy if done in a planned manner by the government.

In rural India, our brothers and sisters who are farmers work together. But the value of their work, and I’m not referring to the monetary value… but the value in terms of the respect that they deserve from society is lacking. And this can be due to many reasons. But if their labour is given that respect, it will help them in creating their own identity and, as a result, enhance their self-respect. And from self-respect, they will be able to move towards self-reliance—to bridge the gap that exists. How this can be achieved in practice is a separate discussion. But if we’re able to do this—give the respect to agriculture that it deserves, then even today, no other industry can bring economic power to our country on the scale that agriculture can. If we weren’t an agricultural country, a country of villages, our situation would have been much worse during the corona period. It is because of agriculture that our government is able to distribute free grains today.

10:04
Sneha: Yes, Bharatji, as you said, during COVID-19, the country would have suffered far more than it did if weren’t for our farmers. And we need to recognise that contribution.

The other interesting thing you said was that the government needs to look at the rural economy as a whole. Now, what this means is that in addition to the focus on agricultural crops, it needs to look at other livelihoods such as animal husbandry, dairy farming, and fish production. An integrated approach to rural development that accounts for these livelihoods can significantly boost our rural economy.

Deoji, we’ve touched upon the role that the government can play. What do you think is the role of the private sector in relation to agriculture and the rural economy? 

Deo Datt: The private sector has a major role to play, and it has played it well till now; this cannot be dismissed. We don’t have authentic data but one source states that the number of government extension workers is so low in India that one extension worker has to assist 16,000 farmers. Farmers are able to learn about technologies and practices because of these extension workers. However, it isn’t possible for one worker to support 16,000 farmers. This is where private companies come in. They have reached remote places with their extension workers, and played a major role in the sale of their products—be it seed companies, fertiliser companies, pesticide companies. They have made a major contribution.

Currently, the government is promoting FPOs because they are innovating products. Private companies can play an important role in consolidating and arranging the buy-back of these products. They can help with storage and processing. Rough statistics state that approximately 26 percent of our horticulture products face post-harvest loss. If we can manage to save that 26 percent, our production will effectively be considered 26 percent more. The private sector can play a major role here.

12:35
Sneha: So the private sector has a significant role to play in taking new tools and technologies to farmers. It has also taken seeds, fertilisers, and pesticides to farmer groups.

Deoji, you also mentioned farmer producer organisations, or FPOs—these are groups of farmers that come together to leverage the advantages of collectivising. They pool their resources and therefore reduce their risks and increase incomes.

A major role the private sector can play in the future is in feeding the required research into the agriculture sector to help us tackle the climate change crisis.

What you’re saying is that the private sector can create markets for these farmer collectives and help them store and process agricultural products—something that small farmers typically don’t have the expertise and resources to do.

How else can the private sector help?

Deo Datt: A major role the private sector can play in the future is in feeding the required research into the agriculture sector to help us tackle the climate change crisis. Many private companies innovate their own varieties, chemicals… They have a huge opportunity to invest in climate-change-resilient research. It can become a profitable business for them if they are able to market the research to their customer base.

I’m not saying that private companies should spend all their resources on the country. But they can utilise their resources to help develop agriculture, which can benefit them simultaneously. Such a situation can develop. 

15:04
Sneha: So, we’ve been speaking about a few different dimensions of agriculture in India. Is there anything you think our listeners will be surprised to learn when it comes to agriculture? Deoji, coming to you first.

Deo Datt: By 2050, we will have a population of 160 crore. Our current food grain production is 314 million tonnes. We have to grow by four times every year. Only then will we be able to fulfil our requirement of 400 million tonnes by 2050. I’m talking about just India.

15:40
Sneha: So, we have to increase our food grain production fourfold each year for the next three decades to fulfil our requirement of 400 million tonnes by 2050. 

Deo Datt: Also, the youth of our nation is making a great contribution. However, they don’t consider agriculture a viable career. So our audience will be surprised to learn that agriculture can in fact be remunerative for young people. Several agriculture-based start-ups have been launched in India and are making great progress. This is a huge opportunity for young people to find employment in agriculture and reform the sector. If you’ve noticed, the government intends to double the [farmer] income. They wish to reduce the use of fertilisers by 20 percent; water use by 25 percent; and methane emission by 45 percent. However, if the youth does not enter this field, then neither the government nor the ageing farmer population is capable of achieving these targets on their own. Young people’s contribution is imperative. I think people might be surprised to learn that agriculture can offer opportunities to the youth.

17:18
Sneha: So there’s a huge opportunity for the youth of our country to find employment in agriculture. And this in turn will help reform the sector, which is crucial if we are to meet these production goals by 2050.

Bharatji, what are your thoughts on this? What will our listeners be surprised to learn about agriculture in India?

Bharat: As I said previously, despite being an agricultural country, the majority of our population does not know what farming is, what it entails, how villages function, and the kind of people that reside in the village and how they live their life. This would be new information for people, which is sad in itself. The point is that they should already be equipped with this knowledge as most of our population resides in villages—despite the widespread urbanisation, 73 percent of our population lives in villages. So everyone needs to know about this 73 percent. The government needs to make efforts towards this, similar to the efforts made for other important issues. For 73 percent of this population, everything is connected to agriculture. If the government tries to make people understand, then they will learn about how important our land is, where we were born, and where we live. People are unaware because the younger generation has no connection with the villages. So when we meet young people, they ask us how villages work. This is shocking for us since we have many universities for agriculture education, but people are still unaware. So this needs to be focused on. I think if this is surprising for me then it’s possible that it will be surprising for others as well. 

19:07
Sneha: Yes, it’s surprising that even though we’re an agrarian country with a huge rural population, many of us, especially those who live in cities, don’t know very much about our rural economy.

Keeping all of this in mind, if we think about the future of agriculture through the lenses of food security, water security, and climate change, what needs to change or shift?

Deoji?

Deo Datt: Moving forward, Snehaji, we’ll have to change how we practise agriculture to combat the shifts being brought about by climate change. The government has made a lot of announcements—on organic farming, millet farming, including millets on our plate—all these steps are admirable and the need of the hour. However, we can’t rely on organic farming and use of millets alone to solve for climate change. We need consolidated policies, and we need to figure out their implementation to face this emerging challenge. Various stakeholders need to work together for implementation, be it research institutions, educational institutions, or extension institutions. Because it is important for the farmers and the young generation to possess knowledge of new research through the extension system. That is the first important thing—to make a chain [of knowledge sharing] in order to meet this challenge. Moving forward, we’ll have to focus on our soil health, conserve water, choose less water-intensive crops, and plan our farming as per water availability.

20:55
Sneha: So you’re saying that while organic farming and the focus on millets are important steps towards climate action, they aren’t enough. We need consolidated policies, and various stakeholders have to come together to solve the challenges that confront us.

We also need to think about the health of our soil and how we can conserve water in agricultural processes. Moving forward, farmers will need to choose crops that require less water.

Deo Datt: If I may add—this may sound philosophical—but we need to change our lifestyle. Unless we change our lifestyle… Sitting in North India, why do we want to consume broccoli in the summers? Why do we want to eat cauliflower? Why are we importing fruits from foreign countries? Why are we contributing to carbon emissions? We need to change our lifestyle. We need to turn to agriculture and make it a lifestyle again. Otherwise, if we keep thinking about agriculture as only a profitable venture, we will continue to make the same mistakes we made after the Green Revolution. We need to explore practising agriculture as a lifestyle once again. We can only have a sustainable future and keep our planet secure if we modify our lifestyle. Otherwise, we have a tough road ahead of us.

22:30
Sneha: So, Deoji, you’re saying that we should move beyond thinking about agriculture as a profitable venture or we’ll continue to make the same mistakes we made after the Green Revolution.

