Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Llife is cheaper than Rahul’s poster in Kalawati’s village

Jalka is one of the twelve thousand villages dotting the area. Over the last three years, the village has acquired a stature of its own with Rahul visiting it. The village is now known as the village of Rahul’s Kalawati. The village belongs to the Yavatmal district which is yet to have a rail link. But the high incidence of suicide among the farmers in the area has focused international attention on it. However, this changed Yavatmal into a laboratory where the international agencies tried to find out how the local farmers in a liberalizing India still managed to survive or to comprehend the circusmstances that spawned a critical crisis for them. The representatives from international organizations including the United Nations Organization, world bank, international monetary fund and American senate have already visited the area to see its terminal illness. Their report is still awaited. But when rahul Gandhi mentioned kalawati and shashikala in his speech in parliament kalawati’s village jalka became a symbol of the crisis gripping the entire countryside in yavatmal where as if in a laboratory every single farmer was being used as a guinea pig.

When stepping into the fields of Kalawati’s village, one is confronted with long and deep pits and hollow surfaces. One wonders about the purposes of these pits. But when this laboratory became open to all and sundry, pandit shri ravishankar could barely help using it. He also began spiritual experiments which would calm down the farmers bent on committing suicides. Ravishankar’s experiments led to the digging of pits and hollow surfaces as they were meant for testing out his theory on how to help the farmers through the water of the tanks in the fields. As soon as Ravishankar himself left the place, all his experiments ground to a halt and his followers could do nothing in his absence. Not only that, the pits dug for the experiments got filled with water during the rainy season adding to the woes of the local farmers. Meandering through the footpaths when one moves towads the residential portion of the village, suspicions about the settlement being a political laboratory begin to get confirmed.

In delhi one may talk about rahul’s kalawati but here in jalka things are different. Here it is kalawati’s rahul whose posters are strewn over grass and are hanging like children from the dung-smeared walls of the flimsy houses. The big rahul posters are tied with ropes at all the four ends of the village and when the strong winds snap these ropes people in droves go to kalawati to inform her. And immediately these big posters are tightly tied and restored to their points. Some small size rahul posters come unstuck in the rain and find their way into the water. But other farmers in the village also expect so much of kalawati’s rahul that they hold even the broken posters close to their chests hoping to be noticed by delhi one day so their woes may as well come to an end. When the sulabh international gave kalawati five lakh rupees , the local congressmen began loudly claiming they had arranged this amount. When the villagers started going to the congressmen to get their share they were told the political leaders did not distribute money. The villagers could not believe it. When they enquired from kalawati as to how she could get the amount she told them it was through rahul’s grace. Even the congress state president said if rahul had not mentioned kalawati who could have given her money. In other words, it is rahul’s grace that matters, not the actual distributor of the gift money. As rahul can not belong to all, he is kalawati’s rahul alone. The village is replete with the rahul posters and their smithereens and the people of the village hope if not rahul himsel, at least his posters may yield them benefits. Building the huts in the village has cost even less than the posters adorning them. The village has only a few brick-built houses and most of the dwellings are made of bamboo, grass, plants, mud and dung. One can imagine the plight of the tenants of these huts when their dwellings get damaged or collapse. The morghade household gives a graphic picture of this situation. His hut got destroyed by the storm and the rain and rebuilding it would cost him about hundred and fifty rupees. But he does not have this amount. Somehow this man managed to get hold of the Rahul posters made of cloths and plastic and he so arranged them as to make them look as the walls of his hut. When the Sulabh Internation gave Kalawati money some state-level congress leaders visited the village and one of the congress workers took away the Rahul posters from morghade’s hut but when morghade protested this congress worker told him that he should not use the rahul poster as an ornament. When morghade drew his attention to the widespread use of the rahul posters in the village including the big posters being used by kalawati, the congress worker explained it was a matter of rahul;s kalawati not the other way round. So a compromise was reached as per which for two days morghade’s house was covered with rags and thread-bare cloths and the poster was fixed on a high platform. As soon as the congress leaders went back, morghade got back the posters.

