Food and work continue to be the twin crises the community faces. Skilled agricultural workers, they still scrounge around for food, and face the ignominy of being labelled rat-eaters. Says Hirmatiya: "After the farmers cut paddy, we go to the fields and ferret out stalks of fallen grain. The men are skilled at finding rat holes where grain is stocked by the rats. Sometimes we find up to a kg there. Then we sort and dry this grain. That's how we eat."

"Otherwise we eat roots, mussels or snails, apart from rats which we cook like any other meat. We have so much illness and our people die young," says Champi Devi from Sambhuchak village.

The Musahars are trying to regain some of their lost dignity with the help of two organisations under the PACS Programme. But the road has not been easy.

On January 7, 2004, the Musahar basti in Sambhuchak village in East Champaran district (140 km from Patna) was burned down. After their homes were burnt, families warmed themselves by the dying embers of their homes to ward off the freezing cold.

The villagers alleged that the local zamindar's family was responsible for the arson. The reason is not far to seek. Members of the basti had records proving they owned the land they were living on, and were on the verge of being confirmed as landowners. A case was filed, and compensation in the form of cash and provision of the Indira Awas Yojana for housing was provided to the 35 affected families.

Amar of the Samajik Shodh Evam Vikas Kendra (SSEVK), a voluntary organisation that has been working with Musahars over the last few years, says the fire was a deliberate attempt to destroy the bargaining power that the Musahars had mustered in the course of SSEVK's work. The land was given to them in 1992 but there was no official confirmation. The office of the Musahar Vikas Sangh in the village and a PDS shop run by Laldev Majhi, an activist of the Sangh, were the targets of the zamindars.

Generations ago, the ancestors of the local zamindars had set up the Musahars on this land measuring about 2.75 acres. The Musahars have been living there for four to five generations. Though the homestead land was in the name of the Musahars, no rent collection or jamabandi was ever conducted and the SSEVK alleges this was deliberately avoided so that the land need not be given over to the Musahars.

In Tikhahan math village in Pakdidayal block of East Champaran district, 'parchas' were similarly issued to the Musahars. But here again, the rent was not fixed. According to Amar, the government distributes parchas all right, but often people cannot locate their land. Sometimes the land is in a river or a pond; sometimes it simply cannot be traced. The same piece of land could be allotted to five different people.

In Tikhahan math too, this was the case. In cases where the Musahars did manage to own their land, it would be grabbed and cultivated by others. If the Musahars managed to farm their land, their harvest would be stolen.

But slowly, things are beginning to change. Last June, when the Musahar families attempted to sow their land, the people who were illegally occupying it fired on them. Had they not been organised the Musahars would have run away. Instead, this time they gheraoed the attackers and took them to the police station. The culprits were arrested.

For the first time, in 2003, the Musahars in this village harvested rice on 12 of their 80 acres.

The Musahar Empowerment Programme

About 126 villages in this area are covered under the PACS Programme which kicked off in this area in January 2003. Most of the villagers are illiterate and even when they do send their children to school, the upper castes denigrate them, and the masters refuse to teach them. There are 425 Musahar villages in East Champaran district.

After the launch of the Musahar Empowerment Programme under PACS, a padayatra was conducted through 110 villages of East Champaran district to develop community cadres. The Musahar Vikas Manch was formed on April 14, 2003 and already all 126 villages have branches. Musahar Gram Raksha Dals, which are cadre forces of a minimum of five persons in each village, have been formed in all the villages. Each village now has a grain bank, with a total collection of 15 tonnes of wheat in 126 villages.

An amount of Rs 90,000 has been saved by the Musahar Vikas Manch to face any crisis situation. A series of programmes have been held to restore the dignity of this much-abused community. On April 14, 2003, a Musahar Man Samman Programme was held and government officials invited. On May 16, 2003, a massive puja was offered to the religious deity of the Musahars, Bhuyan Maharaj, at Mehisi in East Champaran, attended by 5,000 people.

SSEVK is fighting hard to change the situation for this community which still struggles to eat two square meals a day and send their children to school. They dread falling prey to kala azar and tuberculosis. Add to this, corruption and caste discrimination of the highest order, and you can see how long the road ahead is.

A baseline study conducted in these 126 villages across 11 blocks of East Champaran district, threw up some startling findings. There are 6,385 families here with a population of 28,936 (15,129 males and 13,807 females). Of this, the total number of literate people is 1,479. That number includes only 355 women.

Around 2,517 of the total of 3,307 boys in the 6-14 age-group have never gone to school. For the corresponding age-group in girls, 2,304 of the total number of 2,749 have not been to school. Diseases are rampant: the survey recorded 564 cases of kala azar and 400 cases of TB, among other diseases.

The Samajik Shodh Evam Vikas Kendra (SSEVK) is a voluntary organisation registered in 1991-1992. It was founded by Amar, Jai Mangal, Lal Babu Kaushal and Ramjit Paswan, who had been associated with an agitation of landless Musahars in Bodh Gaya in 1979. SSEVK works with the Musahar community on different issues such as land ownership, education, health and social justice and various organisations have extended help to them. Their partnership with ActionAid began with a project on non-formal education (NFE) in September 2001. This project covered 19 tolas.

Under the PACS Programme, SSEVK has the overall responsibility of implementing the programme in all 126 villages and coordinating with network partners to ensure maximum participation. The network partners are the East Champaran Rights Collective, Sewa Sanskriti Manch, RASFRCA and the Grameen Mahila Bal Vikas Samiti.

ActionAid is the legal holder of the project, envisioning, supporting, monitoring and supervising all activities.