Survival Without Adult Supervision, Stark Reality in Rural Bihar

[DomainK]

Somewhere in the heated argument over Apple and Google, we need to be a little aware of this also:

Survival Without Adult Supervision, Stark Reality in Rural Bihar Meena Devi is unlike any little girl you will ever meet. In many ways, she isnÃÕ even a child. The afternoon we met, sheÃÅ cooked lunch for two of her siblings. Ū made dal bhat tarkari, she said proudly, referring to a local dish of rice, lentils and seasonal vegetables. Å£ut we are out of dal, so really, it was just bhat tarkari. Meena also washes her siblings clothes and hustles them off to school every morning. THE OTHER INDIA Exploring subcultures and forgotten communities. There are two things that make this daily routine extraordinary. First, Meena, with her bright eyes and neatly combed bob, is only 10 years old. And second, sheÃÔ an orphan. Meena and her siblings 11-year-old Sunil and 6-year-old Leela live without any adult supervision. Their hut is pitiful even by the standards of Jhanwatola village in the northern Indian state of Bihar, a state known primarily for its impossible poverty. Entire villages in Bihar have no roads and no running water for miles, and Jhanwatola, with its cramped little mud huts, is no exception. Villagers know of electricity as an abstract concept rather than a modern-day essential. The children have been living like this for almost three years. They have an elder brother, Anil, who lives in another state. In this time they havenÃÕ received a single visit from anyone associated with the local district, Nalanda, or the state government. On an average day not one adult enters the hut. If they did, hereÃÔ what theyÃÅ find: a fire pit, a few utensils, a handful of worn clothes, two schoolbags and a plastic jar partly filled with grain. There is nothing to sit on, there isnÃÕ a piece of cloth to lie on, and in a state in which summer temperatures average 45 degrees centigrade (113 degrees Fahrenheit), there are no windows. Almost three years ago, on Aug. 8, 2009, MeenaÃÔ mother, Phoolmanti Devi, died of starvation. When the neighbors came for her, they found at her breast her 1-year-old son, Sarvan Majhi, also dead. MeenaÃÔ father had died previously of natural causes, and her mother alone had supported Anil, Sunil, Meena, Leela and Sarvan. Mrs. Devi was a daily wage agricultural laborer, but heavy monsoon rains in the days just prior to her death had impeded fieldwork, thrusting unemployment upon her. With no money for food, Mrs. Devi, recalled Meena, would walk from one end of the village to the next on her hands and knees, digging out fallen bits of grain. These she brought home to boil. The rain escalated, and Jhanwatola, which is off the main road on downward sloping land, began to flood. Mrs. Devi and her five children were trapped in their hut for three days without food and with very little water. On the third night, Mrs. Devi and her youngest child died. The cause of Mrs. DeviÃÔ death surprised no one in the village. The nearly 1,000 residents of Jhanwatola are of the Dalit caste, and their difficult, marginalized lives embody the word Dalit, which means ÅÈround down. A small handful of villagers own land, and some others work on land they lease for money and grain. But the majority are landless laborers who have it the worst, as they are prey to the whims of their upper caste employers, who pay them only in grain, never money. To earn cash, entire families including women and children as young as 5 find supplemental work in one of the districtÃÔ many brick kilns. Their poverty and great numbers have kept wages low, and over the years more and more villagers have found it preferable to head off to neighboring states, even as far north as Delhi and Haryana, to work on construction sites and kilns, fields and rice mills. Many such villagers are youngsters cursed with an adultÃÔ sense of responsibility. They go because otherwise they and their family will starve. Since 2009, one of these children has been MeenaÃÔ oldest brother, Anil, who, at the age of 14, works full time at a brick kiln in Ranchi, the capital of the neighboring state of Jharkhand. Meena last saw Anil six months ago. He calls on her auntÃÔ phone, she said, and sends money whenever he can. Å©e sent 100 rupees ($1.77) last month, she said, ÅÔo I bought spices, tea and soap. MeenaÃÔ aunt, Lata Devi, lives close by, and sheÃÃl sometimes send food over for the three children. But she has a family of four and finds it hard to make ends meet herself. It was her idea that Anil go to work. Å¢ thekedar, labor contractor, had come to the village, as they often do, said Mrs. Devi. Å´o we sent Anil off. HeÃÔ a grown up boy after all. If he wonÃÕ look after his brothers and sisters, who will? Meena and her siblings go to school every morning, and the free, hot midday meal they receive there helps sustain them. When they return, they wander around the village looking for ways to entertain themselves. Ūf thereÃÔ food to cook, I cook it, said Meena. Å°therwise we play. The story of Phoolmanti DeviÃÔ death was first reported in Aug. 2009 in the Hindi-language press by Vijay Prakash, a full-time farmer and part-time reporter who is from one of the few better-off families in Jhanwatola. He says that the village, and in fact Nalanda district at large, is decaying from its inability to handle the problem of the ÅÇour BÃÔ? bemar, berozgar, buddhe and bachche. (Illness, unemployment, the elderly and children). His report caught the eye of Mokhtarul Haque, who works with the Bihar office of the nationwide childrenÃÔ rights nonprofit, Bachpan Bachao Andolan. Mr. Haque, who facilitates the rescue of child laborers, is raising money to send Meena and her siblings to boarding school. He estimates a monthly expense of 6000 rupees ($106) for all four children. If Meena isnÃÕ rescued from Jhanwatola, he said, thereÃÔ really only one way this story will end. ŵhekedars already know the village and regularly hire children for hard labor, said Mr. Haque, Å£ut itÃÔ different for girls. Sometime in the next couple of years, while sheÃÔ still a child, a thekedar may masquerade as an eligible groom and trick MeenaÃÔ aunt into letting him marry Meena, and once she does heÃÃl take her to Delhi and sell her off to a brothel or to an employment agency that will hire her out as a domestic worker, and sheÃÃl be treated like a slave. But sheÃÔ so vulnerable, so poor, that perhaps he wonÃÕ even have to pretend. HeÃÃl just whisk her away one night, and no one will notice, and by the time they do, sheÃÃl have vanished forever.

