Collective strength to uplift Musahars of Puraina
The lush green fields of wheat, maize and sugarcane give a prosperous feel to Kushinagar district in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state. But the swollen bellies, rough blond hair and gummy eyes of the small children who line up in the village of Puraina to stare at visitors tell another story - of malnourishment.
Sheila Musahar's youngest child, Gaeni, has had a high temperature for six days. Sheila is 25 but looks at least 10 years older. Gaeni is two but cradled in her mother's arms she looks just six months.
"There isn't enough to get food, so how can we get medicine?" asks Sheila, looking helplessly at her feverish child.
While the national economy is booming with near double digit growth, the health of India's poorest has slumped. Even as Indian companies compete globally and the government courts foreign investors, hunger stalks almost half the country's children. [1]
Less than one per cent of national income is spent on health. If India continues to follow the economic model promoted by World Bank and International Monetary Fund, this tiny percentage is unlikely to increase significantly.
But it is not just macro-economics that is holding back the village of Puraina. It is generations of discrimination – India's own apartheid.
All Puraina's 76 families are from the Musahar community, one of the most disadvantaged groups in India's caste hierarchy – the "Dalits (Untouchables) amongst Dalits". Their dire situation bears witness to the fact that caste-based discrimination may be outlawed but is still alive and kicking.
In extreme circumstances in the past, and sometimes even now, Musahars ( literally "rat eaters"), have had to dig grains from rat burrows to find food. If rats are available, they too become food.
For Musahars, poverty is not just lack of electricity, education or economic opportunities. It can be a death sentence. In Puraina last year two hard-working, poorly-paid, 50-year-old agricultural labourers died of tuberculosis. They could afford little food, and in their malnourished state they contracted the infection.
There is little food to be seen in Puraina. When children have a meal on their plates, it is primarily wet rice mixed with a little turmeric; no dal, no vegetables.
Little wonder children have hair with the yellow tint of protein deficiency and eye infections prevalent among people lacking vitamin A. Sheila's eldest son, seven-year-old Lakhchand, finds it difficult to see. He has opaque white spots in both eyes and is constantly blinking.
"This is what we usually eat", says Sheila, showing half a dried chapatti, chilli and a lump of rock salt. "This is what we give our children. If there is money, there are vegetables."
Almost all Puraina's families own tiny farm plots, sometimes no more than one-tenth of an acre. If floods or droughts don't ravage crops, grains harvested from these small tracts see them through 10 days at the most.
"Till two years back our kids used to cry their hearts out for food. We used to put them to sleep by saying food will come in the morning," recalls Koleswari Devi, a 50-year-old grandmother.
[1] National Family Health Survey
