| In Focus |
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 Breaking the Cycle
For people of Sana Rudravaram Gudem, freedom from migrant labour is a priority
Sana Rudravaram Gudem is a small, unimposing village in Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh. A few houses surround the main square where a mango tree casts lazy shadows and men walk with bare feet over newly harvested rice.
This idyllic calm is deceptive; the battle for survival is stiff here. Like many villages in these parts, agricultural wage labour is the primary means of livelihood and the people often have to travel to far-off villages for work, often up to 200 kilometres away in neighbouring Guntur district.
Grace who runs a Self Help Group (SHG) of eleven women, points out, “If we go for work that day, we get to eat. Otherwise not.” Married to an alcoholic, Grace needs to earn more than others. “If I tell him not to drink, he won’t go to work. When he goes to work, he spends half his money on drinks and gives me only half to run the house. He was a drunkard even before we got married,” she says in a resigned manner.
Which is why when the project suggested that the SHG start a Batik printing unit, Grace was eager to take charge of it. She had been a migrant labourer for too long. Leaving her home behind was difficult and traumatic. The children suffered the most because their education was interrupted or stopped. There were other problems as well. “When we travel for work, we have to stay in unsafe places. We fall sick. There are mosquitoes. There is no proper shelter. We are kept in the fields—maybe 30 of us—in a place like a shed, without walls,” she explains.
Exploitation was rampant as well. “Sometimes, they make us work all day for half a day’s wage.”
To provide the women in the village with an additional source of income, the project sponsored three months of training in Batik printing for some of them. They were then helped to start a Batik printing unit in the village. The unit has helped them break free of the pattern of migration and given them an alternative means of livelihood in their village. “We don’t need to migrate for work any more which is a huge relief,” Grace says.
Then there is Kotamma. Like most other women in the village, she got married at thirteen and had children quickly. She tells her story of backbreaking work and bare-bones survival with a cheerful smile. “We worked as agricultural labourers and our children used to go to work in the nearby poultry farm. We were paid only Rs 30 each day and we survived somehow on that meager income. At night, we left traps in the fields to catch snails. Early in the morning, we collected them, cut them and sold their meat. Then we went for agricultural work.”
In 2007, Kotamma approached the project for help and asked for a loan so that they could buy a buffalo. They then took three acres of land on lease so that they would have grass for the buffalo. “My husband is living with us now and we are educating the children,” she says.
“Earlier, I used to go to work in the houses and farms of upper caste people. Cleaning the farm, removing dung, whitewashing their houses. They used to give us some rice or leftover food. No money. Now, I don’t have to go to work there,” she says. “Now they are telling us that we have become like landlords—equal to them!” she adds with a giggle.
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