Four-month boycott of an anganwadi cook in an Odisha village: Every day she cycles to work, waits for kids who never show up — because she is Dalit

There have been attempts by officials to bring the ostracisation to an end before this too, so far without success.

Getting her bicycle out of the stand at the centre, empty of almost all students now since her appointment, Sarmista recalls with tears in her eyes how she was mobbed by 50-60 villagers belonging to upper castes the day officials came to paste her job confirmation letter on the village electric pole.

“It was in the second week of November. The villagers summoned me and my father, and asked me why I had applied for the job as I belong to a Scheduled Caste community. They said they would face the wrath of gods if their children ate food cooked by me. I tried to convince them, even broke down before them, but nobody paid heed,” says Sarmista.

While there has been almost zero attendance at the anganwadi centre since November 20, when she officially joined as a helper-cum-cook, even parents of children below three years and a lactating mother who are entitled to take home rations from the centre have stopped coming.

Officially, the centre caters to 42 children apart from the lactating mother – 20 between the ages of 3 and 6 who are supposed to come to the centre, and 22 younger than that, who get rations. The menu includes sattu, eggs and laddoos. Only two children who are Dalit continue to come.

The villagers also pressured Lizarani Pandav, an upper caste anganwadi worker from whose house the centre ran in the absence of a permanent space, to deny use of the same after Sarmista’s appointment. Since February 6, the anganwadi has been operating from one of the two buildings of the village primary school.

It is here that Sarmista has been coming every day, in the hope that sticking to the routine expected of her in the job may bring the villagers around. At 7 am, she cycles to the school located on the other end from the “Dalit side” of Nuagaon, sweeps the floor, lays out the mat for the children – and waits.

“I tried to convince them to at least take the rations home, if they have issues with food cooked by me. But they have refused,” says Sarmista, adding that she feels aggrieved not just for herself but also her family. “We are like strangers in our own village. My parents and my 86-year-old grandmother are under mental trauma.”

The irony is that Sarmista was the only person from her village to apply for the job, which involves a modest income of Rs 5,000 per month and an educational qualification of minimum Class 12.

Though she is overqualified for the position, the 21-year-old hoped to use the money to help her family financially and to further her ambitions of becoming a teacher. Sarmista is doing a long-distance diploma in early childhood care education in preparation for that.

The 21-year-old credits her father Chaitanya Sethi with encouraging her to dream. Having studied up to just Class 4, Chaitanya, who farms a land plot less than an acre in size and works on fields of others for a living, ensured that all his three children pursued education.

Sarmista is the eldest, and of her younger siblings, a brother is doing a diploma from a private college in Bhubaneswar and a sister is in Class 7.

Mother Minati points out that the villagers had no problem sending their children to Samrista for tuitions at their home – an unfurnished two-room concrete structure, built under a government scheme. “My daughter is educated and will take good care of the children. Why should she face discrimination when she got the job on merit? Is the law different for them and us?” says Minati.

She suspects that some influential villagers, “jealous” of Samrista’s achievements, are behind the boycott.

However, in Nuagaon – a village that is part of the Bhitarkanika mangrove ecosystem – the caste lines are clear, if unspoken. The seven Dalit families of the village are bunched together at the entrance of Nuagaon; the nearly 90 upper caste households – dominated by Khandayats and Gopals – are located a distance away. By “convention”, Dalits stay away from others during village feasts, while upper caste members hardly ever come to their functions.

Poverty though is a leveller, with a majority of the houses across communities thatched, their residents mostly semi-educated, and their families dependent on farming. Hardly two-three families have members in government jobs.

Kulamani Rout of Nuagaon is among those whose four-year-old son no longer goes to the anganwadi centre; nor does he get rations from there for his daughter, who is two.

“The villagers have taken the decision not to send our children. We want to send them, but how can they eat food cooked by her (Samrista)? It has never happened,” says Rout, who is also a farmer.

Others shirk mentioning Samrista’s caste as a factor – at least partly due to fear of the law – and attribute their decision to the “collective call” by the village. “We will also collectively decide the next course of action,” says a villager.

According to Kendrapara Sub-Collector Arun Kumar Nayak, at Saturday’s meeting to end the statemate, the villagers among other things demanded a permanent space for the anganwadi centre, and were assured that this would be done.

Nayak says that as a confidence-building exercise, the officials would have food cooked by Samrista.

On what they would do in case the boycott continues, the official says: “If villagers don’t change their attitude, we will take punitive action, including legal cases.”

Sarmista has kept her expectations low, given how villagers even ignored warnings that other government facilities to them would be stopped if her boycott continued.

Lately, Dalit leaders and local politicians have also been dropping in to offer help to Samrista and to convince the villagers.

However, as far as she and her family goes, the 21-year-old says, they will not escalate the matter, including legally. After all, “it’s the matter of our village”.