http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/survival-without-adult-supervision-stark-reality-in-rural-bihar/#more-37576

[Trichromatic]

Entire villages in Bihar have no roads and no running water for miles

I don't think water scarcity is an issue in Bihar, I may be wrong though. :hmmm:

[Lurker]

As odd as it may sound, this is very much a man made travesty. Alternately put this is something we should be readily able to address. Surely one can never compensate for parents, or adult supervision. But how heartbreaking it is to see starving kids when on the other hand you have godowns overflowing with grains, and in many cases allowing grains to rot simply so that price does not fall down. These kids, and the adults who are starving, wont really mind having a cup of coarse rice every day just to survive. It really puts us all to shame really.

[seedhi]

Meena and her siblings go to school every morning, and the free, hot midday meal they receive there helps sustain them.

Given the horrendous levels of malnutrition children should also be given cooked food to take back home for dinner.

[suraj]

As odd as it may sound, this is very much a man made travesty. Alternately put this is something we should be readily able to address. Surely one can never compensate for parents, or adult supervision. But how heartbreaking it is to see starving kids when on the other hand you have godowns overflowing with grains, and in many cases allowing grains to rot simply so that price does not fall down. These kids, and the adults who are starving, wont really mind having a cup of coarse rice every day just to survive. It really puts us all to shame really.

Heartbreaking story and a shame for society- of course the kids need to be provided with atleast basic neccesities. But I think the effort starts much earlier wit adults here; I am totally at a loss to understand that the tragic poverty of the parents here still led to them making a decision to have not 1,2,3,4 but 5 kids!!!! Are tehy thinking more kids means more employment later and more support or is it total lack of birth control measures whenever sex comes into the picture. Living in poverty, not being paid money, no infrastructure but need to have 5 kids so taht one of them dies because mother can't even feed him!!! Even the aunt has 4 kids!!!- - it might be politically incorrect to say regarding choices in family life but surely there has to be a measure in place to ensure that we are not producing more than we can ever afford even the basic neccesities.

