Environmental Social Justice in Rural Indian Communities

Literature Review on Traditional Practices in Women’s Oral Histories

In 2016, a cross-disciplinary team of six researchers in the South Pacific in the fields of linguistics, applied sciences, arts, and cultural studies published their research in Ecology and Society on oral history interviews they conducted with male and female elders in approximately 30 rural villages throughout Fiji.¹ Though the exact numbers of interviewees were not reported, the authors – S. Z. Janif, P. D. Nunn, P. Geraghty, W. Aalbersberg, F. R. Thomas, and M. Camailakeba – mentioned that the largest cohort (42%) was in the 70–79 age range and that most of the interviewees (58%) were men. They included quotes from the interviews to illustrate how elders observed changes in the environment. Here is one such example:

My grandmother always said that if someone goes out fishing and catches a fish called Na Ki [Upeneus vittatus, the bandedtail goatfish] and brings it to the village without noticing, there will be a large wave (tsunami) coming soon afterwards. (Female, 69 years, Viti Levu Island)

Quotes like this reflect the elders’ observations about perceived linkages between social events and changes in weather patterns the significance of which has not been fully integrated or considered in today’s climate change adaptation programs. They may be tracking fish migration or associations with tidal events that, of course, are valid observations. Zanif and her colleagues discuss the fact that conventional approaches to climate change do not incorporate the elders’ experiential wisdom and fail to recognize the validity of alternatives to western scientific methods.²

The dual purpose of their research study in Fiji was to honor the elders and provide examples of how traditional wisdom could help track and record extreme weather events such as cyclones, tsunamis, intense winds, and droughts. They included the elders’ practical advice about how they had harvested crops and determined which “cyclone foods” would fare best in the event of a major threat. One elder reflected on how he knew when an extreme weather event was coming by local observations of nature, including how the central leaves of the native plant, vudi, unfurled rather than curling down; when hornets started building their nests closer to the ground than usual; and when breadfruit and mandarin trees began to fruit excessively. From these and other examples, Zanif and her colleagues demonstrate that elders knew how to adapt to severe weather events by relocating and migrating to safer areas. They also point out that their practical advice (what is referred to as TEK – ‘traditional ecological knowledge’) often has been viewed as primitive and even embarrassing to local government authorities who seek financial aid from the Global North. In the present day, however, TEK has become more visible and has elicited much support among feminist and climate change activists who seek to defend and promote the contributions of indigenous people.

The role of memory and identity in climate change narratives also was evident in a 2017 essay in Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, in which the scholar/playwright W. J. Wang from Taiwan analyzed a play she herself wrote and directed, titled “If We Still Have Tomorrow.” ³ This play and subsequent community theater production integrated traditional Asian water rituals, myths, and legends into a story about how the increasing number of natural disasters created conflict between economic development and local environmental protection. It features three water Goddesses who help indigenous people rebel against Asian men from Taiwan, the Philippines, and Japan who were investing in a tourist hotel and cultural park being constructed on a sacred site. One theme was that mere mortals are unable to protect the environment, as evidenced by the government’s inept response to the devastation caused by Typhoon Morakot in 2009 – a landslide (and subsequent flood) that destroyed the entire town of Siaolin in Southern Taiwan.

Wang’s goal was to highlight the constant exploitation of the forest and mountains: Her article/play includes the premise that a huge water tunnel construction project would destroy the local water and land ecosystems. By weaving traditional dances and local stories into “If We Still Have Tomorrow,” Wang celebrates women as instigators of resistance to harmful development projects. Their vibrant and tenacious voices champion indigenous knowledge and help raise public awareness of environmental traumas. Perhaps this artistic format could be employed in other regions in the Global South to highlight women’s connections to the natural world they seek to protect.⁴

In 2019, the Jàmbá Journal of Disaster Risk Studies published an article by a researcher/scholar, T. M. Mashizha, who interviewed farmers in 40 households (including 23 women and 17 men) in the Mashonaland West Province of Zimbabwe about their observations of the effects of climate change, their indigenous knowledge of the environment, and their community’s response to crises.⁵ He provided examples of indigenous knowledge that included farmers’ observations of increased rainfall, and, prior to an extreme weather event, unusual bird behaviors and unseasonal flowering patterns of specific native/local trees. Like Zanif and her colleagues in Fiji, Mashizha notes that the private sector and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) entered these regions with little interest in understanding the farmers’ observations or the tradition of Zunde Ramambo (the communal gathering and storing of food in anticipation of shortages), which had been passed down for generations and proved useful for farmers in adapting to environmental crises.

