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A local bank run by Tharu tribals in the village of Bishunapur in Bahraich, UP has been an inspiration in how to free the community from the exploitation of moneylenders.

Bahraich: In the foothills of the Himalayas, surrounded by the dense Katarniya Ghat forest, lies the small village of Bishunapur, 47 km from Mihinpurwa village block in Uttar Pradesh's Bahraich district. Home to 2,500 people, of whom 2,200 belong to the scheduled tribe Tharu, the villagers here have had a troubled history with moneylenders.

The residents couldn't even get half the price on the crops they toiled for as the Mahajans (moneylenders) would take the harvested crop at deeply discounted rates in lieu of loan repayment. If the borrower didn't have food grains, moneylenders recovered the loan at the rate of 10 per cent per month. However, the situation has changed for the better through an impactful initiative undertaken by the villagers.

Eleven years ago, the youth of Bishunapur formed a bank, named Adarsh Swayam Sahayata Samuh (Ideal Self Help Group). Any resident of the village can borrow money from this bank at an interest rate of only 1%. The people decide and inform the bank when they can repay the loan. Further, if someone is able to repay the money within 15 days, no interest is charged. This has helped the villagers emerged from the web of moneylenders.

An inspired solution

Basant Lal, the Pradhan of Bishunapur and the president of the Adarsh Swayam Sahayata Samuh, said, \"Ten years ago, our village was in a bad condition. The money lenders would come here as soon as the crop was ready — be it paddy, wheat, maise, lentils — throw down the sack and say, 'I want the sack to be filled', without so much as considering if there was enough harvest. So our family elders had to give away the required grain to the moneylenders, even it meant borrowing from others in the village. It was hard to recover from such debts.\"

The people of the village brainstormed for many days until the idea for a community-led bank emerged. It was unanimously decided that members would deposit Rs 100 per month to create the fund, and it would be used to give loans to those in need at an interest rate of just 1%.

\"One by one, people kept joining, and now the group is 47-members strong. At present, the bank has a sum of Rs 12,16,081, inclusive of deposit by members, interest and fines. A meeting is held every month and it is mandatory for member-shareholders to attend. Absence or failure to pay the monthly deposit in time incurs fines, Lal told 101Reporters.

Three people in the village manage the Adarsh Swayam Sahayata Samuh: one person motivates villagers to deposit the money, the second person is in charge of collecting the money, whereas the third person maintains the fund and the accounts. In addition, the three members are responsible for updating all the other shareholders of the bank regarding the transactions in the monthly meeting.

\"Earlier, when we used to go to borrow money from moneylenders, they used to sit high up as we sat on the ground, waiting for hours. But now, the moneylenders themselves come to the village to ask if anyone needs money. They say, 'generation after generation has been taking loans from us, why not you?' We tell them, 'those days are no more.' Now, if anyone needs money to sow, buy fertilisers or medicines, they can take money from our bank — the need for the moneylender is over. It is better not to be dependent on anyone to solve our problems. We want such a group to be formed in every village,” said Lal.

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The Pradhan of Bishunapur, Basant Lal (left) and activist Jang Hindustani (Picture credit - Azeem Mirza)

The changing legacy of the Tharus

There are seven Tharu villages in the Mihinpurwa Tehsil, having a collective population of about 10,157, said Jang Hindustani, who runs the NGO Sevarth Foundation and has been working in the region for over a decade. \"The situation of all these Tharu villages was almost the same as Bishunapur. After establishing the 'Adarsh Swayam Sahayata Samuh', other Tharu villages have also followed suit. However, the Bishunapur organisation being the oldest has more funds and has been able to help more people,\" he added.\n\nThe Tharu tribals have a reputation for being loyal and straightforward. Once a Tharu establishes a relationship of trust with a person, even if they are simply a shop owner, they will continue to conduct business with them, and only them, unless they are deceived. The Mahajans, who had historically held the households' trust with ready funds, had taken advantage of this trait for years, said Hindustani. \"But now the younger generation has become very smart and aware,\" he said.

