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The tea plantation industry of North Bengal has a long history of discriminating against and exploiting women’s labour force participation. Adivasi and Nepali women have also been employed as a majority of the workforce from the beginning of this industry in this region in the middle of the nineteenth century (Bose, 1993; Sen, 1999; Labour Bureau, 2008-2009). This trend of the high employment rate of women has continued even today in the tea industry of Bengal (Engels, 1993; Census of India, 1901-31; Banerjee, 1989; Rasaily, 2013).
This contrasts with the state where women’s overall workforce participation rate has been paltry, not only in comparison to the female tea garden workers but also in comparison to their workforce participation rate at the all-India level, both in the colonial and post-colonial era (Banerjee, 1989; Bhadra, 1992; Mukherjee, 1995; Engels, 1996). However, according to many reports, the trend shows that with increased exploitation and poor working conditions of tea labour, the situation for females becomes worse than that of males. When women in these areas decide to become entrepreneurs with a mission to serve the last mile of unconnected citizens, they encounter many challenges. Some of them include their hostile patriarchal behaviour, the government machinery, inefficient connectivity, and geographical challenges to name but a few.
SoochnaPreneurs digital centres were set up by the Digital Empowerment Foundation and other implementing partners to provide governance and financial information to the unconnected citizens. There are 16 such centres in north Bengal (Jalpaiguri, Coochbehar, Alipurduar and Darjeeling) catering to the communities’ information and service delivery needs. The female SoochnaPrenuers who run these centres do face challenges but are willing to work and are indeed setting the pace for other women. Career growth, decision making and interest were some of the things which confined a woman for a long in these tea gardens these SoochnaPreneurs coming ahead and running a successful digital centre is inspiring other females in tea gardens. Slowly and gradually, they are establishing power relations in the local area as they perform the roles of informed citizens and thus gain the trust of the communities.
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