like breaking stones, digging roads or carrying heavy loads of soil. Women should not be compelled to do that kind of work which is nothing short of rigorous imprisonment. Instead, Government should organize for them other kinds of work like yarn-making or agro-processing. 2. Wherever the source of water for a village is more than 200 meters away, the villagers should immediately arrange for the pipeline and bring that water in the village. This work should be done by villagers on top priority basis without waiting for any government grant. 3. Women work on the farm and additionally at home. It is difficult to segregate the household work and farm work because both kinds of work are complementary to each other. Women are given complicated and arduous tasks which are surprisingly considered as light-work. Even the so-called domestic jobs are quite complex. On the other hand, even simple work performed by men is considered as difficult or skilled, meriting prestige and higher remuneration. On an average a woman in a farming family puts in fifteen to sixteen hours of work every day. All women from the farming families must get sufficient payment for the work done on the farm and outside the farm. 4. Women should boycott synthetic or foreign clothes. Even for marriages or special occasions they should not wear such clothes. They should refrain from buying anything from the shops that sell such clothes. 5. All women’s organizations should appoint only women candidates for the elections of local institutions like Gram Panchayat and Zilla Parishad. The Convention ended with an oath taken collectively by all women present in a loud voice. In a way that oath reflected the essence of all the discussions that took place in the Convention. It went like this: Women Power - New Expression
Q
227
