Rahul M.

Sharmila Joshi

Editor

large_01-Dalits-on-the-day-they-left-to-bangalore-Bucharla-0523-RM-Staying_half-.jpg

medium_01-Dalits-on-the-day-they-left-to-bangalore-Bucharla-0523-RM-Staying_half-.jpg

small_01-Dalits-on-the-day-they-left-to-bangalore-Bucharla-0523-RM-Staying_half-.jpg

thumbnail_01-Dalits-on-the-day-they-left-to-bangalore-Bucharla-0523-RM-Staying_half-.jpg

01-Dalits-on-the-day-they-left-to-bangalore-Bucharla-0523-RM-Staying_half-.jpg

“We can eat only if we work every day,” D. Narayanappa said after returning to Bucharla from Bengaluru on November 4. Like many other Dalits in this village, he migrates to the city to work on construction sites for most of the year, coming home every now and then for a few days. But in November, the migrants stay on for a month or more in their village in Roddam mandal of Anantapur district on the Andhra Pradesh-Karnataka border. During this month, like the others, Narayanappa too works on the farms in Bucharla to keep bringing in an income. Not working for some length of time is not an option.

02-Narayanappa-Bucharla-0520-RM-Staying_half-hungry_due_to_the_demonetisat.jpg

The November return is usually a time of some joy for the migrants.  They carry back their modest savings to celebrate an ancestral festival called Shanti. During this festival, the approximately 150 Dalit families in the SC (scheduled castes) colony in Bucharla perform rituals that they believe will protect them from epidemics. They sacrifice bulls and sheep for Goddess Peddamma. The rituals are followed by a day of feasts where the meat of the sacrificed animals is served. This year, the sacrifices were scheduled for November 29. The migrants had started coming home with the money they had saved, looking forward to the festivities. Then, demonetisation hit them.Along with the severe shortage of cash in the village, lower groundnut and mulberry yields after a poor monsoon and falling or fluctuating prices have eaten into the farmers’ incomes in Roddam. They have not been able to regularly employ labourers. Many agricultural labourers from various castes in the village were not paid their daily wages – Rs. 150 for men, Rs. 100 for women – for 15 days in November.

03-unemployed-sc-man-rests-at-ration-shop-and-unemployment-helpline-number.jpg

To get past November without work, and still be able to celebrate Shanti, the Dalits had to eat less. “We have to prolong the rice we have for a few more days,” said Hanumakka, an agricultural labourer.  In November, her family, like the others in the SC colony of around <a href="http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/dchb/2822_PART_B_DCHB_ANANTAPUR.pdf">600</a> Dalits ate fewer meals every day, and skipped having their weekly meat.Narayanappa’s seven-member family – his wife, two sons, their wives, and a two-year-old granddaughter – used to consume around 90 kilos of rice and 30 seers (one seer is a little less than a kilo) of ragi every month. “But in November we only ate around 60 kilos of rice and 10 seers of ragi,” he says. Narayanappa purchases rice from a shop run by G.R. Raghavendra in Roddam village, around three kilometres from Bucharla — a sack of 50 kilos costs Rs. 1,200. Raghavendra’s business is bleak. “In October, we sold around 20 bags of rice, each weighing 25 kilos,” he says. “Last month [November] we sold only 8-10 bags.”

04-Raghavendra-in-his-grocery-shop--Roddam-0533-RM-Staying_half-hungry_due.jpg

Other grocery shops in Roddam, which serve the 21 villages of the mandal, have also seen business drop after demonetisation. “The sales of all essential items have reduced,” says P. Ashwathalakshmi, a shopkeeper in the village. “We used to sell three cartons of soaps every week. In the first week of December, we couldn&#39;t even fully sell one carton.” The residents of the SC colony in Bucharla get only a part of their grains from the ration shops; the rest they buy in limited quantities at least once a month – they cannot afford to buy large stocks to store. “This time, we didn’t buy because of [a lack of] money [and made do with the rice from the ration shops],” says Hanumakka, who now stays home because work in the village has nearly disappeared.

