Women in India for climate justice
A Women’s tribunal on climate justice in the Indian capital aims to bring in gender equity in the climate debate. OneWorld South Asia met some of the women, who traveled from far flung parts of the country to voice stories of survival and adaptation.
New Delhi: Gouri Bai belongs to a small hamlet in Bundelkhand. Being a part of the farming community, her life and livelihood depend on agriculture. But changing weather and decreasing water for irrigation are threatening her survival. The vagaries of nature have left her steeped in debt and poverty.
- Gouri Bai from Bundelkhand speaks at the public hearing/ Photo credit: Mahipal Singh Rawat/ OWSA
“I have two acres of land that is lying bare due to scanty rainfall. The hand pumps are running dry and the loans taken to purchase water at high costs are piling up. No one helps us,” she says.
Women like Gouri live on the margins of society and have limited access to outside support. The ‘Women’s Tribunal on Climate Justice’, organised by Wada Na Todo Abhiyan and its partner organisations in New Delhi on November 11, brought together many such women to share their experiences in public. The hearing was also attended by climate experts and members of the civil society.
- (From L to R) Dr Pam Rajput with Anita Bharti, NACDOR and Mazher Hussain at the hearing/ Photo credit: Mahipal Singh Rawat/ OWSA
Speaking at the event Dr Pam Rajput, eminent women’s rights activist and organizer-cum-jurist said: “Women from the marginalised communities are the worst victims of global warming. Therefore, women have an important role to play in climate change discussions.”
Women on the margins
Women who depend on natural resources for their livelihood are more susceptible to the impacts of climate change.
For Anna Soren from an adivasi community in Jharkhand, agriculture is no longer sustainable due to less rainfall.
“Many women migrate to towns in search of work and employment. Some of them are employed as housemaids. But many end up as victims of the flesh trade,” she said.
According to a paper presented by Govind Kelkar, programme coordinator at IFAD-UNIFEM, “Adivasis play a major role in organic agriculture and they make a significant contribution to reducing emission of greenhouse gases. It is ironic that they are also in the weakest economic position and thus most vulnerable to climate change.”
Women in disaster
Shyamali Das from the Sunderbans in West Bengal has been witness to many cyclones that have struck the area in recent times. Cyclonic storms flooded vast tracts of farm land, which remained inundated for a long time. As member of a fishing community, she has suffered losses of 20 fish species.
“Ten years back, a fisherman used to go out in the river for 15 days in a month and earned at least a thousand rupees. But for the last few years, our income has come down drastically. We now earn just a paltry Rs 400. Earlier we could sustain on fishing for 8 months in a year but now it is only 2-3 months.”
- Women from indigenous tribes at the hearing/ Photo credit: Mahipal Singh Rawat/ OWSA
Recognising the importance of mangroves in the region, Shyamali wants the government to not bring in any mechanised and unsustainable practices which destroy these.
“Accept us and our knowledge as a base to adapt and mitigate climatic changes. Come out with strategies that recognise innovative farmers, gardeners, and fishermen who are the protectors of land, water, forest and lives associated with it,” she appealed.
Autonomous adaptation
Despite minimal access to resources, women have demonstrated their ability to adapt to the changing situation. It is encouraging a number of these women in poor rural areas have autonomously adopted adaptation strategies.
One such example is Kamalawati Devi, a resident of Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. In her community, around 80-85% of people are dependent on agriculture. They primarily grow vegetables, paddy, wheat, corn and groundnut. But with changing weather patterns, people have changed their cropping patterns.
She says: “Today we practice mixed agriculture due to drought situation. We sow corn, groundnut, arhar, nanua and other vegetables together. If arhar and groundnut are destroyed due to heavy rainfall, we have the option of producing corn and nanua. In case of a drought situation we produce all crops. Similarly we have increased the area for producing vegetables, whereas earlier we used to produce crops in 90% of our agricultural land and only 10% of the land was used for vegetables.”
The testimonies of these women are an important insight into how climate change affects women and the solutions that they come up with. The experiences of these women along with inputs of academics, policymakers and experts have been collated in a Charter of Demands (see below). This will be used by the Tribunal to advocate with policymakers at the national and international levels.
