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&#39;Are there snakes here?&#39; I asked Ilayaraja.
 
 We were standing, very late in the evening, near a farm in Melakadu village, Sivaganga district, Tamil Nadu. I had gone there to meet well diggers - the region was dry, dusty, and finding water for irrigation was a job in itself. Ilayaraja lived there. He worked part-time at a private farm, and the rest of the time, on his parents&#39; agricultural land. That meant he worked two shifts. And he’s only 23 years old.
 
 The anxiety in my voice made Ilayaraja smile and he said yes, just few days ago, a &#39;Nagaraja&#39; (cobra) had visited the area. Just as I stood debating if I should abandon the walk, he fetched up a torch.
 
 &#39;I&#39;ll come with you,&#39; he offered, and so we went walking, our feet inside the white circle of the torch and our heads in the gathering cool of the night.
 
 It was a rain-scented walk. It had poured at the end of a blazing day, and besides the frogs and crickets, all that I could hear was Ilayaraja’s wheezy breath. ‘I was always asthmatic,’ he said, this too with his ready smile. Although a migrant – his family moved here from Salem when he was a baby – he knew Sivaganga well; he knew every bump and curve in the road, the motor-bikes, and the men who drove them. &#39;Land was very cheap here, 23 years ago. My parents sold their property in Salem, and my father and his brothers bought ten acres here for Rs.50,000. Now, do you know this fetches upto 3 or 4 lakhs an acre?&#39; he pointed to the right and the left, and the torch drew wide, white circles on tapioca and sugarcane fields.

&#39;Once, all this was dense scrub jungle. My family cleared it with their hands. Do you see that well over there, under that that tube light? That belongs to my chithappa (uncle). And behind that, do you see the house? Hidden behind those coconut trees? That&#39;s my house!&#39;
 
 He said &#39;my house&#39; with much pride. It was a pucca structure, with electricity that had come to his house nine years ago. And with that, very rapidly, modernity. &#39;You can&#39;t see a bullock and hand plough around here if you wished! And no landline telephones, only mobiles,&#39; he patted his pocket with a smile.
 
 All this might have destroyed the rural idyll - one that urbanites yearn for - but Ilayaraja delights in the modern touches. It&#39;s made life simpler. &#39;Earlier, we cut the sugarcane by hand. Now, one machine harvests, and another collects. It&#39;s done in no time!&#39; He appreciates the saving in time, in man-energy, because he&#39;s expended huge quantities of both very early in life.

But it&#39;s not as if he now spends the mornings on an easy chair, with a folded newspaper and a coffee mug. He&#39;s knee deep among plants, bending, plucking, sorting, cleaning. His family grows paddy, vegetables and flowers. ‘Ladies finger and brinjal, both need daily hand-picking. At least brinjal can keep for a day or two in the plant, but not ladies finger... it hardens very quickly,&#39; he laughed and I joined his laughter, thinking of the famous ladies-fingers test, that sellers hate and buyers love (snap the tip, if it doesn’t break clean, reject it!)
 
 After that, the produce - few kilos of each vegetable – is sold. &#39;Everyday, my father takes my mother to the market in his two-wheeler. He drops her there, and goes to the field. She sells everything and comes home by share-auto.&#39; By then, Ilayaraja has clocked in half-a-day at his other job – a mix of odd-jobs and outdoor work. By the time he’s home, at 6pm, the cattle have been tended, the cows milked.
 
 Most people here raise cows and goats and chicken. The cows in these parts are almost always Jersey/ cross breeds, because they give a lot more milk, when they&#39;re fed well, on fresh grass and oil-seed cakes. Except, that’s not always possible.

Rains often fail. &#39;&#39;The soil is very good, everything grows well here. The problem is water. See, my uncle’s 60 feet well has only four feet of water. So we only use it as a thotti (storage tank). Water is pumped in from the bore well. Deep bores here go down 800 feet, 1000 feet...&#39; Ilayaraja explained. I tried to wrap my head around those numbers: it was hard.
 
 Harder still was to see empty fields. Few years back, with good rains, paddy was sown extensively, the crop had been exceptional, and the families didn&#39;t want for rice. But the last two years, with very poor rain and a plummeting water table, land is left fallow. And yet, sugarcane is grown, with drip irrigation, an irony and a debate Ilayaraja dismissed with a ‘what-can-I-do’ smile.
 
 The night had pressed in, the stars were out and glinting, and the motorbikes had all gone home. We turned back, and walked past the sugarcane and tapioca and his uncle’s well. The air was cool, and smelt lovely. ‘Mmm,’ I inhaled, and turned to him, triumphantly, and asked if it wasn’t a turmeric field we were walking past. ‘Haha,’ he burst out laughing, the torch drawing white zig-zags on the uneven road. ‘That’s
 
 the smell of pesticide. We had sprayed it just this morning!’

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

শিৱগংগাৰ বতাহত বৰ্ষাসিক্ত মাটিৰ ঘ্ৰাণ

ہوا میں پھیلی مٹی کی خوشبو اور شیو گنگئی کے اِلیا راجا

हवा में तैरती मिट्टी की महक और शिवगंगा के इलयाराजा

पावसाच्या वासाने भारलेला सिवगंगईचा फेरफटका

சிவகங்கையின் மண்வாசனை

Sivagangai

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The cost of the beer three friends can knock back watching a World Cup match at a South Delhi pub is what Ishwari’s family of 17 makes in a month — just around Rs. 1,000 — stitching footballs in Kherkhi village near Meerut. Waking up early to deal with the household chores, the women and older children of the family settle down, after the men go out to work, to an arduous seven-hour routine. Ishwari, who is in her 60s, says the men don’t mind the women in the family doing this work since it doesn’t involve their leaving the house except to bring raw materials and deliver the finished goods. The family’s one financial buffer is its small plot of agricultural land — most others in the football-stitching trade in the 50-odd villages around Meerut have no such additional sources of income. 
 
 Ishwari’s family are Dalits — most ‘football-stitchers’ in the 50-odd villages around Meerut are either Muslims or landless Dalit labourers. In an average seven-hour work day, an adult can turn out three footballs; a child can make a maximum of two. For these, they are paid a measly Rs. 3 if it’s a small to average sized football, Rs. 5 for larger ones. A family of six, making around eight footballs a day, can expect not much more than Rs. 600 to Rs. 900 a month, the amount varying according to demand. Footballs, even in the local retail market, are priced anywhere between Rs. 100 and Rs. 300. If a stitch comes undone, the contractors deduct the repair cost from the labourers’ wages. In case of severe damage, such as a punctured bladder, the entire cost is recovered from the makers.
 
 
 
 India is said to be second only to Pakistan as a producer of footballs; Sialkot in Pakistan, and Jalandhar and Meerut in India are the sport’s main manufacturing centres. For this year’s World Cup, Sialkot has exported nearly 55 million footballs to Germany; Jalandhar had the ‘star contract’ in 2002. As the World Cup pushes the football demand graph steeply upwards, some contractors call for as many as 25,000 units a day. In this rare, bumper event, the wage per unit is hiked by a mere 50 paise. With no union, bargaining power or alternate means of sustenance, the villagers acquiesce. If they refuse to work at the going rate, someone else will readily agree to do so for less — this way, at least, they’re earning &#39;something&#39;.
 
 
 
 On any given day in the tiny homes and narrow gullies of Sisola, considered the football-makers ‘headquarters’, all that can be seen of the village’s women and children are several scrawny backs hunched over the wooden apparatus of their trade, its dual needles darting in and out of the colourful pentagonal pieces of rubberised material it holds. However nimble one’s fingers, punctures from the sharp needles are frequent, as are cuts from the silk threads used to suture the material. Then there’s the inevitable damage to eyesight, brought on by the long hours of squinting. “They’ve never been trained by anyone to sit properly,” says local activist Sher Mohammad Khan, “and they end up with back problems.” With no local healthcare systems, the villagers prefer to rely on rough-and-ready home methods. Even if there are the rare doctors, they are unable to afford the costs.

The World Cup season has taken children out of school; the increased demand has necessitated their being kept home to stitch the balls that will fetch their families an additional income. Khan says that there is only one primary school in the village. Private schools, at a minimum cost of Rs. 500 per child each month, inclusive of fees and stationary, are unaffordable. With more than three children per average household, providing for their education is hard. Work is the one viable option many families see for their kids.The story told from the contractor’s side may seem marginally better. Chandarbhan, 60, is one of a handful of contractors in Sisola. He says the wage per unit is fixed according to the size of the football: Rs. 4 for the smallest, and Rs. 5.5 for larger ones. Tell him that the villagers have stated different figures, and he turns his head away in denial. Contractors like Chandarbhan buy the synthetic football material in sheets from rubber industry agents at Rs. 26 per piece. The sheets are then machine-cut into pentagonal pieces. One sheet makes a single football. Add to this: thread at Rs. 220 per kilo, another Rs. 3-4 for labour — the total cost of production is around Rs. 31-32 for one football. Averting his eyes, Chandarbhan says he sells to the distributor at a maximum profit of a rupee or two. The labour rate has been unchanged for the last 10 years, if not more. “We also worked at this rate,” claims Chandarbhan. Mention inflation and he mumbles something incoherent.
 
 
 
 What about the repair deductions and the threats of getting his work done by others if his rates are refused? Chandarbhan maintains that he pays for damages from his own pocket; for the rest he has a pragmatic explanation. “There’s so much unemployment in this country; at least we’re giving them work so they can support themselves.” Chandarbhan has two children; one of them assists him while the other is in college. “I’ll make my second son a supplier or a distributor,” he says.
 
 
 
 Global March Against Child Labour is an international social movement that has been involved with the struggle to eliminate child labour from the soccer industry. In 2002, they had appealed to FIFA to take up the plight of children working in the sporting-goods industry, especially in football manufacturing units. This resulted in FIFA’s introducing a code of conduct, in collaboration with the World Federation of Sporting Goods Industry, to monitor both the Indian and the Pakistani football-making sectors. According to Global March, FIFA has failed to implement its own code and, despite pledges to eradicate child labour, 10,000 children are still involved in making footballs in Jalandhar and Meerut. Global March chairman Kailash Satyarthi says the group’s Indian arm, Bachpan Bachao Andolan, is looking at developing 10 villages in Meerut’s Janikhurd block as ‘child-friendly villages’, where it will ensure that children go to school regularly. Pohli village in Daurala block is cited as an example of the endeavour.
 
 
 
 Meanwhile, in Sisola, if you ask the kids here who’s the best footballer, they yell in chorus, “Dhoni! Sachin!” Ask them who’ll be defeated in the World Cup and the answer is pat: “Pakistan!” Khan smiles; the only game these child football-makers know is cricket, he says.
 
 
 
 
 This <a href="http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main18.asp?filename=hub070806No_Free_PF.asp">story </a>was first published in Tehelka.

No Free Kicks in Meerut

মেৰুটত ফ্ৰী কিক্ নাই

ਫੁੱਟਬਾਲ ਸਿਊਂਦਾ ਬਚਪਨ

मेरठ: फुटबॉल बनाने वाले बच्चे

ମିରଟର ଅସହାୟ ଫୁଟବଲ୍ ନିର୍ମାତା

میرٹھ میں کوئی فری کِک نہیں

Meerut

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<h4>
 View the complete album
 <a id="679" linktype="page">
 here
 </a>
 </h4><h4>
 Photographs curated by Photo Editor
 
 Binaifer Bharucha
 
 </h4>
 Details of each group of photos and name of photographer:
 
 
 Group 1: Women
 
 
 Top Left, Bottom Right: Woman in Araku Valley
 
 Madhu Gopal Rao
 
 
 Top Right: Landless farmers scavenging on a landfill
 
 Vivek Muthuramalingam
 
 
 Bottom Left: Mhajwar Adivasis, Matringa village, Surguja District, Chattisgarh
 
 P. Sainath
 
 
 
 Group 2: Bending
 
 
 Top Left: Transplanting rice in Someshwar Valley, Kumaon, Uttarakhand.
 
 Vaibhav Kaul
 
 
 Top Right: Rani in Ramnathapuram district, Tamil Nadu stirring molasses to make palm jaggery. The juice was tapped from several palm trees that her husband climbs for a living.
 
 P. Sainath
 
 
 Bottom Left: Scavenging on landfills, Kyalsanahalli, near Bangalore.
 
 Vivek Mutharamalingam
 
 
 Bottom Right: Stone crusher near Rampurhat, Birbhum
 
 Madhusree Mukherjee
 
 
 
 Group 3: Scavenging
 
 
 Top &amp; Bottom Left: Woman’s hands and legs after scavenging the landfill at Kyalsanahalli near Bangalore. A dog keeps the woman company.
 
