The urban and rural poor have been particularly hard hit during the ongoing lockdown in East Khasi Hills but one villager near Laitlum is doing all he can to continue to provide for his young family.
Known as Bah Heh, this man stumbled onto the streets of the state capital under total lockdown with a headload of a few bunches of bananas and some other agricultural items from his village, around 21km from Shillong.
With no government safety net to provide for their basic requirement of nutritious food and medicines and fuel to cook, during the long stretch of the lockdown, rural people who have no savings to fall back on are on the verge of starvation and ill health due to lack of proper food, which, ironically, the Health Department says is key to building immunity to fight Covid-19.
“I walked from my village. I have no choice. I need cash to feed my child, buy medicines, buy food for the family and generally run the house. I’m a desperate man,” he said when confronted with the question as to why he was disobeying the lockdown protocols laid down by the government. He was out today trying to sell his wares in the empty space near Don Bosco Square in Laitumkhrah.
“I’ve not been able to do much work for nearly a month because of the lockdown,” he told Highland Post. So, he took whatever was available in his village and brought it to sell in the city. He said that the bananas were brought to his village by farmers of Rasong, a village deep in the ravines.
“The people of Rasong bring their produce to our village and they sell it to people there and they go back because it is not possible for them to walk further than that. Then we bring it to the city as it is nearer for us than them. Out there it is happening like that, like a relay chain, from one village to the other. We have to survive somehow, isn’t it?” he said.
He said that the nongkyndong (rural folk) are in dire straits.
“There’s no one to look out for us. We are on our own. I can tell you we in our village are all suffering and trying to survive somehow,” he said, adding that he was able to sell a few of the fruits to passers-by.
As a daily wager, Bah Heh took up any work that was available.
“But everything is shut. We used to get some work from the contractors constructing this and that. But now they are also unable to continue their work because they don’t have the materials for construction as the hardware shops, cement sellers, etc are all shut. So, from where will they give us work even if they wanted to?” he said.
There is no government infrastructure in their areas and the only government workers are the lowly paid health activists (ASHAs) or teachers.
He had come on this venture with several other men and women from his village today. They had fanned out into the city to sell their meagre produce. They hoped to head back home with at least some cash later in the day.
Rural people are hit the hardest by the Covid pandemic and the lockdowns which have totally disrupted their lives and destroyed their livelihood networks. Unlike government servants or employees of companies, they have no monthly pay packet to secure their needs.
Even one day of no work means that there is no food on the table. But the weeks of lockdown have placed them on the verge of starvation and desperation.
