The drive from Raipur to Nuapada was idyllic. The sun was out but the breeze was still quite cool. The loping hills of western Orissa were at their magnificent best – green and well forested. The fields too were all green – covered largely by paddy crops. It could have been heaven, if not for the knowledge that this was actually the KBK districts of Orissa, known infamously for their starvation deaths!
Scratching the surface
A close look below this idyllic and seemingly perfect surface revealed many sub-plots which did not require deep digging to uncover. A short walk away from the highway and through the villages and the stress on the upland paddy crops, grown mostly by the poor becomes apparent. They were already browning and everyone was apprehensive that if it did not rain soon, these crops would fail, leading to huge food shortages. Sanjay Mishra and Dr Pattnaik of the NGO Vikalpa never tire of telling people something that the administration knows only too well – drought is declared only after the harvest and that too of the low-land paddy which the poor rarely grow and so even if upland paddy fails, there is no guarantee that the poor will get any relief.
Abani Panigrahi of the Nuapada-based NGO Lok Drishti is facing another stress which is not visible. Sometime back, he called the police to report the case of a child labourer badly beaten up by a family in Khariar, the largest town in the district. This was recorded live by the TV channel E-TV and telecast all over. The mistake he made was that while following his conscience, he did not bother to think of the consequences of his action – the perpetrators of this crime are powerful and well connected. The perpetrators are in jail but the word is out all over the district – Abani better watch his back because his days may well be numbered! Child labour is alive and well in Nuapada and the few that make a noise are under threat.
The village of Kandabahal is angry but quietly determined. Over several years, in partnership with the NGO Vikalpa, the people of Kandabahal and other neighbouring villages have invested considerable time and resources in protecting the nearby patch of forest land. It was only barren and unproductive land when they started – the forest department was least interested because there was very little of forest there – but with a combination of strict regulations on usage and other conservation measures, it is now productive and teeming with life. The little hillock which is a part of this space looks just beautiful! And now the battle is truly joined because the forest department is back, wanting to control it, and along with them come a whole host of others who wish to exploit it. And the people of Kandabahal are not simply going to lie down and surrender.
This piece has been written by Shankar Venkateswaran based on visit to western Orissa in connection with his work with the American India Foundation. He may be contacted at shankar.venkateswaran@aifoundation.org
Beware – Nuva Khai is coming!
Yet another sub-plot is being played out. Calling it a sub-plot is perhaps not correct – it is the main plot. The festival of Nuva Khai is round the corner. This is the festival for the people of western Orissa – it is the Pongal of the region, signifying the coming of the new crop. People eat the “new” rice that day, new clothes are bought and much fun is had by all. It is, beyond doubt, the most important celebration in this part of the world and everyone living outside the region makes it a point to return for the celebrations.
But there is a darker side to Nuva Khai. It is also the season when the agents of the brick-kiln owners of Andhra Pradesh begin recruiting labourers to work in the kilns. Providing an advance to celebrate Nuva Khai is the bait that is on offer and many have no choice but to bite. After all, who can ignore an advance of Rs. 6,000 to 12,000, especially if you are alienated from your lands, the monsoon is really the only hope of survival and you are deep in debt? And when crop failure becomes apparent, more and more families decide to join the great migration to Andhra Pradesh. The same plot is played out every year. Most of the stars – brick kiln owners and agents – are the same. The extras – the people who do all the work – change from year to year. And in a year when crop failure occurs, the crowd scenes get even more crowded!
And who are the ones who migrate? There is a predictability to this which is what makes it so disturbing. Most are dalits and adivasis, the latter from the low lands where forests are so degraded that they no longer provide food security. Few of them own lands and those that do have very small holdings with little access to water.
Breaking a life – brick by bloody brick
How many of us have ever wondered who really pays for the four walls that surround our safe and comfortable house? Well, if you live in Hyderabad, the answer is a family consisting of a man, woman and their 10 year-old child from Kandabahal village in Bolangir district or Mohulkot village in Nuapada district of western Orissa. In exchange for a mere 8 paise (sometimes, it is even as low as 3 paise), this group of 3 produce bricks which we buy for something like Rs 2 to 3! And labour is the significant input, because the others are clay and fuel for the ovens. And mind you, of this 8 paise, some of it goes to repay the advance they took during the now-forgotten Nuva Khai celebrations! They return to the villages in May or June every year with almost nothing in their pockets to show for their 6 months of hard labour that they were condemned to only to – weak, broken and sickly – wondering whether the next monsoon is going to show some kindness or some angel from heaven or the government from earth will find work for them after the next Nuva Khai so that they do not have to go through this living hell again!