05-Hanumakka-on-right-with-the-rice-from-ration-shop-which-will-collect-it.jpg

The people of the Dalit colony aren’t new to scarcity. Many of the men here were bonded labourers in various villages in the region before the 1990s. For them, the present situation evokes memories of that period. But, they say, it is less severe this time. “This scarcity [due to demonetisation] is better than the other drought we had around 30 years ago,” Narayanappa, now 49, says, “In my 20s, we used to starve for three or four days in a row. We would soak tamarind seeds in water and eat them, or eat the rhizomes from palm trees to survive. At that time, I had been a jeethagadu [a bonded labourer] for 14 years.” Now, the former bonded labourers migrate for many months every year looking for work, more so after agricultural options in the village have decreased. Most of Narayanappa’s family migrates to Bengaluru, returning home for a few days once in 3-4 months. They usually work on construction sites in the city, and live on the top of the buildings they work in, or in crammed rooms by the roadside. But they manage to eat full meals paid for by their strenuous work. “We make sure we eat meat two times during a week,” Narayanappa says. This has changed after demonetisation.After Narayanappa’s family returned to Bucharla in the first week of November, finding no work on the farms, they have had to stretch their savings to meet all expenses. People from the other castes in the village are coping slightly better by sharing stocked grains or borrowing saved money from each other. The people from Narayanappa’s caste have meagre stocks and can’t easily borrow from others in the village.“We are Ambedkar’s people,” Narayanappa says, to explain why they are unable to borrow money informally, or share stocks with others in the village. He is trying to not mention his caste name (Madiga), which is sometimes used as a pejorative in Telugu. Besides, he does not want to appear needy. “Now we have prestige,” he says. “Even if someone offers us food, we won’t take it. We might eat very little. But we tell them that we have eaten well.”

06-Narayanappas-home-after-they-have-left-Bucharla-0557-RM-Staying_half-hu.jpg

While the members of Narayanappa’s caste are trying to adapt to demonetisation by eating less, the cash shortage in the Roddam branch of Canara Bank that has shaken many families in the village is not the main concern in the SC colony. “We don’t have much money with us. All we want is some work,” says Narayanappa.Postscript: After going half-hungry for a month,  Narayanappa’s family left for Bengaluru on December 4, three weeks before their planned departure. Many other Dalit families have also left, leaving their children with the elderly. The SC colony in Bucharla that tried to stay festive and crowded last month became silent a week after the festival.

Staying half-hungry due to the demonetisation ‘drought’

নোটবন্দির ডেকে আনা আকালের জেরে আধপেটা মানুষ

பட்டினியை தந்த பணமதிப்பு நீக்கம் எனும் ‘பஞ்சம்’

नोटबंदी के चलते भरपेट खाने से वंचित मज़दूर

ବିମୁଦ୍ରୀକରଣ ରୂପକ ‘ଦୁର୍ଭିକ୍ଷ’ ଯୋଗୁଁ ଅଧା-ପେଟରେ ରହୁଛୁ

বিমুদ্রাকৰণৰ বিপৰ্যয়ত অর্ধাহাৰী শ্রমজীৱী

नोटाबंदीच्या ‘दुष्काळाचा’ अर्धपोटी सामना

ನೋಟು ರದ್ಧತಿಯ ಬರದಿಂದಾಗಿ ಅರೆಹೊಟ್ಟೆ ಬದುಕು

نوٹ بندی کے ’قحط‘ کی وجہ سے آدھا بھوکا

Bucharla

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


Let’s get you acquainted

Welcome to PARI

All our content is, and will forever be free to consume. If you enjoy our work, you can support us by becoming a volunteer or by donating to help fund our work.

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

Staying half-hungry due to the demonetisation ‘drought’

When Dalit migrants of Bucharla in Andhra returned home in November for an annual festival, there was no work on farms hit by the cash scarcity on top of poor yields – forcing them to eat less during a festive time

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit