Connecting the Unconnected is a monthly column by the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) that explores how technology can drive inclusion and governance in India. The column focuses on how the digital divide impacts communities differently and advocates for equitable, citizen-informed solutions that ensure technology empowers rather than excludes.
For the longest time, it would have been unimaginable for tea garden workers, especially women, to consciously or subconsciously hope for social mobility, overcoming the socially devalued identity of the ‘tea garden labourer’. Social entrepreneurship initiatives such as micro-entrepreneurship in the everyday lives of women in rural areas can nurture aspirations of economic independence, providing an escape from the intergenerational cycles and intersectionalities of precarious living in tea gardens. However, in doing so, it compels us to consider an otherwise overlooked aspect in ‘doing’ empowerment – the need for meticulous social mapping of existing local power dynamics and the centrality of information dissemination.
The tea gardens in northern West Bengal (WB), often characterised as ‘enclave’ economies, mostly employ people from marginalised communities and are marked by deeply entrenched structural issues. Despite constituting around 60% of the workforce in the Dooars region, women workers have persistently remained peripheral in the political trade unions, receiving lower compensation due to discriminatory definitions of ‘dependents’, and face mistreatment, intimate partner abuse, among other issues. Moreover, these women bear a double burden of work due to the roles expected from them in terms of their labour, both on and off the field.
Given such a context, the outcomes of entrepreneurial interventions among women in selected tea garden villages of WB highlight that information-based micro-entrepreneurship models can lead to a positive change, along the three As of the empowerment discourse – Awareness, Agency, and Access. These arguments are based on field observations made during the impact assessment study for an initiative by the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF). Under this initiative, 16 women living and working in the tea gardens of Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, and Cooch Behar districts were trained at the grassroots level as information dissemination entrepreneurs called SoochnaPreneurs (infopreneurs). Through their lived narratives, we showcase how such initiatives have helped women secure a living by providing information and services regarding various schemes and benefits available to rural beneficiaries. While leveraging digitally enabled Community Information Resource Centres (CIRCs) at the village level, the narratives also throw light on the need to navigate local power relations and cultural factors.
Enabling awareness and information
On a cloudy morning in July 2024, when we reached the premises of one of these CIRCs, Sujata*, a 26-year-old SoochnaPreneur from Alipurduar, promptly admitted that she had been oblivious to the local power equations before she joined the programme. “Earlier, I didn’t even know anyone — who the panchayat Pradhan (head) was or who held which position. But ever since this programme started, I’ve begun to connect with people, whether they are government officials or local leaders. Now, I have a bit of familiarity with them.”
Like any other community, the tea gardens of WB have erected patriarchal barriers to the flow of information, often restricting women’s access to knowledge crucial for social mobility. This programme inculcated a critical awareness among women SoochnaPreneurs about the various community stakeholders, their relative power positions to identify allies with shared goals and tailor their actions to meet the needs and expectations of different stakeholders.
Moreover, focus group discussions with the female beneficiaries of this programme from the same tea garden village further revealed that SoochnaPreneurs have made information more accessible and approachable for all. Sanchita*, one of the participants, said, “We used to go to the Gram Panchayat earlier. Some of us have the courage to ask, some don’t… they just walk around and leave out of embarrassment. Out of fear, rather (laughs).”
When probed further, she said, “Yes, when you’re around important people, you have a fear about whom should I talk to? How should I talk to them?”
Another participant Babita* explained how having a SoochnaPreneur helps women beneficiaries: “We don’t even know what documents are needed and what are less important. The educated ones manage, but the uneducated ones among us just keep getting shunted around. We get rejected, and have to listen to abuse and rebukes. They say, ‘Bring the right documents tomorrow.’ And when we go the next day, we get sent back again. But when our own person (meaning the SoochnaPreneur) is there, they explain clearly what is needed.”
