[Reader-list] Mushahars: Starvation deaths in Udayapura

[Shivam Vij]

The Chairman,
National Human Rights Commission,
Faridkot House,
New Delhi				February 9, 2006



Re: Starvation issue in Udayapura village, Pathardeva block, Deoria district

Dear Sir,

This is to bring to your notice that the two Mushahar families of
Mushaharbustee in the Udayapura village of Pathardeva block are facing
hunger and malnutrition. The families are on the verge of death if
action is not taken. The families of Ram Sharif and Saudagar are
struggling to survive. Both the families are landless and have no
work. Ram Sharif's mother is blind and is also waiting for death. Both
of them have turned partially blind. Their eyes look terrible and face
look much older than their age.

Ram Sharif, aged 40-45, has four children, three sons and one
daughter, while Saudagar has 4 daughters and two sons. They sleep
outside their huts even in these cold days, as their one-room huts
cannot accommodate the entire family. For many days they have been
surviving on some rice given by neighbors as well as by boiling river
food.

Matelu and Rudal are younger brothers of Ram Sharif and have left with
their respective families for the Kusumbe forest of Gorakhpur.

Sham Devi, 50, is the widow of Naresh and a leprosy patient for the
last four years. She dose not have food to eat. Most of the families
here suffer from severe malnutrition and starvation.

No child in this village goes to the nearby school. Parents say that
their children never get scholarship. Ghevna Devi used to clean the
school utensils used for the purpose of cooking mid-day meals, but she
was thrown away from the school run by the upper caste Brahmins. She
and others working there were not given any salary. Today, there is a
Gond woman cleaning utensils there, and Brahmin cooks at the schools.
The school teachers blame Mushhar boys for not coming to the school,
while the villagers say that the Mushar boys are not given enough food
to eat. They return home empty stomach. The cooking has actually been
granted for over 110 students though we did not find even 50 students
that day. The families in the village said their children are not
allowed to mix with upper caste boys. The teacher beat them up and
there is separate seating during the meal. The cook gives them less
food than the upper-caste classmates. The villagers also claim that
the cook takes a large part of the food home and gives it to his
animals.

We would like to add here that Mushhars are one of the most
marginalised Dalit communities in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, whose
traditional occupation was catching rats and eating them. The
community was declared denitrified during the British regime and
tortured for every theft. Most of the hunger and starvation cases in
the Eastern Part of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are happen amongst the
Mushhar community, which has almost no political representation. It is
very difficult to find any educated member from this community. Both
civil society and government have failed to bring the plight of this
community to the notice of the mainstream. Millions of rupees have
been spend by 'civil society' organizations for the 'development' of
Mushahars and yet the results are disappointing.

It is important for the National Human Rights Commission to take
action on this and ask the Uttar-Pradesh government, particularly the
District Magistrate of Deoria to initiate immediate action on the
same.  We suggest the following:

* Immediate relief to Mushhar families in the Mushahar bustee of
village Udayapura in Pathardeva block, Deoria.
* Provide land entitlement so that people could work on their land.
* Provide Indira Awas so that the Mushhar community could live
* Start Sarv Shiksha Abhiayan and other educational programme
according to the need of the community. There will always be
discrimination when such marginalized community children go outside
their village to study.

I hope that NHRC will take appropriate action in this regard and keep
me updated on this.

With regards,
Yours Sincerely,

Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Director, Social Development Foundation,
Email: vbrawat at vsnl.com | Website: www.thesdf.org