Seventy
Five Year old Saraswati Giri holds hand of her fifty five year old third son
Narendra to walk comfortably in her red and white saree to the polling booth at
the Bali Purbopara High school in Bali island, one among the fifty four of the low
lying clustered islands inhabited by people in Sundarbans in West Bengal. She
is a voter of Goshaba assembly constituency in south 24 paragana district going
to polls in the fifth phase of elections in the state. She doesn’t remember how
many times she has voted in her life. Living in a wildlife conflict zone in
equal fear and fancy for the forests, her only wish today to vote is that “her
leader will someday find measures to lessen the dependence of the people of her
village on jungles”. She does not know whom she is voting for nor has she even
heard his name. She has not seen him ever come to their area except for during
a campaign this time in the bazaar for a few minutes that she learnt from her
son later. She still does not know who he was and which party did he campaign
for. Her son has guided her with the symbol where she needs to press the
button. And she is doing so for her son.
“My
only wish is that our dependence on the jungles for livelihood should go down. I
have seen people living in fear. I have lived in fear of the tigers, snakes,
crocodiles and also the regular high tides that wash away our homes. I wish may
be we had a better place to live”.
The
women folks are excitedly queuing up at the school. Some come with their
children, some with their families. Political parties have arranged special
battery driven cart vans to ferry the voters to the polling station. Women are
waiting patiently to avail the facility. The elderly and the ones with children
get the first preference. They have worn their newer clothes, taken their
morning baths, cooked the food early to be ready to vote. Ask any of them about
their leaders they are voting for and they would unabashedly show their
ignorance.
“We
do not need to know. Anyways no one is listening to us”, says fifty four year
old Amita Pradhan, the younger sister- in-law of Saraswati Giri. “Voting is a customary
practice so we must vote”, she explains. She walked four kilometers in the
thirty nine degree celsius temperature to cast her vote. Leading a life in the
island for the last forty years when she was married and sent to her husband’s
house, she has only five times travelled out of the island. Twice during the
floods and thrice to visit a doctor in the mainland! Ask her what is she voting
for and she would come up with her only desire for a hospital in the island! “Just
two days ago my neighbor Arabindo Mondal’s thirteen year son died due to high
fever at home. The village doctor (Quack medical practitioner) prescribed
medicines and just after having it he collapsed”, she tells her fears. “We see
people dying for even simple health problems”.
The
island of more than five thousand family houses does not even have a primary
health centre and to reach the nearest health clinic people spend not less than
an hour on the public boats to reach Gosaba block on mainland. Quack medical
practitioners are the only available medical support for the people. Asha workers
have been introduced in the last couple of years but with limited facilities,
they cannot cover the entire area. There is no direct electricity yet limited solar
panels and grids in individual homes provide electricity to the few. Nights in
many homes are still dark yet the privileged ones use diesel run generators to
light their homes. Others cannot afford but for boats to ferry people islands
to mainland, air conditioners to run in newer resorts, Televisions in the
select homes, the means of electricity is either by the two extreme measures; through
the solar panels and grids or the diesel generators in the already vulnerable
ecosystem.
Twenty
six year old Lokhi (Lakshmi) Manna has also walked five kilometers to the
Bijaynagar high school in Bali islands to cast her vote. She came in with her
children. Her husband works in Kolkata and despite repeated knocks on her door
by political party workers forcing her to call him to cast his vote she could
not contact him in the last two days. “He was supposed to come. But do not know
what has happened. The mobile network was so bad that I could not contact him.
Party workers came looking for him and since he was not there I had to come
early today. We have to as voting is our right although that does not change
anything in my life”, she ruefully complains. Displaying her voter id card she
adds, “My age and date of birth are all wrongly imprinted here”. Renubala,
another seventy year old from 9 no Bali Bijoygarh looks concerned for her vote.
She was turned away from one booth because that was not her booth. Whilelooking
fro the right placeto vote she says, “Before I die, I would like to have my
people get forests rights (jungler
adhikar) in these jungles”. The Forest Rights Act of 2006 provides rights
to forest dwelling people to pursue livelihood in the jungles. This is
implemented in other forest areas of West Bengal but not in Sundarbans due to
its vulnerable ecosystem. Yet people are totally dependent on the vulnerable
forests be it for honey, wood or fishing in the forest waters.
The
polling officer taking a guess divulges that almost fifty percent of the people
have already voted in the first few hours of polling and it was peaceful.
People in long queues still wait for their turn to participate in the
democratic process probably the only way to register their place in the policy making
of their country.
Pushpa
Mondal, a forty year old excited about voting even in the remotest corner of
the country says, “It doesn’t matter whether we are important. This is the time
we just feel important. And this time I ask for adequate connectivity to the
city. We are totally dependent on the jungles. We do not have other options.
Men and women go collecting crabs and Bagda prawns (Tiger prawns) and are
either caught by crocodile, tiger or even stung by snakes. If anyone wants
votes they should also value us”.
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