Mashizha recommends that external organizations learn from the communities as they seek to introduce educational climate change programs – in particular, to complement the way agriculturalists have developed adaptation strategies through Zunde Ramambo’s social safety net for community cohesion and survival. He briefly mentions women as disadvantaged because they are not involved in family decision making and recommends that they become engaged in new planning projects. I wonder, though, if it would be possible for women to be accepted by the dominant males in the community in that new role, because their roles in the household already give them unofficial and typically unrecognized positions of power. That question suggests the importance of empowering women in adapting to climate changes that are of a greater magnitude than anything previously experienced for a very long time.

A 2019 study by C. Hatfield and S. K. Hong in the Journal of Marine and Island Cultures, titled “Mermaids of South Korea: Haenyeo (Women Divers) Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and Climate Change Impacts” provides an interesting perspective on female free divers as “ecological knowledge bearers.”⁶ For generations, Haenyeo have monitored changing ecosystems off the coast of South Korea in the Jeju strait and are known to be “natural stewards of seascapes and landscapes” because they have a “reciprocal relationship with their environments” that integrate economic and ecological welfare into Korean culture (including stories about indigenous groups, their traditional foods, and their adaptive capacities). The researchers note that because of their highly developed environmental acuity, Haenyeo noticed a steady decline in ocean resources. Individual interviews with seven divers and three focus groups (including 25 additional divers) revealed that Haenyeo have increased their efforts to sustain the seascapes and connect their activities to Korean cultural traditions through music and storytelling.⁷ This is like Wang’s dramatic performances in Taiwan in terms of using music and art to raise the public’s awareness.

Haenyeo gained Traditional Ecological Knowledge through aquatic phenology – in this case, noticing relationships between tides and weather patterns and rapid environmental changes through currents and warming trends. Like Zanif and her colleagues’ studies in the South Pacific, Hatfield and Hong lament that, because the female divers don’t use western scientific methods, their work is often undervalued. To date, local communities primarily acknowledge and support their work, but regional climate change programs do not.

In 2020, Ecology and Society published a research article that used oral history as the main method for gathering information about smallholder organic farmers in Southern Brazil who cultivate and harvest yerba mate, a traditional caffeinated beverage using local plants that is popular throughout Latin America. In forest conservation, small family farms are concerned with maintaining forest cover: yerba mate is grown on these farms and integrated with a variety of food crops, including fruits, corn, beans, rice, and vegetables where forest cover is crucial. To learn about traditional agroecological practices, E. R. Nimmo formed a multidisciplinary team (including forest engineers, historians, and rural outreach workers) to conduct 33 interviews with men and women farmers. Their article, “Oral History and Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Social Innovation and Smallholder Sovereignty: A Case study of Erva-mate in Southern Brazil,” discussed the high levels of insecurity farmers face in maintaining traditional and agroecological practices.⁸ The oral history interviews included questions about environmental memory and traditional knowledge; labor practices and technologies; and food security, climate, and cultural change. In the following passage, Nimmo and her colleagues distill ways food security, social justice, and gender equity are connected:

Food systems can be vehicles to care for the environment and foster greater social justice through the transformation of production, distribution, and consumption of technologies and practices (Blay-Palmer et al., 2016). They can contribute to the diversification and strengthening of local economies through new trade patterns and can promote the dignity, empowerment, and well-being of the community by creating opportunities for transformational learning, relationship building, and collective action (Blay-Palmer et al., 2013). Also noteworthy are the ways in which food systems can serve as a catalyst to transform the relationship between humans and natural resources, re-evaluating traditional knowledge and challenging gender inequalities.

