The Smell of Cane

a bittersweet saga of the migrant sugarcane labourers

Original Published on 17 Dec, 2015 by The Golden Sparrow

The rural roads of Baramati are often said to be paved in sugar. A reference perhaps to how this everyday commodity to sweeten your cup of tea has changed the fortunes of people in the region. This region’s transformation has been brought about by the legion of unorganised migrant farm labourers from the acutely drought-hit areas of the state, particularly Latur, Beed and Ahmednagar districts. In the village of Manapa Vasti, a ‘toli’ or group of 15 to 20 farm labourers, made up smaller family ‘jodis’ or pairs, wake up early, at the crack of dawn. They make their way to the fields, bullocks in tow carrying large canisters of water insulated with wet jute and a steel knife, the ‘koyta’ in hand. Harvesting cane is hard work and it requires lots of manpower. The jodis approach the wall of ripe-and-ready-to-cut sugarcane. Mostly young men harvest at an almost rhythmic pace as they move forward. Two cuts produce a freed ‘prachat’ (stalk). Knife raised again, it catches the glint of the winter sun, they cut down low at the stalk’s birth and top of the stalk. The machetes move back at fourth as they work in unison, trying to keep up. They wear loose-fitting long-sleeved shirts to protect themselves from the sharp-edged leaves. As the day goes by, the sun beats down on them. When the cane is cut, they take a step back and throw it into a pile. This is where the women take centre stage, as they stack the cane neatly into bundles. Carrying the load they put it on to the bullock cart in a practiced manner. By afternoon their cart full, the family makes the slow ride to the sugar factory in Malegaon. Long queues await them there late into the night. For some others, the wait could last till the next day. Yet, after labouring round-the-clock, they may still not be able to work off the advance taken from their contractor.

In the village of Manapa Vasti, a ‘toli’ or group of 15 to 20 farm labourers, made up smaller family ‘jodis’ or pairs, wake up early, at the crack of dawn.

Sugarcane being basically a perennial grass that grows back year after year, from the undisturbed roots left in the ground which allows for many harvests in a season. Their lives are a half-yearly cycle of migration born out the severe droughts in the 1960s and continues to this day because development disparities between Marathwada and the sugar belt. This year they had the dimmest of Diwalis, with as much as a 75 per cent shortfall in rainfall and a complete failure of their Kharif crop. Men, women and children, entire villages pack up their meagre belongings into trunks and gather their cattle. Only the elderly are left behind. Fifteen lakh workers are faced with their own and survival of their livestock. Before leaving their village, the families were given advances by contractors, which are set off against the quantity of sugarcane they cut. Like many migrant workers who travel from the dry Marathwada region to western Maharashtra’s sugarcane belt in search of work, many return to their village with a debt to repay. Herded into Tempos, they leave the barren fields of Marathwada behind. This year’s labour surplus has shortened the harvesting season from six months, which affects their wages. TGS visited these families in Baramati and Phaltan to better understand the sweat, toil and lives of these farmers.

The Harvest

They approach the wall of ripe-and-ready-to-cut sugarcane. Mostly young men harvest at an almost rhythmic pace as they move forward

Ajaml Morsing Chavan, 35, and his wife Seema, 30, cut sugarcane with machine-like precision. They work in haste, with a sense of anxiety, as they have a lot of work ahead of them to reach their target of cutting two tonnes of ‘material’. They travelled 450 kilometres from Sarola tehsil in Jalgaon district to Baramati, and currently live in a makeshift encampment outside the Malegaon factory. “We own a six-acre farm in my native place but drought makes cultivating it unprofitable. So I moved here with the entire family including my mother Anusayabai, and three sons,” said Ajaml. This is their sixth year returning to Baramati for the season. “We can’t make ends meet with farming, so doing seasonal work is our only option,” said Seema.

Nasiba Chandbhai Shaikh, 40, sorts cane, piling it up neatly so it can be loaded. At the same time she watches over her five-year-old grand-daughter Anjum. She’s doing her daughter a favour, since she is working on another field and is unable to take care of her daughter. Nasiba and her husband Shekhnoor have been seasonal farm labourers since 1992. “This is hard and continuous work, so much so that we have no time to cook, and we are forced to eat stale food,” said Shekhnoor. “If, at the end of season, we have not cut enough cane to set off the advance given to us, we will have to pay back the rest of the money. The rate of interest on this loan is 60 per cent a year,” he said. “It took approximately five hours of waiting at the sugar factory, and that is the reason we all have been deprived of sleep,” he said. But sleep does not matter when there is a loan to be worked off, and then there is the worry of Anjum’s schooling.

Navnath Bappa Ghongde, 24, is regarded and admired as a real life hero by his fellow workers in his toil, because of the way he has overcome all odds. He started working on the fields with his parents when he was 12 years old. Due to the untimely passing of his parents, the responsibility of the household fell squarely on oldest son Navnath’s shoulders. “After the death of my parents, I had the responsibility of providing for and arranging the marriages of my two sisters. I paid off the debt and I got Rs 80,000 as advance for this season’s work,” he said, content with his current situation.

Life on the Road

There is barely any shelter. They set up temporary encampments in the vicinity of the fields they work on. The conical huts called ‘kopis’ are made from sugarcane stalks. During rains the huts get waterlogged. There is no electricity nor toilets, and the women have to bathe in the open

The farmers at Sakharwadi start their day before dawn, making bhakari(millet rotis)and bhaji (generic vegetables). They then travel to ‘fad’, the cane field which is five to ten kilometres away. They cut the cane without masks or hand gloves in the biting cold. The head of the cane is used as fodder for their bullocks and the rest is sold to other villagers. The couples cut the cane for up to 6–7 hours before loading the cart. Then the men wait with their bullock carts in long queues outside the sugar factory, while the women return home to attend to their evening chores.

Fighter Jets fly over a temporary encampment in Phaltan district.

Sanjay Gophane (pictured below), 56, from Ashti, Beed district has been working in the fields since he was five years old. He received Rs 50,000 as advance for working in the Sakharwadi area. His wife Alka, 48, is with him. One of their bullocks’ eyes were severely damaged by an iron rod. The veterinary doctors couldn’t save the bullock’s vision. Now they have only one bullock to carry the two-tonne load to the factory, with no compensation in sight.

photograph by Akshay Mahajan

reporting by Dnyaneshwar Bhonde, Akshay Mahajan& Shailesh Joshi