Lalitpur (Uttar Pradesh)
Due to the lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus in the country, the works and businesses have come to a screeching halt. The Centre and the state governments are trying to provide economic relief to labourers and daily wage earners through certain schemes. However, due to the lack of financial assistance to the Sapera community, for the snake charmers living in villages across Bundelkhand, the livelihood crisis has been deepening.
Bundelkhand is a region that’s divided between the states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
For these snake charmers, the chief source of income is to catch snakes and put up their performances at people’s doorsteps, from village to village. Pleased with the performance people offer them money or food, which they sustain upon. Due to the lockdown, their source of income has dried up.
This family hasn’t received any ration for the past five months
Gaon Connection visited a family of snake charmers who lives in Pachaura village in Mehroni block, which falls in South-East of Lalitpur district. There are seven members in the family. Being landless, they do not have a regular source of income. They derive economic subsistence by working on daily wages and by begging from the villagers, showing them the snakes caught by them.
The elder daughter-in-law, 60, has a ration card for three people, but she hasn’t received any ration for the past five months. Previously, she used to get 14 kg ration, but it has all stopped now. Since the lockdown, the family has been facing the mounting challenge of managing two meals a day.
The farmers in the village have harvested their wheat crops. Certain ears of wheat may have fallen and are left upon the fields. The family visits such fields and gathers these every day. They make bread by milling this wheat and have somehow managed to feed their children so far. The elder daughter-in-law, while pounding the ears of wheat, said: “It is difficult to get out of the house. There is no work anywhere. We belong to the sapera community. We eat whatever we get from the village. Now, the villages and towns are all closed and the police is hitting with sticks. There is nothing to eat at home.”
Sitting in front of her mud house, she added: “Now, I have brought some wheat from the fields and am extracting wheat grains. Next day, the same will be milled and bread be made to feed everyone. When you have bread, you don’t get vegetables, when vegetables are available, there is no bread.”
Showing her ration card, she said: “The Kotedar (ration distributor) has not given ration for five months. He takes my thumb impression and asks me to come the next month. That is what he had said yesterday when he had dismissed me roughly without any ration.”
Just then, Savita Nath, 30, her daughter-in-law, emerged from the mud house and said: “We had applied for the ration card at least four to five times, but the pradhan still did not make our card. Now, who would feed eat us during this calamity? We are starving.”
For families like these, the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh is trying to provide free and adequate ration for three months to the needy people so that no family faces economic crisis or shortage of food grains. Besides, allowances are also announced so that such people can meet their food requirements. However, most of the families in the villages are on the verge of starvation in absence of any allowance or ration.
The people of Nath community live in twelve villages of Lalitpur district. Pachaura has the most number of such people. This story is not of the family of the elder daughter-in-law alone, but of most of the families in the region. Since everything from wages to work is closed due to the lockdown, these people are pushed to the point of starvation.
Manish Nath, 30, an educated member of this community, said: “Around 25 per cent of the people of the Sapera tribe have a half-acre to two acres of land. The rest of the families are landless. Around 30-40 families have ration cards, the rest do not have any. Now these families are either barely managing to feed themselves or are left to starve.”
He added: “They keep a snake in the box and show it to the people in the nearby village towns and receive in return flour and money with which they support their family. The lockdown has prohibited all movement, whatever ration was with the Nath people has been totally used up, most of the families are now facing starvation.”
Bahadur Nath, 65, a resident of this village, is landless. He is reeling under economic crisis. There is no vegetable or any other provision to eat at home. When the Gaon Connection team met him at the time of sunset, he was grinding chutney made of small tomatoes on the slab of stone outside his makeshift thatch of straw and polythene. He said: “With this chutney, I would eat some bread and fill my belly. I do not have money to buy oil or vegetables. I can do without all that but without bread how would one fill the stomach.”
He went in to fetch a bucket. Showing the flour in that bucket his eyes welled up. In a pained voice, he said: “Sir, look at it, only two kgs of flour is left in there. The family has eleven members so I worry how long would this much flour last us and how would we manage after that.”
In the same village, Ghanshyam, 55, works in a band party of Naths. Ghanshyam, sitting outside his mud house, said: “My wife, Gulabrani, had received Rs 500 in her of Jan Dhan account. With the same money, we had bought some essential food items. It is difficult to run a household of seven people. The Nath Band party used to find some work during the wedding season. Now, it too is closed. We are passing through great difficulties in trying to feed ourselves.”
There are about 15 to 20 elderly women and men in the village who do not get any relief in their old age. One such senior citize, Hiranath, 62, said: “Five- six months ago, forms were filled for pension. I have gone to the pradhan several times inquiring after it. He keeps on citing administrative delays. Had I been receiving old age pension; I would have fared better during this difficult time.”
The economic conditions of the Sapera community has forced its members to go out to work for wages. Some of them have come back while some have settled there. The son and daughter-in-law of Rajabai Nath are stranded in the town, Rajabai, 65, who does not own any land, pointed to the box with snake amd said: “With this, the Dukara (husband) begs in the village. It has been a month since he had stepped out. How would the house run for there is not a single penny upon us now?”