 Vivek Muthuramalingam
 
 
 
 Group 4: Leaf picking, fishing, tacking
 
 
 Top Left: Making plates of leaves
 
 Sweta Daga
 
 
 Top Right: Tea planter, Coonoor Bottom Left: Kumta fisherwoman
 
 Vivek Muthuramalingam
 
 
 Bottom Right: Migrant labourer from Osmanabad district, now a cobbler in Pune
 
 Namita Waikar
 
 
 
 Group 5: Girls
 
 
 Top Left &amp; Bottom Right : Araku Valley series
 
 Madhu Gopal Rao
 
 
 Top Right &amp; Bottom Left: Rural girls in Ooty, Tamil Nadu
 
 Shamshad Khan
 
 
 
 Group 6: Bicycle rides, Crossing a river
 
 
 Top Left: Father takes daughters to school on bicycle in tea gardens, Dooar, Jalpaiguri, West Bengal
 
 Sandipan Raha
 
 
 Top Right: Woman and boy
 
 Umashanker Tamburu
 
 
 Bottom : Woman crossing river at Village Rani Gaon, District Basti, UP
 
 A Ram Pandey
 
 
 
 Group 7: Labour, landlessness and paddy transplantation
 
 
 Top Left: Quarry at Rampura
 
 
 Top Right: Vachati Labourers
 
 Vivek Muthurumalingam
 
 
 Bottom Right: Landfill at Kyalsanahalli
 
 Vivek Muthurumalingam
 
 
 Bottom Left: Paddy transplantation in Koraput
 
 P. Sainath
 
 
 
 Group 8: Working alone
 
 
 Top Left , Top Right, Bottom Left – Women at work in Rayagada District
 
 Natasha Narwal
 
 
 Bottom Right: Araku Valley Series
 
 Madhu Gopal Rao
 
 
 
 
 Group 9: Village life
 
 
 Top Left , Top Right &amp; Bottom Left – Women and girls, Rayagada District, Orissa
 
 Natasha Narwal
 
 
 Bottom Right – Araku Valley Series
 
 Madhu Gopal Rao
 
 
 
 Group 10: Eyes and Tattoos
 
 
 Left – Girl in Arakku Valley
 
 Madhu Gopal Rao
 
 
 Right – Ancient Art of tattoing amongst the old Pannia Tribes, very fast being replaced by new age ornaments. Malamvalam Village Colony, Gudulur Otty,
 
 Tamil Nadu Dec 2006
 
 Shamshad Khan

Photostorm: Women and their many worlds

Mumbai

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A bumpy cacophonous ride, and still smiling in Zariwada, village of Mangrol block, Junagadh district, Gujarat, atop a contraption called the chakada. This vehicle is often seen in rural Saurashtra or in the Kachchh region of Gujarat. It's a unique low-cost ride that is vital to the socioeconomic life of the people in rural parts of the state.

Wheels of the rural Indian West

دیہی ہندوستان کی ’جُگاڑ‘ سے بنی ’چھکڑا‘ گاڑی

ଗ୍ରାମୀଣ ପଶ୍ଚିମ ଭାରତୀୟଙ୍କ ଚକଗୁଡିକ

পশ্চিম ভারতের এক দেহাতি গাড়ি

Loej

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Hundreds gathered at Balitutha market area on Sunday, in the first show of strength by the anti-Posco committee after environment minister Jairam Ramesh gave the nod to South Korean steel maker Posco&#39;s proposed plant in Jagatsingpur on January 31.
 
 It was attended by villagers, activists, members of grassroot organisations from Orissa and other regions who have been opposing mining and industrial projects in the area.
 
 &quot;Displacement of livelihood is displacement of a family. How can a family stay on if their livelihood is gone?&quot; said Abhay Sahoo of the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS). &quot;The areas of Kuajang and Erasama are dependent on fishing, and with the project&#39;s proposed captive port, the fishing occupation there will be over.&quot; Sahoo said the PPSS plans to challenge the &quot;false reports&quot; given by the Orissa government to the Centre on the residence and livelihood of traditional forest dwellers in the area. &quot;We have submitted documents that prove people have been living here for more than 300 years. The government survey map of 1920-29 shows the villages of Dhinkia, Gobindpur, Patana, Nuagaon as having betel gardens and dense forests on which people are dependent on for their livelihood. These meet the conditions under the Forest Rights Act. The two committees formed by the central government pointed out serious violations. FRA is the law of the land and it has become an important tool for the movement now.&quot;
 
 Nakula Behra, 80, who owns 150 betel plants in his village in Gobindpur earns Rs 10,000 from them. His family of seven also cultivates mango, cashew, drumstick and bamboo from which they earn another Rs 3,000 a month. Along with their 36 quintals of rice and 16 cows they live comfortably. &quot;I&#39;ve been working on these fields since I was 12. Why should I go anywhere?&quot; he said. &quot;We will not allow the project and will continue with our democratic resistance till the end,&quot; added Sahoo.
 
 Present at the rally, Sankar Pani of Vasundhara, an NGO working to support community forestry in Orissa since 1991, says in Posco&#39;s case the resolution of the gram panchayat was bypassed by the district collector. &quot;Both SDLC (sub-divisional level committee) and DLC (district level committee) gave their versions despite the gram panchayat saying they don&#39;t want the project.&quot;
 
 Prasant Paikray, PPSS spokesperson, added that they plan to give a notice to the government about the gram sabhas passing the resolution on the existence of forest dwellers on the forest land.
 
 
 This article was done under the aegis of CSE media fellowships and was published in the Hindustan Times in March 2011

'I've worked here since I was 12. Why should I go?'

‘12 साल की उम्र से यहां काम कर रहा हूं. मैं क्यों जाऊं?’

Odisha

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In the thick forests of western Orissa’s Niyamgiri, should a mountain be mined is a more straightforward—and relevant—question for local residents than who should rule India, come May 2014.
 
 Last year, over the monsoon days of July and August, in 12 Supreme Court-mandated gram sabhas, hardscrabble forest dwellers of the Gouda and Kondh communities here unanimously rejected a plan to dig up the flat-topped mountain range for a bauxite mine. The 7 square kilometre mine was to feed 72 million tonnes of ore to a refinery down in the town of Lanjigarh. The refinery was commissioned in 2007 by Vedanta Aluminium Ltd, which had plans to expand production from 1 to 6 million tonnes of aluminium per year, by mining Niyamgiri and then moving on to other bauxite-rich mountain tops within a 60 kilometre radius.
 
 On a recent morning, in Ijirupa, one of the hamlets where the gram sabha rejected the mining Niyamgiri, there was no sign that a national election, said to be one of India’s most important, was merely days away. No candidate posters were slapped on the walls of the clutch of reddish-brown mud homes, and no primetime television shouting matches ran each night in this village without electricity, drinking water or a pucca road.
 
 Ijurupa resident Parvati Gouda took a break from harvesting the sickly-sweet smelling, pale yellow mahua fruit carpeting the ground, to say she was unaware of the 15 candidates contesting for her parliamentary constituency - a vast rural terrain of mountains, forests and over 4000 villages and hamlets spread across the districts of Kalahandi and Nuaparha.
 
 “What I will say is that we do not want Vedanta to take our mountain from us,” she said. Gouda’s family cultivated cotton, sunflower, rice and vegetables on their mountainside farm, perennial streams irrigating their crop in the absence of any other water source. Forest produce augmented food and income, while closely-held religious beliefs and practices revolved around nature. The dependence on ecology ran deep.
 
 Higher up the mountains in Phuldumer, entirely inhabited by the reticent Dongariya Kondh tribes, questions about elections evoked nonchalance and those about Vedanta, rage. “Who should one vote for – hatha na shankha na hathi (the hand or the conch shell or elephant – Congress, Biju Janata Dal and Bahujan Samaj party symbols respectively),” asked one young man in Kui, axe resting on his right shoulder, while the beats of village drums for a prayer wafted through the air. “Who is against Vedanta?” No candidates had walked up here yet to canvass for votes. Along the kutcha roads leading to this hamlet, three buildings built by Vedanta as CSR outreach stood broken and abandoned, apparently attacked with axes by angry villagers.
 
 Down below, in Lanjigarh, an occasional campaign jeep rode the streets, fitted with loudspeakers playing songs that emphasized symbols rather than candidates, in a reference to the absence of formal literacy among rural voters. At the Lanjigarh police station, opposite CRPF barracks and a short distance from the refinery, languid policemen took a break from watching news to show charts listing the polling areas in the mountains as HS, shorthand for Highly Sensitive, or Naxal-affected. Of the 24 completely inaccessible booths in the Kalahandi constituency, 22 fell in the Lanjigarh segment.

The gram sabhas of Niyamgiri in some ways marked India’s first environmental referendum, and pointed to the chipping away of prior hierarchies and emergence of new sites of formal power. Views expressed by the villagers in the gram sabhas eventually led the Ministry of Environment and Forests this January to disallow the bauxite mine. The rejection threw into sharp relief a broader conflict playing across several resource-endowed areas of the country, including Orissa.
 
 New laws passed during the decade-long UPA regime like the Forest Rights Act (under which the Supreme Court ordered the gram sabhas), the Right to Information Act are legally empowering local communities to raise questions and voice opinions, making decision-making more democratic and participatory, but also messier and unpredictable. Greater scrutiny of corporate actions by non-state actors is also making it less easy to run roughshod over local communities and unilaterally annex the resources they depend on.
 
 Simultaneously, governments and companies are increasingly seeking to bring mineral-rich areas under their control as part of larger economic plans. Some resources, such as coal, are essential to meet India’s growing industrial and consumer power demand. Others, like iron ore, have presented an illegal and quick route to wealth and power through profitable raw exports, as pointed out by the Shah Commission’s findings on Orissa, Karnataka and Goa.
 
 Conflicts had become inevitable with growing demand, Kalahandhi’s sitting MP and Congress candidate Bhaktacharan Das opined. “But gram sabhas are going to arrest the attention of government and industry.”
 
 In a speech in the Lok Sabha in 1996, Das, a former Railways Minister in the Chandrashekhar government had strongly advocated for an aluminium plant in Kalahandi. He now said he opposes mining in Niyamgiri, and backs agro-based industries instead, “which can add value to the district’s 6000 crore rupees worth of annual agricultural produce.” Das, who brought Rahul Gandhi to visit areas in Niyamgiri like Ijirupa in 2008, defended his altered stance: “I never said industrialization should be blind and brutal. When I made the speech, I was concerned about poverty reduction. When I saw the spontaneous protests of the tribes and visited those forests, I realised mining cannot take place at their cost.”
 
 It is not just remote subsistence forest economies which are mounting a challenge to big-ticket industrialization in India’s most mined state, which holds close to 60% of the country’s bauxite, a third of its iron ore and a fourth of its coal. Prosperous settled agrarian villages are not keen to alter their lives for mining either, as evident in the state’s coastal edge where protests are underway since eight years in villages to be acquired for a steel plant by Pohang Steel Company or POSCO. The proposal represents the country’s biggest Foreign Direct Investment deal, and has been strongly backed by the Prime Minister.
 
 Last week, further west, in coal-rich Angul district’s Chhendipada block, 9 villages collectively decided they would boycott the elections on April 10. The tactic, they said, was a way of drawing attention to their demand that gram sabhas under the new Land Acquisition law should be held in their area where they can formally express opposition to acquisition of their lands for a coal mine. The new law, taking effect from 1 January 2014, introduces the consent provision for landowners.
 
 In Ministry of Coal documents, the 9 villages with over 2500 residents are depicted as the rectangular-shaped Machhakata Coal Block. The block is to be mined by the Gujarat-based industrial house of Adani, and meant to generate power for residents of Maharashtra and Gujarat. In a sleek online presentation from 2012, Adani’s plans show production in Machhakata to begin last year, as part of the company’s wider plans to increase coal mining and trading from 36 million tonnes per annum in 2012 to 300 million tonnes per annum in 2020.
 
 Chhendipada’s farmers have had other ideas. Over the last three years, roadblocks and protests by residents, often turning violent, have ensured that the administration is unable to hold the public hearing as part of the environmental clearance procedure for the mine.
 
 In sharp contrast with the Kondhs of Niyamgiri, of whom few had accessed school education or were interested in the nuances of law and the contending arms of government, Bagdia’s college-educated residents closely followed shifts in policy. They surfed the internet, filed Right to Information requests, moved courts and tracked which party was saying what. “The new Land Acquisition law has been passed, but why is our local Congress MP not supporting it?” asked Bagdia resident and engineering lecturer Satyabrata Pradhan in an interview on a recent afternoon, explaining why the 9 villages including his would boycott the April elections. “Let the gram sabha consent provision of the new law be applied to us – if seventy per cent of the residents say yes to the mine, we are ready to be displaced.”

Bagdia consists of paddy and vegetable farms, and large mango and cashew orchards, with elephant herds frequently dropping in from the adjoining Kosala Reserve Forest. This afternoon, residents sat in neat lines outside a village temple for a community feast, eating rice, dal-with-vegetables or dalma and tomato chutney from leaf plates. With their pucca houses and two and four-wheelers, the protesting farmers were akin to a rural middle class, expressing as much contempt for subsidies to the poor, as for politicians across parties and industrialists, who they saw as striking private deals and helping each other grow rich (“Why does Modi use Adani’s jet?”, asked one local, referring to a media report).
 
