– Madhavi Mirapa
Where are the Indian women in the process of development and globalization? Why they are migrating to cities? How they are facing the challenges of education, careers, jobs and life in general are surprising. What is the socioeconomic background of Dalit young women who are migrating to the Hyderabad city? What are the reasons behind coming to the city? This article tries to shed some light on these questions through a discussion of the experiences of first generation Dalit women who are migrating to the city of Hyderabad. It is based on the project “City and Sexuality: A Study of Youth Living and Working in Hyderabad” done at Anveshi, which focuses on experiences of migrated young women in city of Hyderabad.
Why are these women migrating? The general meaning of migration is moving out of your place for the purpose of education, job, marriage and self-sustenance. It is well known that the agrarian crisis in the rural areas and urban centric development process i.e. socio-politico-economic factors play important role in migration. Generally urban migration takes place for the betterment in livelihood and employment opportunities.
Dalit women from different classes come to the city. Whatever class they belong to, all have to struggle for their survival and existence. Most of them belong to the lower classes and very few of them belong to the educated background. Hyderabad assimilates all and every one. The struggle of balancing between old and new experiences for surviving successfully in the city is unique.
Young Dalit Women’s Experiences
Discussing the difference between the experience of living in a village and the city, a Dalit women pursuing the nursing course said that the upper castes discriminate against them in the village. Even the Muslims too behaved like them but she found the situation to be very different in city. Here Muslims interact as equals, sit and eat with them without any fuss. In the village temple, they were allowed to see the idol by standing at the bottom of the staircase but in the city, they are allowed to enter in the temple and perform all the rituals. All these things have created a kind of self confidence in them, which makes them happy.
After arriving in the city and interacting with its environs the consciousness expanded. When they go back to the village and try to express this consciousness and ideas, the upper-class locals react by saying, ‘you went to city to earn livelihood and learned few new things. After coming back to the village don’t try to teach us. The village has its own customs which you should follow when you are here’. This problem of discrimination is known to everyone but nobody seems to take it seriously. Everybody accepts it as part of village culture.
According to another young woman, in her seven years of stay in the city she has not experienced any open caste discrimination. Anybody can go anywhere even temples and nobody bothers about caste.
On the other hand, the city does not leave them much time or space to think about anything beyond their work and needs. The majority of them are busy in meeting their needs, and are engrossed in protecting their jobs. Two sisters who are working in a shopping mall said that as they don’t have good educational qualifications and are from poor families, they had to take up whichever job was available to them but they hope to find better jobs in the future. Their job requires them to stand for full working hours in the mall, makes them extremely tired. Their off days are spend tending to tired bodies. The meagre salaries do not allow them to go out to eat or explore the city in any way. They also feel insecure going out. They indulge themselves once in a while by buying a packet of biryani to eat at home.
They too agree that discrimination is less in the city compared to their village. In village, attacks keep happening and they don’t get any support from family. Such an experience of growing up has made them insecure even in the city. The family is not in a condition to offer any support. And they know that if they take risk and it goes awry, then their parents will get affected. They say that in city they can wear modern dresses which they could not do in the village. Equally important, talking to others (from other castes) was difficult in village, whereas in the city nobody bothers about the caste of the person who one is talking to.
Coming to the city, searching for employment, learning new languages- all these have given them tremendous selfconfidence. According to a nursing graduate, “before coming to the city I spoke only Telugu, but after interacting with the patients I could speak in English as well as Hindi and able to read doctors’ prescriptions, take his instructions in treating the patients. I have not learnt much in the village but changed a lot in every sense after coming to the city. My dress, food habits, hair style has changed. In Hyderabad when I arrived first, I was not aware of the bus routes and also, I was scared. Now I can go alone anywhere in the city to do the job.”
According to the two sisters mentioned above, “we had a language problem earlier but after constantly interacting with people of different language backgrounds and by giving information about the products, we have learnt to speak Hindi. This improved our self-confidence along with our earnings. In the village, there were no economic opportunities except working in the fields. Working and studying is almost impossible in the villages. When we first arrived, we did not know anybody, except our long-distance cousin. Now we are so habituated to the city that we are confident that we can work anywhere and live in the city.”
Conclusion
They are supporting themselves through the minimum education received. The liberty and economic freedom in the city provides them opportunities to interact with people from different socio-economic background. Aware of the severe limitations that the caste-class order has imposed on them – lack of education, opportunities, family support they try to make best of the opportunities. The city gives them a breathing space by not imposing direct caste discrimination but by imposing long working hours, meagre salaries it imposes an indirect discrimination making their life hard in the city.
Madhavi Mirapa was part of Anveshi City and Sexuality project in 2016-18.
mirapamadhavi18@gmail.com