Agro-feminism: An Ideology of Hope for Dalit Women

Abstract

This study was undertaken in Vellore district of Tamil Nadu, South India, which largely depends on agriculture and leather industries to employ its economically active population. Agriculture engages 2.1 million of its population while the leather and allied factories accommodate a substantial amount of the rest. Both sectors share the water available but the leather industries consume a large amount of water and pollute it for agriculture. Moreover, agriculture suffers from the land appropriation for Special Economic Zones (SEZ), the failure of Green Revolution, and the industrialization of agriculture, which obliterate the scope for employment of women. Under these circumstances, women villagers face severe health crisis, sexual abuses, food insecurity and low wages. The Thendral Movement that I describe here carries out people-centered activities to empower women and instill in them the optimistic ideology of agro-feminism. Agrofeminism affirms the importance of food production and the role of women in it. As the rural-feudal set up is patriarchal, agrofeminism de- nounces every aspect of male domination in the agricultural community and liberates women in feminist agricultural methods to preserve natural resources in their original form. This study concludes that by promoting agro-feminism, women would claim land ownership legally to secure lives for women by addressing the problems of migration, internal refugees, unequal wages, destitution, poverty, exploitation, suicide attempts, and violence against women.

Keywords

Agro-feminism; land ownership; equality; Dalit women; social justice