Travelling through Vidarbha, the region notorious for suicides by debt-ridden farmers, one discovers many a truths, which are not discernible over ground otherwise. The Prime Minister’s debt waiver for farmers has not helped them much because the conditions, which pushed them into a debt trap continue to exist. They still take new loans before every sowing season and look up to the heavens (rain gods) to repay them. They continue to be steeped into poverty and have loans to pay back for seasons when rains were not adequate.

What is more shocking is that women in the region have suffered more than the men. They generally do not own land and are not recognised as agriculturists. Yet an overwhelming majority of them, is equal – and often bigger – partners in farming work, And at least 50,000 (the approximate count of farmer suicides reported in the region from 1997 to April 2011) do it without husbands on their side. A few of them like Anusuya Suresh Balsarei(38) of Scheduled Caste Mohalla of Lonsawali village in Wardha district and Dhrupatabai Rathodii of Bhamb village in Mahagaon Taluka in Yavatmal district ended their lives because they were unable to pay off their loans.

Since the land is not in their names, women have no collaterals for obtaining loans. In other words, they have no access to agricultural credit and other extension services, which have been made available to male farmers at least on paper. In fact, a woman having an account in Vidarbha villages looks an aberration. Ask Santosh Wande, widow of late Prahlad Wande, a farmer who killed himself about five years back in Awar village of Vidarbha, whether she has a bank account and she stares into the blank. She had known to hide her money in the knots of her saree all this while.

The women in Vidarbha toil in the farms day in and day out and also perform domestic chores as their menfolk queue up for loans for buying seeds and fertilisers and arranging for water, cleaning and cotton plucking. Yet in every sense of the word, they are secondary farmers.

Women in Haryana despite property right having been bestowed on them are also in identical situation. They are only required to sign when their brothers want the land to be transferred in their names or sell it off. For all practical purpose they too are secondary farmers. So are women in Kargil (Jammu & Kashmir) who do 17 out of the 19 agricultural activities including growing apricots and yet can’t take loan because they do not own the land. So is rest of the 71 per cent women who are estimated to be involved in the farming work in the country

Ritu Dewan, Professor in Centre for Gender Economics, University of Mumbai, feels there is no difference between gender at a macroeconomic construct and gender at a micro level. “There is no kind of a differentiation between the two and certain concepts and certain policies which reinstate the fact that women are secondary owners, secondary citizens,” Dewan says lamenting that “social construct of gender is much more talked about than the economic construct of gender.”

Aasha Kapur Mehta, Professor of Economics in Indian Institute of Public Administration, echoes Dewan when she emphasises on increasing efficiency of women as farmers to increase agricultural production. “When it comes to agriculture, women’s work tends to get completely invisible and we forget that women work extensively in land preparation, seed selection, sowing, applying manure, fertiliser, pesticide, weeding, transplanting, threshing, winnowing, harvesting and yet do not get recognised as farmers. When it comes to animal husbandry, they do chaff cutting, preparing food mix, bathing, cleaning cattle, making dung cakes and yet their contribution remains invisible. Attainment of agricultural growth targets depends increasingly on policies that increase efficiency of women as farmers.”

The lack of economic empowerment of women manifests most in the social construct of the gender with malnourishment, adverse sex ratio, sanitation, domestic violence and illiteracy affecting them the most.

Interestingly, the lack of economic empowerment of women manifests most in the social construct of the gender with malnourishment, adverse sex ratio, sanitation, domestic violence and even illiteracy affecting them the most. About one third of the world’s malnourished women live in India and instance of anemia in India among women is as high as 56 per cent, 32 per cent more than the men. Despite the best efforts of various governments, the male-female ratio has not been corrected. In fact, it has worsened. While 2001 census reported adverse sex ratio in seven states, in 2011 the female count has shown a decline in 22 states and 5 Union Territories. In Kashmir, the fall has been 82 points. Overall the female ratio has only risen from 933 to 940 in last ten years. The female literacy rate in erstwhile KBK districts in Orissa,iii which account for 19.80 per cent population and over 30.60 per cent area of the state, still hovers around 40 per cent, 25 points less than the national average.
The poverty data is very clear that among all the households, the poorest of the poor are female-headed households and that is increasing. It is no secret that many of them face abuse in their own houses. Despite gender budgeting having come into circulation in last few years, the governments spend only a miniscule part of their allocations on them. In Maharashtra, which is supposed to be one of the progressive states in the country, for instance, the expenditure on women’s welfare in the annual plans in last ten years has declined from 1.2 per cent to 0.01 per cent! In Delhi, space for an anganwadi is hired at a monthly rent of ` 400 to ` 700 only! No wonder, many anganwadis cannot function even in the verandah of the landlord when the latter has guests at his place. When it comes to seeking a loan, a married woman still needs her husband’s signature. And a single woman cannot include her mother while seeking medical insurance for family. Women have no separate right to work even under MGNREGS. Their right gets subsumed within the household. Though the mandate of MGNREGS is to provide crèche services to women wagers but it is hardly implemented on the ground.

