ABSTRACT
An important concern is to show how the impacts generated by growth of mining enterprises were intersecting with those of colonialism to create new patterns of gender and social differentiation in adivasi patriarchies. This chapter tries to give a historical insight into the lives and service conditions of women miners of colonial and post-colonial Chotanagpur. The development of industrial-capitalist enterprises in the colonial and post-colonial period contributed to further marginalization and loss of land. Colonial land and forest legislation led to a severe diminution in women's traditional economic space in Chotanagpur. The growth of mines and capitalist enterprises in such a situation opened up an economic opportunity for cheaply available casual women labourers. As workers they had to live at the whim of the sirdars, petty capitalists and mine owners who would subject them to inhuman and exhaustive work regimes. But this opportunity was again garbed in harsh living conditions, discriminatory work regimes and untold hardships for women.
