Between the grains: Purvanchal circumstances

The double-digit growth touted for the Indian economy is being accompanied by a growing gap between the urban middle class and the rural poor, the latter exemplified by the conditions in Eastern Uttar Pradesh, or Purvanchal. Here, impoverishment increases as power looms displace handloom workers, and harvesters make agricultural labourers redundant. The patchwork of tiny land parcels that makes up the Purvanchal landscape in satellite imagery itself is evidence of rural want, and the condition of the landless is somewhat worse. Against this backdrop of poverty, Maoists organise and the upper castes react. The state takes the side of the latter. A communal twist is forced on the people by the opportunist politician, pitting Muslim poor against Hindu poor. But Purvanchal, the most neglected, most populated region of India, will survive because of the resilience of its citizens and their spirit of tolerance. They will keep the designs of the exploiters and communalists at bay.

Benaras, the oldest city in the world it is said, is where my travels through Eastern Uttar Pradesh have always begun. The coolies who carry my luggage from the train station, the rickshaw-pullers who take me down the crowded, tumultuous lanes to the Ganga View Guest House on Assi Ghat, the hawkers who sell incense and flowers outside the Kashi Vishwanath temple, the weavers who produce yard upon yard of beautiful silk at Pili Kothi … they come from Gorakhpur, Gazipur, Mau, Bhadoi, Deoria — poor Hindus and Muslims from all over Purvanchal, looking for life in a city where others come to die.