Out-Migration and Its Bearing on Left-Behind Woman: Case in a Jharkhand village

Out-Migration and Its Bearing on Left-Behind Woman: Case in a Jharkhand village Bhaskar Kumar Kakati Abstract Out-migration for jobs is considered as safety valve in an impoverished economy; still we cannot underestimate certain negative externalities resultant of it. It appears that the left behind women are the worst sufferers of the migration phenomenon. This paper makes an attempt to understand the impact of migration on left behind woman in Oraon community in a Jharkhand village. I. Introduction Out-migration for jobs has certain positive fallouts and referred as safety valve in poor areas (Srivastava and Sasikumar, 2003). Out-migration however has certain negative impacts. There are studies (Society for Regional Research and Analysis, 2010; Dasgupta and Roy, 1975; Devasia, Undated) showing how migration affects the people who have moved out. Such analyses however bear partial explanation of the consequences of outmigration as it equally affect those people who are close to the migrant and left behind. In such context issue arises on the impact of out-migration of male members on their better half who are left behind at home and their adjustment to the situation. It may be that new responsibilities assigned in absence of their husbands change their personal status. Such questions are appeared to be important in the context of migration phenomenon as migration is largely invisible and ignored by policy makers. There is a large gap between the insights from macro data and those from field studies (Srivastava and Sasikumar, 2003). There are few studies on impact of migration on left behind or who did not migrate (Nguyen et al, 2006). Another important reason to understand the impact of migration on left behind women in the context of this paper is that historically disadvantaged communities such as the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Castes are heavily represented in migration (Society for Regional Research and Analysis 2010:8). This paper tries to understand the impact of out-migration of male members on their left-behind better-halves. For this Teteartoli village of Senha block of Lohardoga district in Jharkhand state is considered as a case study. Jharkhand is a tribal dominated state. Bhaskar Kumar Kakati (bhaskarmorigaon@gmail.com) is a Ph.D. candidate at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Guwahati 83

Vol. XI No.2, 2014 According to the Census of India 2011, 26.2 percentage of total population of Jharkhand are Scheduled Tribe. Out of total 32,988,134 persons, 8,465,042 are tribal populations live in Jharkhand. Studies find that migration is one of the structural processes of social formation and modernisation of the tribal community (Devasia, Undated). History shows three distinct phases of out-migration of people from Jharkhand. The First phase was during 18th and 19th centuries to work in the tea plantations of Assam. The trend later had changed towards rural areas of Bihar and West Bengal to work as agricultural labor (Mosse et.al, 1997). The present trend from 1980s onwards is towards the big cities of Delhi, Kolkota and Mumbai (Society for Regional Research and Analysis 2010). In the tribal village of Teteartoli male members account for about 95 percent of the total workforce and generally they do migrate for jobs. Most of the people in this hilly landscaped village live under abject poverty. The paper is organised into four sections. The second section says about the methodology adopted in the study, discusses the profile of the study area and nature of migration. The third section discusses analysis of filed data and assesses the impact of migration on woman in different aspects of their life. The fourth section makes the conclusion saying that due to the failure of government machinery still the development policies has not touch the remote tribal pockets which force the people to migrate to different parts of country for livelihood. Although migration ensures ready cash yet it has negative impact on both migrant and left behind women which needs immediate attention. II. Methodology and the context The paper is based on preliminary enquiry into the problem based on few Focused Group Discussions (FGDs) conducted during May, 2013. The FGDs were conducted with three groups of women in the village belonging to the household out-migrant male members. Women were requested to speak and discuss about the impact of migration over them and how these have changed their individuality. The village Tetortoli is situated about 15 km away from the block headquarters. This village is dominated by the Oraon community. Both the Pull and Push factors (Lee, 1966) work in most of the cases of migration and people of this village have migrated largely due lack suitable avenues for decent employment. There is expectation of improvement in the circumstances through migrating out, which is mostly seasonal. It has been observed that, people generally migrate during the off agricultural seasons i.e October- May. Overall though the male members predominate in migration there are cases of outmigration of entire family. It was observed that the migration decision is influenced by several reasons which are individual as well as influenced by overall household characteristics and the social matrix. Factors such as age, education level, wealth, land ownership, and 84

job opportunities influence the participation of individuals and households in migrating out. The reasons for women not out-migrating are to look after their children and the elderly. Moreover the responsibility to look after the family property is also assigned on the women left behind in the absence of the elderly or other male members in the households. During the migration season, there are hardly any men left behind in the village. The male migrant of this village can be divided into teenagers and married. The first category generally migrated due to influence of their peer group whereas the second category migrates to find out suitable livelihood options. The migrants of this village now prefer to go to three destinations. First choice for them is the metros particularly Delhi and Mumbai where they get involved in construction works. The other choices of destinations are South India and a group prefers Northeast India. In south India, they generally get involved in construction work where they generally worked as manual labourer and skilled development work like carpenter, black smith etc. These works not only provides them cash but also enhance their skill. In North East India, they generally get involve in tea and rubber garden and work as manual labour. However, in the village we did not find any one migrating to Ranchi, the state capital of Jharkhand, which is at a distance of about 90 km from the village. Migration decision among the tribal community is primarily taken at the level of kin, clan and village. Thus a movement to a particular place is largely influenced by the decision at larger interest of the community and not at individual level (Devasia, Undated: 27). III. Discussion Two important facts we can generate from literature (Hugo, 2002; Findley and Williams, 1991; Gordon, 1981) on left behind women. One- is the role of women in the new structure of the family and Two- is the workload on the left behind woman. In the first case there emerge two possibilities in the families. Either the women take the responsibility of entire household or the responsibilities are taken by other male members in the household (Hugo, 2002; Gordon 1981). This then led to reconstruction of the household in case of assignment of the responsibilities. In either situation, dependency of women on other members increases (Findley & Williams, 1991). Although women take responsibility but still they had to depend on others for decision making. They had to discuss the major decision either with the old male member left at house or the husband who had migrated. It has been also observed from the FGDs that women work according to the decision made by their husband before the migration. They only follow their husband s order. A wife is dependent on close relatives in the absence of her husband for a sort of male physical umbrella but her dependence on, or the need for help from, close relatives goes much beyond that, even when one is 85

