Such meetings are routine before elections, but for the extremely poor, voiceless and deprived Musahar community it was ground-breaking.

The Musahars are daily wage earners who live with such precarious food security that they usually eat just one meal a day. They have not been conferred tribal status and therefore are not entitled to earn a livelihood from forest produce. They are extremely isolated politically and socially, and have been labelled a ‘criminal community’. This makes them vulnerable targets for the police. Consequently, they fear people in authority.

The MVP-MM programme held in the big campus of the Raja Ratansen inter-college, Nichlaul, aimed to break this isolation and allow the community to interact with political candidates and get a realistic commitment from them on the issues and demands put forward by the Manch.

The Musahar Manch is a community-based organisation representing 10,000 Musahars in Maharajganj. It works for the socio-economic and political rights of Musahars in eastern Uttar Pradesh. The PACS Programme has played an important role in empowering Musahars in this region. (To read a story on this, click here.)

People from far-flung Musahar villages such as Sohgibarwa and Shikarpur turned up for the event. Candidates belonging to the Congress party, the CPI (ML) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) participated in the dialogue; the Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate sent an emissary.

Musahar Manch’s Nichlaul president Bhikhari Musahar urged that the discussions should focus on issues and demands raised by the community and not on political party issues.

All the candidates recognised that it was the slow progress of land reforms and the skewed distribution of productive land in the region that stood in the way of the Musahars not being able to earn a livelihood.

CPI (ML)’s Harischandra called for peasants, agricultural labourers and farmers to unite and declared that his party would end the land grab by big mafias and continue to fight for the cause of the Musahars and dalits.

The BSP candidate R K Mishra said he would provide a livelihood to the Musahars, and that poor members of the community would get their due rights: 60 years of slavery would end and the poor would realise their dreams.

Samajwadi Party candidate Shivendra Singh’s representative, Ishwar Giri, said that the SP candidate would raise the issue of increasing the minimum wage in Uttar Pradesh, and including Maharajganj under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in the next assembly session.

The Musahars too had their say. Genu Musahar said that the Musahar Manch must analyse the assurances given by politicians and that the Musahars must remain united for the larger fight. Fulesari Devi and Kaushilya from Sohgibarwa cynically remarked: “Politicians are coming to our doors because of elections and the fact that we are united; they will disappear after the election.” Citing negligence in development of the Sohgibarwa region by all political parties, they said they would not vote in Sohgibarwa.

The Musahar Manch handed over a letter addressed to the candidates, and a charter of demands. With this event, the Musahar Manch clearly expressed its intention of participating in, and influencing, the governance process and negotiating with political forces. Moreover, it sent out the message that human development issues like food and hunger, livelihood, illiteracy, disease, public health and human security must figure prominently in the agenda of any political party.

Key demands of the Musahar community include:

• Grant of scheduled tribe status to the Musahars.
• Inclusion of Maharajganj district in the NREGA as also all poverty-stricken districts in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
• Grant of gram sabha land to landless Musahars and possession to those given entitlements.
• Antyodaya ration cards for all Musahar households.
• Indira Awas Yojana to cover all Musahar households.
• Residential schools up to Class 12 and the setting up of ashram-type schools in Musahar-dominated areas.
• Filling up 2,000 vacancies for primary school teachers in Maharajganj.
• Access to a functional anganwadi, primary school and fair price shop in all Musahar hamlets.
• Special package for flood-affected areas, and all-round development of Sohgibarwa.
• Social security for every Musahar household.
• Increase in the minimum wage in Uttar Pradesh.
• Equal wages for men and women.
• Special component plan in the Purvanchal Vikas Nidhi and district plan.