India is a place of extremes, from geographic
relief to health disparity, from chaotic traffic to rigid social norms. The
land and the climate reflect the dynamic social biomes of this society— the
gender divide as sharp as the altitude change from dry plains to Himalayan
summits. Throughout the field course with the University of Montana, women were
always in the shadows of conversation, readings, and also in the villages. Yet
their presence was felt immensely in the carefully tended fields, in the
freshly swept village alleys, in the faces of healthy children.
From my experience in India beyond the
Himalaya, I have come to see femininity as an intensely revered, yet ironically
undermined social force. Women are seen as mysterious, pure beings that need safeguarding.
At the root of Indian culture is an intense respect for the mother figure as a
giver and protector of life, but the harsh reality is that women are seriously
devalued and face daily oppression from societal norms.
This paper will seek to explore women's roles
in conservation in the Garhwal, as well as throughout India, by providing a
brief history of the status of women, identifying women's specific role in agriculture
and conservation activities, over viewing the gendered nature of conservation
and development, as well as extrapolating this case study to other examples of
women's key roles in conservation throughout India. I seek to make the argument
that empowered, participating women are essential for the healthy functioning
of any ecosystem, village and society.
The history of the status of women in India is
unique in that there was once a time when women held equitable status with men.
During the Rig Vedic age, women had full freedom for spiritual and intellectual
development; they could become educated, choose their husbands, and even lead
religious activities (Hussain 2012). Women were honored as givers of life; in
this regard, nature was seen to be feminine since the life of the people was
seen to be intrinsically linked with the life-cycles of nature.
Hindu's called this primordial feminine energy
pakriti, literally meaning 'nature.'
In their philosophy, pakriti is
expressed through shakti, the divine mother,
believed to be the creative power of the universe. Shakti is manifested through goddesses, Parvati and Laksmi, the
feminine counterparts to gods, Shiva and Vishnu, as representations of purusha, the opposing male energy
(Karshik and Sharma 2011). In the Garhwal, the worship of Nanda Devi, believed
to be the physical incarnation of Parvati, or shakti, is an example of this culture’s traditional, religious
understanding of femininity as represented by nature in tribal society.
Many things contributed to the downward spiral
of women's status in Indian society: feudalism, Moghul invasions introducing
practices of purdah, sati, dowry, and
child marriage, colonization, and globalization (Hussain 2012). There is the
eco-feminist argument as presented by Merchant (1992), that patriarchy, as
linked with western culture, is responsible for perpetuating themes of
dominance over women and nature alike—that they have both been considered
subordinates by men throughout history. On a more macro-level, one could argue
that pressures faced by Garhwali women—environmental degradation, corporate
manipulation, rampant poverty, and loss of village autonomy—are a result of
western dominance and influence over India, as a representation of patriarchy
itself.
In conversations with experts on the area of
the Garhwal, I came to understand how, in the traditional past, a mountain
woman's role was particularly independent and powerful, given the dynamic
livelihood of transhumant agropastoralism practiced by the villagers. When men
shepherded their herds into Tibet or into the high-alpine meadows, women
dictated life in the everyday village, empowering them in comparison to sedentary
societies where gender roles are more distinct (Nautiyal, Rao, Maikhuri, and
Saxena 2003).
Nowadays, women are taxed with stresses
similar to other villages throughout India, walking the tight-rope between
burgeoning modernity and traditional subsistence. While their children are
migrating to cities in search of a better education and their men are pursuing
alternative livelihoods away from home, women hold down the fort in the midst
of cascading top-tier tumult. During my observations and in research, I have
received the impression that village folk, especially women, feel helpless to
volatile forces beyond their control. They remain in the dark as to grand-scale
development initiatives, infrastructural projects and beyond. As foundations
for villages that have existed for thousands of years, they are simply trying
to manage in the face of unexplained environmental shifts and obstinate
government policies.
