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Democracy has failed the Musahars of Bihar
November 03, 2009 11:40 IST
Prayaag Akbar tells the story of 1,000 years of caste-based
repression, and of a people's quest for dignity under a democracy that
has failed them.
Vilas Ravi Raj, a Musahar, has brought his son Dileep, a shivering
six-year old with bandages across his face like a zebra crossing, to
the Anugrah Narain Magadh Medical College Hospital. The boy's
grandmother has walked with them from the village of Utlibari, around
30 kilometres away, in the same district of Gaya, Bihar.
The father bends over his son, feeding him milk via a syringe and
through a tube that goes up the boy's nose. All the beds in the
children's ward are filled with similarly suffering children. By their
side are parents in tattered clothes and haunted eyes, eyes that are
shrouded by confusion and fear each time the nurses describe what is
happening to their child.
District health officials have just announced there is an epidemic of
meningitis and encephalitis amongst the 30 lakh (3 million) strong
Musahar population of Bihar; their living habits bring them in close
proximity to pigs and cows, making the children of this community
especially susceptible to infectious disease.
This hospital is at the epicentre of the epidemic because Gaya
district has the highest concentration of Musahars, though they are
found all over the state. Twenty seven children have died in the
hospital in just a few days, but members of the medical staff say that
the number of children who receive poor or no medical attention far
outstrips this number. This is the third year in a row that a
meningitis epidemic has been declared in the district.
The Musahars are one of the most deprived communities in India. They
were given Maha-Dalit status by the Bihar government some years ago,
testament to the abject penury in which most live. They are perhaps
best known as rat-eaters (Mus -- mouse; ahar -- eater), a title many
in the community are keen to live down, though the tradition remains.
Even so, in the villages I visited, the villagers refused repeatedly
to hunt rats for the cameras of the freelance photographer who
accompanied me (in one ridiculous interlude, he offered the children
ten rupees for every rat they caught. They still refused.)
And this is one of the main problems the community faces; as the
dominant caste groups in the area and a compliant, sensation-seeking
media continue to frame the Musahars' existence through practices like
rat-eating, their perilous standards of living can continue to be
justified as those deserved by a 'subhuman' community.
Try this for a paradox. Dwarako Sundari is a 68-year old Sindhi
gentleman who crossed the border at Partition. In his twenties he was
entrusted by Acharya Vinobha Bhave to come to Bodhgaya and build an
ashram where Musahirs could be educated and fed. He has been running
his school for more than 30 years with no government support, reliant
on the kindness of people who travel to Buddhism's holiest place. He
received the Jamnalal Bajaj [ Images ] Award for Social Work in 1992,
but otherwise there have been few public plaudits. Almost all the
educated Musahars in the area have studied in his school, including
the aspiring politician Biswas Manjhi, who is hoping for a Rashtriya
Janata Dal Vidhan Sabha nomination. He tells me: "Dwarakoji is akin to
a saint. He has done so much for us."
It is shocking, then, to learn Dwarakoji's views on these people:
"After much thought, I have realised the Musahars are a sub-human
community. Jayprakash Narayan once visited my ashram and he said this
exact thing to me. Now, years later, I have to agree. I have seen
students of mine throw their parents out of the house once they cannot
earn anymore, saying they need to feed their children. Women complain
to me because their husbands refuse to acknowledge their marital
contract. Other families desert their children. Is this the way human
beings live?"
When I point out to him that the practices he has listed are prevalent
in other communities -- could even be considered common practice in
countries like the United States -- he brushes my objections aside.
Once again the problem that faces these people is illustrated.
Dwarakoji has done as much for Musahar children as perhaps anyone in
the world, and when he speaks of the children you can sense his
abiding affection. Yet, after 30 years of interacting with the
community there is a sharp delineation, a need to see people with such
strange and objectionable habits as something quite different from
himself.
About 15 minutes drive from the town of Bodhgaya, where the
Enlightened One has ensured hundreds of tonsured Japanese and European
tourists sit drinking imported Lapsang Souchong (Chinese black tea),
there is the village of Parariya, a dot in the hinterland of 300 homes
and 1,200 people.
