Shabdo waits for another Sarita, Mahesh…and justice

The RJD chief, perhaps, thinks denying ticket to Paswan, considered the protector of these gangsters, is sufficient. Interestingly, given the caste coherence as it is in Bihar, the Yadav villagers in Shabdo are not unhappy with the ruling party. ‘‘Lalooji has denied ticket to Paswan. We do not know why the suspects have not been arrested,’’ says Ramashray Mandal, a villager.

The social experiments that the duo had initiated here are gradually falling apart — the village notice board doesn’t announce a special coaching for girls or vocational training for housewives as it used to a year ago. The weekly meetings of the village committee have stopped. The cattle are now kept alongside the homes — a practice that had been stopped due to health education — and the lanes are no longer clean. The government-funded cattle shed and community centre are lying incomplete as villagers have refused to gift the land to the government. ‘‘The district authorities are refusing to release funds,’’ says Shyamlal Yadav.

Some things have survived: Children go to school regularly — they have even composed a song on bhaiyya and didi — and the villagers have not abandoned community farming. But they are not enthusiastic about it. ‘‘If it is community farming, a person who owns the pond will have an incentive to keep the water in it. Otherwise, he would rather drain the water,’’ says Mandal.

Subrata Dhar, a social activist from West Bengal, is camping in the village for the past three months. ‘‘I want to continue with the water harvesting campaign and introduce micro-banking,’’ he says. But the villagers are not very excited. ‘‘We want someone who can guide us,’’ says one. ‘‘They (Sarita and Mahesh) could get our work done.’’

Soon after the murder, hundreds of activists had gathered here to organise a Shabdo Sankalp Sabha. They had all promised to come again, but none did. The parents of Mahesh were the only ones to revisit Shabdo in the past one year.