Bharatji, what do you think we should be doing moving forward?

Bharat:  If you think about it, land distribution is such a small part [of the discussion]. We have land, but it is not distributed equally. We saw the Bhoodan Movement and participated in it—based on the idea Vinobaji had that everyone should possess land. So one important element is how land ownership can become a reality for all. If we wish to change farming, then we need to include small farmers too, not just those who farm on a large scale. Change won’t be possible unless we include everyone.

23:25
Sneha: To give our listeners some context, Vinoba Bhave, a social reformer and freedom fighter, started the Bhoodan Movement in a village in Telangana in 1951. He went from village to village and convinced the landlords to voluntarily donate their land to farmers. He also convinced the government to turn it into a law and distribute land equally, or as per people’s requirement.

Bharat: So the Bhoodan Movement was huge in the country; I was 12 or 13 when I witnessed it myself. My mother and father were part of it. It was a significant programme—not just a programme, it was a movement. The Bhoodan land is available even today, which has been distributed to some, and not to others. So there is still an imbalance. The aim should be to strike a balance and distribute land to all. As Deoji mentioned, we’re focusing on millet and organic farming—even those won’t be accepted unless practised by everyone. Nothing will change if only a few incorporate these. There is a need to adopt an integrated approach. 

24:42
Sneha: This has been such an eye-opening conversation. Like you both have said, farming and agriculture in India have come a long way. But there is also an urgent need to reassess where and how we go from here, especially as we deal with the climate crisis.

Short-term thinking can have no place in our plans for agriculture in India. We need to invest in the health of our soil, conserve water and use it efficiently, keep farmers at the forefront of our agrarian policies, and build a future in which young people want to be part of India’s agricultural economy.

Thank you, Bharatji and Deoji, for a wonderful conversation.

—

Read more

1. India: Issues and priorities for agriculture
2. How agricultural evolution is giving rise to a new futuristic model of farming
3. The future of Indian agriculture
4. Climate change and Indian agriculture
5. Organic farming in India: A vision toward a healthy nation
6. Sustainable agriculture: Bringing Indian farmers on board
7. Making agriculture viable for small and marginal farmers

00.42
Smarinita: India is the largest user of groundwater in the world, with more than 80 percent of our population depending on it either for drinking water or for irrigation in agriculture—making it a lifeline for many citizens in the country. When we talk about groundwater, we are essentially talking about the water that is found below the earth’s surface. It acts as a critical buffer against the variability of monsoon rains, which have become even more unpredictable due to climate change. In large and small cities, we are also seeing residents beginning to rely more and more on groundwater due to unreliable and inadequate municipal water supplies.

Essentially, we are a groundwater economy. We also have a groundwater problem.

The overextraction of water through the years is threatening the overall water security in the country. What makes this resource even more difficult to manage is that it is invisible to the naked eye. And often, what is out of sight is out of mind.

Chatting with us today on the state of India’s groundwater, and discussing what’s happening on the policy side and what’s shifting in practice, are our two guests—Mala Subramaniam and Dr Himanshu Kulkarni.

Mala is the CEO at Arghyam, a foundation that takes a data-driven approach to help transform India’s water and sanitation systems. Her work focuses on mapping out a sustainable water security journey for governments, nonprofits, and communities. Dr Himanshu leads ACWADAM, a knowledge institution and think tank on groundwater. A hydrogeologist by qualification, he has been actively involved in the advocacy for stronger programmes on groundwater management in India for close to four decades.

02.22

Smarinita: Mala, coming to you first—could you talk a little bit about the level of understanding that both governments and communities on the ground have about groundwater and the role that it plays in India’s water security?

Mala: So if I look back a decade, when I joined the sector, groundwater was a much neglected, much misunderstood, un-understood resource. There was not much mainstream attention that it got from policy or in practice. But if I trace the journey over the decade, that situation is very different now, thanks to the pioneering work that the community of practitioners has done. Today, I don’t think there is a policy discussion on water security in India that doesn’t call for the importance of maintaining, restoring, and conserving groundwater. So there is a seminal shift, at least on the policy front. A lot of good reforms and governance in terms of intent have been expressed. [This is] either in the form of states attaching funds and programmes [related to groundwater] or at the national level where we have the Atal Jal Yojana, which is a large, seven-state programme that is intended to bring communities [together] and build water security through local planning and understanding of groundwater.

There is an understanding that people at the front line—bhujal jan guards, jal surakshaks, jal doots—are required to manage groundwater. They are central to many large programmes. The role of Panchayati Raj institutions in understanding groundwater [is also key]. I think the ground has shifted a lot in the right direction. There is a lot more that needs to happen. But in terms of just the shift in policy, I think that’s quite tremendous.

04.10
Smarinita: What about the communities themselves? What does their understanding of water look like today?

Mala: I probably wouldn’t say that the understanding of communities or the engagement of communities is where it needs to be. There are many reasons for that. I think as communities, the sense of ownership of local resources, and the ability and agency [over those resources]—there’s a lot of gap there. And that needs to be built. And a lot of these programmes are bringing that back. Because that abdication has happened—that someone needs to manage this and give [communities] water. And therefore [there is a] disconnect between local resources and the ability to manage. So I would probably say that there is a gap there that needs to be filled. But then again, we need to look at what are the incentives that can make that happen. And a lot of these programmes’ intent is to do that. The ‘how’ of it is the question, and we need to look at that and explore that a bit.

05.06
Smarinita: Himanshu, you work extensively with communities as well. Do you agree with what Mala is saying—that a lot more needs to happen when it comes to engaging communities in the groundwater crisis?

Himanshu: Yes, I completely agree with what Mala has just said. I will actually go on to add another dimension that is coming out through how communities question the government, how communities are actually coming forward to seek answers to some of their questions. And the questions are different. So if I actually paraphrase the questions that communities were asking me as a researcher 40 years ago, and what they’re asking us as an organisation in the field 40 years hence, [they] are completely different. Let me give you an example. Forty years ago, the questions were around where do I site a well, or a borehole or a tube well, in my piece of land. Can I bring a water diviner? Or should I go to a scientist? That’s a question from 40 years ago. It’s not as if people are asking the same question now. Fifteen years ago [too], the question was very different—wells are drying up and we are putting in deeper and deeper wells, deeper and deeper boreholes. And with that comes a different set of problems. How do we resolve this problem? Is it climate change? Is it something that we are doing? And now there are questions like, is there some relationship between the extraction of groundwater in our region and the drying up of rivers that flow through our villages? Or for that matter, something like, are we extracting too much? And is our extraction affecting our groundwater quality in some way or the other?

So if you just look at these set of questions across a 40-to-50-year period, the problems are different. The crisis is upon us. But I think it has, if not anything else…it has brought groundwater into the limelight of discussions on water, discussions on agriculture, discussions on the overall growth, development, and sustainable solutions around water. These discussions are progressing towards the interface between groundwater and the environment. And that is a positive sign. It harbours well, in terms of going forward.

07.37
Smarinita: Himanshu, you just spoke about the connection between water and agriculture, and I want to come back to that. Now, we know that agriculture is one of the biggest consumers of groundwater in India. And for a country where a large part of the population practises and depends on farming, this is a huge cause for concern. So how should we be thinking about managing the use of groundwater in agriculture, while also ensuring farm productivity and output?

