By Matters India Reporter
Patna, June 20, 2020: Manthan (churning), the voluntary organization of the Patna Jesuit Society, continues to serve those hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic in Bihar state, eastern India.
The Jesuit NGO has been active for more than 45 years in Bihar, mostly among the Musahars, the Dalit community at the bottom of the former untouchables.
It was in the forefront of Bihar’s Church groups to reach out to the poor and marginalized severely affected by the nationwide lockdown to contain the pandemic.
The lockdown imposed on the midnight of March 24 was eased in early June but the pandemic continues to infect hundreds in India. As on June 20, the country reported more than 400,000 positive cases, the fourth highest in the world. It also reported 13,269 deaths.
On June 19, the NGO distributed ration kits, masks and soaps to 1,000 families living in 88 Musahar hamlets of Patna blocks.
The 45-member Manthan team, led by its director Jesuit Father Juno Sebastian packed and distributed relief materials to 1,000 families in three blocks of Patna district with the help of local police, ward members and village heads. Around 4,783 people were benefited, Father Sebastian claimed.
Although the lockdown is over, most people living in those localities have no work, the priest said. “The old, sick and the widows are staring at starvation. They don’t know what to do and how to proceed. This is the reality in most of the Mushahar hamlets,” he added.
More than 90 percent Musahars in those villages are daily wagers who were engaged in construction work, cleaning roads and rag picking in nearby town for their livelihood.
At a time when India is making rapid social and economic progress, Musahars are still not allowed to live anywhere in Bihar except in hamlets earmarked exclusively for them. Living in unhygienic conditions with very little benefits from the government, this impoverished and oppressed scheduled caste is overwhelmingly landless, eking out a miserable living by working as unskilled or farm labor.
Bihar has nearly 2.2 million Musahars, according to the state Mahadalit Commission’s interim report. Community activists however claim the population of Musahars is not less than 3 million in Bihar. About 96.3 percent of them are landless and 92.5 percent work as farm labor. Literacy rates among this community, which upper caste Hindus still consider untouchable, is only 9.8 percent, the lowest among Dalits in the country.
The Church’s mission among this group began with Jesuit Father Philip Manthara in mid 1970s. The veteran social activist and former president of the Bihar unit of the People’s Union of Civil Liberties started Manthan as a center for awareness, action, research and training. It became a registered society 23 years ago.
Manthan activities are mostly in and around Khagaul, 12 km west of Patna spread over Phulwary, Danapur, and Bihata blocks. The major activities include education, cultural, health, sanitation, training, human rights, women empowerment, and research.
Becoming a ‘donor’ is good (giving ration by yourself with your financial resources). But… becoming a ‘Facilitator’ is BETTER (making the local government to distribute the ration with the government fund). Please read my article titled: “Charity, Publicity, Responsibility” published in Matters India.