Trending news: Book Excerpt: Dreams and Struggles of Women in Modern India

Born on 15 May 1950, V.K. After retirement from Life Insurance Corporation in the year 2010, Singh got completely involved in research and writing on political-economic-gender topics. His articles became a part of various newspapers and magazines, as well as he has also been associated with the small magazine movement. V.K. Singh writes, “All the women I have come across in my personal, laborious and political-cultural life have surprised me with their understanding, sensitivity, courage and fighting spirit. In my own understanding, this thing has never been ‘fixed’ as to why a woman should live within the bounds and limitations which are not there for men. At every step in every sphere of personal-social-political life, women take the maximum risk and suffer the most. Despite this, whenever it comes to rights and equality, the claim of women has always been denied. Not because women do not need rights and equality, but because all rights are occupied by men. Due to this there is no scope for equality. After all, why in this world, which is not possible to build and run without the participation of a woman, should a woman be subordinate to a man, under his ‘protection’ and ‘guardianship’?”

V.K. Singh tries to get to the bottom of many important issues related to women. In the present part of the book, the condition of the working women in the garment factories of Bangalore has been described very well, which they have to face every day. Significantly, there are five garment production hubs in the country, of which Bangalore is one, where there are about 1200 large, medium and small garment factories.

Excerpt from the book: Women in the Garment Industry, Bangalore
There is no identified Special Economic Zone or Export Promotion Zone in Bangalore for garment-textile production like IT. Garment factories are spread across various industrial areas of the city, especially Peenya Industrial Area, Mysore Road and Bommanahalli. The workers live with their families and commute to work on the factory premises. Workers are not allowed to work by taking them home. They do not get salary according to the piece rate, but not according to it. The scheduled working hours are 9. There is a lunch break of half an hour.

Due to male monopoly on the supervisory staff and management in the garment industry sector, the inevitable-avoidable evil of harassment-molestation of women at work place has become a part of the working condition of women. Even in this era of ‘modernity, progress and civilization’ of the second decade of the 21st century, sexual, physical, mental and psychological harassment of women in these factories – even beats the colonial oppression of 19th-20th century. It is common for the supervisors to humiliate these women on various pretexts, physically attack them on a daily basis. For any minor fault in the production line, be it machine, technical or any other, shoving, slapping, shoving, slapping, throwing unfinished garments in the face of women, obscene sexual abuse by male supervisors. There is a regular way of ‘supervision’. If any woman worker dares to protest against these humiliations, public humiliation awaits her – she is either punished to stand with her head bowed all day in front of everyone, or she does not get any work that day. Both mean wage deduction for the whole day. These are the ‘modern scientific’ methods of ‘discipline’ by which the factory management sets an example of ‘industrial relations and harmony’ in its industry.

Every year dozens of women commit suicide because of not being able to tolerate these humiliations. This happens not only in small factories, but also in big branded factories. Don’t know how many women like Ammu, Renuka have committed suicide. Ammu, a mother of two, committed suicide in the toilet of the factory. 18-year-old Renuka hanged herself in the house. The owners of these factories are engaged in the most carefree black-and-white earnings – flouting the labor laws. International brands who do not get tired of flaunting their corporate social responsibility, are neither ashamed of taking goods from these exploitative-murderous factories, nor are they ever ready to take responsibility for these exploitation-murders. No such exploitation-murder exists for both Karnataka and Central Government as their labor inspectors, auditors keep confirming ‘excellent industrial environment’ on paper by taking huge amounts from the employers.

The producer-contractors of garment factories go on employing more workers than the factory capacity in order to increase their profits. The result is darkness, suffocation and gasping for breath during work. The pressure of work on the workers is such that to meet the daily quota given by the supervisors, they do not even drink water for the whole day in spite of the heat and humidity, so that they do not waste ten minutes to go to the toilet.

These working women of the garment industry mostly come from rural areas. These are young, mostly unmarried girls, who are forced to work in such unsafe exploitative working conditions, away from housing and transport facilities. They don’t even know that the next morning when they reach the door of the runaway factory after finishing their household chores, whether they will be allowed to enter or not. In October 2009, 900 working women of Konnega International lost their livelihood when the factory owner suddenly closed the factory and became nine-two-eleven. Most of the working women in the garment industry are not on any permanent or regular contract, they do not have any written employment record. Many times they are on ‘revolving’ contract of three months each. In such a situation, it is meaningless to talk about the facilities and rights of working conditions. When there is a glut of ‘orders’, these women are made to work for twelve to sixteen hours. In most cases, they do not get any overtime: double the overtime cannot be imagined. The burden of work gives them many complicated diseases: spinal problems, shortness of breath, kidney failure due to inability to urinate, tuberculosis, cancer etc. and finally premature death. It is common to be fired illegally for any small reason. The monthly salary of skilled artisans is shown as five thousand and that of semi-skilled ‘helpers’ is four thousand. These women do not have the necessary education and training for any better employment. Before coming here, many of these girls used to share in domestic and agricultural labor in their villages. Some Tendupatta used to do the work of rolling beedis. In some cities domestic maids used to do circumambulation. In the case of married women, their men are mostly working as vegetable sellers, coolies, carpenters or agricultural laborers. The practical reality of a monthly salary of 4 to 5 thousand is that the management gives them hardly 1500-2000 rupees in a month by finding innumerable excuses and loopholes. The insecurity of employment is such that about 10 percent of the workers are retrenched and recruited daily. These women do not muster the courage to take leave even when needed. More than three days leave usually means permanent leave from work. Transport from the factory side to go to work cannot even be thought of. Due to inflation it is not possible for them to stay in Bangalore city. In such a situation, these women come and go from the nearby rural areas and localities by walking for miles everyday or by using public transport whenever they meet.

Jyotima works in one such garment factory. His working day starts at 8.30 in the morning. If she is late even for a minute, the supervisor makes her stand for one to two hours and does not give work. Obviously his salary is deducted for this one or two hours. To make up for the loss of time, she works late overtime and usually ends her working day at 9.30 pm. Every day she goes to work with the fear that she might be fired on some pretext. He has not got any identity card brother. Gratuity-pension talk? Why sprinkle salt on the burn?

Thirty-two-year-old Santhi Bai, the ‘final checker’ of a factory, says: ‘There is definitely an audit in the factory, but the auditors rarely come to inquire about the condition of the workers. They simply go round the factory from outside and sit in the manager’s cabin. Sometimes the auditors or the people of the buyer company also come to talk. It is prepared in advance. The supervisor decides which worker will talk and what he will say. The workers are asked to keep the work place very clean on that day. Manjula, a worker told that she was asked to give her wages of Rs.130/- per day and the time of completion of work at 5.30 pm. Both things were completely false. The supervisor and one or two of his mustands are always present during the conversation.

There is a lot of difference between the working conditions of men and women, the nature of work and the wages of work. Due to no system of training and low education for women, opportunities for better working conditions, better wages, leave and other basic facilities, job security, promotion etc. are almost absent as compared to male workers. .

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