Himanshu: Very often this question takes me back to my school education. We are taught in schools, and I think we continue to be taught in school, about the three basic needs of life. We were taught roti (bread), kapda (clothes), and makaan (house), [but] we were never told about water and air. Now, even if you look at these three elements, for me, they almost represent three sectors. Roti is agriculture. Kapda is also agriculture. But kapda is really the interface of agriculture and industry, and in some ways represents industry. And makaan is really about urban [areas], dominantly about urban [areas]. Now why are we singling out agriculture as the biggest user of water when roti and food is the biggest need next to water and air? Not all agricultural water comes from external use, or artificial use. A lot of agriculture depends on rain. So there is a significant amount of agriculture that is rainfed agriculture. Now, what is interesting in agriculture is [that] over the last 70 years, the share of groundwater in irrigated agriculture has gone up as compared to the share of surface water. At the time of Independence, we were using approximately 65 percent of surface water resources, and only approximately 35 percent of groundwater sources. Now, it’s 70 percent of groundwater, and 30 percent surface water. I mean, these are broad numbers. But this flip is very alarming. And I think we should look at this flip more carefully.

Our agricultural productivity is about cropping systems that require larger volumes of water; we need to flip this around.

We need reforms in the way we use groundwater and agriculture. Fundamentally, because [of] the groundwater crisis, groundwater depletion leads to a larger and larger energy footprint. Our agricultural productivity is about cropping systems that require larger volumes of water; we need to flip this around. And we need to look at crop and crop productivity from a water conservative index. So what are the crops that we can produce with a minimum amount of water? And I believe there’s a lot of discussion going on in the agricultural sector, in economics today. The question about millets this year is a promising one. Your production per unit of water and the income returns per unit of water are likely to see a much better index than ever before. That’s more or less on the agriculture side.

10.44

Smarinita: Mala?

Mala: I think the problem is water, but the solution is at the intersection of water and all the things that we talked about, right? Agriculture, energy, urban—but there’s very little investment in solving at the intersection. There is no such thing as water for water, it’s water for livelihoods, water for health, water for climate change, water and energy together for betterment, etc. When you say water [for] agriculture, it’s basically water for livelihoods, right? When you say water [for] housing, it’s water for better urbanisation. And water quality is really for better health. And then water and lesser remissions is better for climate change. So what I’m trying to say is water for [just] water’s sake—while we kept looking at it like that—perhaps there’s an expiry date [on] that sort of thinking. And really, we need to look at ‘water for what?’ And then the questions that arise are, what is the equation between water and agriculture? How do we look at the trade-off? Who decides, right? And therefore, when you scale something that is not looking at intersections, you’re probably going to have a problem that explodes at scale. So you would want to understand that before you do that.

12.01
Smarinita: I think that’s an extremely important point. Because, you know, if you talk about livelihoods in the absence of water, if you talk about energy in the absence of water, you aren’t going to get the complete picture. This also brings me to my next question—since water is integral to everything we do, different sectors, various industries, a range of people need to be involved when it comes to managing our depleting groundwater resources, right? Mala, could you speak a little bit about who these different actors are in the water sector, and what will it take for them to work together?

Mala: I think the actors at the gross level—it is the government, it is the markets, and it is civil society. So the question really is, how do we design better? How do we leverage what is already available—that which is being used for various other things, but not for social impact—how do you bring all of that? In terms of thinking at the population scale, bringing to the sector the digital support that is allowing us to do so many things differently. What does it take to bring new-age thinking and new-age technology? If you look at anything, it’s 30–40 years old. And yet, what we’re seeing is that the input side will tweak a little bit linearly. But somehow on the output side, we want magic to happen. We want 100x returns, [and] it’s not going to happen. So in some sense, I feel like we really need to sit back and design this better—understand the strengths of various stakeholders, understand what is missing, and [what] we can bring from the for-profit sector, and then put it all together in ways that the programme actually is designed for the next generation. And we have to recognise it’s not happening. I think that’s the first step.

15.10

Smarinita: Himanshu, could you speak a little bit about the different actors involved in the water sector, and how they can play an important role moving forward?

Himanshu: I think we know who the actors are. But bringing in the community in a stronger way, as an equal partner, rather than as a stakeholder or as a beneficiary which is typically the fashion, becomes important in the water sector. Because participatory groundwater management…I believe even more strongly in this than, say, 10 years ago…you can achieve participatory groundwater management only and only if the community is made an equal opportunity partner, as the phrase goes. Now, whether we are doing it is of course a big question. And my answer to that question is ‘no’. Now the reason I’m saying it is, if we are to solve it at a variety of intersections, as Mala rightly put it, then we also need to customise it.

There has to be something of a caring-and-sharing concept within the water sector.

We need to customise the model of partnerships, of collaborations, and even take partnerships and collaborations to the idea of cooperation. Because we are still afraid to deal with the word ‘cooperation’. But I think cooperation [leads to the] most successful models in the development sector. Finally, what is your daily success? It comes from a cooperative. So why can’t we actually think about water management through a cooperative model? There has to be something of a caring-and-sharing concept within the water sector. And imagining that concept at a variety of intersections becomes important.

The other point I want to add is on trade-offs. And I think there are many, many trade-offs. But I think the biggest trade-off is really between what has come as a legacy to us through a system of traditions, and how we look at the future through the lens of innovation, through the lens of technology.

I’ll just end with an example. So I was witness to a period where almost thousand-year-old systems of water extraction from wells—[these] were the rahats in large parts of India, the chadas in Rajasthan, or the mhots here in Maharashtra—almost completely vanished.. There are still areas in India where people operate rahats. Why are they doing it? And what have we learned from this technology that we are using today? My answer to that question is ‘nothing’. So we brought in the submersible pump, we brought in a huge revolution in the pump industry, but did the pump industry learn from this age-old tradition, which sustained for so many thousand years. And I’m not talking about the glorification of tradition here. I’m actually talking about extracting the science from that tradition, and embedding it into the so-called innovations of modern day. When we look at the future, we have to be very, very careful, [especially] when we look at modern technologies, including artificial intelligence. Because without the fundamentals of science, a world that is technology-driven will end up in bitter chaos.  

18.40
Smarinita: So, who needs to take the reins and steer all of this?

Himanshu: I don’t think we need a leader. I think the leadership model itself is a problem in solving this. If we are able to look at a customised version of what people can do collectively—because in the urban sector what collective efforts and what cooperation would mean around groundwater would be very different from what you would do in a village in Maharashtra [or] what you would do in a village in Assam. I also believe that taking the lead, or beginning an effort, doesn’t necessarily have to come from the government. It could be catalysed by different actors. I also think that it’s already happening. There are some that are driven by large programmes, like the Atal Jal Yojana. But there are others that are driven from the ground. And that’s where I will add to what Mala was saying, that I think we need two sets of initiatives or imperatives.

One is scaling out the successful models in multiple locations. And, at the same time, working on the ground [on] higher resolutions, but very local efforts in many different locations that work on innovative ideas.

20.00
Smarinita: So, both of you have spoken about what we can do more of, and you touched upon various examples of how we can start. But is there something that you’d like to see less of? Mala?

Mala: I would probably position it differently. The way I think of it is, we all say and we all agree that this is an unprecedented problem. But I think our response is kind of looking for precedented responses. I feel the solution space is not as unprecedented as the problem spaces. So I feel that needs to change. And we need to make big shifts in terms of making big, bold bets in what needs to be done differently, and what are some different things that we need to do. This really needs to come with a bigger risk appetite from funders, from practitioners, from even the community and citizens because the problem is outpacing our collective ability to solve right.

What is a bigger bet to solve for than this problem of water, climate change, livelihoods, public health?

So, some things have to give. Status quo is not an option. And while there is huge intent, there is no lack of intent, [there needs to be] action on how to convert that intent into actual outcomes on the ground. I feel that’s where we all need to spend some time. And if it needs different risk capital to come in, different design of programmes to come in, different structures, different incentives, in ways in which you can underwrite this. Because what is a bigger bet to solve for than this problem of water, climate change, livelihoods, public health, right? How can we say this is not a big enough problem for all of us to think about, right?