This change is significant because it not only improved access to information but also reduced the social barriers that previously inhibited one’s engagement with formal processes. Historically, those who received less education, in particular, faced significant barriers in accessing information, often feeling intimidated or excluded from formal networks and channels. The intimidation works as an alienating force where access is contingent upon a sense of belonging, feelings of kinship in terms of who gets to represent them and who acts as a facilitator of information services.
Enabling agency
Having said that, being a SoochnaPreneur has not magically changed things for women like Sujata, but has definitely given her the agency to delay her marriage and challenge the internalised expectations that women often face within their families. The programme has enabled hope by creating a space that has empowered them to envision and pursue their aspirations. For instance, Sujata said, “Even my family doesn’t support me. They want to get me married off quickly, but I don’t want to. I have two brothers. One has some issues and the other is fine but he doesn’t help at all, he does not support my work at the centre. I want to first stand on my own feet. Is that not good?”
Despite their crucial economic contributions, the tea gardens of WB have been sites where women have been largely confined to roles that reinforce their dependency and subservience, particularly through the expectation of early marriage. The programme could provide an opportunity to foster a sense of agency among the unmarried young SoochnaPreneurs.
Navigating gender norms
The interventions have positioned SoochnaPreneurs in a field of power dynamics where they struggle as well as learn to navigate the deeply entrenched gendered norms in the tea gardens. Sujata, a graduate from the University of North Bengal, belongs to an Adivasi family that migrated to Alipurduar a few generations earlier to work as labourers in the lush tea gardens of north Bengal. While talking about her daily struggles of running the CIRC, she said, “The problem is that, being a woman, they don’t like to see me compete and get ahead so much.”
She elaborated on how the local people are convinced to avoid coming to these centres run by a woman, alleging that Sujata will siphon off the money. This gives us an idea about the context within which she works, the ways in which culturally rooted societal expectations and stereotypes are capitalised to incite residents and create an air of mistrust. But Sujata has her own conviction to navigate these societal pressures. “Those who trust me come and ask everything. That’s why when I withdraw money for someone, I also show them the balance,” she said.
Sujata even faced danger to her life from groups that were opposed to women SoochnaPreneurs. “Once, there was a campaign for some panchayat-related work when they [politically motivated groups] came to hit me. They even came to my house. I had been given this task directly by the Pradhan. But they were asking, ‘Who are you to do all this?’ They brought all the men, ready to threaten and kill me.”
Adding that the local residents don’t support women working outside the home, she said, “They tend to get violent. Later, I told them, ‘Look, the Pradhan himself gave me this work. You are part of the panchayat, go and confirm it there.’ I called the panchayat to say that there was trouble happening here. After that, these groups all sat for a while, listened, but never came back again.”
As evident, while the programme has empowered Sujata to assert her unwillingness to succumb to the intergenerational cycle of labour reproduction, it has laid bare the ugliness of gendered power relations. She needs to relentlessly face societal threats for showing the courage to disrupt the existing gender roles and norms.
Empowerment with an understanding of local social contexts
The interventions in the form of information-centred micro-entrepreneurship, thus, promise to add small but significant contributions to the counterforce against patriarchal norms in the tea garden villages. While such approaches enable them to socially mobilise themselves for a dignified living, Sujata’s narrative also explicitly signifies the need to map the social processes involved in maintaining information asymmetries that often serve the interests of the powerful.
In the name of women’s empowerment, civil society organisations must not limit themselves to treating community members as beneficiary numbers or sensational case stories or see training as an end to the exercise of capability enhancement. They must also actively engage with the local social contexts and be a part of their everyday struggles, helping them identify and navigate established power relations. Only then can we bring about a positive social change through rural micro-entrepreneurship, democratising control and dissemination of context-specific information in marginalised tea garden villages.
* names changed to protect privacy
Dhiraj Singha, a Doctorate from Ambedkar University, Delhi, works as an Assistant Manager in the Research & Advocacy Division at the Digital Empowerment Foundation.
Raina Ghosh, a Doctorate from Jawaharlal Nehru University, works as a Consultant for the Research & Advocacy Division at the Digital Empowerment Foundation.
Views expressed are the authors’ own.