Portraits of Empowerment

‘I’m a PM Vishwakarma-certified weaver and also enrolled in PM Suraksha Bima Yojana,’ says Lakshmi, artisan

APRIL IN KIRANDUL is not a happy time. Summer sets in early in this town at the south-eastern edge of Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh. But in mid-April there are welcome showers that have brought a respite from the sweltering heat.

But that is not a cause of joy for Lakshmi (55), a basket and mat weaver in the Chataipara locality of the town. A drizzle, however gentle it may be, means she has to stop work or at least she cannot go out and sell what she has made. Lakshmi says it takes her a day to chop the bundle of about 15 bamboo sticks into long strips to get them ready for weaving. Another day is required to weave a set of mats and baskets.

Then comes the hard part. In Kirandul there is no mar­keting support for products made out of forest produce. In Dantewada, some 40km away, there are cooperatives and other organisations that help people who gather honey and process forest products. But Kirandul is a world away. The result is that it takes Lakshmi the better part of what remains in a week to sell her wares. Kirandul is too small a market for that, so she travels to nearby Bacheli, a sister town of Kirandul, and other adjoin­ing areas. In these mining areas of Dantewada district public transport is patchy. The result: selling is a time-consuming and back-breaking activity.

But change is afoot. Lakshmi is a PM Vishwakarma-certified artisan. She proudly displays the certificate issued to her some­time ago. Among a host of other official papers, she has kept her certificate tucked away neatly in her one-room dwelling in Cha­taipara. Lakshmi has also been enrolled in PM Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY), the insurance scheme that provides death and disability cover to members of the scheme. Her bank passbook shows that she regularly pays the annual premium of ₹20.

Lakshmi says she would like to avail a Mudra loan but she does not know how to get one. “My needs are not great. I have two daughters. I have got them married and they live in Andhra Pradesh. What I want is just a bit of money so that I can pur­chase bamboo when I don’t have enough cash. This happens once in a while, for example during the rainy season when it is impossible to go out and sell anything. I can use that time to make mats and baskets and store them,” she tells Open.

The economics of her operation makes her an excellent credit. A bundle of 15 bamboo sticks costs Lakshmi ₹300. She earns around ₹1,500 in a fortnight or roughly ₹750 a week. This leaves her a net profit of around ₹450 a week. By that measure, she is above the official poverty line but it is a life of precarity.

Has she heard of the PM Ujjwala Yojana? She has, but once again, she does not know how to avail the scheme. As of now she cooks by burning firewood. But here the security envi­ronment has taken a toll. Dantewada, Bijapur and Narayan­pur districts—the three districts hit hardest by the Maoist insurgency—have the lowest penetration of Ujjwala 2.0 in Chhattisgarh although with improving security conditions, enrolment is picking up.

Chataipara is like an oasis of cooperation in a difficult world. There are five PM Vishwakarma-certified artisans in the locality that has a population of roughly 200 people. All the artisans that Open spoke with, want marketing help and some working loans. None asked for a dole and no one was enrolled in MGN­REGA or similar work. All are proud of their work.

Just 100m away, a group of women have established a self-help group (SHG) that sells wheat, rice, sugar and, when supplies are available, pulses. Led by Taleshwari Sahu (47), this is the store from where most artisans of Chataipara buy their monthly stock of food. It is an all-women SHG that was established way back in 2009 during the Raman Singh ministry. One of the conditions set by the government for help was that it should be an SHG and it should be driven and led by women. There has been no looking back since. With the operationalisation of the National Food Security Act (NFSA), increase in allocations and the free food programme under the PM Garib Kalyan Yojana (PM-GKY), a breather or sorts has arrived for the struggling artisans of Chataipara.

(By Siddharth Singh)

‘Life was always about uncertainties. But we are happier than we used to be,’ says Saira, homemaker

 

SAIRA HAS THE unsmiling face of some­one who has battled poverty and disregard. But when asked about her age, she turns girlish. Then she discloses that she is above 40, without sharing more.

Almost illiterate, according to her own confession, Saira (who doesn’t use a surname) is however glad that she and her family are beneficiaries of multiple federal welfare programmes. The most redefining possession of her life, says this resident of Habibpur Nagla village in the western Uttar Pradesh district of Baghpat—taking cues from her husband who enthusiastically helps her finish her sentences—is the LPG cylinder. She received it through the second phase of the Ujjwala scheme, which was originally launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Ballia in Uttar Pradesh on May 1, 2016. As of April 29 this year, the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) has provided 10.32 crore LPG con­nections across the country.

That is not all. Her husband, she adds, got ₹12,000 as part of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan to build a toilet in the house; he also holds a medical insurance card to avail of free treat­ment from select hospitals up to ₹5 lakh. Although she has heard of the cleanliness scheme not taking off well in a few nearby villages, she has no complaints: the homemaker says—her face lighting up—that she was lucky to get a proper toilet, apart from a piped water supply, for which the family pays a token sum every month.

