'Burden' of emancipation: Sorority of Bhavnagar porters

"May the one who came up with the idea of bags with wheels rot in hell!" curses Manguben Jethwa. The septuagenarian matriarch's voice is in sharp contrast to her gnarled face and glassy eyes. The group of fellow women porters at Bhavnagar railway station in Gujarat burst out laughing only to earn a rebuke. "Stop showing your teeth. You can sit here all day chatting but if I don't earn enough there won't be anything to eat at home," Manguben scowls adjusting the cloth gasket and pallu on her head. The laughter quickly dies down and the porters on the still largely women porters-only station get busy.

Till 2009, Saurashtra region's Bhavnagar railway station on the shores of the Gulf of Cambay had only women porters. With the railways adhering to the rule that porters' badges could be transferred only to male heirs and some officials of the view that women could not handle the burden, the women-only bastion began changing to include men.

While he empathises with the women, station manager BN Vasava says he has to go by what the divisional office says and treat the 22 women porters operating on the station as illegal. "When Bhavnagar station came to the expanded broad gauge grid with increased passenger traffic, the divisional office felt women won't be able to carry transport goods from the original platform to the two new ones." Since the first two male porters made an appearance in 2009, their numbers may have risen to seven.

The women are furious
"Women have been doing this work since several generations. Now even those of us who apply for licence renewal are told it can't happen," complains Jayshree Manoj Kumar, a 32-year-old mother of two after the train has left. "My husband is a daily wage labourer. Work and money are both irregular and unguaranteed. He blows up more than half of what he earns in alcohol. I have to run the home." She pulls out five crumpled Rs.10 notes and angrily thrusts them forward and says bitterly, "This is all I have earned today. And the railways want to take this away too."

Smarting at "being cheated out of their 136-year-old bastion", Jayshree adds, "Who says it is not possible for women to carry heavy luggage? Why don't you tell Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu to come here and see how we work."

The movie buff and Amitabh Bachchan fan recites the words of a song from his 1983 blockbuster Coolie, "Saari duniya ka bojh hum uthatey hain / Log aatey hain, log jaatey hain/Hum yahin pe khade reh jaate hain." The pain in her eyes not at all congruent with her attempt to smile.

It's 5.30pm and the sleepy Bhavnagar railway station begins to come alive with passengers assembling to take the Bhavnagar-Bandra express which departs an hour later. Though there are five sorties by a local passenger train between Bhavnagar and the Jain pilgrimage town of Palitana, nearly 50km away, activity picks up only in the evening when the "train for Bombay" leaves. While the weekly train to Kochuveli (off Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala) is a bonus, the train to Asansol (West Bengal) is only a seasonal, vacation fixture.

Left with a sword hanging over their meagre income, many women are forced to supplement their earnings by doubling up as domestic helps. Nainaben Vanmali Chavan, 53, who stays in an attic above a warehouse says she has tried applying for a monthly allowance under the Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Yojana. "I was told by the local tehsildar's office that since I was working I would not be eligible. Not only did I not get the allowance but I also lost the Rs.500 which the agent refused to return to me."

Nainaben lost her husband to alcohol over two decades ago. "My mother-in-law was a porter here. She gave me her badge and I began working as my husband was a drunkard. I nursed my mother-in-law in her sickness till she died and married off my only child in Bharuch into a good family."

Left with no family to speak of she wants to give the badge to her sister's son. "At least for that badge he will take care of me in my dying days and give me a decent cremation," she hopes.

Across the alley, in a small dark hovel surrounded by an open sewer as large as a pond, Hariben Chandubai Mehta sits hunched burning with fever. Forty years of carrying heavy bags as a porter has left the 62-year-old stooped. "My legs hurt as I hobble to the station for work. For the last two days, my fever's not letting me move out," she says, folding her hands at the gods on an altar in the corner. "It has been the lot of the women in this family to feed the men who just want to drink and die," she says wistfully listing out how her father-in-law, her own husband and even her eldest son died of excessive drinking. "My mother-in-law passed on her badge to me when a tonga ran over her leg and broke it. I had her and the children to take care of and took over her red sari and porter's badge."

Distantly related, these 22 descendants of the first three women porters who began in 1880 look out for each other. "Who else do we have?" asks Kanchanben Diyabhai Gohel. This writer was witness to how all the women contributed Rs.5 each to give a centenarian retired colleague Narmadaben Jethwa.

Though it's late evening, five women porters went to meet Jethwa. "On the station, she would take care of all us like a mother. Now it's our turn," says Jayshree, recounting the story of a man the women beat up for his lewd comments. "Narmadaben led the charge. I don't think that man will think of misbehaving with any woman ever!"

The centenarian's face lights up. "Yes, we are porters and carry luggage. But that doesn't mean we won't fight anyone who tries to take advantage. Served him right."

How it began?
Bhavnagar was one of the earliest princely states to build its own railway as early as in 1880. That this was done without any aid from the then British regime is an indicator how well-off this kingdom was. In fact, such was the impact of this decision by the Gohils that it found mention in the Imperial Gazetteer.

The Gazetteer also chronicles how the royal family gave porter badges to a trio of local women, who had petitioned the king asking for the same 136 years ago. All the 22 women porters currently working at the Bhavnagar station are descendants of that trio.