Bidi Rollers in West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, India - A Photographic Essay

Abstract

In this photographic chapter, images with captions are integrated into a discussion about women bidi rollers who devote their labor to hand-rolling bidi cigarettes in West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, India. The authors feature photographs that illuminate rollers making bidis in their homes and other key activities in the bidi production process. Women bidi rollers receive poverty earnings and experience respiratory, musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and oral and eye diseases. Through arrangements with bidi contractors who provide tendu leaves and tobacco for bidi sticks, rollers are tied to a supply chain. This segment of the supply chain is characterized by practices of contractors to reject low-quality bidis forcing women to produce an increased number of bidis to ensure they receive reasonable pay. In some cases, child laborers are used in bidi-producing households to meet requirements set by contractors. In India and at the global level, the livelihoods of rollers in Madhya Pradesh are virtually invisible. This chapter showcases some of the realities of bidi production to sensitize the public to the humanity embedded in bidi rolling. The authors also discuss ethics in the digital ethnographic practice of collecting and disseminating photographs in a home-based industry in the world’s most populous country.