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The cooperative has more than 45,000 women members
On a cold December morning, a group of women wrapped in colorful saris, warm shawls and woolen hats huddled outside a three-story building in a bustling Delhi neighborhood.
Within the premises of the building was a unit of one of India’s oldest social enterprises, owned and run by women.
The cooperative – now called Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad – was established in 1959 in Mumbai (then Bombay) by seven housewives who prepared the humble papad or poppadoms, a crunchy and tasty snack that is a staple of dishes Indians.
Sixty-five years later, the cooperative, headquartered in Mumbai, has spread across India and has more than 45,000 women members. It has an annual turnover of 16 billion rupees ($186 million; £150 million) and exports products to countries including the United Kingdom and the United States.
Working mainly from home, the women of this cooperative produce products such as detergents, spices and chapatis (flatbreads), but their most popular product is the Lijjat brand of poppadoms.
“Lijjat is a temple for us. It helps us earn money and feed our families,” says Lakshmi, 70, who manages the Delhi center.
Ms. Lakshmi, who uses only one name, joined the cooperative about four decades ago after her husband died, forcing her to look for work.
“I hadn’t finished my studies and I didn’t know what else to do. That’s when my neighbor told me about Lijjat,” she says.
The decision to join the women’s cooperative transformed her life, she says. She now manages 150 women at the center.
For women like Ms. Lakshmi, the cooperative offers the opportunity to earn a decent income while balancing their work at home.
Devina Gupta
Women produce, among other things, spices and detergents
Every morning, female members take a bus rented by the cooperative to go to the nearest Lijjat center. There, they collect their share of pre-mixed dough made from lentils and spices, which they take home to roll into poppadoms.
“I would come home with this dough and do all my housework, feed my children and sit with my chakla (a flat wooden board) and belan (rolling pin) in the afternoon to make small round and thin papads,” says Ms. Lakshmi. .
Initially, it took her four to five hours to prepare 1 kg of dried lentil papad, but she says she can now produce this quantity in just half an hour.
The Mumbai head office purchases raw materials like lentils, spices and oil in bulk, mixes the flour and sends it to Lijjat offices across the country.
Once the women have made and dried the poppadoms at home, they bring them back to the center to be packaged. Lijjat’s distributor network then transports the products to retail stores.
The company has come a long way since its inception.
In the 1950s, newly independent India was focused on its reconstruction, trying to strike a balance between promoting small rural industries and establishing large urban factories.
It was also a time when the government owned most of the country’s factories. Women’s lives were particularly difficult, as they had to contend with a deeply conservative and patriarchal society to obtain an education and work.
The group of women who founded Lijjat – Jaswantiben Jamnadas Poppat, Parvatiben Ramdas Thodani, Ujamben Narandas Kundalia, Banuben N Tanna, Laguben Amritlal Gokani, Jayaben V Vithalani and Diwaliben Lukka – were in their 20s and 30s , living in a crowded apartment building in Mumbai and looking for ways to support their family.
Their idea was simple: work from home and earn money using cooking skills passed down through generations of women.
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The Lijjat brand of poppadoms is very popular in many parts of India.
But they had no money to buy ingredients and sought financial help from Chhaganlal Karamshi Parekh, a social worker.
He offered them a loan of 80 rupees ($0.93; £0.75 at today’s rate), which was enough to get started at the time.
But the women quickly realized that there were no takers for their poppadoms. Narrating the story, Swati Paradkar, the current president of the cooperative, says the women had to return to Parekh for help.
He again lent them 80 rupees, but this time on the condition that they repay him 200 rupees. Parekh – whom the women called Bappa (meaning father) – and other social workers took the poppadoms to local traders, who agreed to stock them only if they could pay after the products were sold.
Only one merchant agreed to pay the women immediately. “He started buying four to six packets a day and gradually the poppadoms became very popular,” says Ms Paradkar.
As the business grew, more and more women joined the cooperative – not as employees, but as co-owners with a say in decision-making. Women are called ben or sister in Gujarati.
“We are like a cooperative and not a company. Although I am the chairperson, I am not the owner. We are all co-owners and have equal rights. We share all the profits and even the losses,” says Ms. Paradkar. “I think that’s the secret to our success.”
For decades, the cooperative produced its poppadoms without the iconic Lijjat brand.
In 1966, the Khadi Development And Village Industries Commission, a government organization responsible for promoting small-scale rural industries, suggested finding a brand name.
The co-op placed a newspaper ad seeking suggestions. “We received a lot of applications, but one of our own sisters suggested Lajjat. We adapted it to Lijjat, which means taste in Gujarati,” says Ms. Paradkar.
Over the decades, the cooperative has enabled generations of women to achieve financial independence.
“Today, I sent my children to school, built a house and got them married,” says Ms. Lakshmi.
“Working here, I found not only income, but also respect.”
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