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Techno-Social
Integration for Empowered Communities:
Added Value and New
Relations of Production
Mona Chhabra
The
unorganised sector in India is known for its substantial contribution to
the GDP, and ironically also for its rudimentary and often unsafe
production processes, low wages, exploitation and even bonded labour in
many a trade.
A case in point is the brick industry that very often runs on
bonded labour not only in India, but also in Pakistan, Afghanistan and
several other countries. A recent article in the Hindu (11th May
2005, Chennai Edition) also highlights that over one lakh children are
employed in brick kilns in Tamil Nadu and are directly or indirectly
involved in hazardous tasks.
The Techno-Social Integration (TSI) concept offers interesting
possibilities for addressing the problems of the unorganised trades such
as brick manufacturing. India Brick Project Partner -
Development Alternatives (DA),
Gram Vikas and
The Energy Resources Institute (TERI),
along with
Lokmitra
and PEPUS,
supported by the Swiss Agency
for Development and Cooperation
- have demonstrated promising possibilities for reducing the drudgery of
brick workers through technological innovations and developing new
relations between kiln owners and brick workers.
Sunil Sahasrabudhey, involved in the social processes of the India Brick
Project, argues: “when we look at traditional knowledge and strengths of
the working people in terms of their knowledge and skills, we find that
technical and social considerations are not completely separable. This
seems to be a very significant point if change processes have to be
conceived such that they are sustained on the basis of workers’
strength, knowledge and initiative. If his / her genius looks at the
society and technology in an integral fashion, it may be the best bet as
a perspective for the work of change agencies….these two strands kind of
coalesce into one …”
TSI works to take the participating communities from “strength to
strength”. For instance, in the case of the brick industry, TSI is
operationalised by building upon the “strengths and initiatives” of the
brick workers. These are:
● Artisanal knowledge
Brick workers, especially those who work at a small scale, have relevant
knowledge that is both traditional and modern, which is spread into the
working population. This knowledge is a promising building block for
social change.
●
Solidarity
Brick
workers could be organised through “village groups”, “unions”,
“cooperatives”, “associations” and other forms of solidarity. These
forms of association offer a rich ground for seeding a process of social
and technological change with their initiatives.
Under the TSI concept, these two building blocks together provide a
tremendous opportunity for triggering a process of social change, with a
positive impact upon the following facets of the life of a brick worker
and his / her family:
1.
Downscaling of brick production
Through technological innovations, it is possible to manufacture bricks
at a smaller scale.
This would provide space to micro-entrepreneurs for entering the brick
markets traditionally dominated by large scale producers which, in turn,
would open the scope for an array of new initiatives.
2.
Gender issues
TSI acknowledges the different roles – directly and indirectly played by
women and men in brick production. It provides a basis for integrating
the strengths of women and men for a better, gender balanced approach
towards income generation and solidarity.
Within the context of various forms of solidarity of brick workers, TSI
allows women to come together for a better quality of life – with
health, education and higher incomes within their reach and for
increasing their bargaining power.
3. Ownership
TSI approach also provides a framework to rethink ownership issues.
Armed with traditional knowledge and support of fellow workers, brick
workers are made to realise the possibility of upgrading themselves from
a “worker” to an “owner”.
This ownership may be by an individual, joined by two or three partners
or by a village community. This affects a major change in the relations
of production.
Human life is not sectoral; it is a mix of various sectoral functions
that we perform as human beings. TSI acknowledges this fact and makes
development interventions more real as it lends equal importance to both
social empowerment as well as technological improvement for drudgery
reduction.q
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Novel
Technological Options
A
people-centric technological solution will be geared towards
enhancing the quality of life of stakeholders at the lower end. The
quality of life (QOL) of the workforce is determined by the quality
of environment in which they live and work. In order to enhance the
QOL, it is essential to intervene at a techno-social plane.
Technology here can be perceived as a tool that affects economic
growth and social change. Interestingly, it is the social change
that creates conducive conditions for adoption of newer
technological options. The twin processes reinforce each other. With
newer technological choices or production processes, new sets of
values, patterns of working and production relations emerge. This
essentially means a change in the life style and has an implication
on its immediate as well as the larger social system. A futuristic
perspective therefore can also be tracked, based on the strengths of
collaborative forms (viz. SHGs of workers / families of workers,
owners’ cooperatives etc.) and collective orientation. This is
crucial for ensuring a systemic change that could be brought about
in the existing level of inequity and the exploitative relationships
between the owner, middleman and the unorganized labour forces that
are at the receiving end. A tangible change that could be visualised
through such collective efforts is a series of incremental as well
as adaptive changes in the production relations, working and living
conditions.