This study introduces the possibility that new technologies can complement traditional practices to facilitate social change. It is significant that gender roles could become balanced by introducing new ways for men and women to work together. The oral history interviews conducted by Nimmo and her colleagues reveal a particular roadblock – that government regulations and laws support large farming operations that control prices and disadvantage small farmers who have cultivated yerba mate for generations. This is a familiar phenomenon, in the United States, too, in that federal farm policy and subsidies go overwhelmingly to agribusiness rather than smallholder and medium farmers. Nimmo and her colleagues’ finding coincides with studies, cited above, in Fiji, Zimbabwe, and Taiwan.

The Brazilian team also emphasized that small-scale farmers were stewards of an environment who harbor a deep understanding of a forest, which provides the environmental services and products that are necessary for the country to thrive. Possessing this deep understanding, they confront changing climates, food insecurity, and a range of other issues. The study team lamented that the farmers have been unable to sustain a livelihood under these conditions, which continues to threaten the forest’s ecosystem. This is a living nightmare of broken souls and increasingly desperate families.

A final research initiative to be reviewed here is titled “Our Grandmother Used to Sing Whilst Weeding: Oral histories, millet food culture, and farming rituals among women smallholders in Ramanagara district, Karnataka.”⁹ It was published in Modern Asian Studies in 2021 by Sandip Hazareesingh, a professor at The Open University in the United Kingdom. Prior to a career in academia, Hazareesingh worked for a decade for the Save the Children Fund. In this article, he describes how audiovisual oral history interviews with 17 rural women in their 70s and 80s helped him learn about the ways drastic changes in rainfall and drought patterns over a few decades affected women who were losing confidence in their ability to predict weather patterns. He discussed the startling fact that women struggle to survive because 70% of the trees, vegetation, and water bodies in their communities have disappeared.

Hazareesingh included an account by women who stopped growing rice for their families because of increasing attacks by elephants and wild boars. These women had been taught by their elders to predict the coming of rain based on the behavior of frogs and ants; and Hazareesingh compared that knowledge to the negative consequences of the Green Revolution in the 1960s in which the government replaced traditional practices with modern technology and manufactured seeds: “the Green Revolution model of food security implied an erasure of memory and history.” As a result of the neglect of local knowledge, women became depressed and unmotivated.

Hazareesingh recommends that international development agencies and NGOs “take seriously, recognize, and value the source of [the] knowledge … which views humans, plants, seeds, and other non-human entities as interconnected and interdependent,” which is a common research theme throughout the Global South. A change like this would empower local women to use their knowledge to ensure the survival of their communities, and stage an effort to dismantle patriarchal norms. This could involve making modern scientific knowledge and traditional folk knowledge complementary rather than antagonistic.¹⁰ Furthermore, it is certainly possible that younger women in rural communities can be sufficiently educated in citizen science so as to be able to function within their communities as agents of change, perhaps as a coalition of grandmothers and granddaughters.

Exercise: Bridging Experiences Across Communities

Before moving to the second part of this chapter, which delves into an oral history project in Gujarat, India, let us reflect upon the situations that many women in the Global South face and how their lives have changed because of climate change. Imagine yourself as one such woman who has lost her land, family members, and/or home because of a flood or drought. In order to bridge knowledge and experiences, as an informal exercise, consider the following questions and rate your response on a scale of “1” as “bad” and “5” as “great.” How would you rate the following questions beginning with: How would I feel when …?

1. I could no longer trust nature or weather patterns? ___

2. I and the women among me are not respected for the homes we all made and the traditions we honor? ___

3. Those outside of my community want to intervene, to “help” me? ___

4. All my knowledge (and experience) is summarily disregarded? ___

5. I am told that, because I am illiterate, I cannot possibly understand the world around me? ___

6. Animals started stealing from my garden and I couldn’t feed my family? ___

7. I and those among me are no longer motivated to work? ___

8. My community has fallen apart (i.e., we are no longer interconnected)? ___

9. My memories of the past – of what life was like – are gone (erased)? ___

10. The stories I grew up with (and those I told my children) no longer bring joy? __

Most likely, the sum of your points from your answers to the above questions is quite low – because they all depict sad situations. Here is a second set of questions. Again, consider how you would answer these questions as a woman who has experienced climate-related disasters and using the same scale of one to five (“1” as “bad” and “5” as “great,”) again, with this beginning … How would I feel when …?