Yet despite their exasperation, Garhwali women
have responded to institutional oppression with inspiring vigor. The most
famous example of resistance to damaging outside forces has been the 'Chipko Movement,'
where, in the absence of men, women rose up together to resist corporate
logging efforts by wrapping themselves around trees and singing (Zurick and
Kuran 2000). Many scholars believe this movement to be the beginning of
ecofeminist social activism, but a local described to me the village's
conception of the women's actions as being born out of mere necessity, as
opposed to a moral defiance against patriarchy, given that the lives of the
women and that of their families were utterly dependent on the health of their
forests (Merchant 1992). Garhwali women also initiated petitions for better
representation during the creation of the state of Uttarakhand and are also
focusing efforts to raise awareness about the effects of ubiquitous
hydro-electric projects in the area.
The robust activism of Garhwali women is a
quintessential representation of women's sensitivity to environmental issues in
action, but I argue, along with Torri (2010), that this sensitivity is born out
of their roles in society as opposed to some intrinsic 'connection' to nature.
In the words of Arya, Mittal and Samra, "there is hardly a [village]
activity in which women play no part;"(1998:175) in general, they are
responsible for production and reproduction--literally, food and babies.
Usually, women deal with non-monetized
subsistence activities such as collecting water, firewood, and fodder, managing
cow dung and crop wastes, maintaining small gardens, animal husbandry, foraging
for non-timber forest products, and rearing children, among other household
chores (Karshik and Sharma 2011). In a project conducted by Singh and
Swaminathan (2002) in Tamil Nadu, South India, they found that women play key
roles in harvesting, threshing, seed selecting, winnowing, and maintaining
proper storage facilities for crops, post-harvest. Chandra, Rakesh, and Kandari
(2009), noted that in the Garhwal, women were responsible for almost all
agricultural and household duties apart from heavy-duty land preparation,
although they found that male contribution increased with altitude seeing as
men closer to the plains had more job options.
Despite their vast responsibilities, most
women in farming villages in India are illiterate, disempowered and overworked
(Ayra 2007). On average, women work for 3,495 hours on a one-hectare farm where
a man works 1,212. Women, as compared to men, provide 70% of overall
agricultural labor, 60-80% in total household labor, 100% in processing basic
food stuffs, 80% in food storage and transport from farm to village and 90% in
water and fuel wood collection--with average days of 14-16 hours (Arya, Mittal,
and Samra 1998, Rani 2004 as cited in Arya 2007).
Women's roles are the bedrock of Indian society, but their
efforts are not accounted for in the grand economic or social schemes, giving them
little leeway in decision making processes with regards to conservation.
However, it is well known that the weight of environmental degradation is
carried disproportionately by women-- the depletion of resources or of soil
productivity means more drudgery and longer hours to produce less food;
deforestation means longer distances for women to travel for firewood;
watershed depletion/disruption increases efforts to meet household water needs
(Arya, Mittal, and Samra 1998, Zurick and Kuran 2000). In the words of Zurick
and Kuran (2000:197), "households cope with ecological stress by utilizing
more female labor." It is cyclical—a society that devalues women undermines
the main energy input for the family, weakening community resilience, enhancing
vulnerability to poverty, and in turn, increasing environmental degradation
with subsistence pressures. And while women's vital roles in daily maintenance
of natural resources are seemingly intuitive, there is an impressive dearth of
research and initiative aimed at involving women in the conservation process;
for this, there are many reasons (Agarwal 2009, Torri 2010).
For one, large scale data doesn't sufficiently
account for the extent of women's involvement; they are often excluded from the
census, with much of their work considered economically unviable (Arya 2007).
It also seems there is a trend for data collection in India to be initiated,
conducted, and answered by only men. According to Ogra (2012), who interviewed
various conservation-oriented NGO's throughout India as to whether they
included women's empowerment and gender issues in their project planning and
implementation, many (mostly male) NGO supervisors ran under the assumption
that incorporating men, as 'heads of the house,' was sufficient because gender
wasn't relevant to their efforts.
In the words of Arya (2007:210): "A basic
constraint on women's access to extension in agriculture is due to the general
perception that women are primarily homemakers rather than decision-making
farmers." So, while many NGO's and governmental initiatives operate under
the guise of 'gender equality,' in reality their efforts are often culminated
into mere awareness camps that females are often unable to attend. The
aforementioned assumption, however unwarranted, is a deep-rooted obstacle to
women's empowerment in India (Ayra 2007, Torri 2010).
