“U nable to make calls”, my phone read, as I failed to make a call once again, approximately the fifteenth time since that morning, owing to the lack of network coverage in this mountainous village called Nagthat, some 90 km from Dehradun, where I had gone for a case study.
“So, how much do you earn in a month?” I asked Rajendra, as the lean man who sat crouching on the low terrace wall and his young, frail wife came and sat next to me on a withered plastic mat.
“Nothing. I suffer from tuberculosis and cannot do much. My wife has no job either,” he replied, with a face as barren as the tilled contours around. I felt a choking in my throat, urging me to stop, as I heard myself ask him about their possessions: television, vehicle or sewing machine?
“No, we have nothing,” said the man, firmly this time. His reaction made me realise the inappropriateness of my question.
The distress
Curiosity got the better of me and I asked Reena, the wife, the reason of her not working to earn for the family. “We have no jobs here. I could rear cattle, but we have already spent the little savings we had on my husband’s treatment. I could sew clothes, but have no sewing machine. I asked the village administration for help, but it does nothing for us,” she said, shaking her head in distress.
The family had moved a couple of years ago from a village called Chittar to this place for their children’s education. Upon being asked where her village was, Reena pointed towards a small settlement faintly visible on a distant mountain, and said there was no school there.
Similar is the story of many other people who had come from nearby villages and settled here in Nagthat for the only educational facility available in the vicinity: a shishu mandir , and an ‘English’ school for those who are relatively better off. But unlike them, Rajendra’s family has no source of income. They collect wood from the forests to cook. A petty job in a nearby shop earns him the money they need for their children’s education. Being able to pay rent is out of question. A kind relative helps him when he has to go for check-ups to Kalsi, around 50 km away.
Nagthat has a clinic but is not fortunate enough to have a doctor in it. The school also lacks sufficient staff. The village has no irrigation facility. “ Jab aasmaan barsega ” (Whenever it’ll rain), they say, when asked how they irrigate their fields. Yet more distressed are the ones who have no fields to cultivate.
The village is seemingly outside the ambit of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, which promises at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment every year to each household.
Getting around it
The authorities seem to have found out a way around the scheme: Absolutely no work is provided to the ‘job card’- holders, and the direct wages received through MGNREGA cards are taken back in cash, since no work was done! People scared of demanding their rights make the task more convenient.
The first-hand account of the situation of the village urged me to go talk to the village sarpanch. The sarpanch, a middle-aged woman, said they hardly receive any funds from the state. Probably she was right. Probably, the village is too remote for all the facilities to reach there. But surprisingly, it is not remote enough to escape the massive political campaign going out in the State.
The ramshackle houses of the village were adorned with party flags. ‘Herds’ of kids wearing leader-masks, running on the dusty streets, was a common sight in Nagthat, a few days before the Assembly elections of 2017. They would proudly pose for pictures with their neta, complete with caps and party badges. “You can take my mask. I can get more tomorrow,” said one of the kids, made generous by the abundance of such ‘publicity kits’ in the village office. Although, what ‘real’ and tangible good this office has been able to give the deprived families of these kids, remains a question.
The activation of political concern and outreach just before rounds of election resembles the sight of scavengers swooping over prey.
The maddening rallies and traffic jams, the cacophony of deafening announcements and speeches, countless blindingly colourful pamphlets and short-lived schemes to attract votes add to the costs.
It’s much like an auction; the only difference is that auctions benefit at least someone. I would like to imagine what difference can be made, if we could do away with all the pointless propaganda.
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