1. The voices of my community are preserved and elevated? ___

2. My voice (and the voices of those around me) are so loud that riots erupt? ___

3. I speak out against laws that restrict my chances of making a living? ___

4. I and the women around me reject social (patriarchal) norms? ___

5. Everyone in my community works together? ___

6. I become known as a person with great tenacity? ___

7. I become known as a person who is acutely aware of nature and my surroundings? ___

8. The women among me worship nature and their ancestors? ___

9. I am included in village plans to grow and harvest better crops? ___

10. I recognize that no one around me understands the forest the way I do? ___

These scenarios (from the review of field studies in this chapter) highlight some of the complexities of female empowerment and the difficulties women may have in challenging the status quo. On a personal level, consider the last time you raised your voice to speak out against an injustice. Was it a positive experience? Why or why not? I am sure that your multiple, different stories will illustrate this point. I would be honored to receive your answers. Please use this QR Code to send me your story.

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Oral Histories in Gujarat, India

In February of 2019, a colleague, Jamie Sommer, and I traveled from New York to Gujarat, India, to learn about the farmers’ experiences with climate change and their interest in using a women-owned and operated irrigation technology, Bhungroo (“straw” in Hindi). Interpreters who spoke Gujarati helped us interview, record, and transcribe the oral histories of 48 farmers (27 females and 21 males) from three Gujarat villages located about 65 miles north of Ahmedabad.¹¹

As husband-and-wife social entrepreneurs with engineering backgrounds, Trupti Jain and Biplab Paul created Bhungroo in the early 2000s specifically to uplift women farmers from impoverished families – women whom they had recognized were severely disadvantaged in India’s patriarchal society.¹² Their plan was to give women legal ownership of the technology to enable them to feel proud of what they could accomplish by managing Bhungroo on their farms. Ownership fees were assessed on a sliding scale depending on how much the families could afford. Below are two photos of what an installed irrigation system looks like (Fig. 24).

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Fig. 24.

Photos of Bhungroo Water Storage Opening (Left) and Water Pump (Right).

During the monsoon season, Bhungroo injects run-off rainwater into an underground reservoir. This prevents salt deposits on topsoil, which is caused by standing water after heavy rainfall. During the dry season, the underground reservoir enables communities to continue farming for several months.

In my experience in working with climate change activists in the Global South, gender equity projects take at least two years to implement. For example, in Biplab’s interactions with technicians in the field who were helping him collect soil samples and install the irrigation equipment, he noticed young adolescent boys who had dropped out of school idly hanging around the village. To help them feel useful, he and Trupti readjusted the Bhungroo program to train the boys to collect data on soil salinity and help install the irrigation equipment. At the same time, Trupti worked on a corollary project to address the rise in domestic violence against rural women, which also had increased as male farmers had become frustrated with not finding gainful employment. Traveling from their home base in the city of Ahmedabad and observing climate change challenges throughout India and in the neighboring countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, the couple began to see that modest gains toward female empowerment included creating opportunities to engage the whole community.

At the beginning, they also learned that some farmers were unsuccessful in using Bhungroo.¹³ For example, Shashikalaben described how her family had paid 10,000 rupees (approximately $125) for the technology but couldn’t get it to work. She said, “To install it, we had to make a hole in the ground ourselves, which was very hard.” And, after installing it, she said, “I didn’t notice that many benefits: It cost more to install it than the money it brings in.” Also, during our interviews, another farmer, Neeshbhai, briefly mentioned that he and his brother were unsuccessful in using Bhungroo to grow crops of wheat, alfalfa, and cumin seeds.

