Yash Kumar Sharma is a student of Master of Disaster Studies at Special Centre for Disaster Research, JNU, New Delhi.

This article discusses how a drought is a gendered event. The inherent vulnerability of women is high as compared to their male counterparts due to gender roles associated with them in our society. Women are expected to fulfill three major roles – Productive, Reproductive, and Community management Roles. Such roles add to their vulnerability. Lack of access to resources, on the other hand, decreases their coping capacity and resilience. The lower social, economical, and political status of women in our society is at the core of the higher vulnerability of women.

In the years, when the monsoon gets delayed and it does not rain on time, a unique sight could be seen in Rajasthan’s Banswara district. Tribal women of Anandpuri and nearby villages come together and carry out a procession in the streets to please the god of rain. They carry swords in their hands and sing folk songs. Swords symbolize that if it does not rain on time, people will start killing each other for water. No men are allowed in this procession.  This ritual is called “Dhaad”.

This age-old cultural practice signifies the importance of rainfall in the lives of tribal women of Rajasthan.

Droughts in Rajasthan

Rajasthan is a drought-prone state due to its geo-climatic location. More than half of the area is arid and the rest is semi-arid. One could say that continuous Droughts were part of Rajasthan’s history, but the frequency was not that high in earlier times. Droughts have been a constant part of the state since the initial 20th century. Talking about the magnitude or severity of droughts, it has been increased in the last few decades. The two worst droughts have been the drought of 1987-88 and the drought of 2002-03. Meteorologists are of the opinion that the frequency and magnitude of droughts in the state are about to increase in the next couple of years, blame goes to global warming and climate change.

Double-trouble for women

In Rural Rajasthan, women and girls already have a double burden. First, their household work, and second is agricultural labor work. Despite toiling hard on the agriculture fields, these sections had almost zero land rights due to biased inheritance for a long time (i.e. inheritance from father to son). This meant almost no decision-making power in the family or society at large. Also, such hardships took a toll on their health which often got deteriorated due to working in such an extreme climate of Rajasthan.

By analyzing recent draughts and similar events in Rajasthan, it has been found that Droughts have multidimensional impacts on women.

Loss of income

Crop loss caused due to drought leads to food deficits and food inflation. And if there is no or very small surplus available for market sale, then the income will further get reduced or could be wiped out completely. In such a scenario, women might not be able to afford nutritious food. During recent droughts, food shortages both terms of quantity and quality were more common for families living in dry and tribal areas like Thar and among the landless families and backward areas of Jaiselmer.

Distress Migration

Another consequence is possible to increase in male labor out-migration. It has been observed that due to uncertainty caused by drought, the migration of men from villages to major urban centers had been rampant in Rajasthan. Male members migrated out of their villages in search of jobs and the women of the house stayed in the house to look after the land, livestock, and children. Wives, left at home end up with more household chores which otherwise should have been done by the husband. Such villages have a significant number of female-led households.

Loans and Distress-selling of Assets

Disasters lead to loss of income and livelihoods. During the droughts of 1987 and 2002, rural families of Rajasthan tried to cope with income shortages by borrowing money from informal sources such as local money lenders. Data suggests that a significant proportion of this money was spent on food, water, essential non-food items, and also to meet the costs of traveling or deserting the village for cities. It also happens that people sell off their movable and immovable assets (i.e. land, cattle, jewelry) in an urgent need to meet their needs.

Adverse Impact on Nutrition and Health

Poor households were left with no choice but to change their diet patterns according to the need of time. At the time of drought, people unwillingly had to shift to cheaper and more frequently available food items. During the drought of 2002, people residing in dry regions of Rajasthan had to shift to coarse grains such as Jawar, Bajra, etc. Some reports suggest that before independence poor families also consumed Khejri sprouts and leaves in such adverse times. Also after every Drought or low rainfall year, a certain shift in crop patterns can be seen in Rajasthan as people tend to go for low water consuming crops.

