Shifting agrarian labour regimes, ecology, and the crisis for Dalit women’s work in India

In Punjab, the shift from cotton to paddy as the (Primary) monsoon crop is a result of farmers’ adaptation to volatile markets and erratic weather patterns. Shreya Sinha investigates this shift to ask who eventually absorbs the cost of this adaptation. It is landless Dalit women farmers of the Bathinda district, whose already meagre 2-3 months of cotton-picking work has been nearly halved by the transition.

Harvesting cotton is strenuous but flexible work. Old women, women with infants, women who need a break for household work, can all earn wages from cotton-picking work. The transplanting of paddy, however, demands standardised, sustained physical labour in waterlogged fields through peak summer heat; most of this work goes to migrant men from eastern India who tend to work longer hours for lesser pay. Dalit women then find themselves displaced by the intersection of ecology, caste, gender, and capital’s preference for a cheaper, faster, more pliable body.

The article asserts that an ecological change from cotton to paddy cultivation exacerbates the labour crisis for local Dalit women. Paddy cultivation is water-intensive and depletes groundwater reserves further, highlighting the ecology’s relationship with the crisis of agricultural labour in this sub-region. It asks of us to consider how a form of crisis mitigation—whether via migration or a shift in cultivation—can perpetuate and intensify existing inequalities.