Other farmers hesitated to invest in Bhungroo because of the debts they had already accrued. For example, Vrishtiben knew that her family had to do something different because rainfall was consistently decreasing, and they couldn’t farm their land; but they already had substantial government loans to pay off and were afraid to try Bhungroo. She talked about how it took a full two and a half years of working with Bhungroo before they saw any benefits. She told us that it cost 20,000 rupees (approximately $250) to install; but eventually they got it to work: “We used to have to walk three kilometers to get water, but now we don’t have to leave the farm.” In another case, Praveenbhai, a 38-year-old farmer who supports 12 family members, had substantially more land holdings than many of his neighbors. He easily earned a sizeable annual income of 1.5 lakhs (150,000 rupees or $2,000). But when he first heard about Bhungroo from other farmers, he was skeptical: “We were scared that the water would remain sour and that the land might not adapt to Bhungroo.” (Perhaps he was wondering if the ph of water stored in Bhungroo would change or if there would be nitrogen buildup from fertilizers.) Fortunately, he got positive results and was able to expand his landholdings to other fields in neighboring villages.

It would be worthwhile to conduct another study to compare why Bhungroo worked for some and not for others. (I believe this already has been done but Jamie and I did not collect that data.) Biplab mentioned that before installing the irrigation technology, he tests soil and water quality. Another factor is related to social behavior and decisions. One ideal success story, in terms of achieving Biplab and Trupti’s vision of helping women, was from Samtaben. She talked about how she learned to use Bhungroo out of necessity: a neighbor with whom she shared a water well moved away and she no longer had access to water. Bhungroo worked so well that she even had to install a larger unit. And Ravinandanbhai talked about how Bhungroo enabled him to work on his farm rather than for other farmers: “I don’t have to do manual work. I saved a lot of money, paid off a tractor loan, and have a much better life.”¹⁴

Trupti and Biplab also learned how most smallholder farmers continued to suffer. For example, three women from the village of Aritha described losing their homes to recent floods: In her mid-20s, Kevnaben talked about how her family’s mud hut was destroyed and how her husband had to barter with neighbors to grow food for them and their two young sons; Inikaben, also a young mother with two daughters, described how, after the floods, she and her husband had to work as contract laborers six days a week and borrow money from relatives to rebuild their home; and Kaviaben, in her mid-50s, described how difficult it was for her family to shelter in a nearby high school after their house washed away. Three other farmers told stories about how the floods had decimated their crops. The floods washed away all the nutrients in Neeljaben’s fields; Prakatbhai recalled how his entire property was destroyed; and Pranabhai, who once had plentiful crops of cotton, wheat, and cumin, also lost everything. Such stories could be multiplied by the tens or hundreds of thousands to represent the drastic effects of climate change-related disasters.

Biplab and Trupti realized that the farmers’ lives would never be the same because of climate change. Six farmers talked about how they dealt with long periods of drought, which occurred after the floods receded. Havyaben described the seasonal cyclical challenges of climate change: “If there is water, we work on other people’s farms. Everyone is struggling. Some men find work by migrating to the city six months out of the year.” Of the floods, she says:

All the crops were destroyed in the fields. There was no money in the house, and everyone was sad. Then, in the winter, we got water from the canals. But it’s getting worse as the days go by. Water is getting less and less.

Visiting the farmers in the center of the village after the farmers returned home from a long day of manual labor, Trupti and Biplab heard men and women worry about how they would survive. For example, Odotiben mentioned that because her family didn’t have enough water for their small plots of land, they all had no choice but to become contract laborers on large-scale farms. Nippubhai recalled how he had migrated from one village to another with his three daughters and an infant son to find work. And Praviben expressed feelings that she and many of her neighbors shared: “Everything is a problem,” she exclaimed. “We don’t have money, or water, or a job. We can’t grow anything on the farm without water. If there is rain, we try to plant crops.”

Those who couldn’t work in the fields found other types of menial labor. For example, Pratulbhai and his wife began to upsell vegetables grown by other farmers in the village. Although he had livestock, including twenty goats and two buffaloes, and owned a small piece of land, he was unable to grow crops due to the lack of water. His daughter stayed at home to tend the animals and take care of her brothers when they returned home from school. In despair, Preritbhai said: “When there is no water, I can’t do anything on my farm.” To make a living, he sells toys in Ahmedabad at fairs (which is the closest major city, about three hours away by car).

