ALIPUR: India, For all his 83 years of life in poverty, through four decades of Indian independence and eight national elections, Moti Musahar has never seen the inside of a polling booth.
I wanted to vote very much,” he said, quickly brushing aside tears as he told a story of lifelong intimidation by landlords and political bosses, punctuated at election times by out night terror.
As he spoke, others crowded around Mr. Musahara skeletal man in a village so poor and down trodden that the outcastes are divided into subcases of degradation to tell their stories.
A young man of 19, hoping to vote this year for the first time in a national election on Nov. 22 and 24, said that when he and his friends went to register, they were told that the electoral rolls were closed and that no new names would be added, even though a new Jaw has lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, Outside, in a nearby house, three women said that every time they tried to vote, they discovered that their ballots had already been cast.
No Voters Among 1,500
No one could be found who had been able to exercise his or her democratic right freely in a community of 1,500 potential vote ts deep in the dusty countryside of Bihar state, about 40 miles from Patna, the state capital.
“So now you see what is Indian democracy,” said Dhirendra Jha, a student leader who had brought a reporter to Alipur.
“In this state, probably 40 per cent of the people have never seen a ballot paper,” he said, There is no need to buy votes here, he added. They are simply stolen in a criminal process called “booth capturing.”
Bihar is where life in India hits rock bottom, Three quarters of the state’s 70 million people are illiterate. Annual per capita income is just over $100, though here in Alipur the landless peasants said they were lucky to get casual daily work for the equivalent of about 12 cents a day.
Corruption and violence are endemic. Indian human rights groups and newspapers as well as Amnesty International have all documented repeated cases of rape and murder at the hands of police men or the private goons who work for near feudal landlords or politicians.
Unpredictable Election Seen
The state has been ruled for all ‘but two of the last 42 years by the Congress party of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, which is waging an increasing desperate race to stay in office here and nationally in what many commentators are calling a particularly unpredictable election.
Bihar is also a state where well born Hindus routinely and sometimes violently key other Hindus of the lowest order whom Mohan das K. Gandhi called Harijans or “children of God” the right to enter certain temples or draw water from wells. Gangs known here by the borrowed word “mafias” control and fleece development programs ranging from bank loans for the poor to distribution of subsidized fertilizers.
Most homes in Alipur are win dowels mud huts similar to those people have been living in for centuries here. A small brass water jug is the only treasure most families will ever possess.
‘What is new in Alipur this year is the presence of people like the 25yearold Mr. Jha, the university educated president of the All Bihar Students’ Union, part of the Indian People’s Front, a recently organized leftwing party based in Patna and fielding candidates for India’s Parliament in 11 of Bihar’s 54 constituencies.
Vote Drive Under Way
Alipur falls into one of these constituencies, Arrah, where the front’s candidate is a local peasant leader, Rameshwar Prasad, head of the Bihar State Farmer’s organization. He is urging the disenfranchised poor to come out and demand ballots, and is organizing village vigilance committees to watch the polls. In Bihar, this calls for courage and solidarity and the ability to take time out from the fields in the middle of the rice harvest.
Mr. Prasad has gained a strong following among not only the poorest villagers but also the middle level farmers who believe they are neglected or exploited by a Government that spends most of its revenues on industrial and urban areas.
In an interview at his still miniscule party’s one room headquarters beside the railroad tracks in Arrah town, Mr. Prasad, the son of a landless peasant, said an immediate cause for concern here is rising violence between Hindus and Muslims, which some believe is politically inspired either by the Congress Party or the rightwing, Hindubased Bharatiya Janata Partyand which some fear may lead to the postponement of voting in some constituencies.
The tearing down of religious and caste barriers is one of the campaign planks of the Indian People’s Front, which uses its English name or initials even in this largely Hindi speaking state.
Renouncing violence except in self-defense, the party is promoting itself as “a qualitatively new kind of opposition.” It is mirrored by other usual movements in states as widely separated as Tamil Nadu and Haryana.
In Alipur, Ram Prabesh Ram, a field laborer in his 30’s, said he was ready to go out and vote for the front. He came and stood next to Mr. Musahar in an act of support.
“You see, everything now de pends on the young generation of our village,” Mr. Musahar said. “They give us strength. This time, maybe I will vote, too.”
Article extracted from this publication >> November 17, 1989
