Gendered exclusion: Domesticity and dependence in Bengal

International Review of Social History

Volumn 42, Issue 5, 1997, Pages 65-86

  Samita, Sen ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0031441597     PISSN: 00208590     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0020859000114798     Document Type: Article

References (91)

1. J.N. Sinha, The Indian Working Force: (Its Growth and Changing Composition), Census of India, 1, Monograph 11 (1961).
2. Sugata Bose, Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital. Rural Bengal Since 1770, New Cambridge History of India, III-2 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 66-111.
3. Nirmala Banerjee, "Working Women in Colonial Bengal: Modernization and Marginalization", in Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid (eds), Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History (New Delhi, 1989), pp. 283-288. Also see Amartya Sen, "Family and Food: Sex Bias in Poverty", in idem, Resources, Values and Development (Oxford, 1984).
4. Nirmala Banerjee, "Working Women in Colonial Bengal: Modernization and Marginalization", in Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid (eds), Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History (New Delhi, 1989), pp. 283-288. Also see Amartya Sen, "Family and Food: Sex Bias in Poverty", in idem, Resources, Values and Development (Oxford, 1984).
5. G.A. Grierson, Notes on the District of Gaya (Calcutta, 1893), p. 121.
6. Ibid., p. 112.
7. F.H. Buchanan, An Account of the District of Purneah in 1809-10 (Patna, 1928), p. 444.
8. C.J. Stevenson-Moore, Report on the Material Condition of Small Agriculturists and Labourers in Gaya (Calcutta, 1898) [hereafter Stevenson-Moore Report], p. 364.
9. Bihar and Orissa District Gazetteer [hereafter BODG], Saran (Patna, 1930), pp. 85-86.
10. In 1901, there were 1.4 million women in agriculture, 462,000 in grain processing and 200,000 in making and selling forest products: Census of India (1901), VI, 1, p. 197.
11. Lord Dufferin, Report Submitted to the Viceroy; P. Nolan, Report on the Condition of the Lower Classes of Population in Bengal (Calcutta, 1888) [hereafter Dufferin Report], Main Report, pp. 7-9; Stevenson-Moore Report, pp. 23-24.
12. Lord Dufferin, Report Submitted to the Viceroy; P. Nolan, Report on the Condition of the Lower Classes of Population in Bengal (Calcutta, 1888) [hereafter Dufferin Report], Main Report, pp. 7-9; Stevenson-Moore Report, pp. 23-24.
13. Lord Dufferin, Report Submitted to the Viceroy; P. Nolan, Report on the Condition of the Lower Classes of Population in Bengal (Calcutta, 1888) [hereafter Dufferin Report], Main Report, pp. 7-9; Stevenson-Moore Report, pp. 23-24.
14. Census of India (1911), VI, 1, p. 549.
15. Grierson, Notes on the District of Gaya, pp. 111-112.
16. F.H. Buchanan, An Account of the District of Bhagalpur in 1810-11 (Patna, 1939), pp. 607-611.
17. Buchanan, An Account of the Districts of Bihar and Patna, 1811-12 (Patna, 1928), p. 647.
18. A.C. Chatterjee, "Notes on the Industries of the United Provinces", 1907, quoted in G.M. Broughton, Labour in Indian Industries (London, 1924), p. 59.
19. A.C. Chatterjee, "Notes on the Industries of the United Provinces", 1907, quoted in G.M. Broughton, Labour in Indian Industries (London, 1924), p. 59.
20. R.K. Das, "Women Labour in India', International Labour Review (October-November 1931), p. 383.
21. Manorama Ghose, "Banganarir Kaaj" [Bengali women's work], Mashik Basumati, 1 (1922), p. 33.
22. Report of the Census of the Town and Suburbs of Calcutta (1881), p. 144, To every 1,000 men, there were 19,737 women spinners but only 207 female cotton weavers, 442 cotton cleaners, pressers, and ginners, 498 yarn and thread sellers, and 624 dyers: Census of India (1901), VI, 1, p. 497.
23. Report of the Census of the Town and Suburbs of Calcutta (1881), p. 144, To every 1,000 men, there were 19,737 women spinners but only 207 female cotton weavers, 442 cotton cleaners, pressers, and ginners, 498 yarn and thread sellers, and 624 dyers: Census of India (1901), VI, 1, p. 497.
24. Major Ralph Smyth, Statistical and Geographical Report of the 24 Pergunnahs District (Calcutta, 1857), p. 27. The "domestic" industries of rice - pounding and husking and the parching of grain - "naturally fall to the women's lot": to every man in Bengal there were 27 women and in Bihar and Orissa there were 16: Census of India (1911), VI, 1, pp. 548-549.
25. Major Ralph Smyth, Statistical and Geographical Report of the 24 Pergunnahs District (Calcutta, 1857), p. 27. The "domestic" industries of rice - pounding and husking and the parching of grain - "naturally fall to the women's lot": to every man in Bengal there were 27 women and in Bihar and Orissa there were 16: Census of India (1911), VI, 1, pp. 548-549.
