Every November, tents made of hay and blue tarpaulin mushroom outside the Lokmangal Mauli sugar factory in Osmanabad district as it opens its gates for six months. These tents will serve as the temporary homes of migrant workers, who come from all over the state to cut cane for one season of assured employment.
One of the largest factories in the region of Marathwada in central Maharashtra, the Lokmangal Mauli unit sprawls over 450 acres of land. In the shadow of the factory are around 350 tents, housing 1,000 workers.
Gusts of wind periodically blow large, dense clouds of dust mixed with factory ash right into the heart of the settlement. The ash settles indelibly into clothes and hair and the lungs, making it difficult to breathe or even see. And yet, the black cloud is such an integral part of working in the sugar factory that the workers do not find it remarkable.
They are more worried about the drought.
As it turns out, workers are not paid until the six-month season ends, receiving their dues as a lump sum only in April. Until then, to tide over their expenses, they have to ask for a monthly allowance from the thekedar, a contractor usually from their village. This effectively puts them in debt. If they borrow more than they earn in a year, they are kept in the factory or their goods confiscated until they can pay off the debt.
A drought year deepens the possibility of debt and incarceration. This is because the amount of work for factory hands is measured in the weight of cane, and not in the number of work hours. In a dry year, cane that survives the heat might have less water content, which leads to a decrease in its weight. Even though a couple might be promised Rs 60,000-70,000 for a season, workers say, they get only Rs 40,000. In drought years, their earnings could plummet to just Rs 10,000-20,000.
“At home we might get daily wages of Rs 150, but here at least the money is better,” said Tai Hange, from Dharur in Beed district. “But this year, we won’t earn well.”
The cosmopolitan cane cutter
Hange should know. She has been cutting cane as long as she can remember. This is the second time she has come to work in Lokmangal. Last year, she was in Kolhapur and the year before that in the neighbouring state of Karnataka. She did not have to learn Kannada there because all the other workers were from Maharashtra too.
Factories do not often employ workers from the district in which they are located. So people from Beed might move to Osmanabad and from Osmanabad to Pune, or anywhere across the vast network of sugar factories across the region.
Many workers bring their own cattle to draw the carts that transport cane from a farm to a factory. An average factory engages around 300-400 carts, each with three or four workers. These workers are organised by thekedars who sell their services to factory managers. The thekedar organises transport to and from a factory and also negotiates and distributes their wages according to the work they have done.
Hange is from the Banjara community, a nomadic scheduled tribe branded as criminal by the British. Like most other cane cutters, she has no land. Other nomadic tribal communities that depend on seasonal cane cutting for their livelihood are Lamanes and Pardhis. Some cane cutters are Muslim. Many are Dalits driven to migrate by hardships at home.
Dignity in struggle
Kept on the periphery of society in their own villages, the cane cutters experience greater marginalisation as migrants. The factory provides little by way of daily sustenance beyond water, which is often dark green, mouldy and undrinkable, which means they have to venture into the town for their needs. In the town, shopkeepers sniff at the factory workers and provide them inferior materials, from food to clothes to alcohol.
“We might have any amount of money, but the moment they hear we are from the factory, their attitude changes,” said Hange. “No matter where we go, we will all be treated in the same way.”
The work days of the cane cutters are long. The farms are often far from the factory, so they wake up at 3 am and return by 6 or 7 in the evening. A group of four workers can take around a month to cut a small farm’s entire yield. Each day, they return to the factory to weigh the cane. Their daily target across the six-month-long season is at least two tonnes of cane.
Amina Sheikh, from Vadvani in Beed, has also been cutting cane her entire life. “We do this for our stomachs,” she said. “If we don’t get any other work, what will we do?”
Not only is the seasonal work in the sugarcane fields important to feed their families, it is also the only way to keep their cattle alive. The workers bring along their cattle to the farms. After four-and-a-half months of fodder provided by the factory, the Khillari bulls look anything but starved. “During the rest of the year, we keep them on empty stomachs, giving as much as we can to keep them alive,” said Sheikh.
Futures lost
Factories are supposed to provide schools for the children of workers. Most are shut. The Nationalist Congress Party chief and former agriculture minister Sharad Pawar himself famously said in an interview that it was a big deal that his factory had a school at all and to expect it to remain open all through the season was going too far.
Typically, factories enrol children each season to get government funding, but the schools remain shut.
What happens to the children then? With interrupted school years, they cannot complete their education. If they are male, they remain cane cutters. For some daughters, there might be a chance of escape. Those who can afford to cobble together a dowry of around Rs 9 lakhs-Rs 10 lakhs try to get their daughters married to menwith government jobs.
For the sons of cane cutters, the prospect is bleaker. Their wives will bring them dowries of only Rs 1 lakhs-Rs 2 lakhs, since a migrant's life is less valued.
“Do we always have to live our lives like this?” asked Hange. “Before marriage, our parents and our parents-in-law did this. Must our children too?”
This is the fourth article in a series of reports on the agrarian crisis in Marathwada. The other articles in the series can be read here.
