Rajasthan government humiliating its poor is shockingly insensitive
“I’m poor and I take benefits from the government.” These are the words that have been painted outside homes belonging to below poverty line (BPL) families, in the Dausa district of Rajasthan, particularly in Sikrai and Bandikui tehsils, by none other than the officials themselves.
'I am poor, receive ration from National Food Security Act (NFSA)', painted on houses in Rajasthan's Dausa by administration pic.twitter.com/S0fZ2w74ar
— ANI (@ANI_news) June 22, 2017
The reason?
The local administration intends to ensure that there are no leakages in the welfare system under the National Food Security Act, and in its twisted logic, the families seeking the ration facilities via PDS must bear the humiliation of being singled out, named and shamed for the fact of being poor.
Yellow-coloured boards with signs written in Hindi can be seen outside the tiny houses of almost every family in the Dausa distict villages that are BPL. The signs read, ”I am poor, receive ration from National Food Security Act, NFSA”, along with their BPL numbers, and names of heads of families.
Officials have threatened those without the signs outside their houses would have their names struck off from the list, because it might be construed that they weren’t poor enough to avail the basic right to food under the NFSA. In fact, Surendra Singh, the CEO of the Dausa zila parishad, has said: “This was done just to identify families under BPL and NFSA schemes, we had got directions on this.”
Dainik Bhaskar has reported how in lieu of just 10 kilo of wheat, meagre quantity of pulses and other items on the NFSA list, the Dausa officials have demanded that such markings, saying “I’m poor” be painted, else nothing would be obtained by the families.
According to a Hindustan Times report, villagers have been left squirming in disbelief and sorrow at the state-engineered humiliation. “We have to suffer this humiliation for 10kg of wheat. It has become difficult to hold our head high,” a villager in Dausa told the HT reporter. In fact, some embarrassed villagers have removed the signs and have foregone the benefits, rejecting some of the government’s “cash incentives of Rs 750 for the poor to brand themselves”.
How is it that an elected government takes to humiliating the most vulnerable among its citizens because they belong to economically weaker sections? Instead of being proactive and compassionate in its bid to make the PDS efficient and accessible, the state is creating hurdles of acute public harassment by naming and shaming the poor.
Moreover, by giving out the BPL number, it’s also creating opportunities for misuse by those with vested interests. This absolute callousness has been displayed by officials despite harrowing stories of Aadhaar data, which is becoming indispensable for accessing rations in many states, being leaked from government websites themselves.
Naturally, the Opposition has slammed the Rajasthan government in no uncertain terms. “It’s a sick joke. If the state government provides them ration under the Food Security Act, it’s their legal right, and not a charity from the government. It proves the BJP governments at the Centre and in states are anti-poor,” Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari has reportedly said on the issue.
However, we need to ask if this segregation by government orders, this singling out of the poor and making them even more vulnerable to targeted humiliation, subjugation and denial of their basic rights, turning them into objects of public ridicule and daily social harassment by those who are above the BPL and don’t have the marking on the walls outside their houses – is this unexpected in the current scenario?
Let’s look at what all has been making the news from the Vasundhara Raje-ruled state of Rajasthan.
First up, there has been the terrible and unforgivable lynching to death of Swachh Bharat activist Zafar Khan, who merely objected to officials photographing women defecating in the open. “Kill him” – that was the order given out, while it was declared that he was a Muslim. Who can forget the lynching of Pehlu Khan in Alwar, by a mob of cow vigilantes, even as Khan had all the documentations to prove he was a dairy farmer, who wasn’t taking the cattle to slaughter market.
In a column for DailyO, JNU PhD scholar Anirban Bhattacharya has explained how the Swachh Bharat campaign is fast degenerating into a cleansing of the country of “unwanted others”, especially if they happen to be poor, Dalits, or Muslim, and in most cases, a doubly vulnerable combination of the two.
Bhattacharya writes: “In the vision of a Hindutva, or to be precise, a Brahmanical Hindutva and ruthlessly neo-liberal India, while Muslims top the rank of “unwanted others” to be cleansed, there are plenty underneath them. The Dalits, Christians, women, Leftists, workers, farmers, other genders - they are all in that list.”
It’s this list that’s being hung out in the open as the Dausa district officials take to painting on the walls of the poor that they “need” the NFSA rations, adding salt of humiliation to the wound of dire poverty.
Yet, what has been CM Vasundhara Raje’s reaction to the reports of dwindling political climate and daily violence in her state? From overt denial that Zafar Khan was allegedly murdered by government officials – she said “demise”, to using a battalion of paid trolls to deflect attention from the case, defend her on social media even though she didn’t deserve any of it – it has been raining ludicrous incompetence and sheer apathy from the Rajasthan chief minister.
The demise of Zafar Khan ji in Pratapgarh is extremely unfortunate. Investigation is on - justice shall prevail. https://t.co/1V9DmV26KY
— Vasundhara Raje (@VasundharaBJP) June 18, 2017
Rajasthan has also been in the news for messing with school textbooks, fronting RSS stalwarts and painting them in heroic lights while eliminating chapters on the Nehru-Gandhi family, and other members of the Indian National Congress who played a pivotal role in the freedom struggle and during the early decades of independent India.
In addition, the cattle lynchings, cow surcharge and mass yoga drills have become staple in the state that is witnessing falling health indicators, increased female foeticide, communal killings, and many other woes.
It seems state-driven demand for external identifiers in order to brand the poor, the religious other, the caste other, etc, is an outward extension of the existing identifiers which prop up the bureaucracy and whatever remains of the welfare state. The last we had heard of entire communities being singled out for their poverty, religion and stamped with a mark was during the Third Reich in Germany.
We need to ask if 21st century India is no different.