“If you happen to may inform the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister of Bihar to just accept your one earnest want, what wouldn’t it be?” I requested a gaggle of ladies from the Musahar neighborhood, one of the crucial deprived Dalit teams, in Pipalghatti village in Gaya district. “We’re unemployed,” the three of us answered in unison.
In neighboring Barachatti city, which can be a Lok Sabha constituency, an 18-year-old boy visiting from a close-by village was requested the identical query. Wearing a brilliant orange sari with a hair parting that matched the sindoor, the Musahar teenager, who just like the Pipalgatti girls had by no means been to highschool, answered in a single phrase: “Berozgari.” “Humare bachchon ke liye rozgar dain yahan (we must always present jobs for the kids right here),” she mentioned.
She obtained married 4 months in the past, after which her husband left for Chennai, the place he works in a packaging manufacturing unit. The household lives on the cash he sends residence.
I used to be visiting Pipalghatti village, dominated by the Musahars, for the primary time in 46 years, however my first go to was quickly after I began learning journalism, to study in regards to the peaceable Andolan (motion) of the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Vahini, which was influenced by Jayaprakash Narayan. Musahars had been mobilized in 4 blocks to hunt distribution of land illegally owned by native mutts in Bodh Gaya.
This gave me a possibility to study in regards to the caste system that prevails in Bihar, but additionally the dire poverty that the Musahars lived in, one thing I had by no means seen earlier than. Being on the backside of the Scheduled Castes (SC), they usually ate rats to outlive (therefore their identify).
I stayed one evening at Manji’s home and I nonetheless bear in mind little Kosuri sleeping on the naked flooring. I additionally bear in mind the meals the Musahars shared with me. Roti and salt with a beneficiant spoonful of oil on it was their each day meal.
These recollections got here flooding again once I returned to Pipalghatti to gauge the winds blowing within the Bihar elections. At present, there’s a pucca highway resulting in the village surrounded by lush inexperienced fields. The mud hut I slept in is now partially become a pukka, as are a number of different homes.
Many youngsters at the moment are attending college. Junior excessive faculties have additionally appeared. Nevertheless, there are a number of folks strolling round with out registering with the college. Not like articulate youngsters in different elements of Bihar, who defined to me why they needed to turn into military generals and ultimately military chiefs at eight years previous in Patna, youngsters in Musahar tended to slide away when requested for his or her names. All besides a 9-year-old woman who studied at a non-public college and needed to turn into a physician.
Nevertheless, most Musahar girls haven’t but attended college. In keeping with the 2011 census, the general feminine literacy fee in Bihar was 53.5% and the nationwide literacy fee was 65.5%, whereas the feminine literacy fee was only one.43%. Once I ask them if they’ve heard of Nitish Kumar, Narendra Modi and Lalu Prasad, all of them say a powerful ‘sure’. It’s not so clear what positions these leaders take, however there isn’t any confusion about who to vote for. Particularly, for Mr. Nitish Kumar, “what he has executed for us” and for the Rs 10,000,000,000 rupees which have already been credited to lots of their accounts (beneath the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rozgar Yojana). Those that haven’t but obtained this cash are hopeful that they may obtain it quickly.
The scheme can be well-liked among the many Yadav girls of Pipalgatti. Nevertheless, they made it clear that they’d vote for the RJD, insisting that celebration chief Tejeshawi Yadav “could have no selection however to proceed with the plan as soon as it involves energy”.
In varied elements of Bihar, a number of girls have already expanded their actions to learn from the scheme after incomes cash by promoting greens and buying carts, simply because the Lojgar Yojana goals to do.
After 1979, one other change occurred. Because of the Sangharsh Vahini motion, Pipalghatti and adjoining villages turned among the many first villages within the nation to be given land pattas to Musahar girls by the federal government within the early Eighties. This measure was thought of “revolutionary” on the time. One other drawback is that lots of them subsequently bought their land for varied causes similar to sickness, demise, or marriage.
These struggles and victories have permeated Bihar’s collective consciousness through the years as democracy deepens and empowers folks on the margins. In Might 2014, when Mr. Jitan Ram Manjhi of the Musahar tribe (domestically referred to as Bhuiyan) was appointed by Mr. Nitish because the chief minister of Bihar, it was a proud and historic second for the neighborhood and for India’s democracy. 9 months later, Jitan Manjhi was pressured to resign and subsequently began his personal political celebration, HAM (Secular), which is now an ally of the NDA.
HAM(S) has received six seats beneath the present NDA seat-sharing association in Bihar polls, with Manjhi’s daughter-in-law Deepa and her mom Jyoti Devi, each MLAs, contesting from their respective seats of Imamganj and Barachatti. Like RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, Manjhi, who’s at the moment a Union minister, has additionally drawn criticism for selling members of the family to politics.
At present, each political celebration has to bear in mind the ‘M’ (Mahila) and ‘D’ (Dalit) components, and rising political consciousness and aspirations have made it inconceivable to disregard them. States events must do higher than merely pledge girls’s {dollars} to the polls to make sure satisfactory schooling for all ladies, together with these from Musahhar communities.
When Tejashwi not too long ago declared, “We want jobs, jobs, jobs,” he too was responding to ground-level modifications. At rally after rally, the 35-year-old CM face of the opposition Mahagathbandhan mentioned, “Ab sarkari naukri ke liye taiyar rahiyega (prepare for a authorities job now)” in step with his promise of giving one authorities job to every household. The general public has responded positively to the promise, though opponents have dismissed it as “ridiculous.”
But it surely was ballot strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishore who performed a key function in setting this narrative in Bihar, calling for satisfactory schooling and employment to discourage “parayans” (immigrants) from the state.
‘Lojigarh’ is thus the battle cry of Bihar in 2025 and the groaning of a society in transition. We might study extra about this story on November 14, when the ballot outcomes are launched. Is Bihar changing into a metropolis that transcends caste as a key determinant of voter selection, and can younger Dalits veer from ‘jat’ to ‘kaam’, as younger Dalits say? If that occurs, it may have a serious affect on politics within the Hindi heartland, together with UP.
