Election in Pincodes: In Tamil Nadu’s Sriperumbudur, dreams of a better future

Yet, there is no such thing as a doubt in V Keerthika’s thoughts that she is healthier off. In life, and at work. Work is the drab meeting strains of Sriperumbudur. In the final three years, the 28-year-old has held three separate jobs within the industrial powerhouse of a city on the outskirts of Chennai. Every night, she  returns to her crowded room that she rents for ₹1,500 a month, within the hope that her station will rise with the subsequent job she holds.

Her tryst with the city started within the shadow of Covid. In 2021, because the pandemic ravaged the nation, Keerthika sat together with 68 different girls in a line for six days per week, eight hours a day, hunched over an meeting line in a Foxconn facility. Her job was to test the color high quality of the iPhone . “I was very proud to hold an iPhone every day,” she mentioned. “I felt important that I was part of a global company and the entire factory was run with just us women. Even our supervisors were women.”

In the manufacturing facility that manufactured the world’s most coveted cellphones, trajectories corresponding to that of Keerthika had been widespread – younger, educated girls from the agrarian hinterland dazzled by the lure of working for the world’s second most useful firm. For many – Keerthika estimated round 70% of the staff had been girls – it was the primary style of freedom from their orthodox properties, and likewise their first actual cash.

“In our village, women weren’t going out for work but I convinced my parents. Because of that my family situation has improved,” she mentioned. “I loved the job. I got paid ₹14,000, the highest income in my family ever.”

But behind the shimmer of her new wage, a storm was brewing. Work hours usually spilled past the prescribed restrict, rest room breaks had been frowned upon, and the meals was inedible. On event, employees fell sick. In hostels the place Keerthika lived, surveillance was widespread and blunt, they had been pressured to sleep on the ground, and the authorities clamped a restrict on water utilization in bogs.

Eventually, her household discovered her a match, she obtained married and returned to her village, roughly 300 km away, the place her dad and mom labored as farm palms.

It was simply as effectively. Days later, Foxconn briefly closed its facility on December 18, 2021 after protests over a significant meals poisoning episode which left 159 staff hospitalised. Eventually, the manufacturing facility reopened in January 2022. “Throughout the episode, I was in touch with my friends because I was worried about their safety,” mentioned Keerthika.

The reduction was short-lived. Back in Tiruvarur, the school graduate discovered little prospects. She briefly labored in a personal firm as an administrator for ₹6,000, much less that half of what she was making in Sriperumbudur.

By the summer time of 2022, she was again. She took a job at electronics firm Korea Fuel Tech India. The hours had been brutal, and generally her well being gave means , however getting paid a commensurate wage was like a drug. “There are so many companies here and we can easily find a job. We don’t need much experience. The skills are easy to pick up. It gives me confidence.”

She now works within the safety workforce of a personal firm. With her new wage of ₹18,000, she feels financially secure. She additionally takes up additional shifts which earn one other ₹5,000 a month, permitting her to ship a refund residence.

“I have taken care of my ageing parents. And I helped my two younger sisters and a younger brother study,” Keerthika mentioned, including proudly that her wage helped all her siblings go to non-public faculties. “And it was all due to Sriperumbudur.”

Industrial hall

An hour’s drive out of Chennai, the city of roughly 200,000 folks first jumped into the news in 1991, when former PM Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated close to the city. Today, the hub boasts of not less than 500 corporations that manufacture cars and electronics corresponding to Hyundai, Salcomp, TVS, and Pegatron. Between neat, tree-lined avenues are rows upon rows of mechanised services, meeting strains and factories, vibrant inexperienced boards exterior them saying government-mandated particulars. In some ways, it represents the strides made by the state with the second-largest economic system and is usually touted as proof of the success of the Dravidian mannequin of growth.

The gas operating this powerhouse is its feminine workforce. “In Foxconn alone, there are 25,000 women working. There is no data on the total number but we estimate it to be around 65,000 in Sriperumbudur,” mentioned a labour division official who didn’t want to be named. Experts say that this huge pool of educated girls is a key cause behind Tamil Nadu galloping forward in industrialisation. In 2022-23, Tamil Nadu rose to the highest spot because the exporter of digital items, almost tripling in a 12 months at $5.37 billion from $1.86 billion within the earlier 12 months, in keeping with knowledge by the National Import-Export for Yearly Analysis of Trade (NIRYAT). 40% of smartphones from India had been exported from Kancheepuram district (of which Sriperumbudur is a component), in keeping with NIRYAT. 43% of all girls manufacturing facility employees in India got here from Tamil Nadu. Sriperumbudur, and particularly its girls, are actually on the coronary heart of India’s manufacturing push in vital sectors corresponding to cellphones, attempting to money in on a world economic system attempting to diversify away from China because of geopolitical worries.

Challenges at work

Ok Kanagavalli doesn’t learn about China. When the 37-year-old got here to work in Sriperumbudur in 2008, there have been no iPhones both. A era earlier than Keerthika, Kanagavalli was among the many first group of ladies employees who got here to work on this hub, within the first wave. Back within the mid 2000s, Nokia, then the world’s largest cell phone firm, arrange a manufacturing facility, its largest, in Sriperumbudur. A clutch of its suppliers adopted. But the corporate would go on to be laid low by the touchscreen revolution that it ignored, and the manufacturing facility by regulatory bother.

For the final 9 years, Kanagavalli  has labored at an aluminium filtration firm. “I’m exposed to dust. This has given me a skin allergy. Initially, my face was filled with pimples and rashes; now that I’ve been doing it for nine years, my body has become used to it,” Kanagavalli mentioned. “Some of my colleagues wheeze often. We all go to the dermatologist at least once a month.”