And also, in terms of thinking [about] where our focus and time [are] going—a lot of it I feel is going into problem articulation. [We should focus] a little less on that and more on how to solve for it [because] we all know the problems. But [to] come together to say what we did so far is not going to get us further in solving this problem. So how do we think differently? What of the past [do] we retain, but what do we also do differently? I think that is the part that I feel needs to happen much more structurally. [And] much more collaboratively. And you know, we need to all facilitate each other to do that.

The problem is that if we don’t do it now, it would be a huge lost opportunity to speak up about the impact that it will have in terms of inaction and non-delivery on the ground.

22.25
Smarinita: So, what you’re saying is that we should talk less about the problem and focus more on the solutions. Himanshu, what do you think we need to do less of? What do we need to do differently?

Himanshu: I would actually try and answer the second part of your question first—what should be done differently? I think we need more people in problem-solving than we have at the moment. Our bandwidths are simply stretched. And no measure of technology can replace the bandwidth of people that we require. We will need technology. But I think technology alone will not solve the problem. We need people on the ground. People can think like people.

The second point is that we need a diverse set of people to work on a problem. We need a transdisciplinary approach to the problem, because it’s not about groundwater depletion or groundwater contamination alone. It’s about multiple challenges that come with that. So transdisciplinary approaches.

And the third is that we need big, right investments. It’s not just about investing. It’s about the right investment. And it’s about the investment at scale. And I’m not just talking about money here. So these are the three points where we should think differently.

I think our solutions are still ingrained on the supply side.

Now, what should we think less about? And I would say, what should we think lesser and lesser and lesser about? Even at the moment, the large solutions that are touted are extremely piecemeal. They’re oversimplified. And they trivialise the complexity of the problem. I have often seen people talk to me [asking] what is groundwater recharge. Groundwater recharge is simply about pushing more and more water into the ground. If we push more and more water into the ground, we’ll solve this problem. But is that effective? Is it enough?

I think our solutions are still ingrained on the supply side. Now we want to augment, we want more, we want to put in more. We want to therefore extract more or sustain that excessive extraction, and that’s where it ends. It’s called the low-hanging fruit. When are we going to stop picking the low-hanging fruits and really address the core of the problem?

24.35
Smarinita: When it comes to India’s groundwater problem, one thing is clear: The time to act is now. We are past the stage of trying to understand and articulate the problem at hand; it is time for all of us—the government, the markets, and the civil society—to act on the solutions. Most importantly, we must understand [that] the solution to India’s groundwater problem ultimately rests in the hands of the communities on the ground that are interacting with the resource on a daily basis. And that we must view them as equal partners.

—

Read more

1. Addressing groundwater depletion: Lessons from India, the world’s largest user of groundwater
2. India groundwater: A valuable but diminishing resource
3. Digital technologies, for locally led water governance
4. Tribals await effective implementation of policies
5. India has a groundwater problem
6. How technology can help save India’s groundwater

00.41
Sneha: According to a 2019 NITI Aayog report, India is suffering from the worst water crisis in its history. And the World Bank’s Water Resources Group predicts that if India continues to consume water at the current rate, then by 2030 we will be left with only half the quantity that we need to survive.

So, it’s safe to say that we’re in the midst of a water crisis. But there is hope.

While water security is a complex challenge, solutions are emerging from many different quarters—the government, industries, universities, and the people and communities that are most vulnerable to water scarcity.

Joining me today on this episode of ‘On the Contrary by IDR’ are Ajith Radhakrishnan and Jagdeesh Rao Puppala. They’re going to lay out the complexities of India’s waterscape, the roles that different actors play, and what the solutions can look like—be it drawing on traditional wisdom or on emerging innovations and technology.

Ajith is a senior specialist at the World Bank’s New Delhi office and coordinates the country programme for the 2030 Water Resources Group in India. He has a wide-ranging knowledge of issues relating to sustainable development—from agriculture and water resources management to climate adaptation and partnership building in complex political economies. Jagdeesh was part of the founding team of Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) and was its CEO for almost two decades. He has worked extensively at the intersection of poverty and environmental degradation and also on systems thinking that factors in ecology, society, and economy.

02.33 
Sneha: My first question is for both of you. From each of your experiences and from each of your perspectives, we’d like to understand how you would describe the current scenario of water security in India. Ajith, if we could start with you.

Ajith: Thanks, Sneha. I think, to begin with, it’s a great context to build in, especially since we are looking at the UN Water Conference happening in another couple of days. Also, the world is increasingly recognising the importance of water as a connector between climate change, food security, energy security, and all those different development challenges that we are facing. So in that context, India—if it’s on the trajectory to becoming an economic powerhouse—then we need to also think about routes and trajectories that can actually create a safer, greener growth story for India.

Now, we are not looking at a doomsday scenario. Of course, we do have challenges in terms of management, and the overall problem of management of water in the country. There is also a problem of lack of science and data-backed decisions that happen when it comes to management. But there is also promise in the way that different stakeholders are looking at water. Increasingly, water is seen as an economic resource, which it has always been. But I think the recognition of water as an economic resource is coming to the top. It is also seen as something that is very critical for [India’s] development story. If India needs to prosper, if India needs to grow, then obviously it needs to conserve its water resources better. So that realisation is there among different stakeholders. But when it comes to the implementation of different schemes and programmes, I think we would need to do a bit better by bringing together different stakeholders, by working together better, and finding the means to create a better story out of this. 

So if we are looking at the prospects of poor management here in India, in the sense that there are challenges that we face on a daily basis in terms of water management at [the] city level, at the village level, and [in] the farms in India—we do have challenges. But I think there is an opportunity out there that can create stakeholder coalitions where we can work together to solve some of these issues. So I’m optimistic about it. At the same time, I acknowledge the challenges.

05.00  
Sneha: Thanks, Ajith. Jagdeesh, coming to you, what’s your take on this? How would you describe water security in India at the moment?

Jagdeesh: I would like to open up the conversation a little more about what the security of water [means]. Is it just a supply and demand issue that we manage better? Or would we like to say that water security is about life and various living forms that live in water and connect water to the livelihoods of several million people across the globe?

So in terms of that understanding, that water [security] is not a supply and demand [issue relating to] just the quantity of water, but the quality [of water] and it being a medium for various forms of life, [my assessment is] that we are living in a very precarious situation. I think there is a need for high-level innovations on the institutional apparatus, which is required for addressing this problem at scale, and at a pace where we can address this issue meaningfully in the next 10–15 years or so. So the institutional apparatus has to be backed by solid mechanisms, say, the panchayat or a much larger unit, maybe a block or a landscape. That kind of an institutional mechanism is required. The institutional mechanism also doesn’t necessarily reduce it to only village people. Institutions are what happen between governments, academia, the local corporations or markets that are present in the area. What is the kind of governance arrangements between these various actors? And [what are] the rules of the game between these actors? 

Water is a somewhat adjacent layer next to land and forests.

The second element of this water security that I am not somewhat comfortable with—we again get reductionist, we talk only about water. Water is a somewhat adjacent layer next to land and forests. Unless we see the continuum of forest, land, and water and thereby the production systems like agriculture, livestock, or even industrial use, I think we will be missing the point. Water security has to be seen from the continuum of these various other resource systems where the forests help as sinks for sources at a later point for the human civilisation. 

The last part on water security is also our understanding of the legal recognition of water. There have been propositions for making it a legal right—drinking water as a right. I think it’s gaining traction, more and more. And there have been several other countries where water is seen as a legal personhood itself. That’s my take on this.

