The BPL Card

 

It’s May and wheat harvesting is proceeding under the tyrannical fits of a blazing sun. The summers are getting hotter each passing season; the springs arrive with lesser flowers; the autumns have less windfalls simply because trees are vanishing; and the winters are losing their chilly pinch. We seem to have internecine conflict with mother nature, the same mother that gives us birth and nurtures us. The interminable monotony of growth models unrivalled; the capricious ingenuity to further dent mother nature. The economic models are basically the schemes of profligacy in which the rich are getting richer and the poor turn poorer. According to a survey, just forty wealthiest Indians hold wealth equal to that owned by 700 million people collectively. India might be gearing for five-trillion economy but this hardly matters to the millions of poor Indians. There are white-collar crimes that further tilt the scale in the favor of the moneyed class. Everything related to the poor people is getting into a pell-mell situation. So there are vertical towers of soft, upstanding class and horizontal slum-spreads of hard, down-standing people. But these ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ categories are just apparent surface realities. In deep reality, the poor people are very brittle, they crumble and scatter; the rich possess the hardness of wealth to give them a steel armor. But there is one occasion when the rich and the poor stand in the same queue, carrying the same worth—the election day.

The Government of India runs Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PM-GKAY), a kind of mass charity or bhiksha to make the beggary masses atmanirbhar by providing food grains to migrant, poor laborers and below poverty line families. Well, how will you make a beggar self-standing by giving him 5 kg food grains per month is quite a mystery to me. It also provides subsidized food grains at 2-3 rupees per kg from fair price shops under National Food Security Act. These are provided to Below Poverty Line Families (BPL) and Priority Households (PHH) who are issued a special ration card to help them avail this paltry grocery to keep the fire going in their kitchen.

I need Rashe Ram’s services for a task. I call him. I’m relieved that his number is working and his tiny handset is intact. His voice comes with overwhelming despondency from the remotest desolate corner. He sounds drained out, sounds indifferent and complaisant. He is cutting wheat so that they can store wheat for the season. I’m surprised to hear this. These days the daily wage laborers in the village avoid taking this soul-sapping brutal work with sickle because they get free and subsidized ration and use the spared energies for other wage tasks. The two brothers (both unmarried) and their widowed mother are cutting wheat furrows to get enough wheat in storage that would last a year. The youngest brother works at a needle factory at a paltry monthly income. It saves him from the sun and rain at least, he says. His wife rests at home and freshens up to launch reinvigorated tirade once the workers arrive home. That seems to be her task, which she takes very seriously as is proved by her shrill harangue that subdues all other lesser noises in the neighborhood. All in all, it’s a poor family, very poor I should say.

‘You don’t get free and subsidized ration?’ I’m scandalized. ‘No!’ the gentle giant demurely replies. The bizarreness of it strikes me. I have seen rich landowners (from the village standards at least) taking away bundles of free ration, most of them on bikes, and some even in cars (can you believe it?) so that at least their buffalos may eat that ration. My head spins as I realize that their cattle are eating a human’s share.

Morality, law and ethics are scrunched under boots by those who can manipulate the system at their level. They simply fix with the village head to get a free ration card even though they don’t fulfill even a single eligibility condition. Law is crunchy and crispy. It gives a nice grating, surrendering sound under thick boots of the strong. But it easily pierces the naked foot soles of the poor. So the local gentry has a heyday on the date of free distribution. Plunder, pillage, desecration, savagery, debauchery of the strong and the mighty—seeping from the top lions to the neighborhood bullies. I have a vision of poor Rashe Ram and his family—mute like a flayed sheep. They are undoubtedly the most eligible family for a free ration card in the village. And they don’t have it, while literally everyone from car-owning richies to the bike-owning filthies is having this almost ubiquitous item. You just wish for it; and there you have it.