26. Ibid. Also see p. 402.
27. The decline in household grain processing is traced in Mukul Mukherjee, "Impact of Modernisation of Women's Occupations: A Case Study of Rice Husking Industry in Bengal", in J. Krishnamurty (ed.), Women in Colonial India: Essays on Survival, Work and the State (New Delhi, 1989).
28. Bengal District Gazetteer [hereafter BDG], Monghyr (Calcutta, 1909), p. 134.
29. Ibid.
30. BDG, Hooghly (1912), p. 176.
31. BODG, Cuttack (1933).
32. BODG, Saran (1930), p. 45.
33. Census of India (1911), V, 1, p. 549.
34. The 1901 Census returned some male midwives who were either dependents or, as in Decca, assistants who cut the cord but took no part in the delivery: Census of India (1901), V, 1, pp. 478-479.
35. Census of India (1911), V1, pp. 548-549.
36. Banerjee, "Working Women in Colonial Bengal", pp. 283-288.
37. The definition of women's work changed in each Census. The Census of 1881 registered women in the husband's occupation. In 1901 and 1911 "women and children who work at any occupation, of whatever kind, not being merely an amusement or of a purely domestic character [were] entered" (emphasis added): Census of India (1901), VI, 1, p. 486. In addition, respondents often did not register women's employment. Census figures should be taken as rough guides.
38. The Magistrate of Tipperah, General Administration Report for the year 1884, para 21. Also see Banerjee, "Working Women in Colonial Bengal", p. 289.
39. The Magistrate of Tipperah, General Administration Report for the year 1884, para 21. Also see Banerjee, "Working Women in Colonial Bengal", p. 289.
40. In total the female workforce participation rate in Bengal was about two women to seven men, as compared with Bihar and Orissa which had one woman to two men workers: Census of India (1911), V, pp. 548-549. For district-wise breakdown see Banerjee, "Working Women in Colonial Bengal", Table 6, p. 289.
41. In total the female workforce participation rate in Bengal was about two women to seven men, as compared with Bihar and Orissa which had one woman to two men workers: Census of India (1911), V, pp. 548-549. For district-wise breakdown see Banerjee, "Working Women in Colonial Bengal", Table 6, p. 289.
42. Rajshahye Division, pp. 3-4 and Chittagong Division, p. 4, Dufferin Report.
43. Buchanan, Account of the District of Bhagalpur.
44. Main Report, p. 5, Presidency Division, p. 7 and Burdwan Division, p. 3, Dufferin Report.
45. Report of A.K. Roy, Joint Settlement Officer, p. 6, Dufferin Report.
46. Stevenson-Moore Report, p. 364.
47. BDG, Bankura (1908), p. 104.
48. Noakhally Division, p. 3, Dufferin Report.
49. Census of India (1901), VI, p. 83 and (1921), V, 2, pp. 374-376.
50. Census of India (1901), VI, p. 83 and (1921), V, 2, pp. 374-376.
51. R.S. Chandavarkar, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business Strategies and the Working Classes in Bombay, 1900-1940 (Cambridge, 1994).
52. C.M. Matheson, Indian Industries - Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (Oxford, 1930).
53. Report on an Enquiry into conditions of Labour in the Jute Mill Industry in India, S.R. Deshpande (Delhi, 1946).
54. Sen, "Women Workers in the Bengal Jute Industry"; R.S. Chandavarkar, The Origins of Indian Capitalism, National Commission on Labour, Report of the Study Group for Jute (Delhi, 1968).
55. Sen, "Women Workers in the Bengal Jute Industry"; R.S. Chandavarkar, The Origins of Indian Capitalism, National Commission on Labour, Report of the Study Group for Jute (Delhi, 1968).
56. Samita Sen, "Unsettling the Household: Act VI (of 1901) and the Regulation of Women Migrants in Colonial Bengal", in Shahid Amin and Marcel van der Linden (eds), "Peripheral" Labour? Studies in the History of Partial Proletarianization, Supplement 4 of International Review of Social History (1996), pp. 135-156.
57. Arjan de Haan, "Towards a Single Male Earner: The Decline of Child and Female Employment in an Indian Industry', Economic and Social History in the Netherlands, 6 (1994), pp. 145-167.
58. Interviews, Manager, Bally Jute Mill, September 1989; Personnel Manager, Fort Gloster Jute Mill, August-September 1989.
59. Sisir Mitra, "The Jute Workers: A Micro Profile", Centre for Regional, Ecological and Science Studies in Development Alternatives (Calcutta, 1981).
60. "[T]he reason advanced in support of [lower wages for women] has been that while owing to the universality of marriage and the joint family system men have to support a large number of dependents, women workers [. . .] have not to support even themselves fully": S.G. Panandikar, Industrial Labour in India (Bombay, 1933), p. 187.
