Kamla: Bootlegging at Thirteen

Beside a narrow dusty road, a village of about fifteen hundred inhabitants sprawled haphazardly. Its size unusual for this mountain region of Garhwal in central Himalayas. In the village lived a Hindu Rajput family. Mother, father and four children – three girls and a boy.

In 1993, Kamla’s thirty seven year old mother succumbed to a liver complaint. Scarcely two year later, in October 1995, her father died of Tuberculosis.

Fifteen years before this story begins, Kamla’s father was working in a private hotel in Patiala, Punjab, as a cook – Her mother remained in the village, taking care of their small farm, animals and her children. She, like most of the village women was illiterate but the father had studied up to class five. He worked in Patiala for five years, after whichhe returned home.

Taking a loan from the Block development Office, he decided to open a ration shop, on the outskirts of the village, by the roadside; But the atmosphere of home and village, being overtly alcoholic, he soon succumbed to the temptation to drink. Gradually earnings from the shop declined. What was earned, was spent on alcohol. The loan installments fell behind, till even the interest could not be met and began to mount.

Around this time, Kamla,s nineteen year old eldest sister Sita, was married off to a widower, living in a village twelve kilometers away. Leaving her paternal home, the girl busied herself in caring for her in-laws and three step-children.

Back in the village, Kamla’s father’s increasing bouts of drunkenness, caused the failure and eventual closure of the little shop. To feed his addiction he now decided to operate a Still in his own home- money would be coming in and his own need would also be met, he thought; So it was.

Time passed and there was no dearth of customers to the home liquor store. By this time, even Kamla’s mother had begun to drink heavily; But now it was the turn of Gita, Kamla’s second eldest sister to be married. At the tender age of thirteen she was married and went to live in a village four kilometer away.

Shortly after Gita left home her mother began ailing and her father contracted Tuberculosis, but there was no let up in the making, selling and consuming of this raw country alcohol.

Since the loan taken from the Block had not been repaid, the government officer was compelled to seize whatever immovable property this family owned. The fields and dwelling were confiscated; but the importunate wailing of the mother eventually granted them one room to live in. The next nine years saw continuation of the same life style.

One day Sita came home on a visit. Seeing the demoralizing state her father, mother and youngest sister and brother were living in, she tried reasoning with her father – but this angered him so much that he began to beat her. This beating humiliated Sita to the extent that he committed suicide by consuming a potent insecticide.

Even the death of their eldest child did not influence her mother and father, but a yearlater, the mother died. The father followed two years later.

Ramu, the brother, finished up to class five – and Kamla? Kamla only studied till class two and has forgotten nearly all but the ability to scribble her name.

She ekes out a living doing the only work she knows, making and selling country liquor. She is thirteen years old. Some customers pay, others defraud her because she is a child. Not a single person or family of these fifteen hundred inhabitants has come forward to help these hapless children, even though three quarters of them are literate andservice class.

But the idealistic image, many of us hold of kindly villagers and clean village life, here and in scores of other villages, lies open in all its nakedness of selfishness and self-righteousness. How many other Kamlas are out there, waiting and hoping perhaps for a miracle – to get away from such a life?

Development world has thought of a village as a community – the lowest indivisible unit of development. If four bio-gas plants have been granted to a village, we have done our best for the community and it is time to move on: this is how, we have dealt with them. But does the community still fit in the classical definition of the social worker? Don’t we need to look at individual Kamlas?

Ms Savitri Srikoti(Translation and Editing – Marian)

Savitri is a trained Auxilliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) who has been serving in the health Program of Sri Bhuvaneshwari Mahila Ashram, Anjanisain, for many years. she is a goodtrainer of field level workers. She documented this case study in 1993.