The Dom community in Bihar comes under the Mahadalit category and their population is less than 0.2 percent of the state's total population. This community is spread in both urban and rural parts of the state. Traditionally, they have been associated with professions like bamboo work, basket-branch making, cremation and cleaning.
Motihari. As soon as you step into a narrow street of the city, you see rows of huts and tarpaulin-covered houses in front. Dom Basti is settled here, a community whose identity is bamboo and its products. This has been their profession for generations. Here someone is peeling bamboo, or someone has an incomplete basket in his hand, but their life is also like these baskets, broken from somewhere, incomplete from somewhere, and full of daily difficulties.
Children who go to schools outside the settlement say that even today they are made to sit in a separate line (away from children of other castes). An 11-year-old student, while talking to The Mooknayak representative, said, “Madam says you people should sit separately, you are Doms…” On hearing these words, the elders of the settlement become silent, because this is the same old pain that they have been suffering for generations. Talks of social justice happen on paper, but these children have not been affected by it.
Bamboo business is now an employment crisis
The Dom community has been identified with the bamboo business. From weddings to festivals, bamboo branches, baskets and winnowing baskets were considered essential everywhere. But plastic and machine-made goods have taken away their market.
Sitting outside the slum hut of the settlement, Rajkumari was weaving baskets with her hands, she tells The Mooknayak, “A few years ago, I used to easily earn 500-600 rupees a week, now I am not able to earn even 50-60 rupees in a day.” Lines of worry are clearly visible on her face. She says that earlier there was a demand for bamboo products in villages and cities, from weddings to everyday needs, but now this work is slowly coming to an end.
Rajkumari further says, “Hands get bruised and bleed while cutting bamboo from morning to evening. Still, there is no value for hard work. Earlier people used to praise us while buying baskets and baskets made by us, now the same people buy cheap plastic or factory made products. Our sweat, our art, everything has gone to waste.” It is clear from her words that this is not just a crisis of employment, but also the pain of their identity being erased from generations.
Rajkumari adds, “The situation is getting worse day by day. It is difficult to feed oneself, let alone educate the children. If our hard work was paid for, perhaps we could have lived with dignity. But now it seems as if we have been abandoned. Governments just make promises, but all we get is poverty and untouchability.”
The people here believe that the bamboo work is slowly ending, and with it their livelihood. Many people now work as sanitation workers in the municipal corporation, but even there they do not get proper recognition for their hard work. She said, “The salary is stuck for months, and even if we get it, it is so less that it is difficult to run the family,”
We spoke to a sanitation worker passing by in the sun with a broom tied to his bicycle. He told us his name was Ranjan. There was sweat on his forehead and fatigue on his face. Ranjan said, “We start working at four in the morning. We have to clean the garbage of the city, but we get only Rs. 13,000 per month as salary, it is difficult to run the family with such a low salary. Sometimes the salary is stuck for months.”
He further said, “We keep the city clean, but people call us dirty. Forget about respect, we are looked at with hatred. Children ask me, Papa, why do people consider us low? But I don’t have an answer. I just think that maybe someday the situation will change.”
The grip of poverty along with illiteracy
For this community living in huts, it is a big challenge to arrange two meals a day. When it is difficult to feed the family, how will it be possible to educate the children? Although some children reach school, discrimination and poverty together make them leave their studies incomplete.
A woman, Savitri Devi, says, “Even if we want, we are unable to provide books and notebooks to the children. Many times, children leave school and start cutting bamboo and making branches.”
Poor health facilities
The health situation in the colony is very worrying. If a small child falls ill, it becomes a problem for the family. The mismanagement of government hospitals is not hidden from anyone, and when it comes to the poor and uneducated class, the situation becomes even more delicate. But even there, they have to face neglect. A woman from the colony said, “If our people go to the doctor, they tell them to take government medicines, they do not pay much attention,”
The health of children growing up in poor food and filth is always in danger. Malnutrition is clearly visible in many homes. But the people of the Dom community, who live under compulsion, are bearing it.
Life is being spent in huts and tarpaulins
Most of the houses in the colony are hut-like, some other castes have houses but they are concrete houses. Most of the families of the Dom community live in tarpaulins and huts. As soon as the rains come, these houses start leaking.
