Red ant eaters

Late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi did not believe that a lot of people were eating red ants in many districts of Orissa in 1980s during famine. 

Three decades later, there are still people in parts of West Bengal and Orissa who eat red ants and their eggs. That, off course, is not a delicacy. but extreme human survival compromises. 

And these men and women are mostly Scheduled Castes and Tribes (SCs & STs). That they remain at the bottom of the development pyramid is a telling blow to the road-map, which Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi had laid as part of the "Poona Pact". The duo may not have imagined that their road-map would be hijacked by pseudo leaders, who in later decades, would exploit their castes to build fortunes for themselves.

On the outskirts of Lucknow and in the midst of a paddy field, three men were idling away their time with beedi. That was on the eve of the 2012 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Two of them sat on a raised cemented platform, while the third squatted at a distance on the ground. The two were Yadavs and the squatter was a Dalit. But they all worked for the state government and were fourth grade employees. For over two weeks, they all did the same job; that of covering larger than life size statues of "Behen" Mayawati in and around Lucknow.

"We will vote for Netaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav), but he will vote for Mayawati. You can ask him. He will vote for her despite covering her statues himself for over a fortnight," said one of the Yadavs. The squatter shyly confirmed. That he will do so, because, he said, Mayawati is the honour of his caste.

In five years that she ruled Uttar Pradesh with an iron fist, all that Dalits got have largely been impressive BSP party offices in their villages. Dalits in UP villages, while living in mud-hut like shelters, take pride in these double storey offices of the BSP. Even though Mayawati ran a scheme called Dr Ambedkar Gram Jyoti Yojana in which the state government gave Rs one crore for a village's development, the sorry tale of embezzlement is there for all to see. 

In the close neighbourhood, wily Nitish Kumar attempted his grand plan to politically insure his party by stratifying Dalits into Mahadalist. Though there was nothing Maha (great) about this political move, what he did was weaning away the support base from another Dalit political contractor Ram Vilas Paswan.  

Sugriv Harijan

But nine years after Nitish carved out Mahadalit for his political stability, lot of these people look much worse on the ground. "All that we have got in the name of Mahadalit is one radio set for a family. We were better off till government made us Mahadalit," quipped Sugreev Harijan, 65, of Kulharia Mahadalit village in Banka district of Bihar.

Incidentally, Nitish claimed that he distributed land to Mahadalit but in two villages of such people none had got either land or job. And they mostly work as labourers for which MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) comes handy.

Arguably, Nitish Kumar in the name of Mahadalit proved a bigger villain for them, as he allowed country liquor shops to be opened up in their villages. So, Mahadalit youths, who have got education till school, will not work on farm field and in the absence of regular jobs they will idle away their times during days and by dusk will be high on country liquor. And, while the most productive age group has arguably become a lazy class, senior citizens among them toil hard on the hard land.

Mahadalit MGNREGA labourers 

So, a little walk through a farm field full of human defecation takes one to about two dozen Mahadalits working to dig land for minor irrigation. And they reveal the paradox in their lives, as men are mostly 60+ working with their daughters-in-law. None of them are Mahadalit male youth.

"My son is a graduate but is jobless and a drunkard. At this age, I work as a labourer to feed him and his family. If the liquor shop was not opened so near our homes, he may have worked for livelihood," said Bharat Das, 65.

In another Mahadalit village in Bhagalpur district of Bihar, Manoj Kumar, after having returned from Delhi where he worked as compounder, has opened a clinic and prescribes medicines to villagers, who have no access yet to trained doctors. Local BJP MP Putul Devi believes at least there is someone to give medicines for minor ailments.

If these Dalits still struggle with their livelihoods, one can not resist to admit the fact that they have been victims of Nehruvian politics perpetuated by his daughter Indira Gandhi by turning them into a herd for votes. And to ensure that they remained a herd, they have just been given enough doles in last six decades just to survive. Nehru-Indira model was later hijacked by the likes of Mayawati, Nitish Kumar but no change took place in their real motives.

That if Dalits break off from their sub-poverty level, their aspirations could split the herd, which makes a poor political sense. But there lies the failure of the nation to allow a great number of people to live sub-human lives. And so the red ant eaters live in India.