07.51  
Sneha: Jagdeesh, you mentioned that we’re in a precarious position when we think about water security in the country. Given all of the work that you’ve done at FES, could you tell us a little bit about how different kinds of communities that are very directly facing this precarious situation are responding. What do some of the innovations—perhaps at the community level, at the ground level—look like?

Jagdeesh: Yeah, and I will broaden [the conversation] because all of us are affected. It’s not just the local village communities per se. So communities are communities, and communities of, say, industry or the legal fraternity, public policy people—all of us are concerned about it. And that’s precisely what is needed—we need all hands on deck to address this problem. Let me layer it into some three, four categories of communities. It is bad; it is bad compared to, say, some five, six decades ago. Whatever in the [name] of development we have done [has] virtually eroded some centuries of local wisdom [of how] to live with frugal availability of water. Many parts of India are chronically dry, rainfed areas. And places like Kachchh, Rajasthan—semi-arid tracts of peninsular India—always knew how to [deal] with [these] vulnerabilities. They had arrangements of pooling resources, mobility, storage, making pickles, which [would] tide them over certain crises. These are institutional innovations that have happened over centuries. And people have developed certain kinds of lifestyles, like pastoralists who move from one village to the other, depending upon the water and pasture availability. So, those have been, say, eroded and new forms of innovations have come in, some good, some may[be] not so good. We always think about water and availability from a human point of view, saying that we can distribute water to humans for drinking purposes. But we have an equal size of livestock population in the country. Now, how are you going to fix the drinking water problems of livestock, if you are going through these pipelines? Why don’t we use [water] wherever [it] is? Store the water there with local imagination? That kind of thinking is necessary. It is there getting eroded, but a fillip from the policy investment side might actually [boost] a lot of other innovations. For example, [response by] local communities [around millets] is getting wonderful recognition in the last year. Millets have, in a very natural way, [assisted] village people [in] accommodating [and] adjusting to low water availability. Now suddenly—and [it is] good that it has got some policy attention and investments attention—we have millets being talked about sizeably. A similar case is with natural farming; now natural farming is also getting attention internationally.

So these are wonderful initiatives that one needs to talk about. If we talk of other communities [working] within the [local] communities, that are also these enabler kind of communities, I was so pleasantly relieved to see one of the partner nonprofits, WOTR, talk about water scoreboards. That is a kind of powerful tool for the local communities, for the local industry there to look at what is available in that particular location and change their behaviour accordingly. Similarly, I also hear of examples in Meghalaya, where the government of Meghalaya, the local chiefs, the local communities that are there are looking at pooling data [on] aquifers, water flows, of biodiversity and biomass—they’re all looking at the same data points. So they’ve developed data points at a village or at a sub-village level. So if the agriculture department [is] coming in, they’re going to look at the same data point— oh, this village has less water availability. So they’ll have to plan their agriculture in a manner that is suitable to that local area. 

I think even at the government level, there are some wonderful things that [have] happened in, say, Sikkim. There has been a recognition of springs, and spring sheds [and what will happen] unless we preserve them. So I was told of a huge programme across Sikkim, where spring sheds, like our sacred groves, were preserved. Now we also have the Central Groundwater Board, which is talking about aquifer mapping, and I think they [are] rapidly progressing after 75 years of Independence. But nevertheless, we have groundwater aquifers, [that] we [need to] map. Once we know what is it that we have, how much have we consumed, and what is left for future generations, these kind of data points being [collected] as a public asset by the government is awesome. 

The last piece I would say on the government side or on the public policy side is also the attention which has been given by the 15th Finance Commission [to] decentralising such resource management, or at least giving the panchayats the ability to plan for their resources at the local level. That is a very powerful tool, wherein village people can sit together, they have [money], they can plan about their forests, pastures, livestock, or even about infant mortality, or fluoride or whatever. So that kind of a devolution to the panchayat level is a phenomenal thing. So all people are waking up, and they’re bringing in some good innovations into the space. What we need is a cross-exchange then.

14.33 
Sneha: Ajith, what about you? What are some of the innovations and emerging kind of interesting things that you are seeing, in terms of responses that different stakeholders are planning and implementing to respond to the water security crisis?

Ajith: Sneha, I think it’s a tough act to follow Jagdeesh, because he built the whole story into a very articulate statement. And I think he has covered a lot of this in terms of the institutional lenders, stakeholder space out there. Now, where I think I would add to what Jagdeesh has mentioned is about broadening that space around the nomenclature that we have. In terms of innovations, we need to look at the hard and [the] soft, or otherwise the process versus the implementation. So there, I think there are a couple of innovations that almost all states are trying to toy with. One is in terms of looking at water management as a service for different sectors. Now, government has been largely regulating water and also kind of taking control of water as a resource. But then there is also an increasing awareness that there could also be public–private partnerships in that space, where PPP models can actually help the different sectors and sub-sectors increase the ownership from the community and have a better say in how the water is being used and being governed.

So that’s a question that is being looked at. So there are examples right now in the form of service delivery models, where the government is responsible for bulk water transfer. And then there are private institutions that work with the farmers in their farms, trying to increase the efficiency of water and how they use that water. So you can’t have water-guzzling crops [when there is] a very limited amount of water. So at the same time, this is not a choice that the farmers consciously make. It’s also something that we need to see in the larger political economy. And that’s because markets play a larger role there. So in some of those institutional models that the governments have come up with, they have also included markets as an equal stakeholder. So in the case of Karnataka, for example, in northern Karnataka, the government has brought in the private sector, the markets, and the governance institutions that are part of the government, to deal with water. So they have tripartite agreements between all these stakeholders to govern the water better. And then the outcome has been that the farmers have been able to diversify into different sets of crops that are sensible, that also fall under the domain of organic agriculture, natural farming, and all those things.

These are innovations that are available for farmers, individual consumers, and also for farmer producer organisations, who have been embracing such innovations for decision-making and uptake.

Now, the other part of this story is about the hardware part of innovations, which is about how much technology innovations are supporting this transition, both domestically and globally. Now, we see a lot of innovations happening from the start-ups that are there. So start-ups—the companies and the firms that are part of that mix—[are] also important stakeholders. So innovations that are being championed by start-ups are being scaled up. We have now, in our country, satellite data [that] is helping farmers in terms of how to understand the crop water use. We also have water sensors that tell us what kind of elements are there in the water that I consume or drink. So you could actually take decisions based on some of these innovations that are available. And these are not very costly tools and mechanisms. These are innovations that are available for farmers, individual consumers, and also for farmer producer organisations, who have been embracing such innovations for decision-making and uptake. So I think both from the process part and also from the hardware innovations part, I think there’s a welcome change in the country.

18.10 
Sneha: And Ajith, just to have you build on some of that a little bit. Obviously water security is a very complex issue; it is adjacent to so many other issues. There are so many stakeholders that need to be involved in kind of ensuring and creating that water security. And there are policies obviously that get created. What does it look like to actually translate those policies and all of the many stakeholders who are involved in implementing them into solutions, outcomes, change for all end users of water?

Ajith: I so agree. I think this is a very important point that we often miss in our conversations around the sector. We always have [had] a bias in terms of looking at what policies need to be changed. But I think the way we implement the policies also needs to change. So policies have been very timely. The government’s been updating policies, both at the country level and at the state level. And water being a state subject, there are innovations that state governments champion at the sub-national level in terms of innovations, such as the PPCP approach, which is a public–private-community partnership approach that the Maharashtra government has been championing. So the government of Maharashtra issued a request for proposal (RFP), inviting the private sector to partner with the government in improving water efficiency in the farms of its command areas. So they invited the consortium of civil society, academic institutions, and the private sector to work with the government and the communities in those regions to improve the water efficiency in their farms. So right now, I guess, almost 3,50,000 hectares is under the PPCP model in Maharashtra, and almost six consortia have been identified for working with the government to increase water efficiency in those command areas.

