The Paradox of Kalahandi

By PURUSOTTAM SINGH THAKUR 

1997, Fellow, National Foundation for India

Abject poverty in a land of plenty.  

Dispossessed of all they are entitled to, the lower Jatis – women and children of Kalahandi remain voiceless and defenseless in their struggle to survive. They have limited access to education and health, are discriminated against on all counts – class, caste and gender – and worse, are deprived of the most basic needs of life.

Despite nature’s generosity – 7.621akh hectares of cultivable land; 5.271akh hectares of forest; hundreds of perennial streams and rivers; rich deposits of bauxite, graphite, manganese, precious and semiprecious stones – Kalahandi today, is one of the poorest, most underdeveloped districts of India.

It is also a fact that this district exports food .and that here the per capita availability of food is higher than-in the state of Orissa. Yet, even in a good harvest year, malnutrition is endemic – that is the paradox of Kalahandi.

Land and forest are central to the survival of most of the population. Since agriculture is limited to single rainfed cropping, the forests have seriously depleted over the last 50 years. The reasons why agriculture has failed to sustain the people of Kalahandi are many – fragmentation of landholding, decrease in soil fertility and lack of modem irrigation methods.

Progressive land reforms could have held poverty and-injustice at bay .. Instead, feudal attitudes and the callousness of government servants combined to devastate the vulnerable. Thirty-five years after it was gifted to the landless, ceiling surplus land remains unclaimed and uncultivated. Perhaps it is because the rich and the unscrupulous always find a way to suppress the poor. Way back, in 1978, with much fanfare, the Revenue Department awarded pattas for surplus land to 14 landless families from Schedule Caste (SC)/Schedule Tribe (ST)/ Other Backward Classes (OBC), in Nuapada district’s Chanabeda Village Twenty-two years later, the same Revenue Department evicted these 14 families from their land without any compensation, either for the land or the work they had put into it.

Though provisions have been made for basic education, the schools in the interior can hardly justify their existence. Hard labour at home and in the fields makes it impossible for children to attend school. When they do, the curriculum is uninspiring, the teachers authoritarian, and the medium of education, often alien.

There is little in the way of healthcare here – preventive or curative. Those who do not fall prey to malnutrition suffer from diseases that follow lack of hygiene. Since life is unrelenting and the pickings poor, the people of Kalahandi rnigrate in the hope of a better life.

Labour contractors and the railways make it possible to migrate, sometimes to distant places. Unfortunately, most move from one exploitative system to another. The able-bodied work in harsh conditions on alien land to earn a few 100 rupees, leaving their families bereft and often unprotected at home.

Although there is seasonal family migration too, most migrants are unaccompanied by their families. A hard life becomes even harder for those who are left behind – the old, the infirm, women and children. The women must perform wage labour, do all the household work and care for the young and the old. The cruel hard work and lack of nutritious food often make them succumb to tuberculosis. Some husbands return with venereal diseases, further compounding their wives’ misery. Then there are those who do not return, who are missing or lying dead – in a faraway field, in a train or on a platform.

In the migration season, the school dropout rate soars, as children leave for new places or take on low-paid menial jobs to help out at home. In spite of government and non-government organisation (NCO) initiatives – day schools and residential schools – child labour flourishes. Throughout Kalahandi, bonded labour exists under athin disguise. Children, mostly girls, are in demand, because upper caste people, those in service and businessmen need domestic help. While some employers provide basic facilities, the large majority of children slave from morning till night. Some are also sexually exploited; but these crimes are rarely reported and So the children have no recourse to justice.

As the vicious circle completes itself, there is no hope for a better .future. SPirit and health broken, the poor of Kalahandi are resigned to a life of unmitigated misery.

Caption: The Paradox of Kalahandi

Language: English

Release Date: NA

Fellowship Year: 1997

ABOUT : PURUSOTTAM SINGH THAKUR

Is a freelance Journalist as well as the Editor and Publisher of the Oriya Fortnightly Jan Madhyam. In his writings here the plight Of women and children in Kalahandi district of OrissaiIs revealed.

purusottam25@gmail.com