Mud Wall and Santali Women

Final layering of the mud wall in the workshop space of Pearson Palli,Santiniketan.It is a general tradition that the women from the Santal community will prepare the final layers of the walls of the building.Men are generally assigned with job of making the roofs.

 Santali women are central to the economy of their society. They take part in agricultural production, gather forest produce, do wage labour where available (from government or forest department works, tendu leaf and road contractors etc) and almost single handedly bear the whole burden of domestic work, child-rearing, rearing of cattle/livestock, going to markets to sell their produce, do the marketing for their families etc. In one word, except those tasks which are a taboo for them, they do all the work.

There seems to be fairly firmly defined and gender-based division of house maintenance tasks. Men repair the roof, but women are in charge of wall maintenance. Close female relatives often work together. Walls are plastered with mud and rice or wheat straw twice a year. Every five to eight years, women demolish part of the house and rebuild it with new walls. Women are also in charge of making tiles. This type of work is usually done in June, before the onset of the monsoon and prior to peak times in agriculture.

Importantly, however, in most of the regions, in most of the tribes Santhali women have no property rights over land. While adivasi families survive predominantly on account of women’s work, it is primarily men who have full usufructory and other rights over land and other resources. But customary law has allowed women usufructory rights to some extent. According to a report prepared by the British ruler Gautzer on the Santhal Paraganas during 1922 to 1935, called the Gautzer’s settlement Report, in Santhali Adivasi Law only males can inherit land, where sons jointly succeed their father. An unmarried daughter has no right in the immovable property. A widow has no claim on her deceased husband’s property if there are male relatives. If a widow does not remarry, then her rights to maintenance will continue. There is no uniform customary law for Santhal adivasis and it often varies across villages and could be significantly different between areas.

Educated Santhali women are moving out of the shackles of their community laws and are bringing things to light in respect to the laws of Indian penal court .They are putting up cases against multiple marriage by male, torcher in the name of witch hunting and general physical torture against women as wife.