Lalmati Musahar, 65, lives on ₹3,500-a-month charity. A retired teacher in New York (who prefers anonymity) started sending Lalmati the money a few years ago after hearing about her struggles in an interview for a French documentary by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. Since then, this has been her only source of income.
Before this surprise aid came along, Lalmati used to earn ₹100/day, only if she had managed to get some work in the fields of the local landowners, mostly upper castes.
The New York teacher, however, had a few conditions before sending the money to Lalmati. First, she wouldn’t work as a labourer; second, she would take medicines to cure her chest pain.
Lalmati had said in the interview that her husband had once kicked her and she has been having this chest pain since then.
Lalmati Musahar from Gurumiha Mafitola in Kushinagar district. Piyush Srivastava
Her husband is no more. She has four sons and two daughters, of whom, only Nilam, 15, is unmarried and lives with her. There are grandchildren as well whom she sends to school and whose needs she looks after.
The third and final condition was Lalmati should spend part of the money on her grandchildren’s education and stop them immediately from hunting for rats and eating them.
Musahar kids dig agriculture fields, steal the foodgrains collected underground by the rats and eat the rodents, their only affordable non-vegetarian dish. Though Lalmati’s grandchildren don’t do this anymore, many in her and the adjoining villages eat rats, a dietary habit they are shy of accepting.
Lalmati wasn’t aware that the nation was going through the 18th Lok Sabha elections. So were her fellow villagers.
There are 147 Musahar families in Lalmati’s village, Gurumiha Mafitola of Kushinagar district, which is cut off from the poll campaign cacophony.
Musahar areas of adjoining Sisai, Phulwapatti and Akshayvar Tola under Kudwa Dilip Singh Nagar panchayat are no different. There are 25,000 Musahars in the panchayat but most of the people this reporter spoke to had no idea that elections in their constituency of Kushinagar were slated for June 1, in contrast to other castes living in the panchayat area who knew about the ongoing festival of democracy.
Shamsher Bahadur, an upper caste farmer of Kudwa Dilip Singh Nagar, said: “Members of a particular political party, who used to visit these Musahar hamlets before every election to seek votes, didn’t visit the village this time because of two reasons. First, many are unhappy with the ruling party because their MP didn’t do their work. Second, those loyal to the MP know that these villagers wouldn’t vote for him this time because these poor people didn’t get any substantial benefit from the government between 2019 and 2024,” said Bahadur.
The BJP has fielded sitting MP Vijay Kumar Dubey again from the seat. Ajay Singh Saithwar is the INDIA bloc nominee, while the BSP has named Shubh Narayan Chauhan. Swami Prasad Maurya, who was with the BSP, the BJP and the SP in the past, is fighting from his self-floated Rashtriya Shoshit Samaj Party (RSSP) camp.
A local political analyst, who requested anonymity, said: “Former Congress MP RPN Singh is with the BJP now and was seeking votes for Dubey till a few days ago.
But a group of men from the Saithwar caste met him and asked not to force them to vote for the BJP.
“They reminded Singh, a Kurmi, that they used to support him but argued it was the first time that a Saithwar was in the fray and Singh should let them support him. Then some members from the Chauhan community asked him to remain silent because they would vote for their own caste’s BSP nominee this time. Finally, Singh slowed down his campaign,” he said.
Far away from this caste juggling, Badami Devi of Gurumiha Mafitola said: “Last time, some people had left envelopes at our doors with a pamphlet. We found it when we woke up in the morning. We voted for that candidate.
“But this time, we didn’t know there was an election on. This is because we are unhappy with those who are interested in building airports but don’t see the open nullahs and dirt in our villages. Our population is minuscule, we are illiterates but not fools. After all, we are descendants of Goddess Sita and understand politics,” she said.
Musahars claim they were born from the sweat of the thighs of Janaka, the king of Videha and father of Sita, but even Scheduled Caste members ostracise them and treat them as the lowest among the lower castes.
Kushinagar votes on June 1