Yet, she can not get out of the commercial hub, as a result of exterior, the one jobs accessible are that of a coolie or as a beneficiary of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGs).  “I work in an air-conditioned office. Compared to what’s outside, I’m living a good life so the skin allergies seem like a small price to pay,” she mentioned.

She now earns ₹25,000 month-to-month, solely ₹10,000 lower than her husband. The double revenue has ensured that her older daughter can research microbiology at a personal faculty whereas her youthful daughter is enrolled in a personal college. It has given her extra heft at residence, and the flexibility to run the present.  Across Sriperumbudur, that is the brand new regular. D Vanmathi moved right here in 2021 together with her household after her husband – the one male member within the household – was killed in a street accident.

Now, her mom is a caretaker on the creche the place employees go away their kids, her older sister a supervisor and she or he is a safety guard. When she first got here to Sriperumbudur, she labored as a labourer at an organization which manufactures merchandise for medium and heavy business autos. “I had to stand for eight hours and deal with heavy machinery. And we had a target to complete every hour,” mentioned Vanmathi. “I often cried thinking why I was born as a woman.”

The work gave her abdomen and again ache. And but, she awakened at 3.30am to prepare dinner for her eight and six-year-olds earlier than reporting to responsibility by 6am. The 29-year-old is extra content material now, having joined as a safety guard in one other personal firm for ₹16,500 a month. “I am happy now. The financial independence lets me steer my life,” Vanmathi mentioned.

The girls right here now usually come collectively – pooling cash in medical emergencies, serving to one another throughout household weddings or bereavements, or simply discovering an outlet for enjoyable. “The men working one-floor below us always joke  that our floor always has money,” she mentioned.

Dravidian politics

In any such industrial hall within the heartland – consider Ghaziabad, Gurugram or Kanpur – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would maintain the sting. But in Sriperumbudur, listed among the many largest Lok Sabha constituencies within the state, it’s the two Dravidian giants which have held a stranglehold on the seat.

The constituency includes six meeting segments throughout three districts – Maduravoyal, Ambattur and Alandur in Chennai, Pallavaram and Tambaram in Chengalpattu district and Sriperumbudur in Kancheepuram district. Five of those are held by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and a sixth by its ally Congress. In 2019, DMK chief TR Baalu gained by a large 500,000, flipping the seat from the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) which had gained it in 2014, courtesy a large wave of ladies’s assist in favour of late chief minister J Jayalalithaa, for whom it will be her final common election. A smattering of different political events – such because the AMMK, PMK or NTK – have by no means discovered a lot favour particularly among the many girls, who kind the vast majority of the native citizens.

“We have only chosen between the DMK and AIADMK except once when the Congress won,” says Kanagavalli. “This time too it will be one of the Dravidian parties who will win.”

This time, in the remainder of the state, there’s (not less than on paper) a triangular contest between the DMK-led alliance, AIADMK, and the BJP-led coalition, which incorporates TTV Dhinakaran’s Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (a breakaway faction of the AIADMK), the Pattali Makkal Katchi, the Tamil Maanila Congress, Indiya Jananayaka Katchi and Puthiya Needhi Katchi.

In Sriperumbudur although, the DMK’s rising solar image blankets the marketing campaign, clearly forward of the two-leaves image of the AIADMK. BJP ally TMC(M) is the third power combating right here.

Many points on this election are nationwide – DMK’s Baalu has campaigned on Tamil satisfaction, the significance of showcasing the Dravidian mannequin of growth, upholding federalism and scrapping the National Education Policy, 2020 and the Citizenship Amendment Act.

“Sriperumbudur is all about inclusive growth which is our Dravidian model of governance,” mentioned deputy secretary of DMK’s I-T wing, Salem Dharanidharan. “65% of women work in factories in Tamil Nadu of which the majority are in Sriperumbudur. Our government is building a women’s hostel for companies such as Foxconn to source employees and for these women employees to have a good standard of living. The DMK is comfortable in all constituencies and the fight is between the AIADMK and the BJP for the second and third position.”

AIADMK has equally focussed on civic points in Sriperumbudur, promising infrastructure tasks to ease site visitors congestion.

The AIADMK has historically loved the vote financial institution of ladies who outnumber male electorates in Tamil Nadu. While campaigning for the AIADMK candidate in Sriperumbudur, social gathering common secretary Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS) mentioned that MSMEs had been affected right here as the federal government hiked the electrical energy tariff. “Under the present government, educated youngsters don’t have jobs and those who have businesses are also unable to sustain them. If this needs to change, the AIADMK needs to come back to power,” EPS mentioned lately. “The DMK has not fulfilled even 10% of its election promises.”

But the ladies manufacturing facility employees have ensured {that a} smattering of native points near them get house too. “During the monsoon, we have to face the floods and during the summer, we don’t have access to enough drinking water,” mentioned Kanagavalli. “The lake near my home is contaminated by a painting company.”

Keerthika desires security for girls in public areas and transport. “And, there are so many women who cannot afford a room’s rent. So, the government has to build hostels for us,” she added.

“I will vote for a party that will give us better public toilets and transport facilities,” mentioned first time voter S Saranya.

With campaigning winding down and elections over on Friday, some girls are wanting ahead to a uncommon day trip this weekend. “Our group has 50 women and we recently bought matching blue sarees to visit Queensland Amusement Park a day after the polls,” mentioned Kannagavalli.

Keerthika, although, is for certain she can not take her thoughts off work. “I only have a Vivo phone,” she mentioned. “Someday, I want to buy an iPhone of my own.”

This is the tenth in a collection of election stories from the sector that have a look at nationwide and native points by way of an electoral lens.