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One of the largest factories in the region of Marathwada in central Maharashtra, the Lokmangal Mauli unit sprawls over 450 acres of land. In the shadow of the factory are around 350 tents, housing 1,000 workers.
Gusts of wind periodically blow large, dense clouds of dust mixed with factory ash right into the heart of the settlement. The ash settles indelibly into clothes and hair and the lungs, making it difficult to breathe or even see. And yet, the black cloud is such an integral part of working in the sugar factory that the workers do not find it remarkable.
They are more worried about the drought.
As it turns out, workers are not paid until the six-month season ends, receiving their dues as a lump sum only in April. Until then, to tide over their expenses, they have to ask for a monthly allowance from the thekedar, a contractor usually from their village. This effectively puts them in debt. If they borrow more than they earn in a year, they are kept in the factory or their goods confiscated until they can pay off the debt.
A drought year deepens the possibility of debt and incarceration. This is because the amount of work for factory hands is measured in the weight of cane, and not in the number of work hours. In a dry year, cane that survives the heat might have less water content, which leads to a decrease in its weight. Even though a couple might be promised Rs 60,000-70,000 for a season, workers say, they get only Rs 40,000. In drought years, their earnings could plummet to just Rs 10,000-20,000.
“At home we might get daily wages of Rs 150, but here at least the money is better,” said Tai Hange, from Dharur in Beed district. “But this year, we won’t earn well.”
The cosmopolitan cane cutter
A cloud of ash engulfs the Lokmangal factory's camp for its cane cutters.
Hange should know. She has been cutting cane as long as she can remember. This is the second time she has come to work in Lokmangal. Last year, she was in Kolhapur and the year before that in the neighbouring state of Karnataka. She did not have to learn Kannada there because all the other workers were from Maharashtra too.
Factories do not often employ workers from the district in which they are located. So people from Beed might move to Osmanabad and from Osmanabad to Pune, or anywhere across the vast network of sugar factories across the region.
Many workers bring their own cattle to draw the carts that transport cane from a farm to a factory. An average factory engages around 300-400 carts, each with three or four workers. These workers are organised by thekedars who sell their services to factory managers. The thekedar organises transport to and from a factory and also negotiates and distributes their wages according to the work they have done.
Hange is from the Banjara community, a nomadic scheduled tribe branded as criminal by the British. Like most other cane cutters, she has no land. Other nomadic tribal communities that depend on seasonal cane cutting for their livelihood are Lamanes and Pardhis. Some cane cutters are Muslim. Many are Dalits driven to migrate by hardships at home.
Dignity in struggle
Tai Hange.
Kept on the periphery of society in their own villages, the cane cutters experience greater marginalisation as migrants. The factory provides little by way of daily sustenance beyond water, which is often dark green, mouldy and undrinkable, which means they have to venture into the town for their needs. In the town, shopkeepers sniff at the factory workers and provide them inferior materials, from food to clothes to alcohol.
“We might have any amount of money, but the moment they hear we are from the factory, their attitude changes,” said Hange. “No matter where we go, we will all be treated in the same way.”
The work days of the cane cutters are long. The farms are often far from the factory, so they wake up at 3 am and return by 6 or 7 in the evening. A group of four workers can take around a month to cut a small farm’s entire yield. Each day, they return to the factory to weigh the cane. Their daily target across the six-month-long season is at least two tonnes of cane.
Amina Sheikh, from Vadvani in Beed, has also been cutting cane her entire life. “We do this for our stomachs,” she said. “If we don’t get any other work, what will we do?”
Not only is the seasonal work in the sugarcane fields important to feed their families, it is also the only way to keep their cattle alive. The workers bring along their cattle to the farms. After four-and-a-half months of fodder provided by the factory, the Khillari bulls look anything but starved. “During the rest of the year, we keep them on empty stomachs, giving as much as we can to keep them alive,” said Sheikh.
Futures lost
Children of Tai Hange's neighbours cluster outside her tent.
Factories are supposed to provide schools for the children of workers. Most are shut. The Nationalist Congress Party chief and former agriculture minister Sharad Pawar himself famously said in an interview that it was a big deal that his factory had a school at all and to expect it to remain open all through the season was going too far.
Typically, factories enrol children each season to get government funding, but the schools remain shut.
What happens to the children then? With interrupted school years, they cannot complete their education. If they are male, they remain cane cutters. For some daughters, there might be a chance of escape. Those who can afford to cobble together a dowry of around Rs 9 lakhs-Rs 10 lakhs try to get their daughters married to menwith government jobs.
For the sons of cane cutters, the prospect is bleaker. Their wives will bring them dowries of only Rs 1 lakhs-Rs 2 lakhs, since a migrant's life is less valued.
“Do we always have to live our lives like this?” asked Hange. “Before marriage, our parents and our parents-in-law did this. Must our children too?”
This is the fourth article in a series of reports on the agrarian crisis in Marathwada. The other articles in the series can be read here.