The Tharus have a colourful history, according to Dr Neelam Agrawal who has been studying the Tharus of Bahraich, Balrampur and Lakhimpur and currently teaches at National PG College, Lucknow. The 'Rana' Tharus are considered to be the descendants of Maharana Pratap's queens. It is believed that when Maharana Pratap was attacked, his queens fled into the forests with their servants and soon their community was established. \"This is why the status of women is relatively high amongst Tharus,\" Dr Agarwal said. The Dagoria and Kathotia Tharus also consider themselves the descendants of the kings of Nepal.

The tribe, whose bloodline once coursed through royal kingdoms and palaces, had to plead at the doors of the moneylenders. This used to hurt the community's sentiments and they were ashamed of their poverty. But not anymore, said Munni Lal, a native of Bishunpur village.

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Over a lakh kids have been orphaned due to the pandemic in the country. As they struggle to make ends meet, most abandon their dreams of pursuing an education.

Bahraich/Damoh/Bhilwara: When Chandrabhan Kushwaha, who runs a small chocolate-biscuit shop in the Hatta tehsil headquarters of Damoh district in Madhya Pradesh, got infected with COVID-19 during the deadly second wave, little did he know that it would devastate his entire family. Chandrabhan succumbed to the virus within a few months, leaving his two kids orphaned. His wife, Rekha, had passed away a few years ago.

Their father’s demise meant that Akruthi*, who is studying in class 12 and Santhosh*, studying in class 10th, not only had to halt their education but also find a means to provide for themselves.

This harsh reality is today being faced by lakhs of children orphaned due to the pandemic. According to a recent report published in the medical journal The Lancet, over 1.19 lakh children in India have lost a primary caregiver between March 2020 and April 2021. The study estimates that the number of children who have lost a primary or a secondary caregiver is much higher due to under-reporting in the country.

This finding is also inline with the community calling drive by Educate Girls that reached out to 5,00,000+ community members from 16,000+ villages in UP, MP and Rajasthan to analyse the impact of the pandemic. They have also found high incidences of orphaned children and now women-led households due to the lives lost in the pandemic.

Akruthi, who wanted to pursue a degree in hotel management, is now doubtful of being able to do so, while Santhosh has temporarily abandoned his education to take care of his father’s shop. The money that the siblings make from the shop is being used to run their household. “The pandemic and my father’s untimely demise has put a stop to our education. I have completed my 12th standard, but I may not be able to study further,” lamented Akruthi.

The Madhya Pradesh government has announced many schemes for those affected by the pandemic, including a pension of Rs 5,000 per month for the children orphaned in the pandemic. While Santhosh was given approval from the Child Welfare Scheme of the government to get the certificate required to get the benefits, Akruthi has been unable to get the certificate. “When the government officers came home, a one-time financial assistance of Rs 5,000 was given to us but post that we have not received any help,” said Santhosh. Akruthi’s approval order is awaited.

Debt, disease and uncertainty

Jagnath Regar, a resident of Dantra village of Asind tehsil of Bhilwara district, used to support his family of five by selling fruits and vegetables in his village. He was the only earning member of his family. Unfortunately, he got infected by the coronavirus in April 2021 and had to be hospitalised. The acute shortage of oxygen and beds prevented him from getting the necessary treatment and he succumbed to the virus on May 12. The family members, who had borrowed Rs 2 lakh for his treatment, now have no earning member and a huge debt on their shoulders.

Jagnath’s wife, Ladi Devi, now works as a labourer and she hopes to return the borrowed money by finding work under the MNREGA scheme. She also makes some money by stitching clothes for her neighbours and friends on her sewing machine. And with her earnings, she hopes to help her three school-going children continue their education. Ladi Devi wants her girls to become doctors. She doesn’t understand what she will do for the education of these children. While she dreams big for her kids, she knows it is an uphill task and is hence hoping for some financial assistance from the government.

After completing his BSc, Ashish Singh is cultivating paddy on about one and a half bighas of land (1 bigha is equal to 0.6 acres). With the money he earns from the field, he manages the expenses of his two sisters and himself. Ashish’s father, Durg Vikas Singh, a resident of Fursatganj in Amethi district, died in 2017. Post his demise, Ashish’s mother took up farming in the land with the help of her children. To make ends meet, she also worked as a labourer in other people’s farms. Sadly, she too passed away on April 16, 2021 after she contracted the coronavirus.