Conservative cultural norms and insane daily
workloads constrain women's participation in the public, political sphere
(Agarwal 2001, Arya 2007). Women often find out about conservation projects or
governmental interventions on their land by proxy of their husbands. With a
lack of information on current rules or threats to their resources women are
kept in the dark, often unknowingly violating rules established by park
managers or village leaders and further entrenching the ideology that women are
unfit to manage conservation schemes (Agarwal 2009, Pandey 2005, Torri
2010).
Land ownership is another huge barrier
to conservation efforts. And while females can legally own land under the
Indian constitution, inheritance of titles is patrilineal. The majority of
women do not own land, giving them less sway over resource management and
denying them access to credit (Arya 2007, Chandra, Rakesh, and Kandari 2009,
Singh and Swaminathan 2002). In the words of Agarwal:
Land defines social
status and political powers in the village and it structure relationships both
within and outside the household. Yet for most women, effective rights in land
remain elusive, even as their marital and kin support erodes and female-headed
households multiply. In legal terms, women have struggled for and won fairly
extensive rights to inherit and control land in much of South Asia, but in
practice most stand disinherited. Few own land, even fewer can exercise
effective control over it (Agarwal 1994:56).
Even though they may not control or own the
land they toll, women have a high level of awareness about environmental
resource management given their direct contact with water, food, and fuel
sources; when these sources are threatened by environmental degradation and
globalization, women recognize it as an immediate threat to their survival
(Chandra, Rakesh, Kandari 2009, Karshik and Sharma 2011). Women's knowledge of
the land and its nuanced patterns differs from that of men. According to Singh
and Swaminathan (2002), women's involvement in seed selection has given them
extensive experience in ideal growing conditions, nutritional characteristics,
and productivity of specific seed species. Women also are more informed about
firewood and fodder species—those that smoke or cause indigestion in the
animals (Agarwal 2009).
Research has shown that women's decision
making processes in agriculture are guided by concerns with food security,
whereas men are drawn to put their energies into cash crops. Similarly, women
are more likely to invest in family needs when given capital (Arya 2007, Singh
and Swaminathan 2002). Women’s motives are a result of their roles as
caretakers of the family and the farm, the village and the environment; they
must be acknowledged as key stakeholders and participants for a sustainable
future.
Numerous studies are showing how, when women's
roles are seriously considered and capitalized on, conservation efforts
blossom. Pandey demonstrated in the Great Himalayan National Park, Himachal
Pradesh, how forming Women's savings and credit groups decreased villager’s
dependence on the park’s natural resources through alternative livelihood
projects. Park managers and women leaders worked together in building up a
range of projects funded with money saved by micro-finance groups. They found a
balance between conservation and ‘livability’ in the park zone (Pandey
2005).
Agarwal's research in Gurjurat and rural Nepal
showed that the correlation between women's involvement in forest protection
groups and village councils is statistically significant to the health and
improvement of surrounding forests. She stipulated that women's involvement
increased forest protection because the pool of engaged citizens enlarged,
women felt more responsible for the forest when they were a part of
decision-making, it created a stage for women to share their knowledge of plant
species, and also it helped instill a conservation ethic in children,
instigating sustainable change for generations to come (Agarwal 2009).
In the words of a village woman during a
conversation with Agarwal: "Just as we need both sexes to run the house so
we need both sexes to protect the forest,"(Agarwal 2009:2785). If planning
is essential to sustainable management of resources in the face of dynamic
development, then we must look at who is at the table when decisions are being
made. The recognition of women's prodigious involvement in agrodiversity is
rudimentary to progress which benefits all community-members. Policies and
projects must be drafted within gendered lines so that precious societal and
environmental resources, women and water, forests and food, are not further
marginalized. They should be owning land, and sharing wisdom and commanding
presence in village councils, and organizing self-help groups, and accessing
credit, and going to school, and reducing their back-breaking labor, and
singing, and growing, and cuddling with their healthy babies, and making
informed choices about their bodies, their food, their land, and most of all,
being revered in their thriving communities as givers and protectors of life.
Women not only 'hold up half the sky,' they are a current for ecological energy
from soil to mouth to compost—and they must be a part of the process.
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