It is not that the village has only the rahul posters. Ever since kalawati has been mentioned by rahul, the villagers have begun realizing if they hung the posers of the leaders coming from delhi their life would also change. It is by chance that rahul came only to jalka but every other leader has visited yavatmal. The latter is the burial ground for the farmers in vidharva. Most of the suicide deaths have been reported from here. During the last ten years in the whole of maharasthra 8 thousand farmers committed suicide out of which 5 thousand farmers were from yavatmal alone. This explained why sonia Gandhi visited the area during the 2004 general elections. During the vajpayee regime more than 16 thousand farmers had committed suicide. Then nobody thought that more than 17thousand farmers in maharasthra would commit suicide during the manmohan regime. Anyway, when rahul came to kalawati’s house her fate changed but this has set her neighbours thinking even if they had lost their lives a visit from rahul could have vastly changed the fate of their families.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sir i m great fan of urs.i was continuously with u whether it was aaj tak or samay.being a doctor i m posted at keylong inbetween manali and leh.there is no znews so ur blog is a good way to be in touch with social affairs.congrats and thanks for giving us a relevant and authentic media. Hats of to u

Unknown said...

Sir,U R Actually get to the heart of the news .U only get 20-25 Minutes while doing badi khabar but yet nobody is able to touch the remote.This is what u deleiver in those 20 minutes.Hats off to you.

REgards
VIVEK

Raj said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFqYIl1horM

Mr. Bajpai after watch this video, what u thought about lalu

kundan kumar,Muzaffarpur(Bihar) said...

Our political leaders are enjoying poverty. On the name of austerity they are spending time in the cottages of villagers. Rahul Gandhi is preparing for the post the post of PM. Life of kalawati is not going to change a lot. Congress had given "garibi hatao" slogan. What happened we all know. So these all are political stunt.

gautam g the patrakar said...

ek aadmi jo hath ragadte huue apna show le kar aata hai. aur kabhi-2 itna hath phila deta hai ki tali baj jati hai-naam hai pp vajpai...
kya likhte hain aap akhbar me..
kya bolte jain aap tv.... bas padkar n sunkar maza aa jata hai.

lekin unka show sirf 13 min ka hota hai baki ke 17 min ads ko samarpit hain

सम्वेदना के स्वर said...

Slavery is deep rooted in we Indians; Bhagwan Shree Rahul aur Devi Sonia is new hope. Compromise is our national character, like cockroach we can survive even a nuclear holocaust but will remain in our dirty dark crevices, living a life of a cockroach.

Your 4th pillar is also eaten by termite, what to hope……????

Jaynti Charan Jha said...

Sir i m great fan of urs. Sir Aapne zee news par khabar dikhaya tha ki MP ki Sailary badhni chahiye ki nahi. mere khyal se wo (Poltician)kehte hain ki wo Janta ke Sewak hain. Yani ki Samajsewi aur samajsewiyon ki to sailary nahi hoti.In logon ko itni sari Feslities milti hain to phir sailary ki kya jarurat. Ager inhe sailary chahiye to Phir inse wo sari Feslities wapas le leni chahiye. aana-jana free, Ferniture free phone free ghar free. phir sailary kis baat ki. Aur waise bhi o apne chetra se itna kama lete hain ki unko kisi ke jarurat nahi hoti. Sirf Bank Balance karne ke liye diya jaye. MP ki Sailary 50,000/- aur unke chhetra ki janta 60% Belo Poor Line. Kya yeh hain loktantra.

MANISH SEHGAL said...

Dear Punya Prasun Ji ,

Entire day News at various channels is equal to 30 minutes news backed up with your views at Bari Khabar.

Present Economic Crisis is a matter of worry for me also , being a citizen of this country . May i express / share my views with you with regard to present Government :-

For Sonia Gandhi & Manmohan Sing,

If you can't rule the country better just now leave off and go home where you were years back . Please donot make mess of this country any more . To remain in power you have allowed all your associate party to do as much corruption & mess as much they can .

No.1 : You are allowing Sharad Pawar to regularly do all the mess right from Sugar to Milk to Onion - And Yet IT DOES NOT MATTER YOU because you need him in parliament to stay in power .

No 2 Karunannidi's Raja : You never had guts to take his resignation ever inspite of the fact that he is hero of Biggest Scam of Indian History . IT DOES NOT MATTER TO YOU , because you need him to stay in power .

No.3 Mamta Banarjee : Every body thinks that Ministry of Railways is orphan because India never saw her taking care of Railways . IT DOES NOT MATTER TO YOU Because you need him in Parliament to stay in power . Examples are endless and their is no end to mess that you can continue to to for this country . CBI daily calling Raja and Suresh Kalmari and taking softly and after months no result has come inspite of the fact 100Crore Indian knows that they are culprit .

Sonia Gandi till what more extend you will allow your allied political parties to continue doing mess just to remain in power . Enough is enough . Being an Itilian we Indian never gave you so much respect that you become instrument to doing mess of Indian .

We dont know what more you will do in balance of months in which you are still to rule .

utkarsh mishra said...

Sir i'm gr8 fan of yours,the way you presented in Prime Time,and you use the class contents in your news,i love to watch..