[Trichromatic]

Are tehy thinking more kids means more employment later and more support or is it total lack of birth control measures whenever sex comes into the picture. Living in poverty' date= not being paid money, no infrastructure but need to have 5 kids so taht one of them dies because mother can't even feed him!!! Even the aunt has 4 kids!!!- - it might be politically incorrect to say regarding choices in family life but surely there has to be a measure in place to ensure that we are not producing more than we can ever afford even the basic neccesities.

It's generally later. People hardly think much about more employment or helping hands as either many people people don't have much agricultural land or kids rarely stay together to support each other. Heck, they hardly bother about future when present is so tough.

Even the aunt has 4 kids!!!- - it might be politically incorrect to say regarding choices in family life but surely there has to be a measure in place to ensure that we are not producing more than we can ever afford even the basic neccesities.

Measures to control population? If you had seen villages 10 years ago, you wouldn't even realize that so many govt schemes exist. Most of the schemes were not implemented or remained on papers in these villages and never reached actual people who deserved it. Only recently we can see something in reality. 6-7 years ago, I was surprised to see places where you could see ads of coca-cola, pepsi, but no govt schemes to support people.

[rkt.india]

Supreme court had recently ordered central government to distribute the grains which are getting wasted due to no storage, but government lifted their hands even there saying that they cannot do it. I don't understand why they cant do it. They can let tons of raw food to become garbage through rain, eaten and infected by rats ans termites but cant distribute it to the people who need it the most.

[Prakat]

Emergency and denial of freedom of speech must worry these little kids and hundreds of millions like them. Forget a life worse than animals and total lack of human dignity - these people had their 'blackest day' when some newspaper they never saw was censored. : )

Sir, aapne sabki aankhen khol di. Abhi aur khologe tou aankhon ke parde phat ke haath mein aa jayenge.

[Crookbond]

The question is - WTF is the government doing about this? Rs.28 per day BPL :beee:

[Trichromatic]

The question is - WTF is the government doing about this? Rs.28 per day BPL :beee:

That was biggest joke to poor people. Govt. doesn't want to show too many poor people on records. They probably don't realize that poor people don't get food at same rate as in parliament canteen and money and other allowances for doing nothing.

[Lurker]

Heartbreaking story and a shame for society- of course the kids need to be provided with atleast basic neccesities. But I think the effort starts much earlier wit adults here; I am totally at a loss to understand that the tragic poverty of the parents here still led to them making a decision to have not 1,2,3,4 but 5 kids!!!! Are tehy thinking more kids means more employment later and more support or is it total lack of birth control measures whenever sex comes into the picture. Living in poverty, not being paid money, no infrastructure but need to have 5 kids so taht one of them dies because mother can't even feed him!!! Even the aunt has 4 kids!!!- - it might be politically incorrect to say regarding choices in family life but surely there has to be a measure in place to ensure that we are not producing more than we can ever afford even the basic neccesities.

Little bit of both I would say. Too often these folks are so poor, or live in such extreme poor areas that they are not even aware such programmes exist. The affluent people in their villages are also often pretty haramkhors who rarely want the poors to take the best decision, else them getting richer hurts them. That coupled with lack of education, sanitation, job makes it a vicious circle. We can argue about how to tackle population, and its a very valid discussion to have, but how ridiculous is it that in a country where grains are rotting, where we are exporting grains, sometimes sending overseas for Humanitarian conditions, and where Supreme court directs Govt. to distribute the grains to hungry people......and yet we hear such heartbreaking stories And there are plenty of these. :((

[Crookbond]