 “We are far from the era of Hirakud (the large dam in western Orissa built in the wake of independence), when farmers would be told to make a sacrifice for the nation and be evicted,” said Jagadish Pradhan, Kalahandi native and former member of the National Commission for Farmers, referring to the altering grounds of aspirations and rights in rural Orissa. “There is a realisation now that mining does not even create the kind of jobs and prosperity it promises to locals.”
 
 Figures from the state’s Economic Survey of 2012-13 support Pradhan’s argument: the value of minerals produced in the state increased over ten-fold from 2776 crore rupees in 2001-2 to 30,204 crore rupees in 2011-12. The sector’s employment in the corresponding period fell marginally from 52,937 to 48,239 jobs, reflecting increased mechanisation, according to the report.
 
 “Give us alternative land if you want to take our land, and we will leave,” said Bagdia resident Sujit Garnayak, a 34 year-old farmer. “Why should we give up what will always sustain us for a temporary job in a coal mine?”
 
 Creating jobs is the biggest task before the government, argued Xavier Institute of Management professor, and a former State Planning board member, Banikanta Mishra. He said that over the past decade, the state government had overly relied on mining for quick royalty revenues to the exchequer, while side-stepping the more difficult and intensive task of creating a model of growth with a broader and more sustainable base. If Naveen Patnaik returned to power in May for his fourth term as Chief Minister, Mishra said, “I would hope he focuses much more on jobs and incomes particularly related to agriculture and rural skills, rather than that one big mining project, which makes headlines.”
 
 “A well in our village – that way we could harvest a larger produce,” said Ijurupa’s Parvati Gouda, when asked what she desires from her elected representative. “Two tins of sunflower oil would become four tins then.”
 
 
 A version of this appeared in Mint newspaper on 8 April 2014 and can be accessed
 <a href="http://www.livemint.com/Specials/hVfKBzeVRzhPVe1ZYqo19L/Mining-row-overshadows-polls-in-Niyamgiri.html">
 here
 </a>

Fate of a Mountain Trumps Fate of an Election

भवितव्‍य… डोंगराचं आणि निवडणुकीचं!

پہاڑ کا مقدر انتخابات پر بھاری

ପାହାଡ଼ର ଭାଗ୍ୟ ଉପରେ ନିର୍ଭର କରୁଛି ନିର୍ବାଚନ

Rayagada

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Almost every year, for as long as anyone can remember, the Purbannapara community of Makardah village in Howrah, West Bengal, has held a Tubri
 
 protijogita
 
 or competition for making the brightest, biggest, and longest-lasting
 
 tubri
 
 . A kind of firework, the
 
 tubri
 
 looks rather like a Christmas tree and can loosely be called a Roman candle, but there is no real equivalent in the western world. In Bengal, those village men who are experts in the craft teach their nephews and other boys to make a
 
 tubri, along with other types of fireworks, around the time of Kali Pujo, the local version of Diwali. The competition is typically held a week or two after Diwali, as an extension of the Festival of Lights.
 
 In the early evening, Purbannapara's central courtyard, where all festivals are held, is prepared by erecting two bamboo poles, tied to one another. The resulting single pole will serve to measure the height of the competing
 
 tubris, which can reach as high as 70 feet.

Meanwhile
 
 tubri
 
 making teams, including two from other villages in southern Bengal, have arrived and are assembling their competition entries, each in a different hidden corner of the village. A
 
 tubri
 
 consists of a powdered mixture of salpeter, sulphur and charcoal, combined with iron filings, stuffed tight into a spherical shell made of baked earth. A small hole in the top of the casing allows the powder to be lighted. Each team has its own secret formula for the quantities and graininess of the ingredients, which have to be pounded and mixed fresh for maximum effect.
 
 As more exotic metal shavings become available in local factories, the firework makers have been experimenting with these as well. One team is reported to incorporate antimony, for instance. Aluminium shavings are also common, as a substitute for iron flakes. (Whereas iron burns in yellowish sparkles, aluminium burns a brilliant white, which may be prettier; but aluminium also reduces the height and lifespan of the resulting
 
 tubri
 
 .)
 
 All the teams, however, appear to buy the earthenware casings, which have to withstand tremendous heat and pressure, from a single aged potter. He may be the one irreplaceable key to the tradition.
 
 One team has chosen to prepare its entries behind the village's Shiv temple, whose front has been dressed for the occasion. The powders are ground, mixed, and then pounded tight into the casing, the diameter of which is limited by the competition rules to four inches.

On this night of November 2013, 124
 
 tubris
 
 will flare. The other visiting team, behind the temple, will also take home one of the top cash prizes of a few thousand rupees, donated by a local entrepreneur.
 
 The competition commences with the lighting of a
 
 tubri.
 
 The firework is set inside a cubical metal frame, designed and made by a local engineer, in order to protect the audience from flying fragments of what is essentially a bomb should the casing burst, which happens often (right).

The Tubri competition

पश्चिम बंगाल की तुबड़ी प्रतियोगिता

ଟ୍ୟୁବ୍ରି ପ୍ରତିଯୋଗିତା

ٹوبری مقابلہ

Makardah

kathulappa_fo_g._chinna_sainna_mbn_no._23.jpg

MAHBUBNAGAR, MEDAK &amp; ANANTAPURA Kathulappa wants to talk to us about his son, Chinna Saianna, but cannot. Tears fill the old man&#39;s eyes each time he tries. So he turns to his grandson Narasimhulu to have him tell us the story. It is not much different from that of hundreds of other farmers who have committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh. With one twist in the tale.This family&#39;s chance of getting any compensation is bleak. No post-mortem examination was done last December when Saianna took his own life in Jengarala in Mahbubnagar district. Which means they cannot now establish suicide as the cause of death.It was not done because they could not afford it. And there are many such households that did not get post-mortems done. Some, for sentimental reasons. Others, because it costs too much.In most places, `post-mortem&#39; (Latin for `after death&#39;) is taken to mean the autopsy or examination of a body after demise.That is, to help determine the cause of death. In much of rural Andhra, it means a heap of other things. It is a thriving after-death industry.Paying for it.It means, for instance, &quot;you have to pay the police, the doctor, the orderly, the man who drives the body to the hospital,&quot; says G. Shekhar in Jengarala. Seeing us struggle with this, he laughs: &quot;Surprised? When even getting the simplest signature from an official costs Rs.50, did you think this would come free?&quot;In theory, yes. There is no charge for a post-mortem. But people do end up paying.Most of the households hit by suicides that we surveyed across six districts had forked out money for this.Many had spent around Rs.5,000. Several had shelled out much more. Some had ended up losing as much as Rs.10,000 on the process.&quot;It is illegal. It is also heartless to torment people already in grief and so deep in debt,&quot; says Dr. M. Geyanand. A medical practitioner in Anantapur, he points out that: &quot;One in the family has just killed himself because of debt. Then comes this pressure to incur more of it.&quot; Many of those who paid speak freely of the sums spent on the different actors. But are cagey when it comes to saying what they paid the police. Typically, the man driving the jeep with the body to the post-mortem venue got Rs.2,000. The police took between that and Rs.3,000. The `orderly&#39; or attender got Rs.1,000. And the doctor&#39;s charge varied from nothing to Rs.2,000.&quot;A cost of Rs.6,000 is guaranteed,&quot; says Shekhar in Jengarala. Even where it is less, it is still a burden for families drowning in debt.&quot;The thing is meant to be entirely free,&quot; says a disgusted Dr. Desam Sreenivasa Reddy in Kalyandurg, Anantapur.&quot;In any case, the role of the doctor is next to nil. The attender does most of the work. He cuts open the body. He dictates what he has found and the doctor merely takes notes. Few will do that attender&#39;s job. In one case, a man who had been transferred on promotion was held back because there was no one else to do this work.&quot;Post-mortem problems.However, it is not just the farmers&#39; suicides that see post-mortem problems.As Dr. Reddy says: &quot;When it&#39;s a medico-legal case, the pressures become intense. And the role of some of the forensic people is terrible. What happens if you call a murder a murder and it upsets somebody really powerful? Those involved can and will be bullied to fix the result.There have been controversies over a couple of exhumations, too. Their final verdict is in doubt.At some point down the line, people begin to wonder: why fight and get into trouble? Why not just take the money? This logic of `why not make some money&#39; has now extended to the suicides as well.&quot;&quot;All that, however,&quot; say Dr. Reddy and Dr. Geyanand, &quot;in no way justifies this extortion. Nor the harassment of those unable to resist.&quot;Both doctors are with the Jana Vignyana Vedika, a body that aims to promote popular science and the scientific temper. The JVV, of which Dr. Geyanand is State president, has been active in tracking many aspects of the ongoing agrarian crisis.The after-death business is widespread. The family of Duggala Mallappa in Anantapur spent close to Rs.10,000 after his death.In the case of Gobaribai, whose husband Kamali Nayak committed suicide in Vajrakarur, it cost Rs.6,000. &quot;We raised it through a chanda [contribution] from all our friends,&quot; says this Adivasi family. It was over Rs.3,000 for the extremely poor Dalit family of Pandhi Posaiah who took his life in Chinnarevali in Mahbubnagar. All Posaiah&#39;s sons are bonded labourers. They took the money on loan.Adding to the debtIn Akapur, Nizamabad, the family of Ponnala Hanumantha Reddy borrowed Rs.5,000 for this. They are already Rs.5 lakh in debt.There were some families that escaped without paying anything. Like those of Dasari Mahendru in Anantapur and Sangolla Narasimhulu in Medak who spent nothing. And where the usual actors were more sensitive. But these were not many. In the case of Mahendru, neighbours joked that &quot;even the police found nothing to squeeze here.&quot;But it is the families that did not seek a post-mortem who today face more trouble. How do they now prove it was a suicide? &quot;This is a huge problem,&quot; says Dr. Reddy.&quot;How will they get their compensation if they cannot prove it?&quot; More so if the death occurred a while ago.The family of Prathap Reddy in Chelmada who killed himself in May 2003 in Medak now wishes they had sought one.&quot;They simply did not have the money at the time,&quot; says a neighbour. It is also what Kathulappa is trying to tell us in Jengarala. His tears are now on his cheeks.For many in the crisis here, death does not come as the end. Just as the beginning of a new burden for their families.A version of this article was originally published in The Hindu at:<a href="http://www.hindu.com/2004/08/08/stories/2004080804671400.htm">http://www.hindu.com/2004/08/08/stories/2004080804671400.htm</a>

The after-death industry

মরণোত্তর ব্যবসা

மரணத்துக்குப் பிறகான தொழில்

ମୃତ୍ୟୁ ପରର ଉଦ୍ୟୋଗ

मरणोपरांत उद्योग

بعد از مرگ صنعت

Medak

moongiben_2.jpg

Meet Moongiben from Jujharpur village in the Junagadh District of Gujarat. She is wearing an ankle ornament called “Kadla” that weighs a half kg. The Kadla is traditionally worn by the Koli community of Gujarat. Made of silver, the weight of this ornament can range from half a kg to one kg each.

Koli Kadlas

k.eranna.jpg

FOR G. Janardhana Reddy, life has never looked this good.
 
 The 42-year-old mining tycoon and BJP minister in the Karnataka state government has made untold wealth in recent years, exporting iron ore to China from the hot and dusty mineral-rich district of Bellary, 290 kilometres north of Bangalore.
 
 On a recent morning, emerging from a meeting to engineer the defection of two opposition councilors to make the 35-member Bellary Municipal Corporation a complete BJP sweep, a buoyant and nattily dressed Reddy says: “Even I do not know how much money I have made in the last five years… I am currently building a Rs 20,000-crore steel plant in Cudappah (in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh).”
 
 Within weeks of coming into power, Reddy drafted a mining policy for the state under which fresh mining leases would be given only to applicants who could “value-add”.
 
 In other words, industrialists like him.
 
 “My personal worth must be around Rs 1,500 crore,” Reddy estimates.
 
 That’s more than the cumulative income of over 50 per cent of Bellary’s 15 lakh voters, and not a bad showing for a police constable’s son who entered business in 1989 by pooling Rs 35,000 with friends to set up a financial savings firm.
 
 Today, Reddy&#39;s wealth has translated into two personal helicopters, numerous luxury cars, and vast political power as he cements his party’s reversed fortunes on election eve.
 
 Till 1999, the backward Bellary district was undistinguished on India’s political map, and a Congress stronghold. The party had won every Lok Sabha election since Independence, and chose Bellary to deliver a win to party head Sonia Gandhi in her debut election against Sushma Swaraj.
 
 Today, things could not be more different.
 
 Three legislators from the district, including Reddy and his elder brother, are ministers in the state cabinet, and at the centre of the BJP’s power in the state.
 
 Reddy’s elder brother won the party its first Parliamentary seat here in 2004, and Reddy promises a repeat by the BJP’s candidate and sister of a local MLA J. Shanti in the elections on April 23.