Effectively, the government has covered her family under the ambitious schemes of Ujjwala 2.0 and the cleanli­ness mission, two widely implemented programmes, among others. She is especially happy for herself and her teenage daughter, both of whom had to wake up early to relieve themselves in the wasteland far behind the village. That was back then, she says, adding that it feels like a distant past. Back then, she says, she had to walk far into deserted areas to collect firewood for cooking purposes too.

These are the woes often heard from both the coun­tryside and what is sometimes called rurban (short for rural-urban or semi-urban areas). In urban India, too, this is a matter of grave concern but not something that women dread, like death, for obvious reasons.

It is no secret that acquiring an LPG cylinder and having in place a toilet with a water supply is like manna from heaven for the likes of Saira, in more ways than one. Saira explains haltingly, again, helped by her husband who is only too eager to fill in the gaps in her long sentences, “Life was always about uncertainties. It still is in many ways. But the daily tensions of life have dissipated because although I have never had any bad experiences, there was palpable fear, fear of being vulnerable to being violated. That hap­pens when you are out early in the morning, long before the sun rises, and when you go out to collect firewood.”

Official surveys and crime reports confirm that women in the countryside and semi-rural areas become victims of sexual harassment, and that includes rapes, sometimes gangrapes, and even murder, when they are out in the fields in the dark and while away collecting firewood to keep the home fires burning.

Saira has mothered three children, the other two being sons who also crowd around to answer questions posed to the mother who pauses for long before answering, sometimes in monosyllables or lengthy sentences with mul­tiple gaps that her husband, a dairy farmer, helps complete. He doesn’t like the sons chip­ping in with comments and he warns them with his facial expressions.

Aware of his disapproval of them finishing sentences for his wife, the sons, both young adults, are now tight-lipped. The father is around tending to the cows before taking them to the fields not far away.

Saira, meanwhile, throws an instruction to her daughter to make tea, but I politely decline. Then she instructs one of the sons to fetch a glass of water, and he does it promptly. The other son—taking advantage of the fact that the father is not around since he has gone to the fields to tie the cows with a long rope to a post, letting them graze—says that he and his family have no com­plaints whatsoever against the government, be it at the Centre or in the state, when it comes to the disbursal of welfare schemes. “My father is aware of all schemes and knows when and where to apply. He is also in the company of people who know everything about new and old schemes. For that reason, we are also knowledge­able about the schemes that we are entitled to.”

Saira adds that officials they meet in local government offices and neighbours are extremely helpful with filling up forms for various benefits. She is aware of the expression, Labharti, and feels proud that she is one of them, and that the government doesn’t discriminate against anyone over this.

She says she was born into abject poverty not far from where she lives, and her situation has improved a lot since. Her sons have finished school and her daughter is a promising student. The husband returns and takes over the conversation, this time going beyond schemes and talking about politics. Saira nods her head in approval as the cocky and stocky husband goes on to praise the federal government.

Is this a stock response meant for journalists, I ask jovi­ally. “No,” he says, adding that people like him and Saira are not interested in politics but in people who work and deliver for poor folk like them. “I must say that Modiji’s schemes have helped us a lot in our lives. It is not what it used to be. From using a bicycle, I am thinking of purchas­ing a scooter. And since policing by state Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has improved, life is less cumbersome now than ever before.”

Saira, as usual, nods and says, “Yes, he is right.” She delves into recent discussions among her lady friends who think it is pragmatic to vote for the incumbent government for multiple reasons, the most pronounced being their dislike of a certain group of Muslims who are “jealous” of them.

The husband elaborates—a narration that I have heard from several lower-caste Muslims across western Uttar Pradesh, from Kairana to Muzaffarnagar to Rampur to Sa­haranpur, and beyond—saying, “Gurjar Muslims are very prominent here. They used to own land and they still do. They are active in politics and the running of mosques and other religious centres. They see us as unimportant. Which is why their sons harm our sons when they go out in good clothes. If we buy some household stuff and if they find out, they try to insult us in public by calling us names. They are bullies who often try to hurt us and pull us down. In the olden days, people suffered in silence. Now, because law and order have improved and because the police see such behaviour as unacceptable, they are forced to lay low. They don’t respect us, but they are scared of harming us.”

Saira nods with a frown. She has a grave composure now. What her husband just said has left her angry. She then states, again, very slowly, measuring her words, “We are happier than we used to be. You already know.” Her daughter calls her from inside, probably seeking help with cooking. The mother darts away.