Legal institutions are very important when it comes to implementation because they provide pillars and cornerstones in the policy architecture that the government’s trying to put in.

Now, I think there is again, all said and done, a huge gap in terms of capacities, in terms of implementing something which is cross-cutting. So while we always advocate the need for cross-cutting approaches in policymaking, it’s also important that we understand that as departments in governments, they also need to have capacity additions, for working together as one unit. We would also need to think about how capacities must be built from the very institutions from which the policies are originating And I think here’s where what Jagdeesh has been trying to say from the first question that you had for him comes in, that legal institutions are very important when it comes to implementation because they provide pillars and cornerstones in the policy architecture that the government’s trying to put in. So the interpretation of policies is where the rubber hits the road, and how the government needs to understand the different aspects of policies, and how the different stakeholders need to also partner with the government in terms of that implementation of stakeholder policies is a critical function. And in that, I think, the courts of this country have been very proactive in making forward-looking decisions.

21.10 
Sneha: Thanks, Ajith. So we have spoken about the common ground that we’re standing on in terms of finding solutions, making change. What does the common ground look like when we look at this challenge or opportunity—however we may want to phrase it? Ajith, I’ll start with you.

Ajith: So you need to look at water from the different stakeholders’ perspectives. And I think without the government in the room, it is an incomplete conversation that we will always have, because the government is obviously the largest stakeholder out here, be it in terms of design of policies and programmes, or be it in terms of the regulatory mechanisms that it has. Secondly, I think the end user [should] also not be seen as a beneficiary, [who] I think is an equal stakeholder in this argument. So right from how water needs to be governed to how it needs to be consumed is a question that needs to be answered equally by all stakeholders. It’s not that one stakeholder comes in at one point and leaves the question at a different point. So I think that multistakeholder space is something that is a bit dynamic; it cannot be fixed in 2023. And the same will continue for the next five years. The roles keep changing, the perspectives keep changing and need to be agile.

Informed decisions can only come from a collective that is encompassing all these different stakeholders. That space that we are talking about needs to be equitable for all these stakeholders.

22.36  
Sneha: Thank you, Ajith. Jagdeesh, what about you? How do you view the common ground across all stakeholders?

Jagdeesh: Ajith hit on some very important points, which I tend to agree [with]. Now, it is not just a conglomeration of different interested parties or people who have a say in this matter. I think we had to look at some three–four principles or design elements in this, as we take this multistakeholder process forward. 

One could be about, let us look at the whole resource systems, and in a holistic manner, that is forest, land, water, agriculture, livestock. You need to have that bearing as a design principle. The second thing, which again Ajith mentioned, I would beef it up—in terms of this multistakeholder process is not necessarily an equal space for equal voices; there is power play in that. Now, how do you take certain affirmative decisions [such] that people with less voice have a say in the matter? What are those equitable arrangements, which are there at the round table, where all the voices get an equal say? So we will have to be very clear about [whether we] are improving the agency of ordinary citizens, the women in the village—that’s a North Star we should always keep looking at. 

These are resources of which we are only just custodians; we have an intergenerational responsibility.

The third part, I would say, is also about the design principles, [which] are not only for this generation or for five, 10 years. These are resources of which we are only just custodians; we have an intergenerational responsibility. So the design principles of this multistakeholder process should not be limited by a five years, three years kind of vision, or 15-year vision, but a custodial approach, not an owner approach. That kind of design principle is very necessary for this multistakeholder process. 

Now, with those design principles, what I will go into is, there is a role for every player. Theory says it’s something like polycentric governance. It is not as if all the power is devolved to village people. The village people need governments to play an adjudicatory role. There is a need for disruptions in technology or opportunities for income increase from markets. There is a legitimate role for all the people to commit and you create a level playing field for that. So I go for that kind of an arrangement instead of [an] either–or [kind of arrangement] where it is devolution, villages will manage, only markets will manage, or only governments will manage.

25.19 
Sneha: So coming to my final question. We’ve discussed many potential ways to think about how we approach this challenge. But I’m going to ask you maybe a slightly difficult question, I’m going to say, if there’s one thing that we have to do today to ensure our water security by 2050, what would that be? Ajith, we will start with you.

Ajith: That’s a tough task to begin with. So I would say that a paradigm shift in our approach on how we look at water needs to happen. And that shift needs to be from a linear thinking to a circular thinking. Right now we use water and we dispose of water, as we look at it as a single-use [resource] and then dispose it of as a resource. But [what we need is] more understanding and the appreciation of how water can be reused. And as a resource, it can actually be replenished by that reuse. So it’s not just about water being transferred from one point to another in the whole value chain on the water supply distribution network that we’re talking about, but it’s also about how the sector sees water in terms of its ability to be reused and how it can support different services and functions. Just like it can support biodiversity, it can also support agriculture, it can support industrial purposes, industrial uses. So water is not something that we use for one time and then pass on to the next point in that value chain. It is something that we can reuse and we can repurpose and adapt as a resource.

Circularity in my view would be a paradigm shift in our thinking and our approach on how we look at water.

27.03  
Sneha: Thank you, Ajith. Jagdeesh, what about you? What is the one thing that you would say we need to do?

Jagdeesh: Ajith, I really liked your cyclical or circularity thing—that complemented with removing the reductionism [from our approach]. My take or one-liner, if you please—and it’s difficult to come to one line—is what some of my friends are calling distributed solvability. We don’t need solutions, we need the ability to solve in a distributed manner. So we don’t need a magic bullet. We need governments, markets, civil society to create that ambience where solving is a day-to-day affair. That’s what I’d like to pass on as a one-liner: distributed solvability.

27.56 
Sneha: We can’t shy away from the fact that water security is a complex problem. And as you both have reiterated during our conversation, we need all hands on deck. This includes all of us, whether we represent the government, the private sector, the judiciary, or civil society. And while we need to come together to solve this challenge, we also need to ensure that we leave more and enough water that is safe and useable for the generations to come.

Thank you both, for laying out the good and the bad, the challenges and the opportunities that we face when it comes to India’s water crisis.

—

Read more

1. What is water security?
2. Local recycling of moisture via wetlands and forests high in North-East India
3. Watershed Development in India – Need and Scope
4. Water Can’t Wait, Accelerating Innovation for Water Security
5. Reversing decades of water scarcity: What it takes
6. Community as Local Stewards
7. The Water Governance Standard
8. We cannot achieve water security without good data

00.35 
Smarinita: When we talk about the impacts of the climate crisis, we talk about how air pollution, erratic weather, rising temperatures, and disasters are changing our spaces and our lives. There might also be conversation about how it’s affecting the most vulnerable—be it marginalised communities or those living near disaster-prone areas.

But we often tend to treat people at the grassroots as one big group with similar aspirations, responsibilities, and access to resources.

What often gets missed out in these conversations, or rather who gets missed out, are the women who are burdened to care for their homes, their children, and their families.

To explore the impacts of climate change on women, the solutions that are emerging, and how policies can make space for their voices, we have with us today on the show Archana Soreng and Bijalben.

Archana Soreng belongs to the Khadia Tribe from Odisha. She is one of the seven members of the United Nations Secretary General’s Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change. She is experienced in advocacy and research and is working to document, preserve, and promote the traditional knowledge and cultural practices of indigenous communities.

