CONNECTION PAPER

(Garvit Tejwani , 210382)

SECTION 1:
The main argument being made in this journal(Sen, 2022) is how rural women of Kolkata
migrate to urban areas of Bengal and learned to save money in a bank account for their own
future or their children by doing domestic work and telling lies about salaries to their rural
families which were initially meant for them through savings in a digital bank account with the
help of a social group of other women workers. The women workers help a new women worker
Krishna understand their culture and how they tell lies to their in-laws and husbands about
their salaries and other things and why saving money for their future is important, similarly,
Rama helped Krishna to make her acknowledge new technology and use of mobile to manage
bank account(Sen, 2022). This finally helps them to connect with digitalized new technology and
secure their economic future leading to the upliftment of the women class in society and
opening other opportunities for them with this economy.
SECTION 2:
The journal(Sen, 2022) supports and helps to connect the concept of structural mobility with it.
Structural mobility states the change in the social position or status of a large social group
either upward or downward. This journal shows that as the women migrated to urban areas
they started to develop an understanding and education regarding new digital technologies,
with the help of their social group of women workers. Due to access to new digital technologies
such as the use of aadhar cards and mobile to maintain their online bank saving account, these
women maintain their economy for future use. This money can be used by women in the future
to become small-scale entrepreneurs such as those related to catering or running an agency
that provided extended services to the domestic sector. They wanted to start agencies,
organizations, and cooperatives that would support and make a profit out of this economy.
Several women imagined an economic life away from their husbands, but close to their
children.(Sen, 2022). With the increase in the individual economy of all domestic working
women’s social groups with respect to the urban labor market, there is a rise in their social
position and status, therefore this social group of women migrant workers in Bengal faces
structural mobility.
The concept of social capital can also be connected to this journal(Sen, 2022). Social capital is a
set of shared values or resources that allows individuals to work together in a group to
effectively achieve a common purpose. It can also be thought of as the potential ability to
obtain resources, favors, or information from one's personal connections. As shown in this
journal(Sen, 2022) Krishna got support and knowledge from other women workers on how to
make lies to their rural families and drunken husband about their real salaries, and how to use
digitalized bank saving accounts with the help of mobile. The women bank officials also help
these marginal women classes in many ways such as by educating them by giving more
information on banks and explaining the procedure to make a saving accounts and loans. There
was an incident when their spying husband had witnessed his wife walking into a bank, and
having a conversation with a female bank teller who helped in managing the digital accounts of
slum women. When the husband confronted the bank teller, she angrily denied knowing his
wife and called the security guard for assistance(Sen, 2022). If the husband came to meet
Krishna in the city, he will live with her, and try to search for money to accomplish their needs
due to debts and alcohol, if he founds that his wife owns a mobile and a personal saving
account, he will drain that account. So, in this situation, other women helped Krishna by taking
her money and mobile phone for some amount of time till their husbands leave. Sometimes her
husband tried to flirt with other women workers and tries to ask about the salary of his wife,
the other women worker tells less salary of her to him supporting Krishna. Thus by all these
above examples, it can be shown that Krishna established her personal economy in the city with
the help of her ties with other women workers such as Rama and women bank officials. So
these ties which help her to maintain the economy in the city and also educate her about new
technologies contribute to her social capital.

SECTION 3:
The issue of the Lack of owning of Aadhar cards by every individual can be connected to this
journal. Aadhaar, India’s program to provide a unique identification number for every resident,
is the largest biometric identification program in the world(Sen,2022). This card connects an
individual to new technologies(like digital banking) and the benefits of government policies like
subsidies by connecting them from a PAN card and also with a voting card. It is an issue that not
everybody owns this card, especially in rural areas. For example, Krishna not owned an aadhar
card at first(Sen, 2022), similarly many rural women don’t own their own aadhar card or bank
account. If they own then it is managed by their husband. Thus, by migration of these rural
women and the support of other women workers or women bank officials, make also the rural
women’s access to the benefits of the aadhar program, resolving this issue.

REFERENCES
Sen, A. (2022) “An economy of lies: Informal income, phone-banking and female migrant
workers in Kolkata, India,” Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 20(2), pp. 164–176.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/15562948.2021.1978123.