(By Ullekh NP)

‘I no longer have to wake up at 5AM to fetch water,’ says  Thippamma, housekeeper

A SNAKE RECENTLY MADE its way into S Thippamma’s two-room residence in Bengaluru’s RMV II Stage. Thippamma and her three daughters, aged 30, 23 and 18, and two grandchildren were sleeping huddled together on the floor in one of the rooms, the other being a cramped kitchen-cum-store room with a refrigerator and a small closet that rats routinely raid. “This is not the first time we have seen a snake but we are not in a position to complain,” she says. The family is grateful to have free ac­commodation in an upscale neighbourhood of Bengaluru thanks to a builder who has allowed them to live in these quarters. Construction equipment and supplies are piled high in the backyard. In the front yard lined with several Sintex tanks and drums, Thippamma feeds biscuits to a street dog. The family, which buys a tanker of water every 10 days and drinks from 20-litre cans from a local store, finds it amusing that many affluent citizens in the city have been forced to do the same this summer, due to a crippling water shortage. “We have always struggled for water and food. It’s nothing new,” says Thippamma, who is about 45-50 years old. Although her husband died of an asthma attack 15 years ago, she has only been getting a widow’s pension—₹1,200 a month—from the state government for the past year-and-a-half. Since the Congress government came to power in Karnataka last year, an additional ₹2,000 gets credited to her account under the Gruha Lakshmi scheme. With 1.36 crore registered beneficiaries, the scheme costs the government about ₹32,000 crore annually.

As a young widow with three daughters to fend for, Thippamma had no ration card, no bank account and no social security benefits to speak of. The family, from Worken­halli village near Yadgir in North Karnataka, had moved to Bengaluru to work in the construction sector nearly two decades ago. “We lived at construction sites and my husband worked as a security guard. When he died, the children and I had to start working for daily wages. They used to pay us ₹60 for a day’s work, and later it went up to ₹120. If we didn’t work even for a day, there was no food to eat,” says Thippamma, who was able to get a ration card after register­ing for Aadhaar. Had she received monthly assistance back then, she may have sent at least one of the daughters to school, she says. Thippamma and her daughters now work as housekeepers and domestic help in the neighbourhood, each making about ₹10,000-13,000 a month. The family receives 25kg rice a month for five people, in addition to ₹850 towards another 25kg under the Anna Bhagya scheme. A typical meal at their home consists of a couple of jowar rotis and rice with palya. Tonight, it’s dosa and chutney. “We have been too busy to be able to go to the wholesale market [in Yesvantpur] to buy jowar,” Thippamma says.

While they cook on a hand-me-down induction stove in Bengaluru as the state government provides a power subsidy, the family got its first cooking gas connection back home in Worken­halli under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana two years ago. The scheme pro­vides cash assistance for a new connec­tion, and a ₹300 subsidy per cylinder for up to 12 cylinders a year. The family also got a tap water connection last year under the Central government’s Jal Jeevan Mission. “When I go back home, I no longer have to wake up at 5AM to fetch water,” says Thippamma.

Thippamma is a Nayaka, a Scheduled Tribe in Karnataka. But having a caste certificate has not helped, she says. “We have never been allotted any land by the government even though they say we are eligible for two acres of dryland. We tried to get assistance to build a home [under the PM Awas Yojana] but we didn’t get a single rupee,” says her daughter S Bhimamma, 23, adding that they did not even get a subsidy to build toilets under the Centre’s Swachh Bharat programme. Her mother and her sisters will go back home to vote—their village falls under Raichur Lok Sabha constituency, which goes to the polls on May 7—but Bhimamma won’t. “Politicians have never helped us in times of need. Why should I vote? Whoever calls, I tell them I don’t want their ₹1,000 and that I won’t vote.” Her mother is partial to Congress, and says she has always voted for the party. “No matter who gives me money to vote, I will vote for who I like,” Thippamma says. The family has spent their collective savings—₹14 lakh—to renovate their old house in Workenhalli.

“We have fixed the roof and added two rooms, a kitchen and bathrooms. We don’t have any money left for the flooring,” says Thippamma, who spends a few days a month at the house she has worked so hard to build. “This is the one place we can call our own,” she says.

Her elder daughter, S Sabamma, 30, says she voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Assembly election last year but wants to vote for Congress now because of its social guar­antees. “They make a big difference to our lives,” she says. “We can go home for free in government buses now [under the state government’s Shakti scheme].” Sabamma’s 13-year-old daughter Pooja is hearing and speech impaired and used to receive a monthly disability allowance of ₹1,400 from the government, but this has not been disbursed in the past six months, she says. The state has over 13.5 lakh disabled people who have been demanding a hike in the monthly pension to ₹5,000. Sabamma’s daughter attends a private residential school for disabled children in north Bengaluru, with an annual fee of about ₹20,000. “She got a scholarship from the school last year and half the fee was waived,” Sabamma says. Her husband does not live with them, nor does he contribute to the family income. “My son and daughter are the first generation in our family to go to school. I hope their lives will be better than ours,” she says.

Yadgir Assembly segment is currently represented by Congress’ Channareddy Patil Tunnur and the Raichur (ST) Lok Sabha seat by BJP’s Raja Amareshwara Naik. Naik, who has been fielded again this time, will face Congress’ Kumar Naik. In the 2023 Assembly election, Congress won 14 of the 15 constituencies reserved for STs. The Siddaramaiah government, under Tribal Welfare Minister B Nagendra, has established a dedicated secretariat for the welfare of Sched­uled Tribes at Bengaluru’s Vidhana Soudha.

(By V Shoba)

 

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