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Ashish is a BSc graduate but is having to work at his farm to support the education of his younger sisters (Picture credit - Azeem Mirza)

Ashish’s sister, Vidhi is pursuing her BA degree, and his other sister is in class 11. The three siblings now face an uncertain future due to the untimely death of their mother. Ashish was doing a certificate course in hardware after completing his graduation when his mother fell ill. She developed a fever, cold, cough and breathlessness, all symptoms of COVID-19, but she passed away before she could get tested for the virus. Due to this, the family may not be entitled to any compensation given by the government.

Government schemes

While earlier the Supreme Court has issued a notice to the Centre to provide ex gratia compensation of Rs 4 lakh to the family members of those who succumbed to COVID-19, the Central government recently told the Supreme Court that in all cases of death due to Covid, Rs 4 lakh rupees compensation cannot be given to the family members as government sources are limited and this will affect the funds remaining for other health and welfare schemes.

The UP Chief Minister Bal Seva Yojana is a scheme that promises to help children affected by the pandemic. Under the scheme, a district-level task force has been constituted in every district, which will make a list and work to link such people with the schemes being run by the government. In addition to this, Rs 4000 per month will be put in the bank account of the legal guardian of children in the age group of 0 to 10 years on the condition that the child has been registered for formal education in a recognised school. Children can also enrol for free education up to class 12 in Atal Residential Schools and Kasturba Gandhi Residential Schools. A total amount of Rs 12,000 per month will be transferred to the bank account of the legal guardian. This amount will be payable till class 12 or till the age of 18 years.

Under the Mukhyamantri Bal Samman Yojana, the UP government will provide Rs 1 lakh 1 thousand for the marriage of girls, who have lost either one or both parents to COVID-19, which will be given when she turns 18. In addition, children who are studying in school and college or are getting a vocational education will be provided with a tablet or a laptop.

Under the Palanhar scheme of the Rajasthan government, poor children orphaned due to COVID-19 will get Rs 1,000 per month from the government till the age of 18. Chief Minister's Corona Sahayta Yojana promises a lifetime pension of Rs 1,500 per month to women widowed in the pandemic. Children orphaned due to the pandemic will receive Rs 2,500 per month for education and Rs 5 lakh on completion of 18 years. Till now the officials related to this scheme have not made any contact with Ladi Devi.

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Ladi Devi has big dreams about her children's education but she is the sole breadwinner of her family and no government support has been forthcoming since her husband succumbed to COVID-19 earlier this year (Picture credit - Suresh Alakpura)

While these schemes can be highly beneficial, many have not yet been able to avail the benefits. Safeena Husain, founder of Educate Girls, says, “The government has been taking quick measures to ensure relief reaches those in need, but we are seeing gaps in awareness around accessing these social and educational support schemes. There are a significant number of illiterate and poor families without key identification documents such as Aadhar and ration cards, making it harder for them to avail the necessary support.”

Despite making multiple rounds of government offices, Ashish and his sisters have not got any help from the government. As there is no guardian at home, Ashish has left his sisters at the home of his maternal uncle, while scouting for a job in these uncertain times.

A bleak future

A recent UNICEF report found that the closure of 1.5 million schools due to the coronavirus pandemic and the resultant lockdowns in 2020 impacted 247 million children enrolled in elementary and secondary schools in India. Online education is not an option for all as only one in four children has access to digital devices and internet connectivity.

Divyanshu Chaturvedi, Chief Operating Officer of DEHAT (Developmental Association for Human Advancement), an NGO that works for child’s rights, said that while on one hand, the government has declared COVID-19 a disaster under the Epidemic Act, 1897, on the other hand, the announcement of non-payment of allowance to the family members by the state and central disaster fund of the government will endanger the future of these children.

“Although the step of providing assistance to the families under other projects of the government is commendable, the lack of access to on-ground investigation presents a huge problem in its implementation. Many children or their families do not even know that their mother or father has died from covid as there is no documentation confirming the ailment. Due to this, the families are not able to prove their eligibility for the registration of these government projects,” said Chaturvedi. He further added that the pandemic may push children towards child labour, child marriage and child trafficking.