Lounging at the cool, blue swimming pool at his Swiss-style chalet being built at the foot of Bellary’s sprawling rock mountain, the businessman says: “I am guaranteeing an unimaginable majority for her.”
 
 Since her painful loss in 1999, Madam (Sushma Swaraj) has mentored the Reddy family and its entry into politics. Their wealth from mining has been deployed to bankroll multi-crore electoral campaigns in the region, and the state.
 
 After the 2008 Assembly polls, election commissioners speaking to seminar audiences in Delhi and Mumbai criticised the rank display of wealth, saying it was “destroying democracy”. Back in Bellary, the criticism means little.
 
 Reddy laughs off charges of bribing voters, saying: “I don’t need to do all that… Deve Gowda [chief of the rival Janata Dal (Secular)] does.”
 
 
 In the slums of Bellary, peopled mostly by Dalits and Muslims, contrary voices tumble out.
 
 
 “The day before the elections, all parties came and gave Rs 1,000 for every voter,” Carpenter Gannana (45) says of the Assembly polls.
 
 Gannana is unsure if the money, a third of his monthly salary, and the vote, are empowering people like him.
 
 “When I went to the mayor for help some months ago with a small loans government scheme for Dalits, she brushed me off, saying, ‘Did you vote for me for free?’”

In his modest home, physician T. Ramanath, son of Tekur Subramaniam, Bellary’s three-time Member of Parliament from1947, takes a yellowing album down from a shelf to show five-decade-old pictures of his father breakfasting cross-legged on the floor of their house with a visiting Lal Bahadur Shashtri.
 
 “We became poorer after my father became an MP, because his salary was less than what he had been earning from his legal practice,” the medic says. “Can one say that about any politician today? They are all bribing and making money.”
 
 Ramanath is ambivalent about the recent changes in Bellary.
 
 “A handful of people have made money from mining. Industrial development is spreading, which is good. But pollution has increased, forests are being cut down, and locals are increasingly suffering diseases like cancer and tuberculosis.”
 
 A 65-kilometre drive over broken roads leads to the red-smog-clad Lakshmipura village at the heart of Bellary’s mining flurry.
 
 Residents like farmer Mulemani Eranna are livid at how the rush for iron ore is turning their world upside down.
 
 Staring at the Holi Kunte, a vast rainwater reservoir nestling between mountains, where waters have turned rust red and laced with poison from the iron ore dust, the unlettered farmer in a mud-stained lungi says: “This is the water that once irrigated our farms. Our lands and waters are being polluted, and our forests destroyed.&quot;
 
 &quot;We want a stop to this. But miners are rich ministers, so why should the government listen?”
 
 
 A version of this story appeared in The Hindustan Times in March 2009

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

বেল্লাৰীৰ মাটি এতিয়া ৰঙা-অনুৰ্বৰ, প্ৰদূষিত জলাশয়

بیلاری میں سرخ بادل کے نیچے زندگی

Bellary

ahmednagar_cutters.jpg

Rukhmini Shingte, a lean sugarcane cutter in her mid-40s, bends double to enter the cramped enclosure of sugarcane stalks that has been home to her four-member family since November when they left their village. Like the thousand other homes in this colony of sugarcane cutters outside the Mula Sugar Cooperative in central Maharashtra&#39;s Ahmednagar district, her hut too only contains a battered tin case of clothes and a bunch of worn vessels.
 
 Over 500 kilometres away in south Gujarat, outside the Bardoli Cooperative, one of the state&#39;s largest and earliest sugar cooperatives, a ragged army of more than a thousand harvesters feeds a continuous supply of cane to the factories, relocating from field to field every few weeks.
 
 The koytas, literally &#39;sickle&#39; but factory-speak here for &#39;cutters&#39;, are the rural poor from a slew of districts in Maharashtra , from Nandurbar and Nashik to Pune and Jalgaon.
 
 Every year, when the monsoon begins its retreat from the villages of central Maharashtra&#39;s arid Marathwada belt, up to half-a-million of its rural poor begin a desperate migration for work that ends in India&#39;s largest swathe of sugar country.
 
 The great expanse of sugarcane fields begins in the diamond industry city of Surat in southern Gujarat, sprawls across prosperous western Maharashtra, and tapers into Belgaum in north Karnataka. The harvest season typically runs from November to April, and in particularly good seasons like this year, even longer, until May. The cutters have harvested a record crop of 81 lakh tonnes this year.
 
 The annual migration is over four decades old; its routes are well established. The employers – more than 200 sugar cooperative factories across the three-state swathe – and employees – landless or subsistence farmers – are also constant. But sugarcane profits keep spiralling: an estimated Rs. 15,000 crore this year, according to Prakash Naiknavare, managing director of the Maharashtra State Sugar Cooperative Factories Federation (MSSCFF). The profits grow even as the migrants remain impoverished.
 Two-thirds of Maharashtra&#39;s sugar factories are in the hands of some of the state&#39;s leading and wealthiest politicians, including Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh of the Congress party, and leader of the opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party&#39;s Gopinath Munde. The koytas are mostly from Maharashtra&#39;s historically disadvantaged castes and tribes. Little of their sub-marginal land is irrigated, forcing them to abandon their villages at the end of the rain-fed agricultural season. In contrast, their destination is a lush expanse of the water-intensive sugarcane crop, serviced by a large network of dams.
 
 There&#39;s a big advantage to having an army of labourers working round-the-clock to feed Maharashtra&#39;s 172 factories in these days of record harvests and competitive economic growth. &quot;Unlike other states like Uttar Pradesh, here cutters, not farmers, cut the cane, ensuring it is at the factory and crushed within 24 hours,&quot; says Naiknavare. &quot;That ensures Maharashtra has a higher recovery rate of sugar from the sugarcane – 11.5 per cent, as opposed to the national average of 10 per cent.&quot;

Living on the edgeEach winter, as the migration begins, large refugee camp-like colonies take shape outside factory gates. The colonies&#39; inhabitants make do without running water or electricity. In such circumstances, women and girls who migrate for work, face additional hardships. They have to collect water from a communal source for the entire family, and they are forced to bathe in the open.In the darkness of the night, between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m., cutter couples of husband and wife, often accompanied by their older children, leave for the sugarcane fields, returning by the end of the afternoon to join a long line of cane-laden bullock carts at the factory gates, feeding an uninterrupted supply of cane that keeps the factories humming 24/7.During the day, the settlement&#39;s only inhabitants are the aged and little children. Smoke rises from the burning cowdung cakes that young girls, some of them less than 10 years old, cook on. Household work, including cleaning, cooking and taking care of any cattle, gets delegated to the girls. The ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services) does not take into account the needs of rural Indians on the move, and thus ignores the children in these colonies.

Because they migrate, families also lose other welfare entitlements like foodgrain under the public distribution system. Food must be procured from different sources. In Bardoli, over the sickly sweet stench of the molasses, women cook the coarse, low-quality jowar that the factory gives them as part payment. Some migrants&#39; colonies have grain shops, like the one outside the Nevasa factory. 
 There are no public health services that the migrant workers can access; the factories have a doctor to deal with injuries or fever – more to keep the cutters fit for work than concern for their health. The work is physically draining, and the workers have learned to live with body aches and ailments.

School is a sugar-coated dreamAn empty dusty godown is the factory-run sakhar shala (sugar school) in Beed. It is housed in the Vaijnath Sugar Cooperative run by Gopinath Munde. It has no water or toilets, desks or benches. You will also not find any children from the sprawling colony of cane cutters, only a register with over 200 names that shows near universal attendance. When asked about the empty school in his factory, BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Munde said: &quot;Sakhar shalas might not be running, but at least they have been set up. Is that not a great improvement from before?&quot;In the colony outside, children wander unattended. Sheetal Munde, who should be in the school, is among them, collecting water for the day&#39;s use. She was once in school, but the annual migration slowly weaned her out. &quot;I missed school for six months and then failed. Then I left,&quot; she says. Sheetal cuts cane and is also assigned the work of cooking, cleaning and taking care of the livestock. Like several children in the colony, she makes bundles of the tops of sugarcane stalks that can be sold (Rs 30 for 100 bundles of 20 stalks each) to the village as fodder to contribute to the family&#39;s income.Multiply Sheetal&#39;s story by 1.7 lakhs to see the effects on education of the distress migration. That is the figure thrown up by a survey done through village schoolteachers for the ongoing school year, by the state&#39;s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). In Uppalkheda, for example, by November 2006, more than 100 families left for the sugarcane fields of Surat. &quot;The classrooms are emptied of 60-70 per cent of students,&quot; says teacher K. S. Rathod.Government officials claim they are addressing the fallout of this annual six-month migration. &quot;Half the children, or about 70,000, have been kept back in village hostels that we began this year, and have not migrated with their parents,&quot; said Narendra Kawde, director of the SSA. &quot;All the others are being covered by sakhar shalas run by the sugar factories.&quot;The education department puts the burden of educating migrant children on the mills, providing them with annual grants. According to SSA Directorate statistics, 643 schools – more than four at every sugar factory – are ensuring that migrating children get education. On the ground, many factories have no schools. In others, like Munde&#39;s Vaijanath factory, the schools do not function.The SSA or &#39;Education for All&#39;, the Centre&#39;s six-year-old flagship programme, was aimed at ensuring that all children complete five years of school education by 2007. But it has not managed to ensure this for one of the most vulnerable groups of children, in transit for half the year. Thousands of children continue to fall through the cracks, despite the sakhar shalas at the factory and resident hostels in the village.A state survey in Latur indicated that only 550 children have been migrating. But at Vilasrao Deshmukh&#39;s Manjara cooperative sugar factory in Latur – just one of 10 in the district – a survey by local schoolteacher Purushottam Gilda, in December 2006, showed over 200 children of school-going age living outside the factory. &quot;It is especially hard to ensure that parents send the girls to school,&quot; Gilda says, &quot;since they are needed to do the housework when the parents work in the fields.&quot;

Profiteering from distress 
 In addition to living in extremely difficult conditions, the work terms are deeply exploitative, violating all existing labour legislation and pinning the workers down in a never-ending cycle of privation.
 
 Factories hire the cutters in couples through an obscure but efficient network of labour brokers or mukadams , who thrive on the seasonal distress. A few thousand rupees, advanced in the monsoon, allow the family to subsist. This amount must be paid back through labour in the harvest season. Whole families, adults and children, then get pulled into the work.
 
 In the darkness of the night, after a day&#39;s harvesting in the fields, Rukhmini shows us a heap of crumpled parchis (chits) that record the amount of cane her family has cut over the past few weeks. With no formal education, like most other women cutters she can neither read the figures nor will they bring her family any direct wages. They are guides for the factory to fix the mukadam&#39;s commission, which ranges from 10 to 30 per cent.
 
 Naiknavare, managing director of the MSSCFF since 1999, sees little wrong in the work terms of the migrant cutters, who feed his federation&#39;s 172 sugar factories with an uninterrupted supply of cane in the threshing season. He argues: &quot;The 9 lakh cutters do not fit in the proper definition of labour since they are neither my (the factory&#39;s) direct employees, nor the mukadam&#39;s. They are therefore not labourers in the formal sense.&quot;
 
 Neeraj Hatekar, economist at Mumbai University, explains the lopsidedness: &quot;Migrants from Marathwada have no stake in the cooperative set-up. Factories, headed by politicians, are unwilling to incur any costs on them. So political parties will agitate for a better price for sugarcane but never any basic rights for the cutters... they continue to remain at the very margins.&quot;
 
 Dutch anthropologist Jan Breman, who began studying the condition of the cane cutters in 1976 in Surat , says he has seen little change in three decades. &quot;In the new economy of India, labour at large gets a raw deal and migrants even more so,&quot; says Breman. &quot;At the bottom of the labour market the supply is much higher than the demand and this explains the weak bargaining position of seasonal migrants such as sugarcane harvesters. It is a feature of a labour regime which is thoroughly informalised.&quot;
 
 The state of the sugarcane cutters exemplifies the worst trends of India &#39;s poorly regulated informal sector, which employs over 300 million, or 90% of India &#39;s workforce. Unorganised labourers like cane cutters were high on the agenda of the UPA government, which set up the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector as a watchdog and advisor.
 
 A draft Unorganised Workers Social Security Bill, prepared by the Commission, has been with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh&#39;s Office since May 2005. Now, the Commission has put out a draft of yet another proposed legislation, the Unorganised Agricultural Sector Workers (Conditions of Work and Livelihood Promotion) Bill, for feedback from state governments and civil society agencies.
 
 The National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) programme was meant to arrest distress migration by giving rural households 100 days of assured work every year after the monsoon. At least half of those on such rural works, the law says, must be women. But in several villages from where cane cutters migrate, the programme does not exist. In Uppalkheda village, full of empty houses, the reason is evident. The sarpanch is a key implementer under the NREG programme. Devidas Pawar, the sarpanch of this village of Vanjarias in northern Aurangabad, doubles up as the mukadam: he, and before him his father, have been sending villagers to Surat &#39;s sugar factories for four decades.
 
