Lack of development may come to haunt the ruling BSP even as caste affinity is the last hope hanging.
Widowed 20 years ago, Lalta Devi, a Harijan (Jatav), is unable to marry off her 22-year-old son Santosh Kumar. For, she does not have a house, not even a rickety mud hut and she worries where her daughter in-law would sleep. Lalta doesn’t want her to die like her daughter Sushila Devi, 16, who succumbed to harsh winters two years ago.
But right now, she has more urgent problems to attend. The head of Bikrampur village has asked her to vacate the 12 square feet open land where she cooks, eats and sleeps.
There is no hope in future either, for she does not have widow pension, MNREGA card or even a ration card. And she has no clue about the Indira Awas Yojna or the Mahamaya Awas Yojna that can give her shelter.
The realities of life are as stark for Dalits in several villages across this Pindara assembly segment, 35 km from Varanasi, as they perhaps were before Independence.
The lingering poverty and complete apathy of the administration here tells the bitter truth of government run by the BSP that became a political force to reckon with mainly because of the polarisation of 22 per cent Dalits in UP, of which Jatavs are a majority.
“Mayawati is hugely dependent on this traditional vote bank. There are signs of not only MBCs (Most backward castes) getting distanced but also upper castes because of a resurgent Congress under Rahul. In this precarious situation even a slight shift in Dalit votes can put Mayawati in big trouble,” says Rajni Ranjan Jha, professor in political science, Banaras Hindu University.
In the Dalit basti between Khalispur and Deoji villages, two km off the state highway, all 200 families are landless and dependent on either scarce farm labour or MNREGA to live. But they got only 14-20 days of work under MNERGA in 2011. Scarce farm labour does not fetch them much as upper caste and OBC land holders have shifted to mechanised methods.
This has forced most Dalits to work in brick kilns that trap them in a new form of bonded labour.
The literacy and awareness levels are abysmal as families prefer young hands to earn than to hold pen and paper. The whole Basti has only three hand pumps and no toilets. The nearest health centre is 12 km away in Pindara.
The two houses constructed under government schemes lay bare the shoddy work done by the contractors. The one room structures are not plastered, the floor is just earth and bare brick walls are losing strength. The houses have no toilets.
Jarauti Devi paid a bribe of Rs 15,000 to a Gram Sabha secretary in 2010 but house still remains a distant dream for her. And like most of her caste she has to fend her family from harsh winters and summers by constructing mud walls and covering it with plastic sheet or dried grass.
Feeling cheated by the government, their faith in the BSP is wavering but still sticks because of Mayawati. It is the question of sharing biradari with Mayawati.
But the feeling is not shared by the Valmikis who come lower in hierarchy and Dussadhs, Dhobis, Mooshars and Passis who are above Jatavs. Likewise, the MBCs feel cheated by the Mayawati government for not looking at their interests but promoting her own caste or caring for the upper castes because of Satish Mishra factor.
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