To be eligible for it the annual family income should be less than 1,80,000 rupees. Theirs won’t reach even one lakh from all sources even if we add the sum of their mother’s own housework at the most exorbitant pay scale of a housemaid. The household is headed by a widow (another prominent eligibility condition); they have no assured means of subsistence or social support; two brothers are uneducated and single with no socio-economic support; they are far lower down the caste hierarchy; they are landless agricultural laborers, earning livelihood on a daily basis in the informal sector (which isn’t regular in the strict sense and work comes randomly not amounting to more than half of the month, the rest of the time they are idle). It’s an ideal below poverty line family deserving a free ration card—more than anyone else in the entire village—but they are left out. The system can be—usually is—merciless. I’m hit by piercing remorse and torturing anguish. My cloister morals nudge at my overwhelming poetic lassitude. I can feel how it feels to be denied your right.

I ask them to bring their documents. ‘And don’t forget to carry the registered mobile number for the Family ID!’ I emphasize. The government has futuristic conceptualization—digitalization. Every household must have a Family ID linked to a registered mobile number. His brother—a lanky, stoic fellow whom I have never seen speaking—stands in front of me with chronic somnolence. He has their documents in a green polythene bag, faded, jaded, frayed and holed. Poverty has a peculiar inertia. It will seep into torn polybags and prevent the fresh ones from replacing them even if these are available for free. I take out the documents. They carry the dog-eared smell and myth of poverty. Poverty gives spankings. It mollifies all confidence and courage with comic candor. One stands guiltily as if just by being poor he has committed a crime.

I drive the bike with virtuous and upright air. The lanky boy pillion rides with his documents, almost weightless and invisible, shaped by the grating struggle of hard labor on construction sites and agriculture farms. We reach the SARAL Kendra at the village’s other end that facilitates such tasks. I broach the subject to the young man operating it. He belongs to the village itself and runs his operations from a room in the village chaupal. Karne (real name Karan but who bothers about the real name of a poor man) stands in a corner with a mournful autumnal air. He wants to be invisible. I share the poverty-shaped bleeding reminiscences of this poor family. ‘And still they don’t get free ration and I see even people with cars carrying away free ration like loot!’ I’m at a loss of words.

The guy is slightly acquiescing but cold and taciturn to begin with. ‘Give me the registered mobile number for their Family ID,’ he says with professional air. The number is the key to the digital portal. No number, no entry to the digital world. Karne shares the number with lots of effort at mustering courage. As a poor man you hardly believe yourself to be a full human. You think you are sub-human and that makes you guilty and at loss of all normal sense of dignity. The man tries to log into their account. ‘Share the OTP!’ he demands suddenly and sternly. Karne is all focus on the tiny basic handset. No OTP. I fear the number is dead for not being recharged for a long time. No balance. The SARAL Kendra guy looks exasperated and peers at me as if to say what a dunderhead you have fetched here. I’m not the one to bungle even the slightest chance here—at least in this episode. My smartphone is the saving grace for both me and Karne. I take a chance and recharge their number. It buzzes back to life. Money is more important than even air these days. Dead phones come alive with money fed online. There is an OTP. Good news. I’m elated. Our efforts are bearing fruit. ‘Thank God the number wasn’t closed forever!’ I’m full of gratitude to the almighty.

‘In the Family ID records their annual income is shown to be three lakh rupees,’ he drops the bombshell. ‘This is the biggest digital lie!’ I lose my breath and fumble with words. Karne’s head must be swimming with shock after hearing this mountainous sum. They don’t earn even a third of it. He is sympathetic to my vexation. ‘See there are about 800 free ration cards in the village and not more than five or seven are eligible in reality,’ he is very honest about it. It’s easy business. The village head doesn’t want to antagonize anyone applying even if he has a big house, car, tractor, AC or large landholding. The personnel from the Block Development Office usually don’t come to inspect the applicant’s socio-economic status. Signatures of the village head, a member of the village council, the local government school principal and another committee member do the job. In fact the kind boy running the village SARAL Kendra himself puts the signatures of all these people to further facilitate the process and allow governmental charity to reach each and every home. In this scenario, whoever applies gets a free ration card and you have a big crowd on the day of free distribution.

