For once, the praise of the mainstream media in Kerala does not sound like empty hyperbole or sickening sycophancy. More than six thousand women workers were on strike in the Kannan Devan tea estates of Munnar in defiance of their trade union leaders, seeking higher wages — and equal wages with men workers who are paid more though their work is lighter — and alleging that the trade union leaders were pocketing benefits due to them. The workers receive very low wages and live under truly despicable conditions not far removed from colonial conditions despite the fact that the Kannan Devan Plantations in now technically under the workers who own sixty per cent of the shares. The blather about losses in the tea industry conceals the enormous control over land that the Tatas hold for a trivial sum paid to the government. It also deflects attention from the serious charges of encroachment made against the Tatas, which our political class has not pursued much. Continue reading The Woman Worker Re-emerges – Lessons from Munnar
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Students vs. SEWA or Dalit Student vs. Dalit Women Workers? Student ‘Politics’ on CDS Campus: Praveena Kodoth, J Devika, Sonia George
There have been reports in the media of an agitation by students of the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, because a fellow student was asked to leave the hostel to facilitate an investigation of a complaint against him by the Self Employed Women’s Association, which runs the cafeteria on campus. These reports and some exchanges between faculty have been circulated on the web / social media and has led to wider discussion of this event. We consider it imperative to put forward our shared perspective as women activists as well as bring together our views as women faculty members of CDS and co-ordinator of SEWA respectively.
The student was informed in a letter that the action against him was until such time as the investigation was completed. Media reports have portrayed the agitation as having been motivated by the victimization of a Dalit student by the workers of the cafeteria. Also it is being propagated that the student was ‘turned out’ of the campus when the letter from the Director required the student to ‘leave’ the hostel and refrain from using the cafeteria until the investigation was over. Deliberately enough, the action was not to prevent the student from entering the campus. We present here the context in which the student was asked to leave the hostel, the politics of the portrayal of the incident by the students as an infringement of the rights of a Dalit student and the larger implications of their claims, that feminism has been used to victimize students on the basis of caste.
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 