In Pakur, Pahariya voters are asking questions

“I tried calling 108 [ambulance service] multiple times. The line was either busy or unreachable.” His wife was suffering from a uterine infection and had become seriously ill despite medications. Night had fallen by now and her pains increased. Ganesh Pahariya was desperate to get her medical help.

“Finally I reached out to the local minister’s assistant, hoping for help. “He had promised us support during his [election] campaign,” Ganesh recalls. The assistant declined saying he was not around. “He just avoided helping us.”

A distraught Ganesh adds, “if an ambulance had been available, I could have taken her to a good government hospital in [big cities] Bokaro or Ranchi.” Instead, he had to take his wife to a nearby private facility, incurring a debt of Rs. 60,000, borrowed from a relative.

“During election time, they say all sorts of things – this will happen, that will happen...Just help us win. But later, even if you go to meet them, they don’t have time for you,” says the 42-year-old village headman. He says basic facilities for members of his Pahariya community (also spelt Paharia), are ignored by the state.

Dhanghara is a small hamlet in Hiranpur block of Pakur district and 50 families of the Pahariya tribe live here. To reach the village, it’s an eight kilometre journey on a poorly maintained road to reach the isolated settlement on the side of a hill in the Rajmahal range.

“Our government school is in poor condition. We asked for a new one, but where is it?” Ganesh asks. Most children from the community are not enrolled and so cannot get the midday meal scheme mandated by the state.

The community has also asked for a road between their village and the next village. “See the road for yourself,” Ganesh says pointing at the kuccha path full of small stones. He also points out that there is only one hand pump for the village and it falls upon the women to wait in line for their turn. “We were promised at the time that our demands would be met. After the vote, everyone forgets!" says Ganesh.

The 42-year-old is the pradhan, village head of Dhanghara in Hiranpur block. He says in the recent General Elections 2024, netas had campaigned here in Pakur district in the Santhal Pargana region of Jharkhand, but nothing has moved for the community.

Elections for Jharkhand's Legislative Assembly with 81 seats will take place in two phases – first phase on November 13; second phase when Pakur votes is on November 20. The electoral fight is between the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led INDIA bloc and the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA.

This village is part of the Littipara constituency, In 2019, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s Dinesh William Marandi won with 66,675 votes, followed by BJP’s Daniel Kisku with 52,772 votes. This time, the JMM candidate is Hemlal Murmu, while the BJP has fielded Babudhan Murmu.

The promises in the past have been many. “In the village council meeting in 2022, candidates promised that for a wedding in the village he’d provide the utensils for cooking,” says Meena Pahadin, a resident. Since then it has happened, but only once. 

She says for the Lok Sabha elections, “they just give us a thousand rupees and disappear. Hemant came [JMM party worker], gave 1,000 rupees to each woman and man, won the election, and now he’s enjoying himself in office.”

Jharkhand is home to 32 tribes, and many are Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups – Asur, Birhor, Birjia, Korwa, Mal Paharia, Parhaiya, Sauria Paharia and Savar. According to this  2013 report, the total PVTG population in Jharkhand is over four lakh.

Their small numbers and isolated villages are matched by low literacy, economic challenges and reliance on pre-agricultural technology. Not much has changed in the last few decades. Read: The hills of hardship,  an extract from P. Sainath's Everybody loves a good drought.

"Gaon me jyadatar log majdoori hi karta hai, service me toi nahi hai koi. aur yahan dhan ka khet bhi nahi hai. khali pahad pahad hai. [Most people in the village work as labourers; no one here is in a service [state jobs]. And we don’t even have paddy fields here, just hills everywhere,” Ganesh tells PARI. Women go to the forest to gather wood and chirota [Swertia], which they sell in the market.

The Pahariya tribe (also spelt Paharias), are among the earliest inhabitants of Santhal Pargana region of Jharkhand. They are divided into three branches: Sauriya Pahariya, Mal Pahariya, and Kumarbhag Pahariya, and all three have lived in the Rajmahal hills for centuries.