Seasonal migration to work in the brick kilns of Andhra Pradesh is the grim reality for the people of KBK districts. Despite a central act to regulate inter-state migrations, there are no accurate estimates of how many migrate every year, but many say that it can be as high as 2 lakh people!
The journey to hell
Once the Dushera celebrations are over, the people who received the advance at Nuva Khai are herded to the railway station for their journey to hell. The major gateway is a town in Bolangir district called Kantabanji (where the NGO Vikalpa is headquartered), where they stay till each sub-agent gathers all the people that he has contracted to deliver. The agents arrange for tickets and once everyone has reached Kantabanji, they are herded into the train.
Dr Pattnaik and Sanjay Mishra graphically describe the scene as it unfolds every October. A bogie with a capacity of 70 will typically hold 300 – people are everywhere, on the aisles, in the corridors and in toilets – and they hold legitimate tickets and are contributing to the profitability of Indian Railways but get none of the services in return! Children sit on the shoulders of their parents. The whole family is on the move as young children cannot be left behind, slightly older children are required to look after their younger siblings and still older children work. The scenes at Kantabhanji station have been captured in photos and films and by all accounts, they resemble the scenes in railway stations at the time of partition! The reasons are the same – 2 lakh people need to be transported in a period of 2 weeks. Bricks cannot be squeezed into small spaces but then people can!
But Kantabhanji is only the beginning of this journey to hell. There is no direct train from Kantabhanji to Hyderabad and so they have to change trains at Waltair. This long journey, with no food, no water (ironically, “mineral water” bottles have been a boon as they can at least carry water with them) and little air also takes it toll! In a cruel way that nature has to ensure the survival of the fittest, many die on route before they reach Waltair station. No one seems to knows how many and no one cares, other than the family. So, who are the lucky ones – the ones who survive or the ones who die on route?
At Waltair, they have to change trains. Also, their final destinations are determined – imagine not knowing until then and hence not being able to tell your neighbours where exactly you will be for the next six months! Sub-agents and agents negotiate on fulfillment of contracts and the people are herded onto trains again that will take them to their final destinations.
“Life” at a brick kiln
Once the family reaches a brick kiln, the first thing they do is to set up their “homes”. In most cases, this consists of walls made from raw brick and some roofing material like leaves, plastic sheets and in the rare case when they luck out with a half-decent owner, a more permanent roofing material. There is barely enough space to squat inside these “homes”, let alone stand.
Brick kiln work is done in units of 3 people – a man, woman and child. The roles are clearly defined and the role of the child is critical. It is a 12-hour working day, gathering and sieving the clay, moistening it to make it into balls or golas (typically done by the child), cast into moulds (typically done by the man) and then transported (typically done by the woman) to various parts of the process. Work starts at dawn and finishes at dusk with a short break in the afternoons.
Verbal and physical abuse is the norm. Jani of Kandabahal village, a migrant and consummate actor, provides a graphic description of how this is done which would have been funny if it was not real. Slapping, kicking and the choicest Hyderabadi gaalis are the norm. The most common threat is to throw the offender into the oven, and in many cases, the threat is actually followed through. Sexual harassment of girls and women is common. ActionAid workers along with the local police rescued three girls who had been systematically sexually abused by a brick-kiln owning family for over a year! And this, Daniel of ActionAid says, is only the tip of the iceberg.
The tale of the 5-year old son of Pradeep of village Kenda Guda is typical. The boy inadvertently put his hand into the oven and suffered serious burns. Pradeep was not allowed to take his son to the hospital and as he could not watch his son suffer, he simply stopped working to look after him. His wages stopped and he was saved by his c-workers who saved some their food for him. He managed to get leave after 3 long weeks but his son still cannot straighten out his hand. Pradeep decided never to migrate and did not last year as he found work in a government watershed programme but has no choice but to migrate this year.