Here my dollops of witticism won’t help me. I have no problem regarding ineligible people getting free ration. It’s a far bigger game—country level—so let the mighty lions handle it. They know it and if they are comfortable with it, I have no reasons to object. My only issue is that a truly deserving poor family should also get its due in the scheme. ‘Get an affidavit in his mother’s name declaring her status and income,’ he instructs the logical course of action. I feel mettlesome in spirit on this particular day. So there we go to the town to get the affidavit typed on a stamp paper. The notary is a full-of-mischief chatty guy. As his assistant types the affidavit he is giving most ingenuous schemes to a man whose wife has gone to her parents after getting beaten and he also getting thrashed by her brothers as retaliation. He is giving very crooked plans to use the law for the man’s benefit. Then he looks keenly at a cowering Karne and throws an advisory gem, ‘He looks mentally retarded, we can write this as well.’ For the first time I see some reaction on Karne’s face but he keeps silent. ‘He is at least mentally sounder than you,’ I’m about to say but let it go.

We return to the village with the new affidavit safely tucked among the old smelly papers. The affidavit needs his mother’s thumb impression. But we cannot locate her. We scan all the poor localities to find her, thinking she must have gone to some woman friend in one of the poor neighborhoods. We turn the cap inside out but to no avail. Maybe she went to some agriculture farm or to cut wood, we conclude. I leave the paper with him, giving him a gel pen with loads of clearest instruction how to lace the thumb with ink and put the impression on the designated place. Inspired by the mischievous notary even I doubt Karne’s mental faculties, so emphasize each point multiple times. Even he turn restless. But all my fears are allayed when he comes back after an hour with the task done to a reasonable accuracy. A milestone crossed, we have the income affidavit. The task will be smooth now, I’m sure. We again go to the SARAL guy so that he can upload the document and further process the application.

There is a fragrant ruffling of the sense of justice in me as he hits the keys and peers into the screen. Then there are traces of discomfiture on his face. ‘Seems like they have already applied for the correction of income figure in the Family ID. But they didn’t upload the supporting document,’ he brandishes the fresh affidavit. ‘So you can upload it now,’ I gently request him, acknowledging the silver-headed staff of authority in his hand. He shakes his head firmly, ‘No it’s showing the status as pending and we cannot restart the process for this particular application number. The system doesn’t show any upload option.’ So the system is already the master of its will, I silently rue and think about my misgivings about artificial intelligence. ‘Who guided you to apply for the revision of income figure without submitting the income self-declaration in the form of this simple affidavit?’ he sternly asks Karne, waving the useless piece of paper for which we had gone speeding like formula race drivers to the town. The poor guy looks as if he is standing in the dock in a court facing some criminal charges. I come to his rescue, ‘It must have been done by his youngest brother. He is fifth pass and knows a, b, c, d,’ I save Karne. ‘Yes, he spoils everything,’ the ever-taciturn Karne breaks silence. I’m sure his anger is targeted at his sister-in-law who harangues them profusely. I hope they won’t have a fight at home, accusing each other for depriving the family of free ration.

The guy respects my focus in this episode and is at least sympathetic to my cause if not the wellbeing of Karne and his family. He gives a call to the Block Development Officer based at the town. She trusts him in all the income verification matters. As long as he is there she need not bother about unnecessary hassles of the landed farmers sticking to the point of declaring themselves below poverty line to get some free ration for their cattle. So usually she simply asks this boy to get all the signatures done without verifications and all the applicants get free rations—the relatively poor ones for their kitchen and the better placed for their buffalos. It’s not that this particular pair of SARAL Kendra guy and the BDO are committing a scandal here. It’s the norm, almost a law. The government knows it and they are comfortable about it. The more the benefits reaching to all the people, the more the chances of votes.

