“My family of seven needs 3 kilograms of rice everyday, but I can manage only 2 kgs,” says Fazlu Khan, squatting beside his bow-legged nine-month-old daughter with a distended stomach. Fazlu is one of the 17 families whose homestead was washed away by Aila. Now they live on someone else’s land under a tarpaulin roof ready to leak in the next rain.

The tranquil boat-ride to K-plot had not prepared me for the harsh reality on the island. K-plot is an island on the southern edges of the Sunderban delta. The embankments that circumscribe the island to keep the water out at high tides proved to be no match for the fury of Aila. On its way out, water from the ocean turned all cultivable lands saline. Residents say that their island has never been so barren before. With no rain since October, salt has risen to the surface of the soil, making it impossible to grow anything on it.

All farmers mostly depend on the rains for raising their crops. Landed farmers grow their own rice, and agricultural labourers and sharecroppers take rice in lieu of their wages. But now families are forced to buy all the rice they need at Rs 22 per kilogram. Prices of vegetables have also skyrocketed. With no work and expensive food, a famine is stalking the people of K-plot.

In the course of the day, I met more destitute families. Jaba Dewa is a widow with two young daughters and a mentally handicapped son. Streaks of sunlight come in through the tarpaulin roof and bamboo walls of her ‘home’. She begs from door to door to put together one meal a day. Jaba stares blankly through the thick cataracts on her eyes, saying softly that she needs help. According to a worker in a local community organization, 700 families are living under tarpaulin sheets these days.

Empty promises

It would be wrong to assume that the villagers of K-plot are asking for charity. These resilient people are ready to perform any labour. The Paschim Banga Khet Mazdoor Samity has organized the women in K-plot after Aila, and it is because of its pressures that the government has started employing villagers in the task of rebuilding the embankments under the national rural employment guarantee scheme. But work is still insufficient and payments are delayed, forcing people into debt.

In an all-women congregation in the village, I was told that 300 women had gheraoed the BDO, asking for the implementation of the NREGS. They had been promised 25 days of work this month, and an assurance that their daily wages would be raised from Rs 88 to Rs 100 a day. Everyone hopes this is true, since most promises are not kept.

The promise of compensation up to Rs 10,000 for homes broken by Aila remains mired in the political battle between the ruling party and the Opposition in the panchayat. The committee responsible for finalizing the list of beneficiaries has failed to do so since each party wants exclusively its supporters (and their kin) on the list. When finally the list was released with the consent of both parties, it turned out that the total number of beneficiaries in the Patharpratima block was 56,000 families when the total number of families in the entire block was supposed to be 49,000.

As I walked back towards the ferry ghat, an old man came howling to me. I held his arms but could not understand a word he said except that he had lost everything. A few minutes later, another elderly man walked up to me and said that his wife and daughter had gone begging five days ago and have not returned since.

What do we need to change so that the people of our country are not dragged through such misery again? Better politics? Social change? Economic help? Environmental awareness? Perhaps all of these.