Source:Mitra
J, Sethi G, 2005, Proceedings of the brainstorming on Techno-Social
Integration
held at The Eenergy and Resources Institute on 7th May
2005 |
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LOKMITRA,
an NGO primarily involved in Community Mobilisation for Basic
Education, got involved with Social Action in Brick Project in
September 2001 in Pratapgargh. The idea of promoting a firemen’s
organisation, based on the existing form of association and
solidarity and gender concern, took a concrete shape with the
formalisation of “Ghuisarnath Bhatta Parivar Sangthan”, a
regional organisation of artisans from 2000 families of 30 villages
on 2nd October, 2004. Women have come up to a leadership position
with the extra opportunity provided to them through women exclusive
camps and trainings.
The Sangathan has taken the initiative to deal with
the local as well as kiln-related issues. Artisan family members,
especially women, are active in demanding better health, education,
social security etc. To improve their working conditions, they have
come up with a draft IKRARNAMA (agreement) with kiln owners and are
slowly mustering the courage to talk to the owners. There have been
a few initial gains. The Sangathan has shown a keen interest
in the project activities focused on promoting entrepreneurship
among artisans, earlier with Clamp and now with Vertical Shaft Brick
Kilns (VSBK). One artisan - Mr. Inderjeet from Kallandar village has
been able to get his VSBK successfully built and operational in June
2004, producing good bricks and simultaneously being able to sell
them. The Snagathan came to his support in arranging moulders,
warding off local hurdles.
Source:
LOKMITRA, Pers. Comm |
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PEPUS,
an NGO active in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India, with support
from TERI, is working on the “empowerment
of firemen
community” in
Kaurihar block of Allahabad district and Bihar block of Pratapgarh
district. Brick kiln firemen in this region work in very harsh
conditions, with severe health implications. Exploitation of firemen
in the form of late or underpayment of salaries etc. is also
prevalent.
The project activities have been initiated with two
perspectives - social and technical. The basic strategy adopted for
initiating the process of making the community empowered is to
evolve facilitating processes that may help them to organise into
one unit to change the prevailing conditions in their favour.
Through continuous dialogue, it emerged that the community needs an
organisation (Sangathan), through which all the members of
the community get a voice on kiln-based as well as village-based
issues. Village level organisations called Bhattaha Parivar Vikas
Samitis (BPVS) were formed in all the villages, consolidated as
a “Regional Sangathan” called ‘Bhattaha Parivar Vikas Sangathan
(BPS)’. The BPS has now been empowered as a service organisation
- Bhattaha Parivar Vikas Sewa Sangathan (BPVSS), which will
be developed as a communication channel and service provider.
Work on the technical perspective focused on the traditional
knowledge of firemen, introducing them to the Vertical Shaft
Brick Kiln, a low cost environment-friendly brick kiln with the
intent of empowerment of brick firemen by making them owners of
small scale brick enterprises.
Source:
PEPUS, Pers. Comm |
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Development Alternatives
focused on the recognition, selection and upgradation of rural
technologies under the SDC supported India Brick Project. The IBP
primarily focused on the Vertical Shaft Brick Kiln (VSBK) for
addressing the concerns of the brick workers with a technology entry
point. Social aspects were added later in the project. A TSI
committee was formed to act as a forum for promoting new ideas,
insights, new learnings that emerged from the project partners’
interventions. Since then, DA has been involved in implementing this
project in the Datia region of Madhya Pradesh. The interventions
have included understanding the traditional brick making practices
in Datia and the socio-cultural aspects that play an important role
in the technical aspects of brick making. This was followed by a
number of meetings with the target communities and identification of
the issues. The next phase concentrated on leveraging finance for
enterprise development and fuel efficiency, wherein job workers got
transformed into kiln owners. The TSI component of IBP also aims at
addressing gender issues within the techno-economic processes and
works towards tapping women’s potential in the sector.
The initiative has resulted in information
collection and dissemination, community mobilisation and capacity
building. DA looks forward to strengthening the platforms
established and enabling the interested groups/individuals to
leverage finance. A synergy between women’s livelihood and
technology is aimed at. Technology, in terms of brick making is seen
as a tool to ease and make the lives of the women and their families
involved in the brick making processes a lot better than before,
thereby addressing gender issues within the techno-economic
processes. |
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