Historical records suggest they belong to the Malli tribe mentioned by Megasthenes, the Greek diplomat and historian who travelled to India during the reign of Chandragupta Maurya, 302 BCE, says this journal. Their history is marked by struggles, including conflicts with the Santhals and British colonial rule, which forcibly displaced them from their ancestral plains and pushed them into the hills. They were labelled bandits and cattle thieves.

“The Pahariyas as a community have gone into a shell. They lost heavily in the past in their struggle with the Santhals and the British and have not recovered from the shock,” writes Dr. Kumar Rakesh, a Professor at the  Sido-Kano University, Dumka, Jharkhand in this report.

In the mild winter sun, the sounds of children playing, goats bleating, and the occasional crowing of roosters can be heard here in Dhanghara village.

Meena Pahadin is outside her home speaking with other women in their native Malto language.  “We are Jugbasis. Do you know what that means?” she asks this reporter. “It means that this mountain and forest are our home,” she explains.

Everyday, along with other women she heads to the forest by 8 or 9 a.m., returning by noon. “There’s chirota in the forest; we spend all day collecting it, then dry it and take it to sell,” she says pointing to branches drying on the roof of her mud house.

“Sometimes we get two kilos in a day, sometimes three, maybe even five kilos if we’re lucky. It’s hard work,” she adds. Chirota sells for 20 rupees a kilogram. Chirota has many medicinal properties, and people drink its decoction. “Everyone can drink it—children, elders—it’s good for the stomach,” Meena.

Besides chirota, Meena also collects firewood from the forest, traversing a journey of 10-12 kilometres everyday. “The bundles are heavy and each one sells for just 100 rupees,” she says. The bundles of dry wood weigh around 15-20 kilograms, but if the wood is wet, it can go up to 25-30 kilograms.

Meena agrees with Ganesh that the government makes promises but never fulfils them. “Earlier, no one even came to us, but now for the last couple of years, people have started coming around,” she added. “Several chief ministers and prime ministers have changed, but our situation remains the same. All we got is electricity and rations,” she adds.

“Dispossession and displacement have continued to be major issues facing Adivasis in Jharkhand. Mainstream development programmes have failed to recognize the socio-cultural distinctiveness of this group and have followed the ‘one shoe fits all’ approach,” says this 2021 report on Adivasi livelihoods in the state.

“There’s no work! No work at all. So we have to go outside,” says Meena speaking for the 250-300 people who migrate out. “Going outside is difficult; it takes three to four days to reach. If there were jobs here, we could return quickly in case of an emergency.”

The Pahariya community is entitled to receive 35 kilograms of ration per family at their doorstep through the ‘Dakiya yojana’. However, Meena shared that it isn’t enough for her family of 12 members. “A small family might manage, but for us, it doesn’t even last 10 days,” she adds.

Reflecting on the condition of her village, she said no one cares about the plight of the poor. “We don’t even have an anganwadi here,” Meena pointed out. According to the National Food Security Act, children aged six months to six years and pregnant mothers are entitled to receive supplementary nutrition from anganwadi.

Raising her hand waist-high to demonstrate Meena says, “In other villages, children of this height get nutritious food—sattu, chickpeas, rice, lentils… but we don’t get any of that.” “Only polio drops,” she added. “There’s an anganwadi shared by two villages, but they don’t give us anything.”

Meanwhile his wife’s medical fees remain – Ganesh has a Rs. 60,000 loan and additional interest to pay back. “Ka kahe kaise, denge, ab kisi se liye hai to denge hai… Thoda thoda kar ke chukayenge, kisi tarah [ I don't know, how I will pay. I have borrowed from someone, so I have to repay them somehow,”] he tells this reporter.

This election Meena has decided firmly, “we won’t take anything from anyone. We won’t vote for who we usually did; we’ll vote for someone who will actually benefit us.”