By Stanislaus Alla
New Delhi, Nov 29, 2023: Frustrated with the pervasive and paralyzing levels of unemployment in the state of Telangana, in southern India, and with no real hope of finding an employment in the near future, Karne Sirisha, a graduate woman, chose to graze buffaloes, and thereby to support her family.
At 25, she lives with her mother (who is abandoned by a drunkard-husband, not uncommon in rural India) and two younger brothers.
In spite of all odds that go with being born into a poor rural Dalit family, Sirisha fought her way and excelled in studies.
She is one of the angry and frustrated millions in Telangana who remain unemployed, recruited neither by the state nor by the private firms. Instead of remaining idle at home, Sirisha chose to add a few more buffaloes to the flock. Buffalo-milk consumption is popular in many areas in India.
By making and circulating a partly-critical and partly-humorous video in which she describes herself as Barrelakka, buffalo-sister (she uses it descriptively and not derogatorily), she ingeniously invented herself. As she got much attention and as her video got numerous views and shares, the panic-stricken government of Telangana, slapped cases against her. She has been fighting them all alone.
Instead of being intimidated or silenced, Sirisha chose to take the unbeaten path: that of standing in the Assembly elections as an independent candidate from Kolhapur constituency, a part of undivided Mahabubnagar district, to the south of Hyderabad.
The results of the Assembly Elections to five Indian will be declared on December 3.
Seasoned politicians are testing their luck in Kolhapur, on November 30, and, challenging them is Sirisha from an almost unknown hamlet. Accompanied by a handful of well-wishers and little money at hand, she filed the papers, to the astonishment of all. Initially, no one took her seriously. Many thought that she is there to fool herself.
Leaving lucrative jobs or money-fetching-degrees behind, several men and women stand in the elections as independent candidates (many lose but occasionally a few win) but few get attention like Sirisha alias Barrelakka.
Her simple but inimitable narrative got millions of views and shares. Having heard of her amazing story -that a poor village girl courageously standing in the elections – a legislator from Pondicherry came forward to support.
Utter simplicity, unalloyed passion, love for the nation, and her zeal to reform the political and democratic processes began to capture everyone’s attention. She is simply challenging the audience to think of whom to vote and how to ensure that peoples issues (and not ideologies) will remain focussed. People seem to see in Sirisha someone who speaks to them of their issues, and, from heart.
Her popularity became threateningly high. And, having failed to win her over through ‘gifts’ and worried that she is getting more traction than imagined, leaders of diverse political parties threatened her, and her teenage-brother was assaulted.
Saddened, shocked and shattered, Sirisha cried out her heart, asking again the fundamental questions about what kind of India we are imagining, and, if the current way of participating in the elections (where might is right, and where the ‘votes’ are there on for sale, for the gifts, for cash and for liquor) would take us forward.
Millions have watched her moving account and several hundred mainline and private media outlets have made space for her stories. Phenomenally, across the country and beyond, it speaks to many who are frustrated with the current dispensation, and it is not the time to imagine something new.
In the air, one can feel a deep longing for change, for political alternatives, for newer voices. Several from the US and Europe and many parts of India have come forward to help Sirisha, simply being with her, listen to her, and to support her. The unemployed, the youth, the artists and others find in her plea an echo of their dreams.
Ram Gopal Varma, a veteran film director, compared her to the young Gandhi, a Gandhi from whom the Mahatma emerges. For the cynics and critics, it may sound hallow but for those who dream big it is potentially rich.
For those curious to know if the Church helped her (not now, in this dramatic stage of her life but earlier): according to an interview Sirisha’s mother gave, RDT (Rural Development Trust, an organization established by a former Jesuit, Vicent Ferrer, in Ananthapur, India) supported Sirisha and her family. It is another instance of how the Catholic Church’s help to the poor (to all poor, not merely the Christians) enables and empowers them to find their voice and their space.
Sirisha may or may not win the elections, but her story, like those of many others, will keep the flame of the idea of the nation, the idea according to which Indians resolve to participate and build a resilient nation, by strengthening the democratic processes where dignity, equality, fairness would be shared by all, will be discussed about.