 The crop has been good this year, the profits high. The mukadams, the politicians, they are all riding the boom. The exhausted workers have returned to their villages with meagre earnings, to carve out a living from arid bits of land. The stench of the molasses is still strong.
 A version of this reportage originally appeared in the Hindustan Times in April 2007.

A bitter harvest

گنا کاٹنے والے مزدوروں کی خستہ حالی

Beed

debaldeb1.jpg

The Sunday morning in July marked the fifth straight day of rain in the fecund foothills of the Niyamgiri range in western Orissa’s Rayagada district. The delayed showers kicked off the year’s busiest period for ecologist Debal Deb, and his right-hand man Dulal, as they prepared Basudha—a 2-acre farm unlike any other in India—for an intricately planned growing season.
 
 Wrap your mind around this: over the coming days, the farm would see the planting of 1020 indigenous varieties of rice - part of a remarkable effort underway since 1996 towards rescuing a sliver of India’s genetic diversity from extinction.
 
 This wouldn’t just mean planting 1000 varieties of rice saplings on a plot one-tenth the size of Mumbai’s Oval Maidan, and watching them grow. Maintaining the genetic purity of each of these heirloom varieties, year on year, necessitated an intricate sowing plan crafted by Deb and his colleagues, so that no two neighbouring varieties flower at the same time, thus guarding against cross-pollination. (Deb published his methodology in the Current Science journal in July 2006, after field-testing it for six years.) The constant addition of vanishing varieties to Deb’s growing collection – last year it numbered 960 – means the plan needs seasonal redesigning.
 
 
 India’s Genetic Erosion
 
 
 Rice - daily sustenance for a majority of Indians - is a grass species, believed to have been domesticated over 10,000 years ago in a broad region extending from the north-eastern Himalayan foothills to southern China and south-east Asia. Over the centuries, human hands selected thousands of different strains, evolved in response to specific ecological niches. The undulating region of western Orissa called the Jeypore tract was one of the world’s leading areas of diversification where a great number of rice varieties, also called land races, were developed by cultivators - “the un-named, unknown, and greatly talented scientists of the past”, as Deb calls them.

In the 1960s, when Deb was growing up in Kolkata, India was estimated to have over 70,000 such rice land races. According to a 1991 National Geographic essay, just 20 years later, with scientists and policy makers chasing high yields through aggressively pushed modern, input-intensive hybrids, over 75% of India’s rice production was coming from under 10 varieties.
 
 This devastating and irreversible genetic erosion from India’s farms continues: for example, rice varieties from West Bengal, which Deb had collected just five years ago, can no longer be found cultivated. The disappearance is insidious. “It can result from something as innocuous as a farmer dying, and his son dropping the variety,” says Deb. “I witnessed this on a farm in Birbhum, with a rare two-grained variety called Jugal.”

An Indian Institute of Science alum and a former Fulbright scholar at the University of California Berkeley, Deb abandoned his job at the Worldwide Wildlife Fund in the mid-1990s after struggling to convince colleagues to fund documentation of Bengal’s vanishing rice varieties. “Conservation organisations suffer from what I call charismatic mega-fauna species syndrome,” he says acerbically. “Tigers–yes. Rhinos–yes. But if some earthworms or beetles are going extinct because of chemical pollutants on a farm, who cares?”
 
 Deb headed out to villages in search of indigenous rice, often travelling on bus rooftops or by foot – an iconoclast by temperament, the small, wiry man still abjures institutional links, relying on teaching assignments in European and American universities and donations from friends to sustain Basudha. He particularly sought out areas that were remote, un-irrigated, and having marginal farmers, who could not afford chemical inputs and seeds from the market. “The places Indian elites like to call ‘backward’ such as tribal areas were those with the greatest chances of having retained these varieties over time,” says Deb. “When I would find such a variety, I would ask the farmer’s family for a handful, explain why I wanted it, thank them for preserving a vital part of our heritage, and urge them to not give up cultivating it.”
 
 Using such barefoot methods, Deb has collected 1020 desi rice varieties over the past 18 years. They come from 13 states across North-Eastern, Eastern and Southern India. Kashmir with 2 indigenous varieties is the latest entrant to the seed bank, which Deb has named Vrihi, Sanskrit for rice. There are seeds that will grow in soils with high salinity, or conditions of submergence; others are drought or flood-tolerant, yet others are resistant to attacks from varying pathogens, while some are suited for dryland cultivation. There are medicinal varieties as well as 88 aromatic varieties.

These land races – embodying centuries of accumulated knowledge – and farmers who can work with them are crucial for a sustainable ecological agriculture, argues Deb. Annual seed conservation trainings and a distribution effort centred on the small farmer complement his in-situ conservation project, resulting in an informal personal network of about 3000 cultivators. Farmers who approach Basudha for seeds get them free of cost, with a plea to grow them and in turn become distributors to other farmers, to help reduce the chances of the variety going extinct.
 
 Last December, having heard of the seed bank, 40 Malkangiri farmers travelled over 200 kms to Basudha’s doorstep, and demanded indigenous seeds for their farms. “Not one asked about yield or market price,” says Deb. “It was a very moving moment for us.” Deb is also proud that the farm stands on a common property land in Rayagada’s adivasi village of Kerandiguda – its residents invited Deb after taking seeds from his bank, and hearing that he was in search of a place to house his project.
 
 The communitarian ethos defining Deb’s work sharply contrasts with agricultural policymaking, where the voices of the small farmer—the largest group of Indians—are often impossible to detect. Take for example, a Rice Gene Bank built in recent years by the state government. Located in a government building in suburban Bhubaneshwar, 900 varieties from across Orissa are sealed in aluminium foil packets, and preserved at zero degrees in an impressive facility. It is a laudable effort. Only, how does an average farmer access it?
 
 Officials watching over the collection say they cannot give farmers seed samples to cultivate since these might fall into the wrong hands (read: seed companies, who might exploit the genes for developing new proprietary seed lines). Never mind that the entire collection was built with farmer contributions from across the state. Why does the state not officially release these desi varieties in the market to encourage their use, and thereby survival? The release process, admit bureaucrats, is skewed towards modern, commercial varieties developed by breeders in government labs or private seed companies.
 
 Besides being inaccessible to the average farmer, says Deb, official gene banks like the above neglect the process of life’s co-evolution, by freezing seeds in time. “Bring out seeds of a pest-resistant variety after 30-40 years. They will have lost some major traits of defence since in the mean time the pest has evolved,” he says. “They might be useful for research but are not geared towards our farmers in the field.” Deb also counters the official argument that indigenous varieties mean inferior yields: “I have several varieties which outperform the so-called High Yielding varieties.” High yields, he reminds, do not ensure food security, pointing to India being home to record stockpiles of rice and wheat, as well as a quarter of the world’s under-nourished.

Over lunch – greens, vegetables, dal and rice combining eight different varieties from the farm – Deb asked if we could measure our heirlooms in money. “Imagine a unique painting , a saree...an ornament which has been in your family for 200 years – would you sell it off to make money?” he asked. “That’s how these indigenous rice varieties are – they are our culture.”
 
 
 A version of this piece first appeared in Mint Lounge&#39;s August 2014 Independence Day Issue: http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/bmr5i8vBw06RDiNFms2swK/Debal-Deb--The-barefoot-conservator.html

The Barefoot Conservator

ଖାଲି ପାଦର ସଂରକ୍ଷକ

अनवाणी संरक्षक

பாரம்பரிய விதைகளின் பாதுகாவலர்

برہنہ پا محافظ

jalayalkshmamma_2_ev.jpg

When Jayalakshmamma finishes her 12 hours of labour on those days she can find work  she's entitled to less than a fourth of the rice given to a convict in prison. In fact, the rice she gets on average for a whole day is far less than what the incarcerated offender gets in a single meal.
 
 Jayalakshmamma is not a convict in prison. She's a marginal farmer whose husband H.M. Krishna, 45, killed himself in Huluganahalli village of Mandya district four years ago. This district was among the worst affected by the farm suicides of 2003 in Karnataka. In this State, her BPL (below the poverty line) card entitles her to only four kg of rice (and a kg of wheat) a month. True, those four kg are subsidised by the State. But she cannot afford to buy a lot more than that at prevailing market price. She is also one of over a lakh of women across India who have lost their husbands in suicides arising from the farm crisis these past 14 years.
 
 "Four kilograms a month means about 135 grams a day," says T. Yashavantha, who is from a farming family of the same district. He is also State vice-president of the Students Federation of India. "Even an undertrial or convict gets more." What's more, they get cooked rice. She gets four kg of grain. Jail diets in the State vary according to whether the prisoner is on a "rice diet," a "ragi diet" or a "chapati diet." Jail officials in Bangalore told
 
 The Hindu
 
 "those on rice diets and doing rigorous imprisonment get 710 grams of cooked rice per meal. Those on non-rice diets get 290 grams of rice. Undertrials and those doing simple imprisonment [who are on rice diets] get 505 grams of rice per meal."
 
 The convict doing rigorous imprisonment does eight hours of labour. Jayalakshmamma does 12 or more. "But her entitlement is 45 grams per meal if she has three a day," points out Mr. Yashavantha. She doesn't have the time, though, to make comparisons. Her daughter now works at breadline wages in a Bangalore garment company. "At most she can send us Rs.500 in a year," she told us at her village. This leaves her son and herself at home. Their joint entitlement on the BPL card would yield 270 grams per day. That is: they would together still get less rice than even a prisoner on "ragi diet" gets 290 grams or more.

They own around 0.4 acres and had leased two acres before Krishna's 
suicide. "On the former we grew vegetables. On the latter, we had sericulture. Vegetable prices have been terrible. Once, we got Rs.1 a 
kilo for tomatoes. And water costs came to Rs.9,000 (or Rs.70 per hour) 
over six months." Now they have only the 0.4 acres. "We also sold all 
our livestock after his death." They have been paying off his loans and 
most of the compensation they received appears to have gone this way. 
"My boy Nandipa grazes the goats of others but there's no daily income 
from it." Instead, they will share the offspring of the animals if any with the owner. "I myself make Rs.35 a day working this off-season."
 "I wanted Nandipa to study. But he was in despair. Three years ago, then
 aged 12, he ran off to Bangalore and worked in a hotel. There he was 
beaten by the owner. He ran away, took the wrong train and landed up in 
Mumbai. After a while, he was brought back."
 "All widows have problems. But those bereaved by the farm crisis suffer 
worse," says Sunanda Jayaram, president of the women's wing of the 
Karnataka Rajya Ryuthu Sangha (Puttanaiah group) "Even after losing her 
husband she has to maintain his father and mother, her own children and 
the farm  with no economic security for herself. And she is saddled with his debts. Her husband took his own life. She will pay the price 
all her life."
 
 
 
 In Bidarahosahalli village, Chikktayamma's state exemplifies this. Her husband, Hanumegowda, 38, killed himself in 2003. "The debts are all we're left with," she says, without self-pity. "What we earn won't pay off even the interest on loans to the money lenders." She's struggled to educate her three children  who might be forced to drop out though all want to study further. "The girls should study, too. But later, we'll have to raise lots of money for their marriages as well."

One girl, Sruthi, has done her SSLC exams and another, Bharathi, is in the second year of her pre-university course. Her son Hanumesh is in the 8th standard. Her husband's mother and a couple of other relatives also live in this house. Chikktayamma is the sole breadwinner for at least five people. "We have only 1.5 acres [on part of which she grows mangoes]. So I also work as a labourer when I can for Rs. 30 a day. I had a BPL card but they [the authorities] took it from me saying `we'll give you a new card.'" It never came back, says Mr. Yashavantha. "Instead, they gave her an APL [above the poverty line] one."

Huge Debt
 
 
 In Huligerepura, Chenamma and her family grapple with a debt of over 
Rs.2 lakh left by her husband Kadegowda, 60, who took his life four 
years ago. "Sugarcane just sank and it crushed him," says his son 
Sidhiraj. "We have only three acres," says Chenamma. "It's hard to 
generate a living from that now." But she and her sons still try. And 
the family plans to shift to paddy this year.
 
 
 
 In Thoreshettahalli, Mr. Yashavantha's father, Thammanna, a farmer for decades, says the farm crisis is biting deep. "Most cane growers are not recovering the cost of production. Input costs go upwards, incomes downwards. Also, some 40 borewells were drilled in this village last month but only one succeeded. People are giving up. You will find farmland lying unused even during season." What about self-help groups? Jayalakshmamma has paid an initial amount 
"but the group has not yet launched. And I cannot afford the Rs.25 a 
week. Nor the 24 per cent interest each year." Chikktayamma cannot think
 of making such payments regularly. "The SHG concept is a good one," 
says KRRS leader K.S. Puttannaiah. "But in some cases, they've also 
become moneylenders. Meanwhile, after the initial compensations, the 
State has no plan for widows and orphans of farm suicides. When have 
they even thought about it?"

