A Feast of Vultures: The Hidden Business of Democracy in India

by Josy Joseph

Chamkalo Paswan is an articulate and angry old woman with a wrinkled face and sunken eyes. We were standing in front of her house in the Mahadalit quarter. ‘Where is the sarkar (government)? Is there something like that?’ Not once in her life has she received any assistance from the government. ‘Our children do not get scholarships and uniforms, boarding schools meant for them have all become hotels. Our children get nothing,’ she said. It is not that the government does not impact her life at all. From the government-run anganwadi, where her grandchild studies, the family is supposed to get 1.5 kilograms of rice and 500 grams of lentil once a month. That is the incentive offered by the government to get the family to send its children to the centre. But she gets only 1 kilogram of rice and 250 grams of lentil. Through the public distribution system, they are also entitled to 25 kilograms of subsidized rice every month; only 18 kilograms reach them. ‘We know what we should get, but whom do we complain to,’ she asks.