The outer calm of many remote villages and hamlets can be deceptive. So much may be happening, good and bad, hopeful and tragic, beneath the surface calm, if only one cares to observe a bit more beyond the ‘all is well’ routine talk. The dalit hamlet of Bhanwarpur (located in Banda district of Uttar Pradesh) has seen much in recent times. Several of its households have become increasingly dependent on labour migrating to distant places. Covid times were particularly difficult for them as they had to walk back very long distances to reach the village.

In the village, there were hardly any employment prospects and above all there was shortage of food. So when activists of a voluntary organization, Vidya Dham Samiti (VDS), brought food and grain packets for them it was a big relief. These activists additionally motivated them to take up some activity so as to improve the prospects of sustainable livelihoods within the village. After a lot of discussion it was decided to try to revive a rivulet named Gharar which had vanished in recent times. This would provide the water most urgently needed for improving livelihood prospects within the village. A committee of volunteers to carry out the digging and cleaning work to help revive the rivulet was formed. VDS encouraged this effort by setting up a community kitchen near the work-site so that at least the hardworking volunteers, including many women, could have adequate nutritional support. Instead of demoralisation that had existed earlier among tired, worn-out migrant workers, a festive mood was now created at the work-site with people working hard but also eating and singing together.

This effort bore fruit when water finally appeared in the dry stream bed. As though guided by some intuition, thirsty cattle rushed to drink water here. The local media which had been following the initiative published glowing accounts of the success. There was much talk of the villagers’ effort receiving some big award. It was at this stage that someone in officialdom appears to played spoilsport and rushed to show this as NREGA work to claim the credit. When villagers protested that this was their voluntary effort, some officials threated the VDS Secretary Raja Bhaiya, a senior social activist widely respected for his decades-long commitment to helping the poorest sections. Hence, a scene of achievement and celebration became a scene of threats and fear.

Soon however better sense prevailed and the victimization stopped. Now officials rightly concentrated their attention on using NREGA and other schemes to take the benefits to a wider area. After all, the rivulet could not be revived by efforts in just a single village. The official effort succeeded in taking the benefits to several neighboring villages as well, bringing much relief to people. However, before these new gains could be consolidated, someone in officialdom again made a serious mistake by over-enthusiastically extending the work in such a way that the people of Bhanwarpur were now exposed to the threat of floods! Since then they have been living in fear of what may happen at the time of heavy rains.

They have been appealing to the officials to undo the damage before the coming of the rainy season but so far to no avail. One hopes that such urgently needed work is taken up by the concerned officials as early as possible. After all the villagers who took up such a great work of reviving a rivulet should not have to face punishment in the form of their hamlet being made susceptible to harm from floods. Dafai hamlet in Chitrakut district (Uttar Pradesh) was settled by feudal interests bringing in several very poor Kol tribal families to toil for them in conditions of semi-bondage, doing hazardous work in stone crushers. While male and female workers generally toiled in very difficult conditions, things became more difficult in Covid times when workers in such a remote place became even more vulnerable.

Taking advantage of their increased vulnerability, some employers even tried to make women workers the victims of their lust. When this was reported on a national TV channel, instead of taking immediate action to protect women, some officials again took strong action against Raja Bhaiya as they suspected him of having tipped off the TV channel. He was called to the police station, threatened, insulted and abused. At this stage the intervention of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) changed things dramatically. The police officer mainly responsible for this victimization was fined and the Rs. 50,000 he had to deposit in the treasury was awarded to Raja Bhaiya as compensation for the harassment caused to him! This was not the only good news.

With the NHRC focus on Dafai village, officials moved in to help the village in some significant ways. Almost all the village households were selected under the PM Awas scheme for housing assistance, and in the case of most, the new pucca houses have actually been completed. So while the officials can point to this as a big success story, critics can say that Dafai is still deprived of electricity and toilets. Taps and pipes have appeared, but at least till the time of my visit there was no water. Even the housing success is clouded by the fact that as the official assistance was not adequate, villagers had to borrow significant amounts of money from private sources at high rates of interest to complete construction. Hence they are saddled with installments at a time when livelihood is precarious and the old work of crushers has been largely mechanized.

Such worries are certainly there but still there is some pride in the new pucca houses too. A woman who showed me her home pointed out how she had saved the previous mud house too and in fact had integrated this nicely with the new brick and cement structure. She said: “Now in winter and rainy season we can stay in the new home and during the summer season which extends for the greater part of the year we still prefer to stay in the mud house as it is cooler.”

(The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Protecting Earth for Children and A Day in 2071.)