They hold a talk over phone. I listen still holding onto the threads of hope. She knows the case. She even remembers the widow’s name. With a sullen face the boy disconnects the call and tells the story.

If an application for the revision of income figure stays pending without uploading the self-declared income affidavit, the BDO visits the family house to verify the socio-economic status of the applicant. So she had come for the inspection. She knew that they deserve this more than anyone else in the village. People with havelis are getting the benefits, she knew it all. But on this rare real physical inspection her hands were bound by the law. It’s a pucca house, a tiny pucca house with a concrete slab roof. And to be eligible for a free ration card one must have a kacha house apart from all other eligibility criteria. ‘But all the houses in the village are pucca and even palace dwellers are getting free ration for their cows because they have kacha houses on paper,’ I grumble. ‘But in the eyes of law they are kacha houses because there was no onsite inspection of the property and in the report they are poor households even if ACs are humming inside and cars are parked in front. But this house is pucca house as the report says,’ he enunciates the law to me the ignorant.

He is genuinely sympathetic and tells that these guys are just unlucky because on the day of inspection he was away and the BDO sahiba had to personally visit the site for inspection. Had he been present in the village that day she would have simply asked him over phone without coming and he would have given a nod like the rest of the villagers. To him all are neighborhood peasants and he cannot be cruel to anyone’s application. ‘After all, it’s the farmers’ own grain that comes back to them,’ he has a point. ‘The government loots us in so many ways, so if this little bit comes back we welcome it. In any case it’s ours to begin with,’ he elaborates. I understand his point and tell the entire story behind this so-called pucca house. ‘See, let me explain this pucca house story. Till ten years back they stayed in a 30-yard hovel with their horse and bales of fodder. The horse even bit Rashe, his elder brother, on the jaw and he still carries that slurred speech due to the resultant defect. Karne himself was kicked on his back as an infant. I remember him crawling till the age of four. I suspected the kick has deformed his spine and he would crawl throughout his life. Thank God, he got to his feet! Then their lame father died in a road accident. The rich car owner paid them ten lakh rupees for the out-of-court settlement. Out of this, two lakh were pocketed by the smart lawyer who managed this settlement. The rest they used in buying a 30-yard plot and build this so-called tiny pucca house. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t the poorest in the village and they fulfill every condition to get a free ration card. Their mother is a widow. They don’t have any landed property apart from this house. They don’t have regular income. They just work as casual farm hands or construction site workers for a fortnight at the most every month because work doesn’t come regularly. Sometimes they are all without any job throughout the month,’ I baulk out their poor story, its each line seeped in poverty.

He is sympathetic and feels sorry for the episode. He calls the BDO madam again and tells her the entire story. She also is very sorry for their bad luck to have a tiny pucca house that turns them ineligible for free ration card, while swanky marble-walled houses get free ration. She then suggests a solution. She cannot prepare a report today and nullify it tomorrow. ‘There is just one solution. Can you please ask the village head to give it in written that he granted money to help them build this tiny pucca house? If he gives it written that the village council donated funds to help them then I can afford to effectively nullify my earlier report,’ she tells the SARAL Kendra guy. It’s also confided from her end that there is no other way. So we are scuttling around to find the village head who is on an outstation visit. I have serious, practical doubts that he will write this declaration. The house is a decade old and he is just one year into the job. Even he has his position to safeguard.

My frozen pessimism begins to thaw under the onslaught of cruel May heat. It oozes out and makes me swim in the current of its comic tragedy. I tell them that their only chance is to visit the village head as and when possible, with their widow mother in tow, and keep beseeching for help to raise the prospects, which they diligently do two-three times every month. I sometimes meet one of the brothers on the way to their work site and ask for any update in the matter. ‘Yes we go there sometimes and sarpanch sahab says yes he will look into the matter.’ Hard work is a big bulwark against such sensitivities of life. They are busy in the rut of life beyond the concepts of justice or injustice. But sometimes I feel the dull rumbling of sadness for their failed cause.