Women in particular, at the household level, try to decrease their consumption and tend to eat even less than male members. From one of the subjects I interviewed (Gatta Bai, 87), it was learned that in rural families of Rajasthan girls were trained before marriage to eat less. They were also told to eat only once in drought and low production years. During times of crisis, women were the last priority when it came to food distribution in the family. The topmost priority was given to male members and kids in the household. Then came the elderly. In the last women and girls. As a consequence, their health (physical and reproductive) gets severely compromised due to a shortage of clean water and a decrease in nutrition. They tend to suffer from several health problems such as fever, weakness, and reproductive health issues. Food scarcity also deteriorates the health of pregnant mothers and their babies.

Socio-cultural Impacts

A social phenomenon has also been experienced in Rajasthan during and after the droughts. Due to a shortage of food, girls were married off early. The motive behind this was primarily to decrease the number of dependents and also to get a ‘bride price’ for the family. Wealthy men were more likely to go for polygamy and the wealth and land owned by men could be directly related to the number of partners they had. Also, more wives would mean more availability of kinship-oriented unpaid labor.

Girls, in the end, were between rock and hard place, on one hand, they had a drought-stricken family which is desperate to marry off a daughter as a means to get the bride price and survive the drought. On the other hand, there were rich and wealthy polygamists.

Increased work burden

A study by Oxfam throws light on the working hours of women in agriculture fields. According to the study, women give around 3,250 Hours in fields during the production season whereas, men give only 1,900 Hours. It has to be noted that while more than 70% of rural women workers are farmers, only 12.8% of women hold farmlands in our country.

Some studies suggest that drought-induced income losses have compelled many women, specifically from poor and tribal areas to end up with less qualitative and low-paying activities such as subsistence farming, collection of forest produce, seasonal works, etc. Problem is, women with already compromised health, sometimes end up with a higher share of the work burden. They have to work extra hours and take up extra tasks. Sometimes their children also end up working with them. Another social responsibility women have is to look after the elder members and children in the family. If a food shortage takes place, it becomes the sole responsibility of the female member to look after them since the male member is migrated to the city.

It is clear that a Drought is a gendered event where women experience the worst. The impacts of drought are common but differentiated for women and girls.

The curious case of ‘Paani-bais’

Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 completely prohibits polygamy and polyandry marriages among the Hindus. Derasar, a village of Barmer district took a step back in time and resorted to marrying more than once. Some experts believe that this tradition of polygamy started as an old accident when a husband, who was unable to get a child from his wife, married again and the second wife ended up with three kids. Marrying more than once became a norm in the village.

Although many anthropologists are right while saying that one single incident is not enough to start a new cultural trait in society. They tried to come up with an explanation. The reason they gave was that due to the arid climate of Barmer district and due to distance of water source, women have to walk for more than 4km to fetch water for the daily need of their household. Once they become pregnant, their body does not allow them to continue doing such difficult tasks. Hence, the husband marries another girl. This girl mainly fetches water and also does other household chores of the family. Also, they do agricultural work. Marriage works as a source of free and kinship obligatory labor. This culture of marrying twice has continued in the Derasar village for a long. The new wife takes over all the work which were otherwise being done by the first wife. It also became easy for conservative elders to convince the adults to marry again by giving this reason.

Now, the problem arises in the treatment, social status, and dignity of these second wives. They are sometimes also referred to as “paani-bais” or “water wives”, which reduces their honor from a wife to just a household servant. Apart from this, this illegal tradition completely ignores the mental trauma these wives go through.

Gender mainstreaming in the Drought management plan

A rural woman in Rajasthan walks for an average of more than 2.5 km to reach the source of water, this is according to a report by NCW (National Commission for Women). With already existing water scarcity, a  drought event further exacerbates the situation for women as they are on the higher side of the risk.

The patriarchal belief that household chores are the duties of an ‘ideal wife’ and that she is the one who must take care of the water demand of the family is gender-biased and goes against the modern ideas of equality and justice. The problem of water, which forces females to be water carriers, takes away the most productive years of their life and they are left with no time to do something for their betterment. Drought risk reduction strategies must be made keeping in mind that coping capacity and vulnerability vary according to gender. Policymakers should look from a gender lens and opt for a feminist approach while making policies for the management of drought.

It is time; we end the gender roles associated with water and focus on unlocking the potential of half of the population.

Acknowledgement:

I am grateful to my professor Dr Sunita Reddy for encouraging me to do write this article under the course on ‘Gender and Disaster’.