"Remember, these and all other farm women are breadwinners and have always been so," says Ms. Jayaram. "Yet, they have no land rights and no land security. Even in agricultural labour, they are paid far less than men. Those widowed by the suicides are in constant tension. There are debts hanging on their heads which they did not incur. There are daughters whose marriages are pending. The pressure is unending." It is. But all the three women and many more like them in Mandya stand up to it with incredible resilience and still try to run their farms and feed their families with dignity and respect.
 
 
 A version of this article was originally published in The Hindu on 29/05/2007 (
 <a href="http://www.hindu.com/2007/05/29/stories/2007052902231100.htm">
 http://www.hindu.com/2007/05/29/stories/2007052902231100.htm
 </a>
 
 )

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

किसानों के नसीब में एक अपराधी से भी बदतर खाना

চাষির তুলনায় জেলের আসামিও ঢের ভালো খেতে পায়

விவசாயிகளின் உணவு முறை குற்றவாளிகளை விட மோசமாக இருக்கிறது

କୃଷକଙ୍କ ଖାଦ୍ୟ ଅପରାଧୀଙ୍କଠାରୁ ବି ଖରାପ

शेतकऱ्याचं खाणं कैद्याहूनही बत्तर

کسانوں کی قسمت میں ایک مجرم سے بھی بدتر کھانا

Huluganahalli

pari_pookadai_street_scene.jpg

Somewhat in the middle of George Town, the old commercial hub of Madras (now Chennai), a narrow, winding street wakes up very early in the morning. But you’ll never find it if you ask for it by its official name: Badrian Street. Everybody calls it Pookadai (Flower Bazaar). It’s because, long before Chennai got its giant vegetable and flower market at Koyambedu in 1996, flowers were sold by the sack from here. And yet, 18 years later, Pookadai still throbs with morning life, with sellers unwilling to relocate, and buyers unwilling to travel all the way to the designated markets.
 In the pre-dawn hours, Pookadai simply heaves with people, and you couldn’t swing a kitten there if you wished. Bulging sacks of flowers arrive from Koyambedu, from Andhra Pradesh, from deep-south Tamil Nadu. The road is almost always slushy; in the centre is a long, low hillock of debris. Imagine a thousand feet crushing old flowers; imagine a hundred tyres churning all of that; and then, imagine the odour. It’s not very pleasant. But the street itself is such a treat. Both sides are lined with shops, some are pucca cemented structures, with cupboards and ceiling fans, others are mere shacks. And all of them brim with colour. This is one of the pucca shops, in Pookadai. There are over a hundred that line the street, on either side. Many are run by migrants, who’ve run away from villages with dead dry fields and little employement. Their helpers are often young boys from their own or nearby villages, who live on tiny rooms behind or upstairs. (This picture was shot when I visited Pookadai very early in the morning, on April 19, 2012)

V. Shanmugavel (left) came to Chennai in 1984 from Goundampatti, Dindigul. He migrated because he earned Rs.5 a day in his village, when he went out to work. In Chennai, the daily wage even then was 10 times higher. His father farmed three acres of his own land. But when the rains failed, water was scarce and it was impossible to make a living. It's only now that borewells have appeared in his village, but it's too late, as many of the men have left.

Counting cash, to the right, is K. Ramachandran. He's from Chonganchattipatti in Dindigul district. An agricultural labourer back in his village, Ramachandran came to Chennai in 2003 in search of a better livelihood. His parents are still employed in the farming sector back home. Like him, most of his village has migrated in search of work; only those who are 40 or 50 years old remain there. The young have left, opting for work in Tiruppur, Coimbatore or Chennai. And so in a village of 1,000 people, today, Ramachandran believes, less than half that number live. And among them, very few men his age.

A. Muthuraj is from Pachaimalayankottai, Dindigul district, where land that sold for Rs.30,000 a cent five years ago, now costs a dizzying Rs.1 lakh. The reason? It lies near a crossroad connecting major towns, and those who live there can commute to any one of those towns daily. Because of this, agriculture now has no takers, there are too few people to work the fields. Muthuraj's mother is among the few who still farms (they own two acres of land) and she grows oleander flowers, along with hired help. Water though is scarcer than help. With the 800-feet bore fetching up little or no water, she now buys it by the tanker (Rs. 700 a load) to irrigate her fields, twice a week. The situation should improve with the rains, but life was always difficult in the village, and when his relatives asked him to move to Chennai to seek employment, 18 years ago, Muthuraj upped and moved.

S. Parakramapandian's (left) grandfather had big dreams for him –  he wanted him to become a policeman, and so named him after a king of Madurai. He thought it would look grand on a badge, pinned to his chest. Instead, 'Parak' (as everybody here calls him, and which in the local dialect means dreamer, and not in a nice way) never got through school, and now sells flowers. From Pallapatti village, in Dindigul district, Parakramapandian came to Chennai as a 14-year-old. Initially, he worked in Koyambedu, and later, tried to set up a shop, a venture that left him in debt (principal plus interest) of Rs.2.5 lakhs. He sold some land and paid back Rs.1.5 lakhs, but he's up before dawn everyday– working until sunset, trying to make enough to repay the rest.

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

গোন্ধত আমোলমোল পুক্কড়ই বজাৰ

ਪੂਕਾੜਈ: ਸਵੇਰ ਦੀ ਰੁਮਕਦੀ ਪੌਣ ਨਾਲ਼ ਆਉਂਦੀ ਫੁੱਲਾਂ ਦੀ ਮਹਿਕ

चेन्नई का फूल बाज़ार: जहां की सुबहें आज भी चहल-पहल से रौशन हैं

ପୋକାଦାଇ: ସକାଳେ ଏବେ ବି ଚଳଚଞ୍ଚଳ

பூக்கடை:

صبح کی چہل پہل سے بھرا چنئی کا پھول بازار

Chennai

rudhiben.jpg

The big gold-beaded earrings worn by Rudhiben are called vedla. She is from the Maher community in Chingariya village of Porbandar district in Gujarat. Both the Mahers and Kolis of Gujarat wear the vedla. The earrings, made of gold, can weigh between 25 to 35 grams each. The women wear them in their everyday lives, even while working in the fields.The tattoo on Ruhdiben’s neck was once common practice. The tattoos – on the neck, hands and legs –  are usually inscribed during the women&#39;s teenage years. &quot;It was very painful for up to 10 days after the tattooing,&quot; says Rudhiben. &quot;Often, women got infected, that makes it harder to bear the pain.&quot; Due to her experience, she decided to not let her daughter get tattooed.

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Chingariya

biswas1_cropped.original.jpg

We saw it – but we didn’t believe it. We drove up close, got down and stared at him. It was real. We still didn’t believe it. Ratan Biswas had five bamboos, each 40-45 feet in length, balanced on and tied to his bicycle. And he was pushing his load along the road to the market in Agartala, Tripura’s capital, 17 kilometres from his village. If the extended ends of the bamboos so much as touched a single stone, bump or any other object, cycle, owner and bamboos would come down. Rather painfully. Bamboos have a trait that makes them look much lighter than they really are. The five bamboos looked like four since two were so closely tied together, they seemed to merge into one. Together, these five weighed around 200 kilograms. Biswas knew this. He was happy to talk to us and let us photograph his crazy cargo. Not so keen to let us try moving it ourselves. He knew the odds.How the heck do you balance that weight, we ask – and those incredibly long bamboos – on a bicycle that is barely five feet in length? He smiles and shows us the wooden planks, themselves of bamboo. He’s got two vertical ones towards the front of the bike. These are tied at the bottom to one of the angled bars of the bike and come up on either side of the horizontal bar, where they’re again tied together. He’s also got another plank, also of bamboo, tied horizontally on the bike’s carrier.

So he’s got two bamboos tied alongside the horizontal bar, resting on the planks in the front and on the bamboo plank on the carrier. The other super bamboos rest on the handlebar in the front and on the seat at the rear and are tied at these jointsThese may hold the bamboos in place. It does not make them any easier to manoeuvre on the road. The effort must be, literally, back-breaking. For Biswas it is just one of several things he must do to earn a living and support his family of four. “There’s me, my wife and two sons,” he says. “Our village is in Jirania block [of West Tripura district]. I am a daily wager, working as a construction labourer when that kind of work is available.” Otherwise, he can be an agricultural labourer in season, or just a porter.
 “No,” he said. “I do not cut down the bamboos myself. That would be too difficult. I buy them from the people who bring them to my village." And he can make a net profit of around Rs. 200 if he sells all the bamboos at the Agartala market. My fellow traveller, Sunil Kalai, lecturer at Tripura Central University’s Journalism and Mass Communication department, tells me there are shorter roads that Biswas could take. Probably, those roads would not give him the clear space required for his outlandish load. We get into our car and head for Ambassa in the next district. Biswas pushes off in the opposite direction, his bicycle's 40-feet tail wagging gently behind him.

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

बिस्वास आणि त्यांच्या सायकलीवरचे बांबू

பிஸ்வாசும், அவர் சைக்கிளில் கொண்டுசெல்லும் மூங்கில்களும்

ৰতন বিশ্বাস আৰু বাঁহ বোজাই কৰা তেঁওৰ চাইকেলখন

ବିଶ୍ଵାସ ଓ ବାଉଁଶ

বিশ্বাস এবং তাঁর সাইকেল বোঝাই বাঁশ

బిశ్వాస్ - వెదురుబొంగుల సైకిల్ ప్రయాణం

बिस्वास और उनकी साइकिल पर लदा बांस

بسواس اور ان کی سائیکل پر لدا بانس

Agartala

9.jpg

Over the past decade, fuelled by a commodity boom led by exports to China, the iron and manganese ore-rich forests of north Odisha’s Eastern Ghats have seen an unprecedented rush to mine. Much of this mining—as a detailed indictment by a former Supreme Court judge’s commission has laid out— violated a raft of laws and regulations, severely despoiled the area’s complex eco-system, and resulted in windfall profits for miners at the cost of the public exchequer.
 In the state government’s own belated admission to the Justice M B Shah Commission, ore amounting to Rs 59,203 crore was illegally mined through the decade. To provide perspective, this is almost a fourth of the state’s Gross Domestic Product. On the ground, the loot is encouraged as much by broken laws and opaque governing, as by the state’s traditional contempt for marginalised adivasi communities. The latter make up the bulk of the local population, and are given little say in decision-making around mining projects, and assessing their severe impacts. The Shah Commission’s report was tabled in Parliament on February 10, but saw no discussion. In its action taken report, the Central government, including the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), said it is taking measures to verify the illegalities, such as mining in forest areas without the necessary clearances.
 The state government told the commission that it had issued 146 recovery notices to mine lease holders who have illegally mined iron ore and manganese. An official in the state’s Directorate of Mines said this week that this money was yet to be recovered—some lease-holders had moved local courts for stay orders, making the recovery of the assessed amount sub-judice, while in other cases proceedings are still under way.
 Additionally, the state government has steadfastly countered the Shah commission’s recommendation for a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation in several egregious instances of illegal mining—a demand that Prashant Bhushan, counsel for the non-profit Common Cause, is reiterating in a public interest petition being currently being heard by the Supreme Court.
 According to Biswajit Mohanty, a wildlife and transparency activist who has been raising the issue of illegal mining in Odisha since 2008, the absence of meaningful action by local authorities is evidenced by the fact that “despite thousands of crores of public property being looted, not a single public servant or private official has been sent to jail, not one mining license revoked, and not a rupee recovered till date.”
 These images from Sundergarh district’s Bonai region show the contrast between the mined landscape, and areas which are yet to be mined.

A version of this story first appeared in
 <a href="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/">
 Down To Earth
 </a>
 in May 2014 and can be accessed
 <a href="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/illegal-mining-s-ground-zero">
 here.
 </a>

Illegal Mining's Ground Zero

ਗ਼ੈਰ-ਕਨੂੰਨੀ ਮਾਈਨਿੰਗ ਲਈ ਪਿੱਠ ਥਾਪੜਦੀਆਂ ਸਰਕਾਰਾਂ

अवैध खनन की भेंट चढ़ते जंगल

ବେଆଇନ ଖଣିଖନନ ସମ୍ପର୍କିତ ଗ୍ରାଉଣ୍ଡ ଜିରୋ ରିପୋର୍ଟ

சட்டவிரோத சுரங்கப்பணி சாதிப்பது என்ன?

غیر قانونی کانکنی کا گراؤنڈ زیرو

Bonai

dsc_3019.jpg

MUMBAI: Loans to farmers are not driving the rise in agricultural credit, a study by economists R Ramakumar and Pallavi Chavan shows. Instead, the major beneficiaries in the revival of farm credit in this decade are agri-businesses and corporates involved in agriculture, the authors say. This is because the definition of agricultural credit has been expanded to include these businesses.
 