Bijal Brahmbhatt or Bijalben is the Director of Mahila Housing Trust (MHT). She has worked in the areas of formal and informal housing and habitats in urban India for more than 20 years. Her programmes have helped women participate in city-level initiatives to make cities more inclusive. Over the last several years, MHT has focused extensively on helping women build localised solutions for cooling in urban slums.

02.15 
Smarinita: Bijalben, you’ve been working with women in the informal sector across urban slums for more than two decades now. What have you been seeing in terms of how climate change is impacting women in these communities?

Bijalben: So, actually, we have been working with poor women in the informal sector across India, and now also a little bit across the Global South, in Nepal and Bangladesh. And climate change is not only about disasters, but it is also about slow onset, potent stresses like heat or air pollution, or, for example, water resource management, because water scarcity is going to be one [issue]—it [already] is, and it’s going to be aggravated further because of climate change. Similarly, vector-borne [diseases] is one area, and flooding. [These] are the areas that we have been working on, especially in urban [areas].

So it’s a question of productivity, economic productivity, especially being impacted for women.

Most of these women are working from their houses—they’re home-based workers. And say the heat is much aggravated in their houses, and that actually impacts their productivity by around 30 percent in the hot [summer] season. I can give you one example where areas in Bihar where we have been working get flooded very often due to the Ganga overflowing in monsoon season. And they usually climb on top of their houses. And it’s the women who get down first and start cleaning up the muck due to the floods in the house. And then they get a snakebite. So you will eventually see that the mortality rate of women is increasing after such a flooding disaster because there are snakes in the muck. So it acts very differently for women who are more vulnerable. And, of course, due to vector-borne diseases breaking out, like malaria, dengue, chikungunya, all are going to increase, and [lead to] dual care burden [for the women]. So it’s a question of productivity, economic productivity, especially being impacted for women. Also, you know, things like mortality rate and care burden are certainly increased for women.

04.24 
Smarinita: Thank you, Bijalben. Archana, do you want to speak a little bit about the communities you work in? How is climate change impacting them? How are women being impacted by the crisis versus the rest of the population?

Archana Soreng: I think one of the key things when we talk about the impacts of climate crisis from a lens of indigenous people and local communities and rural communities is that there’s still no mapping and in-depth studies on degrees of impacts of the climate crisis. And what I have felt and realised and observed is that we have a certain set of understandings in terms of what is impact, and we only cater to it. If I give you one example, when we are having a situation like floods, it’s a very critical situation in the coastal areas, like the houses are taken away. The communities are affected, and it is a very, very difficult situation for the communities in coastal areas. But people often fail to acknowledge how floods and rainfalls also impact communities in the plains, like the communities that are living on the plains who are dependent on agriculture. Having continuous, frequent rains in an inappropriate season also [leads to] the loss of agriculture, loss of livelihood, and specifically loss of forest-based livelihood for the indigenous and local communities. And having this regularly also pushes them into the verge of debt. So even if it is not a direct impact, like taking away of house, it is [a problem] of taking away of livelihood, which is also equally heavily impacted by the climate crisis. 

The responsibility of taking care of the communities, the household work, again falls with the women.

Now when I talk about this, who is the one who is most impacted? It falls on the women and children, because forest-based livelihoods is one of the major sources of earning for the women. And it’s also a major source of money which enables their children to pursue education. The men of the family are forced to push forward for other jobs, like as labourers. Or [it forces them to] move out of the villages and go to the cities. And the responsibility of taking care of the communities, the household work, again falls with the women. And also this falls along with taking care of the forest. So that’s why it’s also very important to see how women are being affected by climate crisis. 

07.14 
Smarinita: Drawing upon that point, because women are more severely impacted by the climate crisis, are you both seeing them come up with climate solutions, either to kind of lessen the effect or to then adapt? Bijalben, could you talk a little bit about the women that you’re working with—what is their understanding of the issue [of climate change]? How are they working around its impact on their lives?

Bijalben: Some of the solutions may be much more traditional and in use. For example, if you are looking during the heat season, they may deploy food that reduces the impact of heat because it’s been a traditional solution. So without knowing or without understanding that climate change is going to exacerbate the heat situation, they deploy it because it has been a tradition. Women, for example, would drink more buttermilk, or probably use more onions in the food, especially during the hot season. These kinds of remedies have always been there traditionally.

Climate change would also need a little bit of long-term and intergenerational thinking. 

But [in] some of the other climate areas—like air pollution, or say, for example, water scarcity, or say flooding and vector-borne disease—we have observed that because the women are so poor, they think extremely short term. So their energies will be concentrated on how to get water for the day, how to get the fees of your children, otherwise their schooling will be impacted, how to raise the resources so that you are ensured that the next meal in your family is there on the plate, and that is what really engages their attention. But climate change would also need a little bit of long-term and intergenerational thinking. 

I think the other issue that we find, especially with the poor, is that the technocrats and the scientists actually make it [sound like] a very heavy jargon–based technical principle that the women are not actually able to understand. So one of the big jobs that we have been doing is to demystify the scientific language or technical language, so that the women can understand it extremely easily, and then plan their actions around it more specifically. And making it more relevant is one big job that we are trying to do with them.

09.48
Smarinita: Can you also give us a few examples of the solutions that you’re seeing roll out on the ground?

Bijalben: For example, air conditioners will not work for the poor just because they are so costly, and they may not even have access to a proper [power] grid connection. So, some of the things that we have been trying to do, for example, is trying to work on technologies which cool down their houses, but which are not as costly or unaffordable as air conditioners, and which will suit their other needs. So, we have been trying to work on cool roofs, for example, we have been trying to issue housing loans where there are passive design solutions. For example, if you have wall overhangs or window overhangs [that] protrude out, the direct sunrays don’t fall on your window, then the heat gets reduced by one or two degrees. So, such solutions we have been trying out, [though] not only in heat. For example, as water becomes scarce, we have also been propagating in areas where they already have pipe water connection, things like sprinkler taps, which are very, very cheap, but will reduce water usage by almost 50 percent. We have mapped that so that they do not further contribute to the issue of water scarcity. So, we’ve been trying to do this with the women.

12.04  
Smarinita: Archana, Bijalben touched upon how expertise, especially when it comes to climate action, often flows top-down. It tends to be very technical, and oftentimes the proposed solutions may not even be the solutions communities need. So, how have you been seeing indigenous communities respond to the climate crisis, and think of solutions?

Archana Soreng: Before going on to what communities are doing, and what are the solutions we are witnessing or observing, I think it’s also very important to examine how we want to see solutions. Because for me, I think, one of the key things which I have been advocating is [that] the way of living of indigenous people itself is a solution. So for me, when we talk about solutions, it’s not only what indigenous people or local communities do, but who they are, and how they have the relationship with nature and how they have [kept up with] their way of living.  

For indigenous people and local communities, nature and land is the source of identity, culture, tradition, and language.

How do we expect communities to speak about this, when there have been years of inferiorisation and making them feel low and bad about it? It needs to come from a place of respect, it needs to come from a place of solidarity, and then [we can] seek solutions or [forge] willingness to work together. And that’s why I keep my narrative in three aspects, which is like, how have indigenous people been leading life with nature, what is their world view? The second is, what are the eco-friendly practices [they follow], or their livelihood or lifestyle practices? And the third is the governance structure. And that’s why when I talk about the world view, for indigenous people and local communities, nature and land is the source of identity, culture, tradition, and language, unlike [land being a] commercial commodity, as seen by other people. And for us it’s also very intrinsic, because the loss of our forest, loss of our nature, and loss of land is also loss of ourselves and identity. 

And the second thing, if we speak about their way of living and eco-friendly practices, then I think one of the key things has been the way they wake up in the morning, [for a long time] they have been brushing their teeth with the twigs of the forest, and they have been eating twigs of the trees, they have been eating on the leaf plates and leaf bowls made by themselves. All of these have always existed in the communities, but that’s what it is, it’s been looked down upon. 