Safeena Husain, explains, “India is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of Child and is obligated to take care of orphans. Direct financial assistance is one way, but we will also need to be aggressive in our efforts to identify those orphaned and provide them with a conducive, healthy environment to grow up through robust social protection measures. We must ensure that no kid is left behind, else an entire generation of children will be lost to domestic abuse, child labour, early marriage and illiteracy.”

* Names of the all the underaged children have been changed to protect their identity\n

With inputs from Naresh Kumar Mishra and Suresh Alakhpura.

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Inspector Sanjay Dubey is on a unique mission - to enhance and beautify every police station at which he is posted.

Bahraich: It was 1991. Sanjay Dubey had just begun his training as a Sub Inspector in the Uttar Pradesh Police. Soon after, he received a call from the Air Force, leaving him confused about which career path to take. When he consulted a senior officer, he was told that if he wanted to enjoy his life and all the perks associated with government service, then he should join the Air Force. But, if he wanted to do something for society and serve the poor, he should stay in police services. Dubey chose the latter and never regretted it. He continues to feel proud about being part of an organisation that does so much essential work in society.

“When I got inducted into the police services, the facilities that we had were very poor. We did not even have toilets. It struck me that I will not get any other work in this lifetime, so why not do what I have with full honesty. And that's how it all started. Wherever I went, construction, beautification, and gardening followed, and it continued uninterrupted. I thought that maybe someday I will be transferred to a place where everything was perfect and no change would be needed, but it never happened. So I had the opportunity to do something new everywhere.”

“It started in 1996 at the Pallia outpost. The condition of Ramlila Maidan was very poor. We planted around 20 Ashoka trees and created beautiful flower beds there. The outpost was also renovated with public support. When I was at the Suratganj outpost in the Barabanki district, we renovated the outpost and planted many trees around it along the roadside. During my stay, I noticed that buses from Lucknow would halt near the outpost and the passengers, especially women, faced problems due to the lack of toilets. With public support, I got a toilet constructed next to the outpost. People appreciated my work and respected me very much.”

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Inspector Dubey has planted more than 20,000 trees and many more plants since the start of his service (Picture sourced by Azeem Mirza)

The response left Dubey feeling doubly motivated. When he was transferred to the Parasandi police post in Barabanki, he got the building reconstructed with public support. Trees were planted on both sides of the 3-km stretch of road leading to the outpost. “Days passed, and my professional life continued. From Barabanki to Lakhimpur, Bahraich, and Gonda, rejuvenation work at five outposts and 20 police stations are all credited to me,” he said.

“There were some police stations where I got more time to work. I will specifically mention the Tarbganj police station of Gonda district wherein I got a beautiful park constructed, planted 400 trees of Neem, 250 trees of Karaunda, 50 trees of Ashoka and mango, and many small plants. All with the support of the general public.”

After this, he was posted as Inspector in Wazirganj (Gonda). After constructing and renovating the building with public cooperation, a beautiful park was constructed in which various flowering plants and 100 trees of Neem, some Pakdar trees were planted. This police station was honoured with ISO 9001:2015 certification because of its high standards.

To gain the International Organization for Standardization (ISO 9001) stamp, a police station must meet certain standards pertaining to infrastructure, crime rate, policing, record-keeping as well as cleanliness. Everything is evaluated multiple times, and only then is an ISO certification conferred.

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Inspector Dubey (on left) receiving the ISO 9001:2015 certification for the Wazirganj police station. (Right) A colleague taking a moment to enjoy the landscaping (Pictures sourced by Azeem Mirza)

Whether it is the tracing of a cybercrime gang to Delhi or the arrest of the Mugu Rao gang from Odisha, Inspector Sanjay Dubey has conducted his government duties passionately, while planting more than 20,000 trees in and around different outposts and police stations. When asked about the expenses incurred in planting so many trees and reconstruction of police stations and whether people cooperated with him out of fear, he smiled and said, “In the early days of service, I had to spend my own money and used to take the help of friends, but when people noticed the work on the ground, they came forward to help. Now, there are days when people come to me and say, ‘Please tell me if there is anything that I can do’.”

“I will continue to plant trees to improve the environment during my service and even after my retirement,” Inspector Dubey said.

