Mirzapur (Uttar Pradesh): Lofty promises and tall claims made during election campaigns turn out to be mere lip service for the Benvanshi Dhakar community in eastern Uttar Pradesh’s Mirzapur district who have been forgotten since long. People belonging to the scheduled caste (SC) group are so despised that they are not even permitted to work in agricultural fields as their touch will make the farm produce “impure”.
However, the bamboo products they make are used in worship rituals.
They produce a wide range of bamboo artworks like jhaua, bhauka, and tokdi (the bamboo baskets of different sizes), soopa (used in kitchens to separate husk and stones from food grains), and hand fans.
Despite the fact that their products are popular in India and abroad, they are highly marginalized and forced to live in extreme poverty.
After days of intense labor to come up with cutting-edge art, they earn a maximum of Rs 200, and that too, not every day. With Chinese invasion into the Indian market, these products are gradually losing sheen.
The community has a small population of around 10,000 people in the entire district. They can be found in tiny numbers in Amoi, Malua, Raikal, Kanhaipur, Rampur, Sant Nagar, and Patehra villages.
Both Seema, 40, and her husband Samru, 45, are engaged in their traditional bamboo baskets (tokdi) to sustain themselves and their three small children. After three days of arduous work, they produce a large basket, which their only son — who is 15, sells for Rs 200 in the neighborhood market.
“People do not want to pay even the modest cost of our products. The prices we fix are nothing in this age of inflation. Sometimes we have to sell it at the input cost, which settles somewhere near Rs 150 because we don’t want to come back empty-handed,” the inhabitant of Newadhiya village in Patehara block told The Mooknayak.
Seema said they have to do so with a “bleeding heart” as returning without a penny means starvation at home.
Though Seema's fellow community members are small in number, supposedly making them politically insignificant, their sufferings are unimaginable.
“We (the wife-husband duo) can afford to sleep without food, and we have to do it very often. But as a mother, how can I see my children going to bed without food? No one can. They deserve noon-roti (bread and salt) — a bare minimum — at least twice a day, if not a rich and healthy diet,” said the visibly sad mother.
A few meters away from Seema, Mahdei was talking to other women of the village while seated on the earthen floor in front of her run-down, thatched house. While engaging in a casual chit-chat with this reporter, she got up, went inside her one-room hut, and pulled out a charpai (cot). With hesitation, she requested me to sit on it.
Despite persistent requests to sit on the same cot, she politely refused and ended up sitting on the floor. “We belong to a lower caste. How can I sit next to you on the cot even though you are nearly the same age as my son?” she smilingly said.
Asked how everything is, she shot back with wonder, “Do we even exist for the government and society at large? No one, not even journalists, ever comes to us. I am happy that someone acknowledged our presence and took the pain to reach this remote village to learn about our issues.”
The village, which has about 110 houses, does not appear to have benefited from any government programs or schemes. The residents here are landless. They don’t have a pucca house that should have been built on a priority basis under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (PMAY), which provides impoverished rural residents with Rs 1.3 lakh for the construction of a house.
“We receive nothing from the government other than free ration. Whenever our products are not sold, we have to sell the wheat and rice we get (under the public distribution system or PDS) to raise money to meet other financial requirements,” said the weak and frail woman.
Along with her four boys, the 55-year-old too makes soopa and baskets. However, they barely make even Rs 100 a day.
“People often take our products through a barter system in exchange for food grains. Life is difficult,” she continued, with her face clearly showing dejection.
Opposite Mahdei’s house, Babu Nandan was busy making a bamboo tokdi on the other side of the road. He too joined the conversation, lodging a list of complaints of corruption and suppression.
“We applied for a house under the PMAY more than thrice, but to no avail. Our repeated requests to pradhan (village head) to push our applications landed on deaf ears. Every time we approached him, he asked us to submit documents but nothing happened so far. We are probably not statistically significant, which is why it is happening. Political leaders take us for granted. They believe that they will secure our votes in return for alcohol — which is distributed a night before the polling day,” alleged the 45-year-old man, narrating his ordeal.
With folded hands, he pleaded to take their cause to the government to ensure some aid for them. “What we need is a place where we can showcase our skills and sell the products. In the absence of government assistance, we are struggling for our survival and to keep this art form alive,” he added.
According to 28-year-old Vinod Kumar, members of his community had voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is ruling the state as well as the Centre, in the 2019 elections with hope that it would do something for their upliftment.
When asked who they would pick in the current elections, he said no decision has been made in this regard so far.
“We generally go by the choice of the mainstream society here. We cannot go against the wishes of the influential ‘upper’ caste people here as we have to live and sustain our children,” he claimed, alleging no politician ever reached out to them for their support in elections.
“We are told that a particular party would win with or without our support and that it won’t matter whether or not we vote for it,” he said.
Changur, 70, a resident of neighboring Rampur village in Patehra block, and his three sons are engaged in the work to earn a livelihood. He said he struggles to earn Rs 1,000 a month.
