Bihar village’s irony: Rising wages help fight hunger

Khedu Ram and hunger had long been friends. When he was young and needed more food to keep working, hunger wouldn't leave his side. Some 30 years ago Khedu and his wife had six to feed.

The choice was often between eating and feeding the children. No amount of work earned enough. Soon his wife died. But their four children lived. They lived to see a better time. "No one, not one soul, in this village is hungry any more," says Khedu, his deep-set eyes showing no emotion, at Chhapwa in East Champaran, Bihar.

Khedu is over 60 years old. He does not remember when he was born. Nor does his son Bhikhari. The boy and this writer used to be village pals. That was in the early 1980s. Khedu was a young man then, a much fuller frame moulded by hard physical toil. He looked 30.

"My wife hardly ever had a full meal in her short life," says Khedu, a member of the "Chamar" caste, who has spent his years well under the poverty line, however imaginatively you draw it. "I wish she were alive today. Between Bhikhari and I, we feed a family of 11 now."

Stove's Burning

Bhikhari Ram, whom the free village school along with free lunch could not educate, fathered nine children. Eight alive. His wife does some seasonal farm work. But she has little time to spare from childcare and cooking two and a half kilo of rice for lunch and two and a half kilo of atta for dinner. Where does all this grain come from?

Who is keeping Khedu's stove burning? "We have two red ration cards," says Khedu. "Between father and son, we get about 60 kg of rice and wheat a month." The rest they buy from the open market, he says. Has Khedu discovered prosperity at the sooty bottom of a rice pot? "For us, to be poor is to be hungry," he says, starkly. "Look at this sweater, this new towel."

Turn to Jung Bahadur Thakur, another life member of the below poverty line club. He is from the opposite extreme of the caste divide but is united with his Dalit villagefolk in a tight bond of chronic want. "I am almost 70 and I have seen real hunger in the past," says Thakur. "What you see today is heaven. Do you not notice all the new brick houses?"

There's Work

Thakur and Bhikhari point to MGNREGS, the rural job guarantee programme. Thakur's son has a job card but takes no part in the scheme. Bhikhari has not bothered to register. Both, however, say the scheme has helped change the labour market and, in turn, their lives. "The MGNREG scheme pays just over Rs 100 a day, after 'cuts'. But due to it, daily wages here are Rs 200," says Thakur.

"One can make Rs 5,000 a month right here in the village. That's a lot of food." Bhikhari, still in the prime of his work life, says there is much local work, even in the non-farming season. "There is a lot of construction work. And unlike in the past, wages are now paid promptly."

His baby brother Munna went to Punjab a decade ago. He died of a snakebite working the fields. "He did not want to go but he had no choice," says Bhikhari, his eyes impassive. Villages around here are indeed rebuilding. Thakur has a three-room pucca house, built last year. Khedu Ram has two brick-and-concrete rooms. Both owe in part to another rural scheme, the Indira Awas Yojana.