Sapna Devi of the colony points towards her house while talking to The Mooknayak. The walls of her house are covered with tin, bamboo and tarpaulin. She says, “Our house is kutcha and hut-like. When it rains, it feels as if we are sitting outside.” The rainy season is the biggest fear for them, because half of the household items get wet due to the water dripping from the roof.
Sapna further says, “Small children get wet, clothes and bedding all get wet. Many times diseases spread. We cannot sleep the whole night, we just keep thinking when the rains will end.” Their words show that poverty is not just limited to hunger, but not having a safe roof over one’s head is also a big pain.
Sapna Devi says that the government has promised to build houses in the name of several schemes, but the conditions of the colony remain the same. “Leaders come, make a list, get their photos clicked and then never return. We are still living in tarpaulin and huts. Perhaps no one sees our suffering.”
Deprived of basic facilities
The biggest problem of the Dom colony is the lack of basic facilities. The electricity and water arrangements here are just in name. Many times, when hand pumps break down, people are forced to drink water from dirty ponds. Dirty water spreads diseases, but due to lack of options, the entire family has to depend on it.
There is no safe place for children to play in the colony. They grow up amidst narrow lanes and dirty roads. The situation is such that women are still forced to defecate in the open, which poses a threat to both their safety and health. Seeing all this, it is clear that the colony is still far from development and human dignity.
Displeasure with the government!
The people of the colony say that every government comes here during elections, promises that they will get houses, employment, the colony will develop. But as soon as the elections are over, the leaders also disappear.
Savita Devi, a woman from the colony, while talking to The Mooknayak, says, “It is as if we are made only to vote. After that, no one comes to look after us.”
She tells that during the days of elections, the leaders roam from street to street, put a chair in front of the huts and make a lot of promises, assure pucca houses, clean water, jobs and a better life. But as soon as the elections are over, everything vanishes. Neither do we get houses, nor employment, nor the right benefits of any government scheme. “The leaders only do politics on our poverty and helplessness,” Savita says, clearly showing that trust has now completely broken.
During this conversation, an elderly woman from the slum was also sitting nearby, she said angrily, “For the leaders we are just a number, a vote count. Our children are made to sit separately in school, we live in filth, and when we fall ill, we do not get treatment.
We don’t even get a job. Both the government and the leaders know, but nobody cares. As if we are not human beings.” Along with anger, a deep helplessness was also visible on their faces. This makes it clear that the pain of the Dom colony is not just of poverty, but of the neglect that repeatedly makes them feel that in this democracy they are only ‘voting people’, not citizens! Toofan Ram, a former member of the State Mahadalit Commission of the Bihar government, also comes from the Dom community. He spent a large part of his life fighting for the upliftment of the society and kept raising his voice. Toofan Ram told The Mooknayak that the miserable condition of the Dom community is in front of everyone. The caste system, untouchability and inferiority complex did not allow them to live equally. Lack of education, employment and respect are the biggest challenges. He said, “Our struggle is still going on. Till the Dom community does not get equal opportunities and socio-economic justice, this movement is not going to stop.” Far from social and political representation
The Dom community in Bihar falls under the Mahadalit category and their population is less than 0.2 percent of the total population of the state. This community is spread across both urban and rural parts of the state. Traditionally, they have been associated with professions like bamboo work, basket-branch making, cremation and cleaning. Poverty, illiteracy and untouchability have kept them away from the mainstream. Even today, most of the families live in huts and tarpaulin houses and are deprived of basic facilities.
The voice of the Dom community has been very weak at the social and political level. Despite being included in the Mahadalit category, they have not been able to get the full benefit of the schemes. The representation of this community in politics is also negligible, although in recent years some social workers and leaders have been raising their voice for their rights and respect. Still, the road to real equality and justice still seems long and difficult.
Where is social justice?
The Constitution book talks about equality, respect and justice, but the Dom community says that they have never felt them. From children From the common man to the elderly, everyone is bearing the brunt of discrimination. Isolated from society, deprived of employment and cheated by the government, this society is still bound in the chains of untouchability, which was claimed to have been eradicated years ago.
The story of Motihari’s Dom Basti is not limited to bamboo baskets and branches, but it is a picture of the social and economic injustice that the most backward sections of the country are facing even today.
Ankit Pachauri
Courtesy : Hindi News