Vol. XI No.2, 2014 talking only of the care of the migrant s family and not other financial responsibilities (Ganguly & Negi, 2010, p. 9). Moreover, in the second situation the children of the woman sees the other male members of the family shouldering responsibility as father, making the father substitutes, but the life of women is not easy in the absence of husband (Findley & Williams, 1991). Few other literature (Sekher, 1997), however indicate that women get benefited when the male members migrate. They lived independently therefore they retain their freedom. Scholars have different views on work load over women left behind. Studies (Grigorian and Melkonyan, 2011; Kim, 2007; Rodriguez and Tiongson, 2001) show that receiving remittances from migrant lead to decrease in hours of work of the women left behind. Moreover there are studies (Amuedo-Dorantes et.al, 2006; Lokshin and Glinskaya, 2009) say that male migration lead to decrease of women participation in non-formal works as well as labor supply. However during the discussion at the Tetortoli village the researcher found an opposite picture. It revealed that receiving of remittances from migrant has not reduced the working hour of women; rather they have to take the extra burden of family responsibility of child care, agriculture and elderly people. Similar observations are also found in some studies (Parida, 2005; Shaheed, 1981). A woman during the discussion said that her husband does not send money regularly, but brings lump sum money whenever he returns, which is not even enough for his own demand of liquor and good food. There is little financial gain in the family even the family has to live without the male member for many years. Such situation forces her to work in the village to make the living apart from shouldering the household responsibilities. The daily routine is hectic, ranges from collecting the firewood, daily waged work, child care and performing the odd jobs in the agriculture field. However, the women in village are not allowed to plough the agriculture fields and this custom relieves the women to a large extent from the day to day hardships. Overall absence of the husbands not only has increased the work load of the women, the absence also added to their mental stress. It is because left behind women has to depend on others for decision making yet they had to perform all the activities. Moreover, the fears of sexual harassment from close relatives make the situation worst. Issue may be that the increasing involvement at work and shouldering of responsibilities in absence of her husband have raised decision making power of the women. Scholars have two different opinions on this issue. One group (Gulati, 1987; Findley and William 1991) believe that male migration can lead to increase of women authority and power in decision making whereas some (Shaheed, 1981) believe that male out-migration subsequently cannot change the decision making capacity of left behind woman. Our discussion however revealed that, although there is an increase of work load on left behind woman but there is no increase in decision making capacity. For major decision like agriculture, women have to depend upon either on the decision of the male who have migrated or the elderly or second generation male who are staying with them. Many participants during the FGDs said that they had to call up their husband to take major decisions on several fronts. 86

In addition to the increasing workload and responsibilities at home, the unrealistic demands from their returned husbands make the life miserable for some women. The women revealed that husbands would compare them with the city girls on day to day affairs from preparing and serving food to their appearances. Not being acquainted with the urban environment and culture, it is hard to fulfill the desire of their husbands. Such assessments make their husbands dejected and create unpleased situation in the home beating up of their wives. In addition to these there are certain significant effect of migration on the family is the conjugal separation (Parasuraman, 1986). In most cases, the wife is left with in-laws or with parents and other relatives, largely for security reason. In such situation, however, cases of sexual harassment come to the fore. The discussion revealed that mostly the close relatives including father-in-law and brother-in laws and other relatives are responsible for such acts. Two kinds of impacts were reported during the discussion - one is when the women tried to resist the abuse then they are beaten up, and two is to hide the trauma in the name family prestige. It also reported bearing of child by a newly married girl due to the abuse. There is study (Saggurti et al, 2011) showing return migration of male significantly associated with HIV infection, and women at home bear the brunt. Such case is however not reported in the case of the village. IV. Conclusion Earlier, particularly before the independence the country out-migration of tribal people to the urban and industrial cities was very meager largely because of lack of transport infrastructure. The momentum to move out in search of livelihood and better living started after the independence (Devasia, Undated) Earlier people of the village used to migrate to the cities like Banaras and were involved in brick kilns. The major destinations of the people have changed to Metros of the country. It has emerged that exposure to the city culture now makes them uncomfortable to get adjusted to their own village life on their return. This is particularly true for the workers involved in the hotel and restaurants and transport sector. The nature of jobs reportedly changed their lifestyles, which is now much different from their earlier life. However, the impacts on the life of the migrants are different based on their destinations of work. There are examples that the people who migrated to the South India on their return bring back the knowledge of new and innovative cultivation. Overall outmigration, whatever may be the reasons, induces social, cultural and economic transformation in the places of origin. Migration also ensures ready cash which is generally not available from other sources of day to day activities in the village. The livelihood generation or employment guarantee schemes are not reached in such villages (Kakati & Behera, 2013). In such situation migration emerges as an important source of cash income for the land less farmers. This no doubt, despite of the negative externalities we have discussed help to raise their social status to an extent. Additionally there is gain in expansion of knowledge and 87

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