NEWSLINKS
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTION 99
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Of profit and predation

Chindu Sreedharan in Ersama block

Today is both a sad and happy day for Snehalata Manna.

It is sad because memories of her husband, whom a cruel turn of fate stole from her nearly four months ago in the super cyclone, flood her mind. Happy because after all these days, another turn of fate has restored his photograph to her.

Ironically, the instrument that brought it back is the same one that many cyclone victims feel is an imposition on them: the election.

"The villagers found her husband's election identity card from a field four kilometres away in the morning," explains Shital Kumar Palbabu. He works at the Mamta Gruha, the house for victims like Snehalata that have sprung up in 35 places of Ersama block.

Snehalata is one of the 76 living in this Gruha in Azhgarbedi, some eight kilometres from Ersama proper. There are 13 widows including her, 54 orphans and nine aged people. The Orissa government supplies such houses with the necessities of life.

The super cyclone cost Azhgarbedi 120 lives of its 445 population, many of them young men between 18-24. They were all Bengali migrants, says Palbabu. Today there are very few males -- only some 70 -- in the village.

"All were people who worked in the sea. So when the floods came they refused to leave. They took their children and women to higher grounds a kilometre away from here and returned home. They thought they could swim to safety if the need arose," Palbabu says.

Snehalata's husband, Bidhan Manna, brought her and their children to safety. And then returned home to ferry his aged father and mother. She didn't see him again -- till the villagers brought her the identity card. It was surprisingly intact; its plastic coating had saved it from any damage.

And so Snehalata, sitting on the mud floor of the small tarpaulin-covered shed that serves as home for the 76, with her saree covering her head, now weeps silently.

She conveys that she would rather be left alone with her grief; in fact, she doesn't even want to step out of the Gruha for sometime. No, not even to vote, though it is the election that she has to thank for giving her another glimpse of her husband.

"My husband was like a mukhya in the village," she says through Palbabu. "If I go out to vote I will meet many people who knew him... and I wouldn't be able to bear it."

If it is grief that's governing Snehalata, it is anger that some other widows feel. At politicians in general and the ruling Congress in particular. The reason is the expected:

"No one was around to help us after the cyclone... Now they need votes, so they have come here," they say.

Azhgarbedi lies in the 36 Ersama constituency. The 190,155 voters have a choice of nine candidates. But the fight, like in many parts of Orissa, is between the Congress's Bijay Kumar Nayak and the Bharatiya Janata Party's Bijay Kumar Nayak.

The importance the politicians have given the cyclone victims can been seen in the fact that no candidate, expect that of the Communist Party of India, has bothered to visit Azhgarbedi. Nor, for that matter, have any of them visited Dohibar, another village nearby that lost 50 per cent of its population to the waves.

"Some people from the Congress and the BJD-BJP had come here," says another inhabitant, who doesn't want to be identified, "But not the candidates... Yes, I will vote, but not for the Congress. I will give it to someone who'll help us."

Nearly four months after the tragedy, you would expect the survivors to have received the Rs 75,000 ex gratia compensation the government had announced. But no. No one, not one single person, in Azhgarbedi or any of the nearby villages, has got the money.

The reason that government officials cite is that the election has stalled the process. But there is more to it: corruption, that omnipresent blemish on India.

"I haven't got the death certificate as yet," says a widow, "So how will I get the compensation?"

It is like this. The survivors are required to give in an application certified by the village headman to the medical officer of the area, who issues the death certificate. Only three or four people in Azhgarbedi has managed to get through that process.

"If you want the sarpanch (headman) to sign your application you need to pay him," says one villager on condition of anonymity. "Yes, yes, he asks for it."

A few have paid him; the others don't have the money. "But he insists on payment," says the villager. "I lost five members of my family. He is asking for Rs 1,500... He knows that we received Rs 3,500 for constructing shelters, so he is sticking to the demand."

The tale doesn't end with the sarpanch. The minor officials who issue the death certificate too demand blood money. And the menace is not limited to just Azhgarbedi. Complaints have come in from many affected areas.

"Hum anpad log hain (We're uneducated people)," says a villager. "What do we know about these things?"

Snehalata too hasn't been able to make any headway in this regard. But right now she doesn't want to think about it. She would rather be left alone.

Assembly Election 2000

Back to top

Tell us what you think of this report