61. Curjel, D.F., Report of Dr Dagmar Curjel on the conditions of Employment of Women Before and After Childbirth, 1923, unpublished, West Bengal State Archives, Calcutta, Commerce Department Commerce Branch, April 1923, B77 [hereafter Curjel Report], Appendix B, Sl. Nos 7 and 15.
62. "Politics and Labour", Amrita Bazar Patrika, 4 April 1928.
63. R.N. Gilchrist, Labour and Land (Calcutta, 1932).
64. B. Foley, Report on Labour in Bengal (Calcutta, 1905); Mitra, "The Jute Workers", For the Bombay case see Chandavarkar, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism.
65. B. Foley, Report on Labour in Bengal (Calcutta, 1905); Mitra, "The Jute Workers", For the Bombay case see Chandavarkar, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism.
66. B. Foley, Report on Labour in Bengal (Calcutta, 1905); Mitra, "The Jute Workers", For the Bombay case see Chandavarkar, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism.
67. Social and Economic Status of Women Workers in India (New Delhi, 1953).
68. Report on the Census of the Town and Suburbs of Calcutta (1881), II, p. 50.
69. Nirmala Banerjee, "Poverty, Work and Gender in Urban India", Occasional Paper No. 133, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences (Calcutta, May 1992).
70. M.R. Anderson, "Work Construed: Ideological Origins of Labour Law in British India to 1918", in Peter Robb (ed.), Dalit Movements and the Meaning of Labour in India (New Delhi, 1993), pp. 87-120.
71. Bernard S. Cohn, "Law and Colonial State in India", in J. Starr and J.F. Collier (eds), History and Power in the Study of Law (Ithaca, 1989).
72. Sen, "Unsettling the Household".
73. Women's own writings on the subject are analysed in Himani Banerjee, "Fashioning a Self: Educational Proposals for and by Women in Popular Magazines in Colonial Bengal", Economic and Political Weekly (October 1991), pp. WS51-62.
74. Sinha, The Indian Working Force, p. 115.
75. The image of the working woman became a powerful literary and cinematic device in the 1960s. Satyajit Ray's "Mahanagar" and Ritwik Ghatak's "Meghe Dhaka Tara" are two outstanding examples of the sensitive problematization of this issue.
76. The image of the working woman became a powerful literary and cinematic device in the 1960s. Satyajit Ray's "Mahanagar" and Ritwik Ghatak's "Meghe Dhaka Tara" are two outstanding examples of the sensitive problematization of this issue.
77. Mary Higdon Beech, "The Domestic Realm in the Lives of Hindu Women in Calcutta", in Hanna Papanek and Gail Minault (eds), Separate Worlds: Studies of Purdah in South Asia (Delhi, 1982), p. 131.
78. Adarsha Ramani, Bamabodhini Patrika, 10 (1913), p. 301.
79. Matheson, Indian Industries, Appendix II; Social and Economic Status of Women Workers, pp. 14-17.
80. The wife consistently earned less than her husband, but contributed one-third of family income and her job was steadier: Beech, "The Domestic Realm in the Lives of Hindu Women".
81. Mitra, "The Jute Workers".
82. De Haan, "Towards a Single Earner", p. 160; National Commission, Study Group for Jute.
83. De Haan, "Towards a Single Earner", p. 160; National Commission, Study Group for Jute.
84. Report of the Indian Factory Commission (Calcutta, 1891).
85. Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India, I, V and XI (London, 1931). Margaret Read was a member of this commission. She wrote three books which reflect such perceptions: Indian Peasant Uprooted (London, 1931); From Field to Factory (London, 1927); Land and Life of India (London, 1934).
86. Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India, I, V and XI (London, 1931). Margaret Read was a member of this commission. She wrote three books which reflect such perceptions: Indian Peasant Uprooted (London, 1931); From Field to Factory (London, 1927); Land and Life of India (London, 1934).
87. Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India, I, V and XI (London, 1931). Margaret Read was a member of this commission. She wrote three books which reflect such perceptions: Indian Peasant Uprooted (London, 1931); From Field to Factory (London, 1927); Land and Life of India (London, 1934).
88. Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India, I, V and XI (London, 1931). Margaret Read was a member of this commission. She wrote three books which reflect such perceptions: Indian Peasant Uprooted (London, 1931); From Field to Factory (London, 1927); Land and Life of India (London, 1934).
89. Mitra, "The Jute Workers".
90. K.P. Chattopadhyay, A Socio-Economic Survey of Jute Labour (Calcutta, 1952).
91. Interview, Titagarh No. 2 Mill, February 1989.