Victims of class and race

On May 30, a heartbreaking story was reported by the media. Two young brothers in their late 20s committed suicide; photographs published in papers showed both brothers hanging in a mud-house without a roof.

The photographs offered an initial understanding of their living conditions. Without digging into the causes of their suicide, it was clear poverty killed them. Both brothers belonged to the Kolhi community, who are largely settled in the southern districts of Sindh.

Scores of such suicide stories are published in local newspapers, almost all of which go unnoticed. In this case, looking at the small children of two young widows in their 20s, an effort was made to reach out to the families to see if they can be helped so that the rest of the family could survive.

On a visit to their home, people were told that these two suicides were not the first in the family; their mother had killed herself, and later their older brother did the same. Their aging father is now left with the youngest son and close to a dozen children. The family does not own a piece of land. They are beset with generational poverty, backwardness, and complete absence of any opportunity to move forward. They have been peasants since generations, payoff from land cultivation never allowed them to have their own home. This is the life of the peasantry in nuclear-armed Pakistan in contemporary times.

This Kolhi family used to work in Badin. Because of frequent water shortage and sea intrusion on agricultural land, the work on land cultivation was little. They are economic migrants, internally displaced people because of polices in which they had no say. They moved to the Chambarr area, near the Tando Allahyar district where a local landlord gave them land to live on in exchange for fulltime work on his fields. They do not know how long they will stay here in their mud house. Recently a US-based non-profit approached the family, arranged monthly financial help for six months and donated half a dozen goats so that they that they could have an income source.

The NGO gave them Rs300,000 as support, hoping it would bring them to their feet in a year’s time. Meanwhile, a local philanthropist was kind enough to pledge construction of one room for the family. This was a delightful movement for the grieving family – one room on a land they do not own.

Death kills everyone, but there are millions like these Kolhi brothers who were killed by life. When life becomes an unbearable burden, people prefer death. Hopelessness, darkness – that is what people give up. They embrace death because state, society, people – everyone – fail them. Their loved ones, with heavy hearts and tears in their eyes bury them. The rest of us get back to routine, allowing our fellow country people to be victims of their weak movement.

The bottom line is that institutional response to such frequently occurring miseries does not exist. State machinery and its massive resources remain unmoved for people like these two Kohli brothers, their mother and older brother. They live and die alone and are buried in a manner as if they did not exist. Our conscience is unmoved, their lives are ended, while the rest of the country goes on without even mourning.

While the world may have learnt lessons and developed pilot projects addressing generational poverty and backwardness, the Kolhis, Bheels, Menghwars, Jogis are victims of both class and race. They are invisible people, categorized in a schedule of the constitution, often referred as schedule casts in Sindh. In Bangladesh, the Grameen Bank, a micro-finance community bank, lifted millions from the shackles’ of endless vicious poverty. But we paid no heed to such exemplary interventions.

In Pakistan, successive housing schemes for the poor have never made to these people mainly because the poor have no voice. One woman from their community was made senator, Krishna Kumari, with the hope that she may bring some change in their stagnant lives.

Why can’t the federal and provincial government allocate a Rs5 billion package over the period of five years to lift these people from poverty, giving them access to capital, job training, five to ten boarding schools for their boys and girls with meals and stipend? This should have been done long ago, but even today one sees no initiative for these natives of the land.

Veeru Kolhi, herself a victim of bonded labour, campaigned to end slavery, free her follow brothers and sisters. It worked for a while, later we abandoned her. Veeru is a real force of change within society, coming from the very people who need inspiration and a way out.

These millions of citizens of the southern Sindh districts continue to be victims of class and race. We owe them an apology for keeping them at sub-human levels. When we will have leadership which can see the biting reality of this unjust social structure?

Email: mush.rajpar@gmail.com

Twitter @mushrajpar