To reach this village you must walk through an ankle-deep swamp until
you arrive at a cluster of tiny mud huts. Like every village in India,
living arrangements are segmented sharply along the lines of caste: in
the distance are the houses of the Yadavs and further along are the
Paswans (both of whom are considered upper-caste Dalits and have
enjoyed years of patronage under leaders like Lalu Prasad Yadav [
Images ] and Ram Vilas Paswan).
The biggest houses belong to the Thakurs, the landowners of the area,
though I am told there is a smattering of Muslim families who have
their own conclave.
The Musahar huts are the simplest, reflective of their status within
the village hierarchy. Each hut has two windowless rooms, a small
open-air courtyard that is used as a kitchen and a roof of thatched
hay. The doors and ceilings are built so low you must bend at the
waist to enter the room. It is clear that a Musahar roof cannot be
higher than a Yadav roof, and so on up the chain.
Kuleshar Manji and his wife Sudama Devi have been married for 30
years. They have five children, four of whom scamper in and out of the
house like the mice running around on the floor. They are landowners:
"humraa paanch gaj". Though this is not common in the community, this
is one of the few areas in Bihar with strong Musahar politicians, and
some years ago a land redistribution scheme was implemented that gave
each family in the surrounding villages a parcel of land.
But in the village, land without water is like no land at all. The
Musahars have the smallest freehold plots of the worst land. Manji and
his wife still spend the majority of the agricultural season
cultivating the plots of Yadav families.
The Yadav landowners pay each Musahar man Rs 15 for a day's work,
while every Musahar woman receives just 2.5 kilos of unrefined wheat,
no money. Kuleshar Manji says, "There is no irrigation, so we can't
water any of the crops on our land. But the government put in pumps
and pipes for the areas where the upper-castes have their land. If we
don't work on their land we won't have anything at all."
This works out to around Rs 500 a month during the agricultural
season. Manji and Sudama Devi are lucky because their oldest son is
working as construction labour in Bhutan, from where he sends Rs 500 a
month. "Now with Rs 1,000 we are more comfortable. Three of my
children are in school. But most families here don't have anyone to
send money. If we had to get by on just the wages I am paid to
cultivate the Yadav farms we would be in trouble."
Both husband and wife agree that NREGS (National Rural Employment
Guarantee Scheme) has been a huge boon during the difficult
non-agricultural season, when the steady daily payment of Rs 80 comes
as a massive windfall. The Bihar government has one of the best
records of implementing this scheme.
But such poverty can only breed discontent. Many young men from the
lowest caste groups in each village have taken up cause with the
Naxalites [ Images ], disillusioned by the unchanging patterning of
society.
One former Naxal, a young Musahar who studied in Dwarako Sundari's
school and is now a businessman in Bodhgaya, explains: "A lot of the
villages here are named after Naxal heroes. People get tired of
waiting for change. I drifted in and out of camps since I was 15. We
used to hold tribunals here, because the villagers were tired of going
to the corrupt courts."
The Naxalite problem affects even the least political villagers,
because state functionaries now have a ready-made excuse for not doing
their jobs. The former Naxal continues, "while I was growing up, the
schools did not have teachers, no health officials would ever come to
these areas. They all said the Naxals made it too dangerous for them
to work. It is the same now."
Bodhgaya is jammed with tourists from all over the world. The Bihar
government has built a shiny, metalled road from Patna to this small
town. An international airport has been built at Gaya, so Buddha
tourists can pop in and out without seeing the rest of India. But with
so much spending allocated to ease the journey of foreigners, what
remains for the people of this area? None of the tourism money
trickles down to the poorest people of this district, of which the
Musahars are only one community.
As the Buddha once left the grounds of his palace in Kapilavastu and
found nothing but disease and desolation, leave the city limits of
Bodhgaya and you enter a poverty-stricken wasteland.
It is only the very richest people of Parariya, the Thakurs, who own
motorbikes, so they do not have to trudge through the swamp that
separates the village from the main road. In these villages, the
difference between those who own motorbikes and those who don't is not
a simple one; it tells the story of a 1,000 years of caste-based
repression, and of a people's quest for dignity under a democracy that
has failed them.
Image: Vilas Ravi Raj feeds his son Dileep with a syringe as his
grandmother looks on
Courtesy: Covert Magazine
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