“If our products are sold, we are able to eat,” he said when inquired about the work, adding, “Humke ee kaam karai se jutat haa taa khaat hain, naahi to naahi khaat hain (if our products are sold, then we manage to eat. Otherwise, we remain hungry)”.
He is the only person in his village who owns a one-room pucca house. “I got this house constructed with Rs 1.2 lakh I received from the government under the housing scheme,” he said.
The villagers claimed festive seasons help their business, and the flood of plastic products on the market has an adverse impact on their source of income.
“It has significantly reduced the demand for hand-made bamboo products,” they said.
“Threat of extinction looming large on our age-old profession because of the government’s neglect,” complained 30-year-old Suraj Prasad, claiming that they give bamboo life by employing their skills and making a variety of items out of it.
Making bamboo products involves many steps. First, it is cut into pieces along its length. Longitudinal pieces are again cut into thin slices. Now, it is left to dry for several days. Red and green hues are typically used to color the long and thin slices. Lastly, the slices are woven according to the items in a certain design.
“The procedure is labor-intensive and intricate, but the return is inadequate. As a result, a large number have abandoned the profession. Many of us now work as construction laborers, who, if hired, at least make more money than what we earn with these products,” he said.
The community women continue to use earthen stoves and are always at risk of respiratory illnesses. The much-marketed Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), which aimed at giving LPG connections to women of below poverty line (BPL) families, finds little meaning here.
The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission) does not seem to have improved hygiene and safety for the villagers who still defecate in the open in the absence of toilets. The mega sanitation drive was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014 to achieve an Open Defecation Free India by October 2, 2019.
The community is the most neglected and backward, even among the SCs, ranking at the bottom of all indicators.
Journalist Yogesh Kumar Benbanshi, who belongs to the community, gave an explanation of the social and economic backwardness.
“Our numerical significance is negligible. We currently number about 1 lakh people in the entire state. Because of illiteracy, lack of awareness, and extreme poverty, we don’t raise our voice to ask for our rights. As a result, we are unable to get the attention of the media, political figures, and the government,” he told The Mooknayak.
Kumar, a native of Unchdih in Prayagraj, is a second-generation educated man of his community. He could study law and journalism because his father works as an accountant with a private firm in Mumbai and gets a decent sum as a salary. He is one of the three youths in his village to have attended a university for higher education.
The efforts that could integrate his community with mainstream society — according to him — would be establishing a separate commission just like the one for SCs and STs, providing special financial aid to artists to help them expand their businesses, and making special arrangements for the education of children.
The Mooknayak spoke to all officials concerned with regard to the sufferings, economic challenges, and denial of government schemes of the Benvanshi Dhakar community, but none of them agreed to come on record.
The district magistrate too declined to make any comment — citing the model code of conduct, which is in place.
India is the world’s second-largest bamboo cultivator, after China. With 136 species and 23 taxa, the evergreen perennial flowering plant has 13.96 hectares of land under its cultivation in the country.
The Government of India’s Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare estimates that 3.23 million tons of bamboo are produced here every year.
Nevertheless, the nation’s contribution to the world’s bamboo trade and commerce is barely 4%, despite its considerable production.
As artists continue to struggle to make ends meet, it appears that the Centre’s One District One Product initiative — which aims to select, brand, and promote at least one product from each district of the country for enabling holistic socioeconomic growth across all regions — is having no effect on the ground.
The artists continue to suffer to the extent of starvation despite the fact that their bamboo products have been included in the ODOP list and are put on display in Hunar Haats.
It would have been encouraging for these people if political parties had believed that the concerns of this group were significant enough to find a mention in their manifestos.
The country goes to polls to elect the 18th Lok Sabha from April 19 to June 1 (in seven phases). Voting on Uttar Pradesh’s 13 seats, which also includes Mirzapur, will be held in the seventh phase on June 1.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) on March 21 declared Rajendra S Bind as its nominee against ally Apna Dal (Kamerawadi) or Apna Dal-K in Mirzapur. However, both the SP and the Apna Dal-K are partners of the Congress-led Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) — which has been formed to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led incumbent National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
The SP’s decision is likely to divide anti-BJP votes in the constituency. It came after the Pallavi Patel-led party “unilaterally” announced its candidates for Mirzapur, Phoolpur, and Kaushambi seats — all won by the BJP in the 2019 general elections.
Mirzapur Lok Sabha constituency, which is considered one of the important seats of eastern Uttar Pradesh, is presently held by BJP’s ally Apna Dal (Soneylal) or Apna Dal (S). The party chief, Anupriya Patel, has been the MP from this seat since the last two elections (2014 and 2019).
Currently, a minister in the Centre’s Modi government, she had won this seat with a huge margin of over 2 lakhs. The BJP has again left the seat for the Apna Dal (S).
All five assembly constituencies of the district are held by the NDA.
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