Lalita lived in a hut in RK Puram, Delhi. When this slum was demolished and the family shifted to far away Madangir, her father struggled with livelihood and housing issues. Finally, he had to borrow heavily from a private moneylender to build a house.
As economic problems continued to grow, Lalita was keen to help her family. An opportunity appeared when her friends informed her about an organization Azad Foundation which was providing training to women drivers and helping them to obtain a job. However, her father would not allow her to go out regularly for the training. When she insisted on going, he stopped speaking to her.
Braving opposition at home and other hostility, Lalita worked hard at her driver training and soon qualified for a job. Sakha, a sister organization of Azad, helped her to get a job soon. Lalita was very happy and enthused with her progress, but this happiness was tainted by the continuing hostility to her new skills and job in her family.
Meanwhile, the interest on the loan her father had taken continued to increase and the sahukar finally threatened to evict the family from their home if his loan with interest was not paid back immediately. By now the interest had become much bigger than the original loan and the family was just not in a position to pay this back. Fear of eviction and the accompanying humiliation and difficulties created a nightmarish situation for the family.
It was at this stage that Lalita swung into action. She had been saving a substantial part of her monthly income. In addition, she was entitled now to a loan from Sakha. She got together all the money she had. The moneylender was persuaded to reduce the very high interest he had charged. All of his dues were cleared, and the family home was saved. Her father realised his mistake and Lalita started getting respect for her brave initiative from her family and among her neighbors.
This is just one of several stories that Azad and Sakha have in their collection regarding the courage and determination of first-generation women workers emerging into unconventional areas. Starting with the objective of promoting livelihood with dignity for women about a decade back in Delhi, these two organisations have contributed to more than 1,500 women being professionally qualified as chauffeurs, with about 700 of them actually engaged in this profession in Delhi, Jaipur, Kolkata, Indore, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Guwahati.
Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan has volunteered to be a brand ambassador for this effort and he regularly uses Sakha cabs whenever he gets an opportunity. Testimonies of these women venturing into unconventional employment speak repeatedly about the difficulties they encounter in convincing family members to accept their new roles. One way they are able to convince family members to accept their training and jobs is to assure them time and again that they would continue to fulfill all their household tasks and responsibilities as before.
Having made this promise, these women have to work extremely hard as their work responsibilities grow. This can sometimes prove to be a big strain and harmful for their health.
Therefore, there is increasing recognition of a need for dialogue in these households that household work responsibilities should be more equally shared and there should not be excessive burden on working women.
Kamla Bhasin, a highly acclaimed feminist, said at a recent gathering of these organisations that consultations are being held to take forward this effort.
Also, there is increasing recognition that nutrition needs of these women should not be neglected. As most of them come from economically weaker families and there is also a social tendency for nutrition needs of women to get less priority, many of them suffer from under-nutrition. In addition, the new employment responsibility may mean that their regular meal timings are disturbed while nutrition needs have increased due to additional work burden. If nutrition needs do not get adequate attention, this will lead to health problems.
These emerging issues of newly employed women need to get better attention. The first-generation problem is to make a breakthrough in a new profession and to get social acceptability for this. This is not easy at a time when overall there has been a steep decline in employment for women, particularly in conditions of increasingly jobless growth. However once careful planning and hard work have succeeded in achieving a breakthrough, then the next stage is to plan for problems that may emerge.
An obvious concern is that women should not have to face so heavy a burden that their initial enthusiasm gets curbed by too much strain and poor health. This aspect should also get increasing attention as pioneering efforts for finding new livelihoods for women gather strength.
The writer is a freelance journalist who has been involved with several social movements and initiatives.