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With digital education falling beyond the capacity of the poor, thousands of girl students in Bahraich are at risk of being consumed by child trafficking and child labour.

Bahraich: Shariba’s father Anwar Baig used to drive a school bus in Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh. He would ferry the children studying in the prestigious Buddha Public School, earning Rs 8,000 a month. His own daughter couldn’t afford to study in that school, however. When the pandemic struck, she was a Class 9 student in a local government girls’ school in Qazipura. When the lockdown was announced and schools were shut indefinitely in 2020, Anwar’s livelihood came under threat. A few months into the lockdown, the school stopped paying him.

Even as Anwar was staring at unemployment, Shariba’s cost of education shot up. Now, she needed to have a smartphone to attend online classes. Unable to afford one, she missed all her classes last year. When schools reopened, her family was unable to pay the school fees. She is at home now. She can’t even attempt her board exams as a private student because technically, she hasn’t completed her ninth grade and isn’t familiar with the tenth-grade syllabus. Shariba breaks down when asked what she wanted to study.

This isn’t the story of a single girl or an anecdote confined to a particular locality. It repeats itself with Salamuddin's daughter Salia in Salarganj. The first-grader also became discouraged when she couldn’t obtain a smartphone to follow her lessons. The girl’s father works in the informal recycling sector and the lockdown has decimated his business. For him, the concerns of survival supersede his daughter’s education.

Since the lockdown came into force last March, the classroom has gone online. Lessons are being taught through smartphones, laptops and televisions but this has only served to further exclude children from marginalised groups who are already at the risk of dropping out of school at the slightest disturbance to their socio-economic circumstances.

A study titled ‘Gendered impact of COVID -19 on the education of school-aged children in Uttar Pradesh’ revealed that only 15% of children surveyed across 11 districts in UP watched educational TV shows or programmes for educational purposes, even though 53% had a TV set at home. Most children reported having a phone at home but only 22% had access. This number was even lower for girls at 21% compared to 29% for boys.

This situation is grimmer still in the rural areas of the district. Khushauli residents and sisters, Muskaan and Shalini Mishra were studying in class 7 and 5 respectively when the pandemic hit. Now, the government has attempted to make remote learning feasible for such children by making educational programmes available through television channels like Swayam Prabha and Doordarshan, but it has not been uniformly effective. Muskaan says there is a TV in her house, but the village also suffers from crippling power cuts. “Sometimes there is no power when the programme is on or the power goes off mid-way through the lesson,” she says. Her father, Madhur Kumar Mishra, is a small farmer with just over an acre of land and the money they make from cultivating grains is barely enough to run the expenses of the home. She wouldn’t dare ask him for a smartphone.

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Lovely Mishra (left), Shariba Baig (centre) and Muskaan Mishra have all had to forgo their education this year because of their inability to access online classes. (Pictures sourced by Azeem Mirza)

Muskaan reckons more than half of her classmates have problems attending online classes.

In the same village, Kamlesh Mishra had big ambitions for his daughter, Lovely. He too farms on his ancestral land and wanted his daughter to study further. After Class 8, he pre-enrolled her at the Mahima Inter College, Gokulpur. But when the troubles with the pandemic started, her studies came to a standstill because the family neither had a smartphone nor a television at home. Lovely now spends her time helping her mother with household chores.

For those families owning at least a smartphone, its use for educating girls has been challenging with patriarchal mindsets at play. Geeta (name changed), a child bride, is one such girl who was caught by her brother and father innocently looking at a mobile phone. Geeta was still living at home with her mother and father and was allowed to go to school before the pandemic. But her brother assumed she was talking to a boy, probably not her husband and decided she was bringing dishonour to the family. Geeta was first slapped by her brother and then, in anger and despair, she took poison and was rushed to hospital. She was lucky to survive, but as a result of the incident, Geeta was packed off to live with her in-laws and husband.

As soon as this happened, three other girls from her village were sent to their respective marital homes. Families are keen to have one less mouth to feed, and the spouses’ families are happy to have a girl to work in the home.

