By Parvin Sultana,
The lives of char dwellers are marked by persisting underdevelopment, systemic exclusion, and frequent displacement. However, its impact is manifold on the lives of women. This brings forth the need to take a gendered look at the process of dispossession.
Erosion which has led to a loss of habitat impacts women in a multiple ways. People living in these river islands often lose their homes to erosion and are forced to move. Home has a different connotation for women. In a society marked by a gendered division of space, home is often attributed as a woman’s own personal arena. If spaces are gendered, home is a women’s space. The loss of home to the mighty Brahmaputra impacts women in a different way. Women see the destruction of something they build with their hands. This brings a feeling of rootlessness; a sense of losing one’s belonging.
Taking a closer look on the lives of women in chars, few important issues come up. A visit to some of the chars that dot the river Brahmaputra on the fringes of Dhubri brings out the hardships that the inhabitants suffer from. Banshipur is a mere 3 km from the town of Dhubri. A permanent char which has not been submerged for the last 15 years, it houses close to 250 families. There is no electricity. The char has only two schools, one primary level and one middle level. The sole mode of communication is by boat. As a result for higher education while the boys can travel to schools in Dhubri, the girls bounded by the limitation of mobility often give up their studies after primary schools.
These families have lost all their land due to erosion. Their lives are marked by frequent displacement. As a result earning a steady livelihood becomes difficult. Hard working people have seen their agricultural land being submerged in floods. Very few people have government jobs. Others devoid of any help from the government for rehabilitation are on their own. Most of the men move to cities like Guwahati, or other parts of the country, looking for odd jobs. These people, often from the cultural stock of Muslims of East Bengal origin, are harassed in cities as fresh immigrants from the neighbouring Bangladesh. While the men of the houses are away, the responsibility of looking after the homes fall on the women. Devoid of the opportunity of higher education, women apart from looking after their homes also try to manage an extra income. They make incense sticks (Agarbatti) for a neighbouring local company in Dhubri.
Many women from the Char have also travelled to distant places like Mumbai, Lucknow, New Delhi in search of job. Those who are left back with the responsibility of looking after families, women in the Chars are also vulnerable on a number of other fronts. The Char has no hospital or Primary Health Centre. Any kind of medical emergency needs to be treated at Dhubri hospital. There is a high risk of maternal mortality as travelling during night by a boat is a difficult affair. The Char is just a few kilometres from the Indo-Bangladesh border. This proximity also creates a lot of trouble as the char dwellers are under a constant surveillance of the Border Security Force.
A similar condition was seen in Baladobachar which is just a km away from Phulbari of Meghalaya. This char houses the inhabitants of South Salmara which has been completely lost due to erosion. Living in constant fear of further erosion, the inhabitants live a difficult life. Houses made of tin despite the heat gives one an idea about the temporary nature of their habitats. Boats carrying people more than its capacity often run the risk of being upturned. While communal harmony prevails in the char, development deficit is the biggest problem for all. Many lament the loss of ancestral land and a touch with kith and kin. Women face similar problems of limited mobility. Basic necessities are missing in these areas. Women are denied higher education as there are no schools in the char.
Women, like their male counterparts, also bear the brunt of being denoted as D voters. People whose citizenship are not confirmed and are suspected as illegal immigrants are often termed as ‘D’ Voters or Doubtful Voters. Studies show many Indian men and women — both Hindus and Muslims — have been clubbed as D Voters and put into detention camps.
Razia Begum from the village Borpayek II of Nellie – infamous for the massacre of 1983 – is one such woman. Her father Hari Aabdar Munshi was a British employee. While her children are not denoted as D voters, she is denoted as such and not allowed to vote. Many women have been forced to live in detention camps. This has led to breakdown of many families.
In another instance, Sazida Khatun, a mother of five children including an eight month old child was declared a foreigner in 2012. She produced her birth certificate and school certificate but was still declared a foreigner. While her family has lived in the same village for four decades, still her citizenship claims were dismissed. She was separated from her breast feeding baby. This issue got highlighted because of the gross violation of human rights that it pertained.
Detention camps are gendered spaces that women have to negotiate on a daily basis. Children are often put into these camps if their mothers are declared as foreigners. Both women and children are then treated like criminals. They are denied basic rights. The inhabitants are left outside the ambit of normal livelihood.
The problem of women in the chars of Dhubri cannot be seen in isolation. While all char dwellers face problems like lack of basic amenities, difficult livelihood, women’s condition is worsened because of their gender. Shifting home frequently and forced to migrate often psychologically takes a toll on women.
Losing home means losing a sense of belonging for women. Without a home, the identity of the homemaker becomes ambiguous. The responsibility of setting up a new home is also mainly on women. All these deprivation on multiple levels compounds the problem that women in the char areas face.
(Parvin Sultana teaches Political Science in Assam’s Goalpara College.)
Related:
Read more about Dhubri in this two part articles titled ‘Heart of Darkness’: Part One and Part Two