 &quot;The definition now includes loans to corporate and agri-business institutions as well as storage equipment in cities. It also includes loans for commercial and export-oriented agriculture,&quot; says Ramakumar, an economist with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
 
 The growth in agricultural credit has also been fuelled by a rise in indirect loans, the study says. Direct loans are given to farmers while indirect loans are given to institutions indirectly involved in agricultural production.
 
 Significantly, the share of credit to small and marginal farmers has dropped dramatically across the country, the study shows. Instead, loans of Rs 1 crore and above are driving the revival of agricultural credit.

The share of direct agricultural loans worth less than Rs 25,000 to marginal farmers from scheduled commercial banks has fallen sharply—from almost 23% in 2005 to just 4.3% in 2013. On the other hand, the share of direct agricultural loans worth over Rs 1 crore has risen from 7.5% in 2005 to 10% in 2013.
 
 &quot;The 1990s were the lost decade in rural banking. There was large-scale closure of commercial banks in rural areas,&quot; says Ramakumar. Since 2000, there has been a growth of agricultural credit, but a major part of this growth is illusory, he says. &quot;It is driven by the expansion of funding to corporate and agri-business institutions involved in agriculture, high-value loans and credit from urban and metropolitan branches,&quot; he says.
 
 
 Report 11: The
 <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Direct-loans-below-Rs-25000-to-farmers-plunge-to-43-from-23/articleshow/46893393.cms?intenttarget=no">
 original version of this story
 </a>
 appeared in The Times of India on 12 Apr 2015
 
 
 
 More in this series:
 
 
 Report 1:
 <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/nearly-80000-homeless-elders-go-hungry/">
 Nearly 80000 homeless elders go hungry
 </a>
 
 Report 2:
 <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/drought-hits-90-lakhs-farmers-in-maharashtra/">
 Drought hits 90 lakhs farmers in Maharashtra
 </a>
 
 Report 3:
 <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/kharif-crops-hit-by-drought-pulses-take-a-maha-pounding/">
 Kharif crops hit by drought pulses take a maha pounding
 </a>
 
 Report 4:
 <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/40-rise-in-farmer-suicides-in-maharashtra/">
 40% rise in farmer suicides in Maharashtra
 </a>
 
 Report 5:
 <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/bitter-harvest-where-villagers-dig-for-hours-to-fill-a-pot/">
 Bitter Harvest - Where villagers dig for hours to fill a pot
 </a>
 
 Report 6:
 <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/drought-migration-forces-aged-to-toil-as-farm-hands/">
 Drought migration forces aged to toil as farm hands
 </a>
 
 Report 7:
 <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/the-man-with-48-borewells-in-drought-hit-marathwada/">
 The man with 48 borewells in drought-hit Marathwada
 </a>
 
 Report 8:
 <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/maharashtras-drought-hit-farmers-without-bank-accounts-denied-aid/">
 Maharashtra&#39;s drought-hit farmers without bank accounts denied aid
 </a>
 
 Report 9:
 <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/maharashtra-govt-says-mulling-farmer-insurance-as-opposition-cites-tois-suicide-reports/">
 Maharashtra govt says mulling farmer insurance as opposition cites TOI’s suicide reports
 </a>
 
 Report 10:
 <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/study-agri-corporates-not-farmers-hog-loans/">
 Study: Agri-corporates, not farmers, hog loans
 </a>
 
 Report 12:
 <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/only-12-potential-of-maharashtras-70000-small-dams-used/">
 Only 12% potential of Maharashtra’s 70,000 small dams used
 </a>
 
 Report 13:
 <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/unseasonal-rain-601-farmer-suicides-in-maharashra-in-just-3-months/">
 Unseasonal rain: 601 farmer suicides in Maharashra in just 3 months
 </a>
 
 Report 14:
 <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/only-3-maharashtra-farmers-ended-life-due-to-unseasonal-rain/">
 &#39;Only 3 Maharashtra farmers ended life due to unseasonal rain&#39;
 </a>
 
 Report 15:
 <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/state-governments-logic-for-its-low-farmer-suicide-count-only-3-blamed-rains/">
 State government&#39;s logic for its low farmer suicide count: Only 3 blamed rains
 </a>
 
 Report 16:
 <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/beef-banned-but-no-state-run-cow-shelters-in-sight/">
 Beef banned, but no state-run cow shelters in sight
 </a>

Direct loans below Rs 25,000 to farmers plunge to 4.3% from 23%

୨୫୦୦୦ ଟଙ୍କାରୁ କମ୍ ପ୍ରତ୍ୟକ୍ଷ ଚାଷୀ ଋଣ ୨୩% ରୁ ୪.୩% କୁ ଖସି ଆସିଛି

dsc_0640.jpg

Two villages have prompted environment minister Jairam Ramesh to keep on hold the forest clearance to Posco’s steel plant in Orissa — the country’s biggest FDI.
 
 Dhinkia and Gobindpur in Orissa’s Jagatsinghpur district have claimed their rights under the Forest Right Act (FRA) have not been settled and they have not given consent to the R52,000 crore steel project, a mandatory condition under the Act.
 
 “Ignoring these two palli (village) sabha resolutions and not allowing them to be subjected to...process of law as enshrined in the FRA 2006 would tantamount to violating the very essence of this legislation…,” Ramesh said.
 
 The minister, citing his January 31 order of conditional forest clearance to the project, on Thursday asked the Orissa government to complete the process of recognition and verification as per the FRA Act.
 
 A day earlier, the state had submitted an assurance saying that FRA was not applicable to the forestland as no other traditional forest dwellers (OTFD) exist in the proposed site. It had sent its reply to allegations made by the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) that “assurances” of FRA implementation were “false” and “illegal”.
 
 In a letter to the ministry, the PPSS had said the gram sabha resolutions of Dhinkia and Gobindpur — passed in February — stated that residents were eligible as OTFDs and they had rejected consent to the forestland diversion.
 
 Voices on the ground too said the decisions of the gram panchayats had been bypassed.
 
 “The district administration refused to admit the claims, let alone help villagers file them. The Centre’s own committees — NC Saxena and Meena Gupta — couldn’t have come to conclusions about violations and existence of OTFDs without documents,” said Biswajit Mohanty, secretary of Orissa Wildlife Society and member of the National Board of Wildlife.
 
 Rabi Das, head of civil society organisation Orissa Jana Sammilani, said: “The Centre’s committees have verified that OTFDs reside in the area. The state government is lying again.”
 
 
 This article was done under the aegis of CSE media fellowships and was published in the Hindustan Times in April 2011

Two villages hold up country’s biggest FDI

bhadel_5_large.jpg

Bhadels of Goa

গোৱাৰ মহিলা কুলিসকল

ଗୋଆର ଭାଦେଲମାନେ

گوا کے بھدیل

Margao

kali-feature.jpg

"Akka, you are cordially invited for my exam kutcheri. Please grace the occasion with family and friends," Kali Veerapadran told me when he phoned to invite me for his final examinations at Kalakshetra, India's premier dance school in Chennai. And, after a two-tick pause, he asked me, softly, "is that correct English, akka?"
 
 Kali was unsure because he wasn't very familiar with English until about four years ago. Then again, he wasn't that familiar with dance either. But now he's mastered the very classical Bharatanatyam as well as Karagattam, Thapattam and Oyilaatam, three ancient folk dances of Tamil Nadu. And he's learnt all of them from the best in the business.
 
 Kali's family, who he describes as Hindu Adi Dravidars (a Dalit community), are based in Kovalam, a struggling fishing village near Chennai. Kali, 21 years old, lost his father very young. "I was perhaps six or seven months old then," he says, without much emotion. His emotions are reserved for his widowed mother, who then took on the huge task of raising a large family on a porter's daily earnings. "I have three elder sisters and two brothers. When one brother died of brain fever, I went from my grandmother's house – where I had lived until then – back to my mother's."

His mother's house wasn't the pucca one it is today. It did badly even in Chennai's usually meagre monsoon, and the government then pitched in with a solid roof over their heads. Kali is grateful for that, just as he is to every single person who has helped him live his dream.Kali's dream is to dance, which in itself might not be unique. Except, Kali wants to excel in two very different styles of dancing, two styles that normally mix about as well as oil and water. One of them is Bharatanatyam – a very structured and classical art form, previously practiced by the devadasis (young women dedicated to temples and its priests for life), and today, ironically, patronised mostly by the upper castes and the moneyed, who once shunned them. The other is 'folk-dance', a term that loosely clubs several centuries-old dance forms that originated – and are still practiced – in Tamil Nadu's villages. As a rule, Bharatanatyam dancers do not master folk dances, unless their production calls for a dash of karagam or kavadi. Very few have undergone rigorous training, let alone performed these professionally. Kannan Kumar, Kali's folk dance teacher (the only such full-time teacher in all of Tamil Nadu) explains that folk dance is like a foundation or a wall, and the cerebral Bharatanatyam – which uses mudras to tell a story – is like a painting on it. The two, he believes, can complement each other. And Kali goes a step further – he practices both, without any conflict.

In fact, the only time Kali faced a conflict was when he completed his school board exams – he wasn't at all sure what he wanted to do. The most obvious and sensible option was to take up a job; his family's finances called for help. But just then, his aunt told him about free folk dance classes at Dakshinchitra, a heritage museum of South India, not far from Kovalam. One look, and Kali was smitten. He progressed very rapidly in his classes, and mastered, in two months, Karagattam, Oyilattam and Thapattam. Kannan Kumar was pleased, and began teaching him the fourth dance, Devarattam. Only, just then, Kali got into Kalakshetra, for a four-year diploma course in Dance. A few years earlier, Kali had not even heard of Kalakshetra. It was Sarah Chanda (who went on to sponsor him) who first recognised the passion with which he danced in a Tsunami Rehabilitation Centre at Kovalam. She told him that he should learn the art formally at Kalakshetra. Kali cleared the interviews – even though distant aunts and uncles actively discouraged him from pursuing so 'sissy' a thing as dance – and got his admission. He had crossed one set of hurdles. The next lot was already waiting.
 
 For a boy from a Tamil medium school, with little or no exposure to Bharatanatyam and classical music, Kalakshetra seemed very daunting in the beginning. The food was strictly vegetarian – lacking in the meat he was used to; and his stamina was appalling. "I was a fat boy then!" Kali laughs, and shows me how he used to dance, with his bottom stuck out, his feet splayed and his hands wonky. He was little better than any of the (many) foreign nationals on campus – he was only as culturally attuned as they were, and moreover, suffered from a serious inability to communicate in English.

So he took to dancing. He used gestures in the place of words. Soon, he got over his shyness, and, in fact, roped in a bunch of non-Indians for the first-year student's day, where, at his urging, Russian and South African students danced the Oyilaatam. Kalakshetra's then director Leela Samson appreciated his effort. And, to top it all, he topped his class. His confidence grew, and so did his knowledge.Now, Kali can identify ragas in a trice. At performances in the sacrosanct Rukmini Arangam, named after the legendary dancer and founder of Kalakshetra – Rukmini Devi Arundale – he guesses ragas and asks one of his many friends if he is right. He usually is. And his dance has come far from those inelegant, early days – his adavus (steps) are precise, and his baavam (expression) perfect.  It was at the Rukmini Arangam that his exam kutcheri (recital) took place, on the March 28, 2014. His batch of eight students performed an entire margam (set of dances, performed in a sequence) on stage, with full make-up. His class-teacher, Indu Nideesh, who had trained him and his classmates, kept beat on the nattuvangam. She must have been proud of her class; the audience sure was.

Kali's mother, his brother Rajini (who runs an idli shop in Kovalam), his three sisters and their families, their friends – they had all come to Kalakshetra for his kutcheri. When I went up and congratulated Rajini on Kali's splendid performance, he said, matter-of-fact, "We don't understand all this dancing. We just sat here, outside. It's nice that you found it good". Kali had, by then, come out to see them. He hugged his mother, posed for photos with his family. But his friends were calling him for class photos. As he ran inside, he saw Kannan Kumar. He flung himself at his feet. His teacher picked him up by his sweaty shoulders and held him. There was much pride in the teacher's eyes, and much happiness in the student's. "I'll never let go of either art form," Kali says, happy and relieved his exams are over. He is ecstatic when he gets news that he has got a first class, and delighted when he's accepted into the postgraduate diploma course in Bharatanatyam at Kalakshetra. And now, Kali is even more determined to do his bit for the folk dances, which he says are facing extinction. He also wants to make Bharatanatyam more accessible to people who would otherwise not experience its beauty. "One class folk, one class Bharatam. I want to teach both, I want to set up a dance school, I want to earn money, I want to look after my mother, I want to dance." The young dancer lists his dreamsWatch the video 'Kali: the dancer and his dreams':
 
 
 <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/kali-the-dancer-and-his-dreams/">
 https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/kali-the-dancer-and-his-dreams</a>

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

काली: एक नर्तक और उसके ख़्वाब

ନର୍ତ୍ତକ କାଳୀଙ୍କର ସ୍ୱପ୍ନ

காளி என்ற நடனக் கலைஞரும் அவரது கனவுகளும்

ಕಾಳಿ ಎನ್ನುವ ನರ್ತಕ ಮತ್ತು ಅವನ ಕನಸುಗಳು

کالی: ڈانسر اور ان کے خواب

काली:  नर्तक आणि त्याची स्वप्ने

Kovalam (Covelong)

01-Kushti--the-secular--the-syncretic.jpg

The board above the school entrance says ‘taleem
 
 ’
(Urdu for ‘education’). But the first thing you see within is an image of
Hanuman, the deity of
 
 pehelwans
 
 here.
The culture is a colourful blend. Wrestling schools in rural western
Maharashtra are called
 
 taleems,
 
 not
 
 akharas. That’s a throwback to the pre-partition Punjab with
whose
 
 taleems
 
 they developed strong links over 100 a hundred years ago. Particularly in the
time of Shahu Maharaj, ruler of the erstwhile princely state of Kolhapur and
famous as a social reformer. He was also a great wrestling enthusiast who
brought grapplers from all over undivided India, many of them from the Punjab,
to Kolhapur.
 