Little bit of both I would say. Too often these folks are so poor, or live in such extreme poor areas that they are not even aware such programmes exist. The affluent people in their villages are also often pretty haramkhors who rarely want the poors to take the best decision, else them getting richer hurts them. That coupled with lack of education, sanitation, job makes it a vicious circle. We can argue about how to tackle population, and its a very valid discussion to have, but how ridiculous is it that in a country where grains are rotting, where we are exporting grains, sometimes sending overseas for Humanitarian conditions, and where Supreme court directs Govt. to distribute the grains to hungry people......and yet we hear such heartbreaking stories And there are plenty of these. :((

Information dissemination is and will be the main problem of a country like India. I would be curious and interested to contribute to this issue via automated approaches. "Word of mouth" only works so much and has an exponential decay with time.

[DomainK]

Little bit of both I would say. Too often these folks are so poor, or live in such extreme poor areas that they are not even aware such programmes exist. The affluent people in their villages are also often pretty haramkhors who rarely want the poors to take the best decision, else them getting richer hurts them. That coupled with lack of education, sanitation, job makes it a vicious circle. We can argue about how to tackle population, and its a very valid discussion to have, but how ridiculous is it that in a country where grains are rotting, where we are exporting grains, sometimes sending overseas for Humanitarian conditions, and where Supreme court directs Govt. to distribute the grains to hungry people......and yet we hear such heartbreaking stories And there are plenty of these. :((

Yes, there are plenty of these. I come from a very remote part of Orissa and I have seen poverty very closely. And it has not reduced over the years, it has grown. While Bhubaneswar as a capital has grown fantastically, the rest of the state is rotting in unthinkable poverty. This is widespread beyond imagination.

[Lurker]

Yes' date=' there are plenty of these. I come from a very remote part of Orissa and I have seen poverty very closely. And it has not reduced over the years, it has grown. While Bhubaneswar as a capital has grown fantastically, the rest of the state is rotting in unthinkable poverty. This is widespread beyond imagination.[/quote'] That was the very first thought that came to my mind when I was having a conversation with my Mom recently. She was in Gurgaon sometime back, and was so angry that there was grains rotting in and around Gurgaon, Noyoda cold storage because they were full and the alternative storage areas did not have electricity etc. I remember how she talked about loading all of them in a maal-gaadi and sending it over to Koenjhar area. This is freaking ridiculous. How difficult is it to just load the grains rotting in open fields onto a train, or truck and send it to a poor area? Worse case scenario half of this would go to corrupt officials but atleast the other half will save some life. By the by belated Rath-yatra to you mate :cheer:

[Clarke]

All of this has a cricket connection. Lets thank our Krishi Mantralay the leader of which finds enough time to be ICC President while farmers commit suicide, food inflation runs rampant, a third of fresh produce and thousands of tonnes of foodgrain goes waste and more than a million die every year while many more suffer from malnutrition & stunted growth. Population of course is a major problem but the above can help the situation far more easily than some drastic measures on population growth (which btw would be the lesser of the two evils in my opinion).

[dial_100]

As odd as it may sound, this is very much a man made travesty. Alternately put this is something we should be readily able to address. Surely one can never compensate for parents, or adult supervision. But how heartbreaking it is to see starving kids when on the other hand you have godowns overflowing with grains, and in many cases allowing grains to rot simply so that price does not fall down. These kids, and the adults who are starving, wont really mind having a cup of coarse rice every day just to survive. It really puts us all to shame really.

+1

[DomainK]

As India's kids starve, $1.5 billion worth of grain rots http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48039343/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/#.T_N_BfWQ9Ee Evidently, there is enough food produced in this country every year to feed all the mouths. And yes, we lose thousands of human lives every year to starvation.

[Crookbond]

Check the reasons of grain rots - some of them are just !

[Ram]

Wow, that is heart-breaking. These kids should be out playing with friends, enjoying the most innocent phases of their life. Here they are, struggling just to stay alive.