Year 2004. A young graduate daughter of a village farmer aged around 22 years comes to Ahmedabad. She wants to be an IAS Officer. Passing the U.P.S.C. exam requires a lot of knowledge. She takes up further study in Journalism to acquire more general knowledge. She learns real life.
She gets a grant to study the tribals working in sugar mills. She goes to a village 20 km from Surat for a first-hand study of the tribal workers. (Do we, urbanites know what real India is? Let us see.)
The villagers do not allow the tribals to live in or near the village. The tribals stay in semi-arid areas away from civilisation. With considerable difficulties in searching and after walking for 4 km, she comes near a settlement. She wants to talk to the workers. But the tribals have a fear and suspicion of the non-tribals. The fear is built over past thousands of years. No tribal is ready to talk with her. Is their fear justified? Let us see.
While the young lady is in the settlement, there is a commotion. A young man — all covered with blood and bruises, carrying a two-year old child in his hands comes to the settlement. He is a tribal. He and his wife worked in a sugar mill as temporary workers. In the evening while they were returning home, some upper-caste goons came on two motor cycles. They beat up the husband mercilessly, threw the child in a cactus fence and kidnapped the wife and went away.
Our young lady enquires : “Why don’t you file a police complaint?” The tribals look at her with contempt and say — “Even the police will beat us.” This is the current state of India, current Gujarat. Now we know.
She returns to Ahmedabad and continues her study in Journalism. She visits a library and falls in love with a young boy.
She gets an internship assignment at a reputed news paper. She writes investigative stories for the paper. She is praised by the editor. Next day the story does not appear in the press because . . . . . someone paid the price (for not printing the news) to the editor.
The young lady, Mittal Patel scraps the idea of being an IAS officer, forgets journalism and decides single-handedly it necessary to fight for the cause of the oppressed nomads. One is reminded of the famous lines from Shri Rabindranath Tagore
spfu Å¡ lpL kzÎpu Lp¡B _p Aph¡, sp¡ A¡¼gp¡ Å_¡ f¡
Our great modern India which is growing rapidly, badly treats 50% of the population — women. If any one has doubts let me remind that recently (March-April, 2011) two chartered accountant ladies have committed suicides due to atrocities of their own families.
Then there are scheduled tribes, scheduled castes and nomads. I do not know the percentage. But may be 45% of the people. Total 72.5% people (50% women and 22.5% underprivileged men) are exposed to the exploitation by the upper-caste men. (These percentages are generalisations. They do not apply to many families. At the same time, outside Mumbai, they do apply to many people.)
The young lady — Mittal (Now Mrs. Patel) has now established Vicharata Samuday Samarthan Manch (Nomadic People’s Support Organisation) (VSSM). She is now working for the most under privileged people of India. Most of the nomadic people have no homes. Hence no ration cards, no election cards, no BPL (Below Poverty Line) cards. They live away from the upper-caste and somehow survive.
They have survived from times, even before Ramayan.
Since they have no voter cards, politicians are not interested in them. Government welfare schemes do not reach them.