In fact, according to the study cited above, 64% of the girls surveyed spent their time on chores and care work as opposed to 78% of the boys who spent their time on leisure. About 54% of the girls were uncertain about returning to school on reopening. Vikram Solanki, Head of Strategic Expansion (Uttar Pradesh) at Educate Girls, says, “With schools closed, girls, especially adolescent girls are at a higher risk of child marriage, or if already married, being forced to move to their marital home earlier than planned.” Chances of such girls going back to education via online or offline modes is almost nil as they get burdened with household chores and other caregiving responsibilities.

The Bahraich Effect

Even before the pandemic, Bahraich had a dubious reputation as a hub for child trafficking. Children hailing from Bahraich were routinely rescued from Delhi, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and other places where they were found to be engaged in domestic work and other kinds of labour. There is now enough evidence to suggest that the pandemic and the school closures have only compounded this problem.

In September last year, 48 children were rescued from various hotels and other establishments in Bahraich. Superintendent of Police Vipin Kumar Mishra had warned that people who employ children would be booked under the Child Labour Act 2016, Bonded Labour Act and Juvenile Justice Act.

Only a month later, Mishra was made project director on a three-year long research by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) into human trafficking, child labour and child marriage in districts of Bahraich, Shravasti, Gonda, Maharaj Ganj, Lakhimpur Kheri and Pilibhit along the Indo-Nepal border. Another month later, in November, he rescued a nine-year-old girl who had been sold into servitude by her father for Rs 30,000.

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An increase in domestic chores, early marriage, trafficking and child labour are all the dangers facing a girl child who has had to drop out of school. (Representational image)

Mishra told 101Reporters that according to the findings that have come out in the initial research, while child marriages during pandemic have been less, both child trafficking and child labour have increased. He said that since the beginning of the pandemic, two operations were conducted in which 110 children were rescued, including the one in September. He said there is no data on previous rescues but he believes there has been a hundred per cent increase. Both girls and boys were rescued but the boys outnumbered the girls.

Girls specifically are lured away from homes either on the promise of a job or marriage. They are then pushed into the sex trade or sold as bonded workers into homes where they are also sexually exploited. These girls are often not able to return home because they find no support there. Despite the Indo-Nepal border being sealed during the pandemic, three cases of trafficking of girls came to light — one from India into Nepal and two from Nepal into India, according to Devyani Chaturvedi, the District Coordinator of CHILDLINE, who is involved in the ICSSR research on cross-border trafficking.

Jitendra Chaturvedi, Director of DEHAT, an NGO that works on child rights and other associated causes, said that there was one case of child marriage that came to his attention during the pandemic, from Risia block in the district. It was stopped with the help of the police but there have been dozens of cases of child labour. The sad thing, he says, is that most of these children are those that dropped out of school.

Beyond Monitoring

Despite knowing fully well the need to keep vulnerable children in school, the district administration has not done much beyond monitoring the situation. The district inspector of schools in Bahraich, Rajendra Kumar, told 101Reporters that WhatsApp groups were formed in 299 schools for the one lakh students studying between class 9 to 12. Only 55% of these students were able to study online. Out of these, only 40% were girls.

Even this data is not available when it comes to primary and secondary school students. The District Basic Education Officer Uday Raj Singh said there are 2,822 schools in Bahraich that cater to students between classes 1 to 8. Four-and-a-half lakh children are registered in these schools but the administration has no idea how many of them were able to access online teaching.

No solution was found to address this problem and now with the second wave of the virus upon us, there is no telling for how long schools will remain shut. The director of Panchsheel Development Trust, Dhruv Kumar, said that private donors should come forward to help such students who are missing out on learning due to lack of electronics and the government should provide solar-powered televisions through the gram sabha so that there is no hindrance to education. Dr Chaturvedi suggested that the government introduce mobile vans to serve these rural areas and, if the situation persists, design and deploy special devices that contain course materials that can be accessed by the children without the distraction of the Internet.

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Bahraich: From being a village with a high unemployment rate, whose natives were heavily dependent on alcohol, to becoming a model for SRI (System of Rice Intensification) and organic farming, the transformation of Kailashnagar, a tiny forest village in the Bahraich district of eastern Uttar Pradesh, has been phenomenal.

