-Vidya Bhushan Rawat
(Samaj Weekly)- Banarasi Mushahar was found dead at a road side about 200 meters from his house in the morning of May 24th, 2020 when people found him lying in the pool of blood. The other side of the road was his friend Rampreet Nat who was unconscious. Village Pradhan Keshav Yadav called the police and got the punchnama done and the body was sent for postmortem. Rampreet was sent to Gorakhpur medical college. He had severe head injuries. Now the police have made Rampreet as the main accused and he is lodged in Deoria jail. Rampreet’s wife is ailing and suffers from Kidney ailment. The family has no source of income. His children suffer from malnutrition as they have nobody to lean on. His father is a ‘madariwallah’ and earns through begging. The family is completely landless. Both the families are suffering but they still are good friends and nobody believes the story of the police which claimed that the two drank Tadi and fought with each other.
I wrote about it last month when I returned from Kushinagar. I visited the village again and met villagers and family persons of both Rampreet and Banarasi Mushahar. I am sharing this documentary in the hope that this will give you a better idea of how things are manipulated in our villages, how caste is still a powerful instrument to suppress those who are considered ‘successful’. The conversation is in simple Bhojpuri and I have repeated things in simple Hindi.
Click the picture for listening to the entire conversation
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