Home alone in Banswara

Kiran cooks, cleans and runs the household. She also gathers firewood and water and lugs it home, the distances getting longer as summers advance.

Only 11 years old, she doesn't have a choice – her parents migrate out annually and there is no one else at home in her village (name withheld) in Banswara district. Her 18-year-old brother Vikas (name changed) is around, but he could migrate anytime, as he has done in the past. Their three other siblings, aged between three and 13 years, live with their parents who work as labourers at construction sites in Vadodara, Gujarat. They are missing out on school, but Kiran (name changed) gets to attend.

“I cook some food in the morning,” says Kiran, explaining her daily routine to this reporter. The kitchen area takes up almost a half of the one-room house and a lone flashlight suspended from the roof provides light once the sun goes down.

At one end is a wood-fire stove; extra wood and an old fuel can are placed close by. Vegetables, spices and other ingredients are stored in plastic bags and containers that are either arranged on the floor or hung from the walls – in easy reach of her small arms. “I also cook dinner in the evening after school. Phir murgi ko dekhna [Then I see to the hens and roosters] and then we go to sleep,” says Kiran. 

Her shyly narrated story leaves out the many other household chores such as collecting and carrying firewood from the jungles at the foot of the nearby hills, known to the locals as Bijliya or Davda Khora. It can take Kiran around an hour to go to the forest, another hour to cut, collect and tie the wood into a pile, and one more hour to return home with the kilos of wood, definitely taller and likely weighing more than the slightly built child.

“I also fetch water,” Kiran adds, remembering a critical chore. From where? “From the handpump.” The handpump belongs to her neighbour Asmita’s family. “We have two hand pumps on our land. Everyone in the area, around eight households, draws water from them,” says Asmita, 25. “Once summer comes and the hand pumps dry up, people will move to the gaddha [a naturally forming pond or pool at the base of the Bijliya hills]." The gaddha is further off and quite a hike especially for someone as young as Kiran.

Dressed in a salwar kurta and purple sweater for the winter chill, she looks almost too old for her age. But when she pipes up, “mummy-papa se roz baat hoti hai…phone pe [We talk to our parents everyday…on the phone]," you catch a glimpse of her young age.

Half the households in southern Rajasthan, where Banswara district is located, are migrant households. And Bhil Adivasis, like Kiran’s family, make up more than 95 per cent of the population of the district. Many leave young children behind to ensure the land and house are taken care of. But, besides the unfair burden on young shoulders, living alone also exposes them to those who want to prey on their vulnerability.

It is early January and many of the fields here are brown with dry brush or the standing cotton crop, ready for picking. With the winter vacations still going on, many children are busy working on the family land, gathering firewood or grazing cattle.

Vikas has stayed back this time, but had joined his parents the previous year. “I worked with the machines mixing sand [at construction sites],” he says, in between picking the cotton. “We would be paid 500 rupees for a day’s work. But we had to live on the side of the road. I didn’t like that.” So he returned around Diwali (2023) when the academic year picked up again.

Vikas hopes to get an undergraduate degree soon. “Pehle pura kaam karke, phir padhne baithte hai [First we finish our work, then we study],” he tells PARI.

But Kiran is quick to say what she likes about going to school: “I like studying Hindi and English. I don’t like Sanskrit and Maths.”

Kiran is fed lunch in school under the midday meal scheme: “Kisi din sabji, kisi din chawal [Some days vegetables, other days rice],” as she puts it. But to meet the rest of their food needs the siblings grow and collect papad (flat beans) on their land and buy leafy greens. Other ingredients come from government provided ration.

“We get 25 kilos of wheat,” says Vikas. “And other ingredients like oil, chilli, turmeric and salt. We also get 500 grams of mung [green gram] and chana [chickpea] dal. It’s enough to last us two for a month.” But once the entire family returns it does not suffice.

Income from the farm is not nearly enough to cover the family’s expenses. The poultry birds the siblings raise partially cover school fees and daily expenses, but when they run through that, their parents have to send money.

Wages under MGNREGA vary widely but the daily wage prescribed in Rajasthan – Rs. 266 – is almost half of the Rs. 500 paid by private contractors to Kiran and Vikas’s parents in Vadodara.

With such wage disparities, it is no wonder that the bus stands in Kushalgarh town are always busy. Around 40 state buses leave every day through the year carrying 50-100 people in one journey. Read: Migrants…don’t lose that number

As children grow older, they often accompany their parents for wage work, so it’s not surprising that school enrolment in Rajasthan falls steeply with age. Asmita who is a social activist, corroborates this lack in formal education saying, “a lot of people here study mostly till Class 8 or 10.” She herself used to migrate to Ahmedabad and Rajkot, but now works in the family’s cotton fields, is studying for public service exams and helping others.

Two days later when this reporter meets Kiran again, she is attending a community outreach meeting conducted by young women volunteers from the area, including Asmita, with the help of Aajeevika Bureau, a non-profit organisation based in Kushalgarh.  Young girls are made aware of the different kinds of education, occupations and futures they can have. “You can be anything,” the mentors repeat throughout.

After the meeting, Kiran makes her way back home, to draw another pot of water and prepare the evening meal. But she’s looking forward to being back in school, meeting her friends and doing all the things she couldn’t during the vacations.