Trupti and Biplab learned that many of the farmers were particularly disheartened by the realization they would never be able to own land. Pravanbhai and Preritbhai abandoned that dream and turned to manual labor as their sole source of income. When Jigishubhai accepted that he would never own land again, he made arrangements to work on several different farms in nearby villages. While one of his sons attends college, his two younger children (a son and a daughter who graduated from high school) traveled with him. In other words, Jigishubhai prioritized keeping his family together while ensuring that one of his children would be able to go to college and that his wife could stay home with the elders.

Many of the farmers’ stories did not mention the importance of women’s contributions. For example, Pramukhbhai talked about how he used Bhungroo to plant cotton, castor, cumin, and grass for the cattle; but never mentioned that his wife was the one who owned and operated the irrigation system. In fact, none of the male farmers Jamie and I interviewed mentioned their wives’ contributions. There’s no way to know whether this was from shame or that they simply took for granted women’s work as their patriarchal due.

Despite these omissions, Trupti and Biplab were successful in uplifting the status of some of the women farmers. For example, one of the Bhungroo women, Viraliben, was excited about her new responsibilities. She stated: “I feel more empowered after installing Bhungroo. My husband even gifted me gold.” While her comment doesn’t seem like “women’s empowerment,” she obviously was proud that she could make an important contribution to the family. Romilben’s story is a little more powerful. She talked about how she decides how to use the money she earns from Bhungroo, which in the future may include getting electricity. She said:

For now, we get enough water for bathing – our bucket is full. We don’t need bathrooms and we have enough money. Before I used to walk miles to get water; but now I have more time to do my work and help others.

Clearly, she was satisfied with incremental improvements to her family’s lifestyle; and excited that she had the resources to help others in the village. She even plans to start her own small business to knit and sell clothes.

While Viraliben and Romilben can work at home, women who do not have Bhungroo cannot. Preritbhai talked about how his wife must leave the house every day to pick lemons and fruits for neighboring farmers to make money for the family. Another woman, Vritikaben, grows a modest amount of wheat on her land and works on a neighbor’s farm 15 days a month. She recalled how, before the floods and droughts, her family was self-sufficient, and she didn’t need to leave her home.

One particularly perceptive aspect of Trupti and Biplab’s social enterprise was that it acknowledged women’s preferences to stay at home. In rural Indian culture, Biplab told us that it is considered taboo for women to be seen by men, which often precludes them from going to school. Iditriben, a 26-year-old mother (who, along with many women, were illiterate and could not even write her name), told us that neither she nor her 12-year-old daughter were allowed to attend school beyond the sixth grade. She said,

Because of love affairs as they grow up, we’re scared. We sent our daughter to school in the village, which was up to the sixth grade. After that, grandfather said no to leaving the village to study.

In another case, Pratulbhai’s daughter dropped out of school to take care of the household while her parents were away at work. This lack of schooling and fear of leaving the house can be disastrous, especially during massive floods. For example, this was the reason for a higher mortality rate among rural women during the 1992 flood in Bangladesh.¹⁵

When Jamie and I recorded the oral histories in 2019 in Gujarat, women insisted on covering their faces whenever men were present. (In fact, Biplab had to send the male farmers away so that we could interview the women.) Also, a somewhat appalling (for us) “sign of respect” was that women insisted on sitting below us on the floor. In noticing our reaction, our interpreters encouraged them to sit at eye level, which was a revealing detail of social hierarchy (Fig. 25).

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Fig. 25.

Photo of Jamie and the Field Interpreters.

Trupti and Biplab also recognized that, because family farms were destroyed during severe weather-related events, many more women had to leave home with their husbands to work as manual laborers. As a result, some families were unable to send their children to school. For example, Henishbhai and his wife work long hours on someone else’s farm and leave their children at home. However, after the floods, Kaviaben, a middle-aged woman with six grown children, talked about how her entire family lives a hand-to-mouth existence as day laborers, hoping for two or three days of work a week. None of her children went to school. In another case, Pratulbhai sent his two sons to school and let his daughter stay home. In one case, a middle-aged farmer, Pranabhai, sent both of his daughters to college.¹⁶ Unfortunately, when they returned home after graduation and got married, Pranabhai realized that this had not helped the family prosper.

Finally, elders in the family often are unable to fulfill their traditional roles as decision makers on account of climate change-induced disasters that overwhelmed their capacity to perform their customary duties as elders. For example, Jignaanben talked about how, even though her in-laws were alive, they had become so traumatized by the water crisis that she and her husband reluctantly took over managing the family’s finances as well as their children’s education. In another case, Havyaben talked about how her family now collectively decides who will leave the house to find work. With six people in her household – including two sons and their wives – this arrangement, while not honoring the elders, seems necessary for survival.

One important question is whether, as families adapt to climate change by using Bhungroo, the patriarchal system would re-emerge even stronger, thereby undermining the goal of empowering women. As the “elder” in his family, Prinitbhai, 51, now has enough money to provide for his 10-person extended family, including four grandchildren who attend pre-kindergarten. Before Bhungroo, he said, “We didn’t have anything. Now, I have a tractor and two vehicles (bikes), and some gold and money saved.” He plants four crops in three different seasons and has ample access to clean drinking water for his family and their cattle. He is obviously proud to have regained control of the family finances and manage the farm. Unstated, however, is that he has somehow altered the ownership of Bhungroo which was supposed to be in the possession of women in the family.

In another case, Nippubhai became so successful thanks to Bhungroo that his father was elected to be the head of the village. Participating in local government generally is not a role that women assume. In fact, Trupti learned early in her career that when the Indian government tried to enforce a law requiring local Panchayat governing bodies to allocate a certain number of seats for women, men occupied them instead.

Farmers obviously experienced a collective trauma during and after severe droughts and floods when the Indian national and state governments didn’t help them. The only “relief” they received was in the form of interest-bearing loans from the government and private money lenders. Both of Pranabhai’s loans – half from the government and half from private moneylenders –accrued annual interest rates of 36%! Kaviaben’s family also borrowed money from a private moneylender who charged 36% annual interest. In another case, even though Praviben’s family took out loans, they realized that they still couldn’t repay their debts just by farming and resorted to manual labor about 10–20 days a month. A final example was Jigarbhai who depleted his entire life savings to pay off the government loan of 1.5 lakhs ($2,000) he took out to pay for the Bhungroo irrigation system. Now he sits at the vegetable market to sell what he sows for nine months, and farms only for three months a year.

Instead of accruing debt, Narshimhabhai and other farmers pooled their resources when the floods came. This also led them to decide not to use Bhungroo. Narshimhabhai said:

There was too much water. But it was good for us because we have 25 bhigas (roughly 16 acres) of land that were watered, and we worked together to plant on it after the flood.

On the other hand, Vishvabhai expressed frustration in dealing with criminal behavior during the floods: “The government didn’t help us at all. Because of that, people started robbing each other.” He spoke about the unfortunate conditions of those who didn’t have enough food or water and, in desperation, “raided the houses of those who did have money.” Finally, there were those who maintained their distance from others but still wanted to help: Once Swaraben’s family recovered financially using Bhungroo, she said: “We donate money to the temple and pray for our family’s wealth and happiness.” As Yakshitbhai, whose family also used Bhungroo, said: “They [the villagers] know that I have money, so they all talk to me nicely and respect me.” Ironically, the introduction of Bhungroo solidified a male-based social hierarchy within the village, which was an inadvertent subversion of Bhungroo’s original intent.

In developing the Bhungroo irrigation project Trupti and Biplab knew that many small farmers in Gujarat were poor even before the increase of weather-related disasters in the 1990s. Nine such farmers whom Jamie and I interviewed talked about the poverty trap that has persisted across generations in the absence of outside intervention. Trupti knew about this firsthand because she had worked for 20 years for the government of Gujarat, traveling around the state, and directing national programs on the economic impact of the environment. In fact, that was the context which inspired her and Biplab to create a social enterprise to offer Bhungroo to the poorest farmers. Even today, they are flooded with applications from across India and work with the government to expand their operations.