Kailashnagar is today completely free of alcohol and is setting new records in SRI -- a low-water farming methodology aimed at increasing the yield of rice, and organic farming. Their farming methods have been so successful that farmers from different parts of the country and even the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) have dropped by to understand their techniques. More recently, American students studying public health visited Kailashnagar to understand how their model of agriculture is meeting the nutritional requirements of its villagers. Two farmers from this village have also received awards from the state government for excellence in farming.

Overcoming addiction

The villagers of Kailashnagar have come a long way. For decades, the occupants of this tiny forest village were known for being alcoholics. Out of the 350 villagers, 57 men, 40 women and 40 children had some degree of alcohol dependence. Very few people had jobs, and most of them made ends meet by cutting trees and selling timber.

The villagers were appalled when told how much they spent on alcohol and vowed to never touch it again. (Picture credit: Azeem Mirza)

About a decade ago, members of the Development Association for Human Advancement (DEHAT), an NGO that works with vulnerable communities, saw a huge crowd at a liquor shop in the Bichhiya market close to Kailashnagar. They filed an RTI to find out how much alcohol is consumed in the area and were shocked to find that every year people from the five surrounding villages spend close to Rs 22 lakhs. This figure did not take into account the illicit liquor being made and sold here.

Jitendra Chaturvedi, chief executive at DEHAT, informed the villagers of the amount spent on alcohol. He told them that the money that should be used for irrigation, education, medicines and weddings is being spent on liquor consumption. The villagers were appalled by the figures and vowed to never touch alcohol again. The first one to give up alcohol was Geeta Prasad, who was infamous for his love of liquor. Inspired by him, many of the other villagers followed suit. Liquor producers in the village voluntarily disbanded their facilities and to ensure that no one takes to liquor again, the villagers organised a religious ceremony and wore kanthis (special necklaces) to symbolise their resolve.

Focus on farming

Now that liquor consumption had stopped, the villages began to look for better means of livelihood. But the options were limited since Kailashnagar was in forest land and there were many restrictions in place. The villagers looked to NREGA for jobs. But soon, they wondered why they could not use their own land for farming. Members of DEHAT came in and helped the locals understand the basics of agriculture. DEHAT also organised training for the farmers from different institutes in new methods. They also learnt to improve yield without the use of chemicals. Over the next few years, they grew a variety of crops and the once poverty-stricken village began to prosper. They were now able to meet the food needs of the villagers and also make some profit.

Prasad, who is today a prosperous farmer, recalls, “My only job was to drink all day and trouble my family in the evening. Thanks to farming, our lives have changed. The income of the entire village has increased manyfold. Due to the increased income, now, one child from our village is in Lucknow for higher education, two girls and three boys are studying in Kisan Degree College, Bahraich and five girls and nine boys are studying in Bappa Ji Inter College, Chafariya.”

Babu Ram of Kailashnagar says that the vegetables grown in his village sell the fastest at the local market, even though they are priced 25 per cent more than their counterparts. “This is because we do not use any insecticide or English manure in our crops. We make our own fertilizer with cow urine and insecticide with garlic, tobacco and curd. Due to this, our crops are healthy and tasty and hence, get sold fast. Nowadays, people from all over the country visit our village to learn our methods of farming,” he says with pride.

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\"We make our own fertilizer with cow urine and insecticide with garlic, tobacco and curd.\" (Picture credit: Azeem Mirza)

In 2014, Geeta Prasad won an award from the state government for cultivating 118 quintals of organic rice through SRI farming in one hectare and in 2017, Dwarika Prasad got government recognition for setting a new record in the cultivation of organic bananas.

Striving for status of Revenue Village

The villagers have won one battle against alcohol and poverty, but they are still striving to win their decades-long battle to give Kailashnagar the status of a revenue village. Situated near the Katarniaghat Wildlife Division, Kailashnagar is not a revenue village but rather falls under the category of Vanatangiya (a community that was first hired by the British for afforestation). Hence, no pucca construction is allowed here. If you walk into this tiny village, you can neither see a pucca house nor a pucca toilet. There is no school, water tank, panchayat building or hospital in this village. Without the status of a revenue village, members of the village do not have complete rights on the land, making them ineligible for government schemes and bank loans. Despite the many hurdles, the villagers are happy that they managed to put Kailashnagar on the map as a model of successful farming and they are hopeful for their revenue status, soon.

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