Dog lovers have heard about Mudhol, an obscure town in Karnataka’s Bagalkot district around 75 km from the Maharashtra border, because Britain’s King George V christened two hunting dogs ‘the hounds of Mudhol’ after he received them as a gift from an erstwhile Mudhol ruler. But today, this town built around the sugarcane industry has other connections—with Bill Gates and former Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy. A link that has been built around the high HIV prevalence rates in Mudhol and Bagalkot district in recent years.Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation indirectly supports an HIV/AIDS awareness scheme for the large number of sex workers in the region and former CM Kumaraswamy put Mudhol in the spotlight by spending a night at the home of an HIV-infected couple at Ingalagi village in Mudhol.Social practices unique to the region like the dedication of young girls from poor families to sex work, in the guise of the ‘devadasi’ custom, have been responsible for the high HIV rates in the district of Bagalkot—often put down at 3.2 per cent of the population and as high as 2.3 per cent among women attending pregnancy clinics.Despite the high HIV incidence or the Kumaraswamy stay, the issue of HIV and the rehabilitation of the 7,500-odd sex workers in the district does not figure on election agendas here.After a break of a few years, the sugar factories in the region are buzzing again. Many that had shut have re-opened thanks to bumper cane production. Farmers displaced by the Almatti dam and compensated for it did much of the business in the region—from sex to supplies—until a few years ago. Today business is good in Mudhol—there are ATMs, cyber cafes and a highway that runs through the town.Maharashtra chief minister Vilas Rao Deshmukh, who campaigned on Monday for the Congress candidate R.B. Thimmapur, a former MLA, spoke both in Hindi and Marathi. “As soon as I saw Mudhol, I felt I was in Sholapur because of the trucks carrying sugarcane,” he said.Among key election issues in the constituency that is reserved for scheduled castes are the distribution of ration cards and provision of a dedicated power supply. Despite organising themselves into self-help groups, the sex workers of Bagalkot have not managed to get their problems addressed—like the admission of their children to hostels or loans that political parties make available to other women self-help groups.“Initially, few women wanted to join from fear of being branded a sex worker. It took us a long while to convince them,” says Madhu Naduvinamane, a 27-year-old peer coordinator who works for the sex workers.Even in Ingalgi village of Mudhol, at the home of Shivanna Mahapathi, 32, and his wife Shubha Mahapathi, the HIV-infected farmer couple with whom former CM Kumaraswamy stayed, there is a feeling of being letdown.“It is true that his stay provided HIV infected people greater acceptance in society. But it was also for his own publicity since he has not done anything for us or anyone else since staying here in January 2007. I asked for a job and travelled to Bangalore (600 km away) at least 10 times but nothing happened. Then, the government fell,” says Shivanna.
