NEED FOR IMMEDIATE RE-IMPOSITION..... IN MINES 257
recently read a report that in Belgium, the 1941 class recruits required to serve in the army instead of being sent to the front were sent by the Belgium Government to go into the coal mines. That power, as the House will realise is not available to us and therefore we could not follow that remedy.
Now, Sir, the other reply that I would like to give is this. In all those countries like Great Britain, South Africa and other countries, there has been no tradition of women being employed underground. Their women worked at one time but that was probably for 60 or 70 years before. I appeal to the House to take a realistic view of this matter. In our own country is it not a fact that up to 1937 women did work in coal mines ? Is it not a fact that women in this country were working in coal mines till eight years ago ? Can anybody in India say as people in England say that our women have ceased to work underground for a century and that therefore this is a new departure ?
The Honourable lady who moved the cut motion, I think, has forgotten what was the view of the All-India Women’s Conference in 1934. I should like to explain it to the House. The Government of India had taken certain steps practically from 1929 with a view to close the employment of women underground and, as the House will remember, they had laid down a proportion, a dwindling proportion, so that according to that programme women would have ceased to work in coal mines in 1937. This was long before there was any talk about a convention. What was the attitude of the All-India Women’s Conference ? I find that this matter was taken up for consideration by the AllIndia Women’s Conference in their session held on the 26th December, 1934. According to the report which I have in my hand, (Interruption by Mrs. Renuka Ray.) Please do not disturb me. The All-India Women’s Conference set up a Committee to consider this question and I would like to read only two short sentences, which contain the view that the All-India Women’s Conference took of the action of the Government of India. Sir, I will read from page 53, The report first gives the advantages and then gives the disadvantages. The report (I should like to tell the House that the lady who has moved the motion was a member of this committee appointed by the All-India Women’s Conference)—begins by saying :
“ Our impression about the effect of the elimination of women from underground work is that it is on the whole not suited to the conditions in which the miners live. ”