And then I think the important thing comes down to governance, how indigenous people are contributing, and what the solution is like. They have those governance structures though—community-led forest protection practices in the villages where they take decisions of protecting the forest, where they have been going patrolling to the forest and taking care of the forest. Like there’s [something known as] Thengapalli practices–thenga means stick, palli is turn. So these practices are often seen in Nayagarh district of Orissa, in Mayurbhanj district of Orissa, in Devgarh district of Orissa, and other parts of Orissa. Women have been protecting the forest, and women are going in turns of four and patrolling the forest. And they take the stick with them to patrol the forest. After they come back, they keep the stick in front of the next home. So in that way the stick as well as the entire responsibility rotates among the women in the communities and the village. And that’s why I feel that it’s really, really critical that if this community’s rights are not recognised, they are not safe and secure. They always live in the fear of eviction and displacement. 

So I think it’s really important for me to emphasise on the importance of rights recognition of indigenous people and local communities over the land, forest, and territory as a solution. It’s also important to see how preservation, promotion, and protection of the traditional knowledge and practices of indigenous communities are solutions to climate action.

We do not have adequate representation of communities in national spaces, decision-making spaces, or international spaces for that. So I think it’s really important also to not homogenise indigenous people and local communities. Rather [we need to] make sure that we have adequate representation from different regions and different contexts. 

16.54 
Smarinita: I think there’s a great point you’re making, Archana, that climate solutions have to be hyperlocal, which is to say that one can’t come up with solutions unless one knows the local context, the history, the culture of a particular region, right? Because there is a tendency, especially in the climate space, to have experts come in and say, ‘This is what must be done,’ whereas we know that a lot of that knowledge probably already exists locally.

Bijalben, Archana spoke a little bit about the need for more representation of different communities. What are other things you think should happen at a policy level to actually help reduce the impacts of climate change, or at least address some of it on vulnerable communities, especially women?

Bijalben: So I think currently, so far as the Indian government policies are concerned, it’s largely focused only on renewable energy, which is talking about mitigating the impacts of climate change. How are the communities adapting, because climate change is happening fast. And while we do try to mitigate [climate change], it may not get entirely mitigated. So how do you also adapt along with mitigation? And eventually everything that we do in terms of climate change has to lead towards the resilience building of these communities. Resilience would mean not only being able to survive the impact of climate change, but also to be able to thrive and continue thriving in the wake of climate change. So we need policies which address all the three issues. 

The second thing that I feel [should happen is] locally led adaptation strategies should be given prominence, which is what Archana ji was also saying. So, currently it’s an extremely top-down approach. 

There is a lot of talk around climate change. However, there are not as many resources flowing really down to the ground.

Third thing I have been observing is that there is a lot of talk around climate change. However, there are not as many resources flowing really down to the ground. So it has been mapped that whatever resources are being allocated, hardly 10 to 14 percent really go down to action and on-the-ground solutions. So I think that’s a very big issue that we really need to take cognizance of. 

And the fourth thing, I do very strongly agree that there are no representational spaces. So what the communities are doing with the help of nonprofits like ours is to claim these spaces in policymaking. Like, some of the women that we have been working with are actually setting up multi-stakeholder groups at city levels where they have the city governments, scientists, technologists, and themselves talking to each other on these issues and meeting on a regular basis. But these are spaces which have been created by us and which are claimed by the women. But there are no invited spaces by the government, or the business houses in India where they come by invitation, they do not have to claim it. So we still have to come up with that kind of an architecture in the policymaking space.

19.59 
Smarinita: Absolutely, Bijalben. And everything you’ve suggested, these are all practical things that can be done—they aren’t out of reach. Finally, I want to ask: Both of you belong to very different generations of women. Is there anything specific to how your generation is reacting to the crisis? Bijalben, if you would like to go first.

Bijalben: What really caught their attention, I must say, is that they [the women] were very clear that they did not want their children to live the kind of lives that they were leading. And when they understood that it’s going to become even worse because of climate change, that’s what really got them into action. And we have been trying to also train these women to take evidence locally as much as possible, and start using technologies to capture evidence. 

However, one of the issues with the women in our generation is that, as compared to some of the younger adolescent girls, their adaptation to technology is a little bit slow. Of course, one, because smartphones are not very accessible to women, more or less smartphones are in the hands of men. So one, they don’t have access to it. And second, also, they are more into traditional ways of collecting data, probably physical surveys, and do really need some push to move over to technologies, which is much easier for the younger generation, adolescent girls. 

But again, the issue, especially where women are concerned, is that mobility for older women is much easier. So if you want to go out, if you want to represent, if you want to talk, then, you know, probably it’s easier for the older women who are married. But for adolescent girls, especially safety being an issue in slums, their mobility is highly arrested. So if you want to make these kinds of representations from, you know, younger women, from adolescent girls, then we need to also start addressing the issues of mobility and safety to ensure their public participation.

22:07 
Smarinita: Thank you, Bijalben. Archana, do you see your generation responding differently?

Archana Soreng: I think, for us, it’s like, [we can] no longer wait for impacts of climate crisis. We are witnessing and living with the impacts of climate crisis. And we have also seen loss of lives. And daily [we] wake up to this. That’s why we see how the youth movements on climate action and environmental groups have been very, very vocal about impacts of climate crisis and what needs to be done on the policy levels and grassroot levels. Youth have been on the streets also and in decision-making spaces and are also showing the skills and expertise. But I think there’s still denial and [lack of] belief in youth leadership. I think that needs to change.

I think it’s really important to have safe and enabling spaces for young people. And that’s really, really critical. I would also like to link speaking up and leadership with things on ground. If my rights over my land are not recognised, and I am living under the threat of eviction, displacement, then how will I be able to actively and efficiently speak up or take up a leadership position? So that’s why when we talk about leadership of indigenous people and local communities, those things also need to be taken into consideration. The third thing, which I also feel is really, really important, is to emphasise on casteism, structural racism—we really need to put an end to this and make systematic changes. 

I also would like to agree with what Bijal ji said in terms of fund allocation, because we all have been seeing these discussions around climate finance. But we barely see that the climate finance is translated to the communities, and specifically communities on ground. As we are leading up to COP 27, it’s really important that the fund allocation for all of this climate [change] mitigation, adaptation, and resilience reaches out to people on the ground, the women on the ground. [That] is what I believe. And I think one of the last things which I would like to say is really critical when we are talking about mitigation, adaptation, and resilience is that somewhere or the other preparedness gets diluted. I think the element of preparedness also needs to be taken into consideration, that how we can make sure that we are prepared for all of these crises.

24:52 
Smarinita: While mitigating climate change is crucial, for people already facing the consequences of the crisis in terms of loss of livelihoods, loss of habitat, loss of health, the climate emergency is very much a part of their reality today. And so adapting to the crisis and building resilience is extremely important as well.

As policymakers work towards India’s climate action goals, there is a need to make space for more voices on the table—those belonging to people who share a close relationship with the land they live on, and those who perhaps understand nature and its patterns better than anyone else. Most importantly, we need to make space for women’s voices to be heard, voices that are more often than not left out of the conversation entirely.

—

Read more

1. Why gender matters: Climate change and agriculture in India
2. India’s climate policies are failing its women and children
3. Moving gender equity to the mainstream of climate action
4. A village tackles cyclones: Why are women in Odisha regrowing a forest?
5. How a tribal community In Odisha is battling climate change with traditional farming
6. The unintended consequences of solutions to climate change
7. Women’s action towards climate resilience for urban poor in South Asia | Bangladesh, India, Nepal