“There is an estimate of 58 per cent of India suffering from hunger and there are the malnutrition issues and again women are worst affected because they are last to eat in many homes and therefore suffer poverty to a greater extent. When there is no access to sanitation there are additional problems that women face with having to hold themselves until its dark,” points out Mehta stressing on launching ‘concerned efforts to eradicate poverty and gender issues such as increase in feminisation of poverty, exploitation of women, correct the high IMR and MMR’. She emphasises on correction of gender gaps in literacy  and education, male-female ratio, addressing wage differentials between men and women and implementation of domestic violence act.

For removal of gender biases – social as well as economic – prevalent in the society, there is a need for spreading awareness about women rights. And Women Commission may be a good means of doing it. This is what Hemlata S Mohan, Chairperson, State Commission for Women, Jharkhand, believes in. She in fact wants Panchayati Raj institutions in the state to educate people about women empowerment programmes and laws like domestic violence act. Hina Bijli, Assistant Professor, AMU, discloses Uttar Pradesh has alarming indicators of human development especially in the areas of health, where the critical inputs are below the required standards. This directly impinges on women’s employability. But Jyoti Panigrahi, Chairperson of Orissa Women Commission, claims her commission is working for redressal of issues of business women.

When it comes to agriculture, women’s work tends to get completely invisible and we forget that women work extensively in land preparation, sowing, weeding and harvesting. Attainment of agricultural growth targets depends increasingly on policies that increase efficiency of women as farmers.

The first and foremost is a need to change the focus from the social construct of the gender to the economic construct and let social part– literacy, nutrition etc – be tagged with financial inclusion. There is need to link up social programmes with microfinance delivery models like Self-Help Groups (SHGs). 90 per cent of the SHGs in the country are estimated to be run by women. In Andhra Pradesh, for instance, former Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu said that SHGs would not be given money till they became literate. It may be a good idea to empower women groups, which are into revenue generation, through education, training and social awareness.
“It is not only that women don’t earn the financial profit. It’s also that they don’t get to decide what to spend the money on. Women need that control,” say experts. There is need to involve communities and Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) into the process and convergence of Education, Panchayati Raj, Agriculture, Rural Development Ministries with the Ministry of Women and Child Development. But this is easier said than done. The WCD ministry, after all, is considered much lower than the above-mentioned ministries in the pecking order. But the convergence may be possible easily at the district level where the District Collector and the Zilla Panchayat are located.

“You have such large base of foot soldiers (Asha plus IL&FS workers) who are dealing in this whole aspect of maternal care. Probably lot more can be done in terms of building patient data history.” Alok Bhargava, CEO – Strategic Support Group, Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Service

The imperative is to increase gender budgets/wages, get women into income generation and at the same time strengthen public sector paraphernalia – education institutions, primary health centres, hospitals diagnostic centres, sanitation, drinking water, women homes and old age homes etc. “The issue is how do you deal with issues of ill-health and how can you use gender budgeting to reprioritise expenditure to meet needs of people who are suffering from illhealth and poverty. The issue is about strengthening primary health centres and public hospitals, making sure there is access to reliable and quality medical care, and community care homes,” says Mehta

“We need to ensure that SHG women are trained to earn at least five to six thousand rupees per month. Tailoring, knitting etc. have no market because with these skills women cannot compete.” Vandana Kumari Jena, Senior Adviser, Planning Commission

Sapna Shahani, Director, WAVE (Women Aloud videoblogging for Empowerment), feels there is a need to educate women about financial inclusion and generating income and savings through SHGs. This may be done by incorporating financial inclusion in the school curricula instead of tackling the problem when somebody is out of school or later on trying to get into the SHGs.

“Though it might sound little obsolete but we need funding for acting against domestic violence. I’m trying to tell people, educate them about their rights and also how to go about it.” Hemlata S Mohan, Chairperson, Jharkhand State Commission for Women

“Though it might sound little obsolete but we need funding for acting against domestic violence. I’m trying to tell people, educate them about their rights and also how to go about it.” Hemlata S Mohan, Chairperson, Jharkhand State Commission for Women“Though it might sound little obsolete but we need funding for acting against domestic violence. I’m trying to tell people, educate them about their rights and also how to go about it.” Hemlata S Mohan, Chairperson, Jharkhand State Commission for Women

There is a need to encourage women to involve in activities, which generate decent income. There is also a need to remove biases, which object to women becoming entrepreneurs. “My request to everybody dealing with the SHG sector – please make sure they are income generating activities, which give decent income to women, at least five to six thousand rupees per month. The traditional market – tailoring, knitting etc have absolutely no market, because the kind of skills they are taught, they cannot actually compete. You have Self-Help Groups having low income of 1,000-2,000 rupees which is sheer token income,” feels Vandana Kumari Jena, Senior Adviser, Planning Commission.

Jena recounts her recent visit to women weavers in Guwahati to point out how there is a gender bias against women entrepreneurship in the country: “When we were having the entrepreneurship development programme, I said logically 90 per cent of the entrepreneurs should be women (90 per cent weavers are women). They said no. Women cannot be entrepreneurs because they won’t be able to handle this.”

The last but an important point anyhow is that when we do gender budgeting, we need not look at women as a homogenous entity. After all we have Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, minority, women in conflictridden areas and other sections within the group, which are far more deprived than the general category women.