 To this day, huge tournaments in rural western
Maharashtra feature top wrestlers from Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and even some
African nations. The fighters from Pakistan and Iran have a fan following
amongst the overwhelmingly Hindu male audiences here. “The crowds are riveted
by the outside wrestlers,” says Vinay Kore, member of the legislative assembly
(MLA) from Kolhapur. Kore, who heads a major cooperative sugar factory and
dairy complex, runs a unique tournament in the state. The one at Warananagar in
Kolhapur district which boasts the largest wrestling
 
 maidan
 
 in Maharashtra. It is
held on December 13 every year.
 
 “Up to 3 lakh people can gather,” says Kore.
“Sometimes there are huge headaches with visas. One year, the visas for the
Pakistanis came very late. Their wrestlers had to then fly from Islamabad to
Delhi, from there to Pune, from where we picked them up and drove them to
Warana. Meanwhile, a crowd of lakhs waited patiently for them for 12-13 hours.”
 
 At the
 
 taleems, Maharashtra’s wrestling gurus emphasise
an ethical and moral instruction that blends the spiritual and the secular.
Many teachers tell their students about the legendary Gama
 
 pehelwan
 
 (the one undefeated
wrestler of his time who vanquished the world’s greatest). Gama, born Ghulam
Muhammad in the Punjab, was a Muslim who stayed on in Pakistan after 1947.
Teachers tell their students of the time he stood like a rock outside the
colony of his Hindu neighbours facing down a violent mob during the partition
riots. “That is how a wrestler should be,” is the common refrain.

“The great teachers are all agreed that ethical training is crucial,” says Appasaheb Kadam, one of Maharashtra’s wrestling greats, at his taleem in Kolhapur town. “A wrestler without a moral grounding will be a disaster,” he says. Pehelwans in Maharashtra, many point out, haven’t earned the dubious reputation those in some other states have.There is also a culture of local hospitality and generosity around the sport. Whether at the Kundal or the Warananagar mega-events, people want us to understand this. “You should know that the lakhs flocking to the event from outside are treated as guests by the villagers here. Countless hundreds of dinners are prepared at local homes for the visitors.”The taleems are an assembly of twisted and devastated ears. “The bona fide certificate of the wrestler,” chuckles legendary wrestler, former Olympian and guru Ganpatrao Andhalkar. The owners of those battered lobes, teachers included, are all from rural families. Farmers or labourers. This is particularly true of western Maharashtra.“Kushti, sugarcane fields and tamasha (a traditional Marathi folk theatre form) are closely linked,” says Kaka Pawar – Asiad, Commonwealth and national medallist – at his taleem in Pune. “Why tamasha? Both rest on the performers’ discipline and crowd support.”While the audiences are largely Hindu, wrestling itself shows more diversity than in the past. Where once Marathas were wholly dominant, there are now champions from the Dhangar (shepherd) community. In Solapur, a top wrestling district, young champions are emerging in the Muslim community.The gurus of Maharashtra’s wrestling culture are an articulate and analytical lot. They dismiss the brief debate on whether wrestling could be dropped from the Olympics. “They include sports played by 30 nations,” scoffs Kadam. “Wrestling is a culture in 122 countries. Can they dare drop it?”

They’re more concerned about how wrestling is treated
in Maharashtra. Across the many
 
 taleems
 
 and wrestlers we visited, the
complaints were similar. The agrarian states of Punjab and Haryana treat
wrestling far more seriously than rapidly urbanising Maharashtra. 
 “There, recognition with jobs at decent levels in the
police and other security forces are quick,” says one teacher. “Here, those who
quit
 
 kushti
 
 become
labourers.” Some gifted wrestlers have ended up as watchmen at sugar
factories.
 
 The political class is seen as opportunistic. “They
used to come because
 
 kushti
 
 brings the crowds.” But though they
become the heads of federations, nothing happens for the sport. “Union minister
Sharad Pawar is the head of the Wrestling Federation in this state,” says one
organiser. “We know that. I wonder if he knows or remembers it.” Another says
“We have two former wrestlers as MLAs. They don’t even look our way.”
 
 Changes in society and culture, the decline of
smallholder farming, a recurring water crisis and state neglect have combined
to undermine what is the most deeply-rooted sport in the rural economy here. 
“A wrestler’s life,” says Andhalkar, “is a kind of invisible
 
 tapasya.
A small injury to a cricketer will play a thousand times in the media. A
wrestler dies, no one cares.”

Photos: P. Sainath
 
 
 
 A version of this article was originally
published in
 
 <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/sainath/the-culture-and-crisis-of-kushti/article5297790.ece">
 The Hindu
 </a>
 
 on October 31, 2013.

Kushti: the secular & the syncretic

কুস্তি: ধর্মনিরপেক্ষতা আর সংহতির তালিম

குஸ்தி: மதசார்பின்மையும் சமரசப் பண்பும்

মল্লযুঁজঃ ধৰ্মনিৰপেক্ষতা আৰু সমন্বয়ৰ আখৰাথলী

କୁସ୍ତି: ଧର୍ମ ନିରପେକ୍ଷ ଏବଂ ସମକାଳୀନ

कुस्तीः धर्माच्या पल्याड आणि समन्वय साधत

کُشتی: سیکولر اور اتحاد پسند

Warananagar

godda_koilawallah_2002.jpg

Kishan Yadav pays Rs. 1,200 for a bicycle with one pedal. This odd transaction concluded, he spends Rs.200 to reinforce its bars. Then, he either removes the chain or hangs it loose and tears the seat upwards, towards the sky.Yadav is now ready to use his bicycle. Not so much for cycling as yet – that can be difficult without a chain – but as a trolley for carrying up to 250 kilograms of coal across distances of 40 to 60 kilometres. For his hazardous labours, he earns up to Rs. 10 a day, barely a third of the minimum wage in Bihar.Yadav will go from Lalmatiya to Godda and back, taking fully three days in walking, resting and hawking time. A more strenuous form of self-employment is hard to think up, yet nearly 3,000 families in Godda are dependent on it.Not all the koilawallahs, or cyclewallahs as they are known, will remove one pedal or the chain, but they will reinforce the bars and tear the seat upwards. “They will learn,” says Yadav, a trifle contemptuously. “That right side pedal will break, and the chain, if not loosened, will cause obstruction.”Only after he sells his coal can Yadav restore the pedal and chain and cycle back to Lalmatiya, where he buys his stuff. He cannot do this crushing trip more than twice a week. Sometimes, the koilawallahs journey up to Baunsi in Banka district, 60 kilometres away, or even up to Rajaun in Banka, 80 kilometres away, all the while pushing their huge loads on foot with muscle-tearing effort. Usually, the koilawallahs cart between 200 to 250 kilos, but some claim they occasionally pull even heavier loads. There are also adolescents in their early teens who drag smaller loads.Officialdom terms their trade an “illegal” activity. Why? Because they purchase coal from scavengers who scour the waste dumps of the Rajmahal Coal Mining Project, Lalmatiya. The mountains of waste soil the project creates contain almost three per cent of low-grade coal.“In fact,” admits a top Rajmahal project official, “were it not for the scavengers, that coal would remain unutilised in the waste dumps. And, but for the cyclewallahs, would never reach the people of Godda, mostly poor consumers, as an extremely cheap energy source. It is a national saving.”Issues tend to get confused because there are so many unlawful activities relating to coal-mining. However, three main illegal forms stand out in the extraction and sale of coal:<ul>
 <li>Theft from the depots of the Rajmahal project and piracy while the coal is in transit. But nobody has ever accused the cyclewallahs of that.</li>
 <li>Illegal mining controlled by the powerful coal mafia aided by corrupt officials. That is certainly not run by cyclewallahs like Yadav or Prahlad Prasad Sah earning less than Rs. 12 daily.</li>
 <li>The scavenging of coal from the waste dumps by very poor people. It is from them (or via the dadas controlling them) that the cyclewallahs mainly get their coal. These are the people, mostly women, largely responsible for what the official calls a “national saving”.</li>
 </ul>As a senior Rajmahal official admits: “About 1,000 cyclewallahs function on a given day. No one manages more than two trips a week. If we calculate all the coal ‘illegally’ sold by the koilawallahs in a whole year, it won’t equal two days production at Lalmatiya.”Starting outside Lalmatiya, I tracked the cyclewallahs along the route to Godda, 40 kilometres away. Though the distance is not much, they need an overnight halt. A physically intolerable journey at the best of times, it seemed hellish in the wretchedly sultry September weather. They moved slowly along miserable roads where they often had to push their back-breaking loads up unyielding inclines.The koilawallahs move in lines of up to 20. The “fellow travellers” are essential because, if one of them stumbles, he can’t get started without assistance. Besides, each needs help when fording long puddles or mounting steep inclines. I watched Yadav cross one such stretch aided by his friends. He then “parked” his cycle by planting a stout stick under the sacks and went back to help the next man across.

The koilawallahs carry two meals with them. Just a bit of rice with slivers of stale vegetable thrown in – and no pulses. Each will spend a further Rs. 15 on food during the three-days it requires to sell their load and make the journey both ways.From a group that has stopped on the edge of Godda for a meal, I learn this is a multi-caste activity. Barring Brahmins and Rajputs, almost all castes found in Godda are into “re-cycling” coal. Manto Manjhi is a Dalit, travelling alongside Prahlad and Arun Sah, who are Banias. There are also Yadavs, Koeris, Santals and a host of others. Economic necessity seems to have broken down a few social barriers to some extent.Why stick to this excruciating trade when even work on government development projects pays more? Aren’t they aware that the daily minimum wage in Bihar is now Rs. 30.50? There is derisive laughter. “That’s for the contractors,” says Manjhi. “Where will they pay us that much for working on government projects? Even for Rs. 20, we would do other work.”The economics of their own trade is startling and a superficial look can be most misleading. When I first ran into Kishen Yadav, he was collecting Rs. 105 from a woman at her home in Godda town. That seemed a handsome enough sum for a one-shot sale. It was only after days of working with them that the costs involved in the exercise became clearer. The koilawallahs buy up to 250-300 kilos of coal for Rs. 30 at Lalmatiya. Then, they pay Rs. 5 each as rangdari (extortion money) to local thugs. Next, Rs. 10 goes as hafta (regular ‘cut’ or bribe payment) to the police. That is, Rs. 2 per cycle at five police posts between Lalmatiya and Godda. Each spends Rs. 15 on food and necessities during the three-day trip."Almost Rs.10-15 per trip goes on maintenance of our cycles,” says Arun Sah. “The ball-bearings wear out rapidly and we also have to change tubes every three months, sometimes even tyres.” Having spent around Rs. 75, they get about Rs. 100 to Rs. 105 for the whole load in Godda (in Patna, it could fetch upwards of Rs. 300). That leaves them with Rs. 30 – their earnings for three days. Since they can do this only twice a week, their weekly earnings will not exceed Rs. 60-70, or 8 to 10 rupees a day. They could get as much as Rs. 150 or more for their load in far off Rajaun. But that’s a hard trip to make more than once a week.Cyclewallahs are “prime candidates for TB, severe chest pain, torn muscles, respiratory ailments and a number of other illnesses,” says Dr. P. K. Daradhiyar of Godda. He often counts them among his patients. Prahlad Sah lost a month due to illness, fairly common for the koilawallahs. He also lost a bicycle when the police decided to confiscate it.District officials hope to create a system bringing coal to Godda town by truck. They say the cyclewallahs could then operate within town limits. The koilawallahs are sceptical, fearing this will only lead to their unique form of self-employment being scrapped. This is their survival strategy and they intend to stick to it. Even if it means re-inventing the wheel, Godda style.Click <a id="683" linktype="page"> here </a> for P. Sainath's Talking Album on the Koillawallahs of Godda. 
 I first visited the district in September 1993. Godda, then, was still a district in Bihar. In 2000 it became part of the newly-formed Jharkhand state).This story appears in the author's book 'Everybody Loves A Good Drought' (Penguin Books). A version of it originally appeared in The Times of India.

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