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Over 12 months, we interviewed 30 couples to better understand the challenges facing smallholder farmers today. This is the ninth in a series of blogs based on those interviews. Names and faces have been changed to protect privacy. Photo has been AI generated.

Durga is a 59-year-old woman from an upper-caste Hindu family in Derhgawan village. Her husband, Ayaan (also upper-caste), is 62. Together, they enjoy a relatively comfortable lifestyle that includes a refrigerator, television, gas stove, and motorcycle. Durga also attended post-graduate school, earning a Master’s degree in the Arts, which would qualify her to teach if there were opportunities in her village. “A lot of other women are educated but there is no scope for income,” she says, explaining that the local schools pay only about 2,000-3,000 rupees (about $25-$35 USD) per month. “In Delhi it was more” she says, noting teachers in the capital earned about 10 times more than in the villages. “They used to pay around 25,000 rupees (about $300).”

Another major challenge to applying her education in the workforce is the fact that Durga’s village still abides by the purdah system; a cultural and sometimes religious tradition that emphasizes the seclusion and modesty of women. Purdah literally means “curtain” and can refer to certain religious clothing designed to cover women’s bodies, as well as the idea that women should not be out in public unsupervised. “I don’t go out of my house,” she says. “I don’t go out at all.”

“They don’t go out because there is no need,” offers Ayaan. “Every woman does household work.” He believes that if a woman is to be otherwise employed - an idea he is not entirely opposed to in theory - the best place for her to work outside the home is in the educational field, and that “women will get (jobs) according to their educational qualification.” This may be true in big cities, but in Derhgawan village, a small community with about 4,000 people, there are very few opportunities for women like Durga, who are educated well beyond their earning or cultural capabilities.

Ayaan himself is also highly educated, and completed graduation, but not a post-graduate degree like his wife. Still, both husband and wife agree that he is the head of the household, and is the primary decision-maker for anything that concerns the family farm. “Usually I take the decisions regarding farming and my family always supports me in my decisions,” he says.

This unilateral decision-making does not appear to bother Durga, who responded that it is “not difficult at all” to speak to her husband about money and household finances. She seems content, or at least resigned, to live within the gender roles she has inherited, “Males have more contribution towards earning money for the family. The work of a woman is to cook food and look after the household chores,” she says.

And she does not feel inclined to get involved in the day-to-day operations of the farm. “I don't have to do any work related to farming,” she says. “I don't do anything other than household work. The other members of my family do farming. My babu (son) has a job, and my husband works as a farmer.” When asked if there are household tasks she would prefer not to do she answers honestly, “I don't want to do tasks like cooking rice or making dal. It’s a big family, and I don't know. Even so, I do it because no one else will.”

Durga’s daily housework is lightened somewhat by the family’s hired maid, who is paid to do the washing and cleaning around the house. “I don't face any problem handling all the work,” says Durga. “I can do it. Sometimes my husband washes his own clothes and sometimes I do it. I don't face any problems doing my household chores.” She continues, “I can easily cook food. I only need to make food. There is a maid to do the sweeping, washing and cleaning utensils. Sometimes she makes rice or dal for us. I don't have to do so much.”

Ayaan inherited the family farm from his father, and grows rice, gram, wheat and mustard. The family has a garden plot in town where they also grow vegetables. At the beginning of the diary project, Ayaan’s involvement with his local FPO (Baankelal Bio Energy or BBE), was limited; he was frustrated that he still had to pay market price for seeds, and did not see any benefit to his membership or involvement. “No decisions are made collaboratively. People just go and sit there, get sweets and samosa, eat those and come back,” he says.

Durga does not attend meetings, primarily for the reason that she does not go out at all, and Ayaan was initially cynical of the FPO using women just for optics. “They bring 4-5 women to the meetings and click their photos,” he says. As the year progressed, his opinion of the FPO warmed, and he started seeing more benefits, including seeds and instruction on farming techniques. “The FPO provides us all the essential things that we need for farming,” he says in Diary #11. “Which is a very good thing.”

Durga joked with the interviewer that she did not want to get caught criticizing the FPO or its leaders. "We feel afraid because someone might take our interview and interpret that in some other ways!” she says with a laugh. Still, they both agreed that their interactions with the FPO had improved toward the end of the year.

Ayaan and Durga are parents to two grown children; their daughter got married while she was away at school, and their son lives at home. He works independently from the farm and contributes to the family’s income. “I have a long-standing issue with dizziness,” Durga says. “My son pays for the medication.”

The senior couple is thoughtful when asked if they believe people are better off now than they were in the past. “The mindset is worse than before,” Ayaan begins. “People only think about themselves.” Durga agrees, “People today are more self-centered compared to before. It’s not as good as it used to be.”

Her husband lists off other areas in which life has, in his opinion, declined over the years. “In earlier times, there was more work, now there is less. Previously, there were fewer health problems. People worked together. Now, people can’t live together, expenses have increased, and inflation is high so people have to buy everything,” he says.

Durga points out that there are now better facilities and women have more clothing options, but she believes women are not, in fact, better off overall. “Women used to help others more, now they do not,” she says. And, for a woman with a prestigious post-graduate degree, Durga is surprisingly disappointed in the outcomes of her fellow female scholars. “We can’t do as much as we used to,” she explains. “Earlier, women were clever without much education; now, they are not as clever.”