Keya Sarkar: Hundred days of paradise?

On most days, the dozen boys and girls who work with me to produce what I sell in the small craft shop I run in Santiniketan behave predictably.

The boys, who work mostly in leather, go about their business silently, occasionally interrupted by calls on their mobile phones. The girls, who work in fabric, chat incessantly, falling silent only to accomplish a complicated embroidery stitch. The banter is generally about home, children, what they cook or what happened on the way to work. The fact that few of the girls are Muslim and the others Hindu also encourages much exchange on faith, culture and food. Needless to say, without even taking part in these conversations, I get to eat many of the goodies they bring from home as part of the “we do it this way” demonstrations.

However, it is only in the last few weeks that I have been listening to a new topic of conversation: the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), popularly known as eksho diner kaj. Minister Jairam Ramesh is talking about how state governments are unwilling to register job demands and is, therefore, thinking of using technology to fix the problem — he is tinkering with the idea of getting the rural poor to leave voicemails to ask for jobs, demands that would have to be honoured. The conversation among the girls, however, tell a different story.

Hard working as they are, the girls are appalled at their friends and neighbours who now receive their daily wage of Rs 130 for doing little or nothing. “They have to go in the morning and some days they have to work (mostly digging) for a few hours and some days not at all,” they told me excitedly. “And many of our friends’ husbands have an arrangement with the village-level contractor and they manage to get the money on payment day without coming to work. Of course, they don’t get the entire Rs 130,” they added. “Of course, all this is only till elections. Then we will see who gives them such easy money,” said my colleagues. Knowing the rural penchant for exaggeration, I intervene saying the government could not be that stupid as to just donate the funds. This invited a stare that conveyed “education does not make you knowledgeable about the ways of the world!”

Soon another incident occurred to ensure that I did not discount their account. Since Santiniketan has no municipality and, therefore, no conservancy services, we use 25 labourers per month to clean the roads and free them of plastic in our neighbourhood. All homeowners contribute and the system has been working well for the past two years. The ones who worked for us in this endeavour were chosen with care. They were too old or unfit for hard labour and, therefore, were not considered for NREGA. But this month, they informed us, they were getting the 100 days of work (“we don’t have to do anything much,” they said proudly). So they are no longer available for our employment.

Quite perturbed by the work ethics this will lead to, I decided to do a survey. I asked my vegetable vendor why he was still vending door to door if NREGA was the new mantra for earning. He said it was only because his house was within the Bolpur municipality area and, therefore, his voter card did not entitle him to NREGA work. “All my brothers who are in the village are raking it in,” he informed me.

“But today I heard that the person who makes the payment for NREGA work in our village has threatened to cut pay,” he said rather gleefully. Why? “Because people are refusing to do any work. At least one should do half an hour’s work.” he said wisely.