Food is another big issue. To cater to the needs of the migrant workers, weekly markets come up at brick-kiln sites where broken rice (which is typically used as chicken feed) is the major cereal available to the workers. Prices are as high as Rs. 7 per kilo and mind you, these are people below the poverty line for whom rice is meant to be available at Rs 2 per kilo! Little wonder that most people return home from the kilns with nothing in their pockets!!
The usual criminal politician nexus
As with any process of exploitation, the old familiar nexus between the criminal and politician is apparent. And many officials get their share of the cake too! All the agents in the Orissa end of this system are allegedly protected by a local MLA, though this can never be proved. And officials who are meant to protect the migrants, especially the labour department and the police, are supposed to be on the take, something that few will be surprised to know. Ironically, people say that even the railway ticket examiner gets a rupee for each migrant! And that too when the migrant is traveling on a valid ticket!
It is hard to explain how brick kilns in the Andhra end of this system can operate in such exploitative conditions without a nexus between the owners and the keepers of the law. The contours of this nexus are difficult to figure out but its existence can easily be assumed.
Having said that, the responsiveness of some parts of the Andhra and Orissa governments are certainly praiseworthy. The Orissa government along with ActionAid has funded a few volunteer teachers to run temporary schools in Oriya at the kilns and provide text books while the Andhra government has responded positively by allowing these schools to be run in their buildings and also providing mid-day meals for the children. Daniel and the Hyderabad ActionAid team have been able to mobilize the local police in rescuing migrants from gross human rights violations like sexual harassment and bondage.
Unpeeling the onion – the impacts of brick-kiln migration
Many would argue that migration is actually a good thing because is provides people alternative livelihoods, especially in those regions where the local economy is unable to sustain its people throughout the year. However, what makes the type of migration that western Orissa (and many other parts of India) witnesses annually unacceptable is its perverse and highly exploitative nature. Everyone who has had the misfortune to migrate say that they simply had no choice!
Seasonal migration is an onion and just as you unpeel what you think is the last layer, you find another! The most obvious impacts are economic, accentuated by its exploitative nature, and health caused by long hours of physically demanding work and inadequate nutrition. But will not the same conditions prevail had they not migrated? Perhaps yes, though lack of access to health facilities and the fact that the owner wants a productive worker results in people carrying their ill health much longer than they would have at their village. And this continuous weakening and malnutrition is perhaps what makes them more vulnerable to starvation deaths, something that these western Orissa districts are known for.
When you unpeel this layer, you are reach yet another – what is happening to the lives of children? Forced to live in highly unhealthy conditions that prevail in a brick-kiln is one of them. With limited health facilities, the young ones do not even get their full immunization completed, making them more and more vulnerable to poor health as they grow up. But what is even starker is they just do not have an opportunity to go to school because the migration season occupies a full six months of their 9-month school year! They automatically drop out and lose any hope of not becoming migrant brick-kiln workers themselves. And the cycle will continue.
The fact that elections typically happen when they are out of their villages is well known fact and these grim circumstances deny them the only real right they have as citizens of a democracy. But what is perhaps not so well known is that many other government activities happen when they are away. Census is one and so few of them enter into our population statistics. They truly are invisible! Surveys to list people below the poverty line so that they can be issued BPL cards and thereby access subsidized food are another activity that seems to happen when they are away. So, many of them never get listed. And those that do cannot use this facility as they are away when they need it the most. Of course, many of them mortgage BPL cards, which is perhaps one way they benefit!
Is there light at the end of this tunnel?
Clearly, the ultimate answer to distress seasonal migration is to expand choices for the people who are forced to migrate. And since the majority live in remote rural areas which are cut off from many economic opportunities, investments in land, water and forest resources is the only and obvious option. These things take time and investments and everyone concerned is aware of the need to do this. UNDP and other agencies are working with NGOs like Lok Drishtee and Vikalpa to address precisely these aspects. The question is whether the state, particularly the politician, is committed to do it because migrants are no one’s vote bank (they are usually out on migration during elections, remember?) and so who cares!
There is no doubt that there can be light at the end of this very dark tunnel. It requires commitment from several actors – NGOs, the district and state administrations, elected representatives at the panchayat and legislative levels and, of course, communities themselves who have to be central to the process. If they all do not row together, we will continue to live in houses built with bricks made from the blood, sweat and tears of poor, disenfranchised men, women and children.