A village in Bundelkhand: Pawns on the political chessboard

Time stands still in these parts of Bundelkhand. Recently the nose of a Dalit was chopped off because he had dared to have food at the same table occupied by Thakurs.

A Dalit activist Kuldeep Baudh confirms that a large number of Dalits continue to work as bonded labourers; and there are still villages where Dalits are not allowed to sit in the presence of Thakurs.

This is also the home turf of the late bandit queen and Samajwadi Member of Parliament, Phoolan Devi. Her ancestral village Shekhpur Gudha, on the south bank of the Yamuna River 15 km from Kalpi town in Jalaun district, is steeped in poverty and Phoolan’s surviving sister Ram Dulari and their mother Mula Devi no longer expect the ‘Sarkar’ to deliver changes and will vote for whichever party a local Dalit activist asks them to.

Till a few years ago, they would be paid a few hundred rupees to accompany Samajwadi Party activists in the area during the campaign. But that has stopped and the two elderly women have been left to fend for themselves.

Pointing to their half-built house, the sister claims she brought the wood from the forest while her mother baked the bricks. The only possession seemed to be a little wheat, a few onions and salt.

Apart from the Sarkar (system), they harbour grudges against Ummed Singh, husband of Phoolan Devi, who joined Congress before the election was announced.

“Ummed Singh snatched all property and whatever money Phoolan had. He is leading a luxurious life while we are dying here for food,” complains Phoolan’s mother.

Phoolan Devi continues to be remembered though. “When she was with us, we felt on top of everything,” recalls one of the men from the Nishad caste to which she belonged. Admits another villager on condition of anonymity, “She gave us a sense of empowerment. Now that she is gone, we have relapsed into our old, petty fights.” For them, Phoolan Devi was a liberator. They fondly remember how she would visit the village and distribute clothes and blankets when she was an MP. Her assassination in 2001 changed everything.

It is said that on February 14, 1981—in order to take revenge of gang rape—Phoolan Devi and her gang killed 22 Thakurs in Behmai village, which is a located on the other side of the river Yamuna. However, her biographer Mala Sen wrote in her book “There are various versions of what happened to Phoolan Devi after Vikram Mallah’s death. When I spoke to her she was reluctant to speak of her bezathi (dishonour) as she put it, at the hands of the Thakurs.”

The Kalpi seat was won by the BSP in 2007 and by the Congress in 2012. Years of neglect of the area, say people, have turned them away from the SP.