One reason agriculturalists sign on to the program is because they learn new skills that enable them to become more successful as farmers on their own land. They do not want “charity.” For example, Virikaben talked about how families strive to maintain dignity: Working on “someone else’s farm” 15 days a month, she says:

I would never ask for money from anyone. During the flood, I had to sell some of my personal belongings, like jewelry, and even one small sheep. I use the money for household items, for medicine for the kids when they get sick, and for groceries, little by little.

Trupti and Biplab set up Bhungroo to increase the farmers’ self-esteem. They strive to address the dwindling opportunities for employment and uplift women who are at the bottom of the social hierarchy. But, as just noted, that social hierarchy is resistant to change. No single technological innovation can transform it, but can provide an opportunity for community change agents, hopefully women in the first instance, to work for changes that will recognize and valorize their vital contributions to their families and communities.

With no work and huge debts incurred during the water crisis, Kaviaben recognized the poverty trap: “If we have food, we eat; otherwise, we don’t eat.” Jaiminiben also talked about her family’s difficulties. She mentioned that, because they don’t own property, she resorts to buying vegetables from the market and upselling them to others. She says, “There are a lot of financial difficulties. It’s all we can do to earn and spend money. There is barely any savings.”

Preritbhai talked about how his family barely survives by selling toys at the village fair and doing odd jobs. And Neeljaben expressed her frustration at not having a sense of stability or a path to get steady work: “Before the water problem, we migrated from one place to another to find fertile land. Now even that is gone.” Her family had just begun to accept a life as migrants; but then with climate change even that option disappeared.

Odotiben reflected upon why her family had lost hope: She talked about how they just had to wait for opportunities to arise. With climate crises, they didn’t have enough water to farm and everyone in her family became contract laborers. She said: “When someone who has a borewell¹⁷ calls us, we go to work. And if we get work, we eat; otherwise, we sit at home.” She takes her two grandchildren with her to work on the farms.

The above glimpses of endemic poverty are common throughout the Global South, an endemic poverty that has worsened over time with an increase in climate-related disasters. One response to this is increasing family size, which instead of mitigating the problem has dramatically increased food insecurity. Overpopulation is one of the key problems in the Global South that development/aid projects habitually fail to address. For example, in 1947, the population of India was circa 340 million. It is now almost 1.4 billion, quadrupling in 75 years. Remember Pranabhai, who sent both of his daughters to college to receive an advanced education? He had hoped to break the poverty cycle. Before the massive floods, he was able to grow several crops and his family prospered. Now he gets one harvest of black gram lentils during the rainy season. For the remaining roughly six months, his family works on someone else’s land. He says: “If we don’t get work, we have to starve.” His family assumed that their financial situation would improve – but then climate change happened.

Trupti and Biplab focused on making life better for these poor farm laborers. In fact, Ravinandanbhai’s situation has become the norm: At 32 years old, he has worked as a manual laborer for 5–6 years. He talked about what his life was like before Bhungroo when he could not find work. He recalled: “We didn’t have enough food. Even for the animals, we had to go to other places to get grass/plants for them to eat.” Fortunately, he joined his brethren and signed up for Bhungroo.

Conclusion

Recent field studies have demonstrated that even though poor farmers struggle to maintain traditional and agroecological practices, the knowledge of the land held by women and the elderly has not been integrated into present day climate change programs. This chapter proposed that, to address the needs of small farmers, modern scientific knowledge and traditional folk knowledge should be considered complementary rather than antagonistic. Furthermore, if younger women in rural communities become sufficiently educated in basic science, they would be able to function within their communities as agents of social change and build coalitions between grandmothers and granddaughters.

Oral history research with farmers in Gujarat indicate that, despite Bhungroo’s potential to uplift women farmers from impoverished families, it has not been a panacea for the problems of endemic poverty and female subordination any more than the Green Revolution from the 1960s. The oral histories from Gujarat reveal that climate change leads to unstable family structures; and thus requires intergenerational cooperation between females and males – to make incremental improvements. Furthermore, while no single technological innovation can transform the social hierarchy, it can provide opportunities for females to work for changes that recognize and valorize their vital contributions to their families and communities (see Table 1 for basic information about the farmers represented in this chapter.)