Author: Asit Jolly and Lemuel Lall
Publication: India Today
Date: July 11, 2013
URL: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/the-village-that-rahul-gandhi-forgot/1/290574.html

Introduction: Her claim to fame is that Rahul Gandhi Stayed a night at her home five years ago. But little has changed for Halki Bai or her village, Taparian

On April 12, 2008, the 'nicest' young man dressed in a 'ridiculously' white kurtapajama came to her one-room home. They shared the best meal she can recall, in years-steaming puris and bhaji dutifully arranged by local cadres of the Congress party. Drinking water was drawn from two soiled yellow vanaspati containers made of PVC, which, as part of the guest's security profile, were pre-filled from bottled supplies trucked in on air-conditioned SUVs. He was looking to get a feel of life below the poverty line-the unknown 'other' side.

Five years on, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi's visit remains the most important night in the life of 65-year-old Halki Bai's cheerless existence. 'He slept on this very charpoy,' she says, recalling what was also the weirdest night of her life. Halki and nearly a dozen of her grandchildren slept outside under the open sky happily vacating their one-room shanty for Rahul much like the Maharaja of Patiala temporarily left his grand palace for the Prince of Wales in 1922. Besides Rahul blissfully asleep on her rickety cot, she can only recall the chhavni (garrison) of Special Protection Force personnel who kept her awake with the constant chatter on their wireless radio sets.

Leaving Taparian, a little tribal settlement in Bundelkhand's Tikamgarh district in Madhya Pradesh at sunrise on April 13, Rahul confidently promised Halki Bai she would never need to scrounge for a livelihood.

"Believe me, your life will change," he told the Gond tribeswoman who was fending for five grandchildren and their offspring after her own spouse, daughter and son-inlaw died. She was encouraged by the Rs 20,000 he arranged for the marriage of her distant relative and neighbour Kamala that morning.

"But nothing changed," the despondent grandmother told INDIA TODAY on May 26. The cot that Rahul slept on is still missing three of its nylon straps; the roof of her one-room shack of sunbaked bricks, seemingly held together by the constantly thickening coating of black soot from the twig-fired chullah (stove), still leaks when it rains; and neither the fan tied hopefully to a beam on the roof nor the old black and white television works. Not even when the Madhya Pradesh Electricity authority occasionally blesses this dwelling on the outskirts of Taparian with power supply.

Possibly because they are closer in time, the past five years, after Rahul's 'sleepover', have been the most difficult in Halki Bai's memory. Tougher, she says, than the time Babu Advasi, her husband, succumbed to a gangrenous limb 12 years ago. Her tired eyes still well up at the memory but she cannot tell you the day, month or year she cremated Advasi. "Sahibjee, I cannot read or write," she explains.

Predictably, ruling BJP leaders stepped in the moment the Congress cavalcades vacated the dirt tracks of Taparian. The rutted village lanes, including that outside Halki Bai's hut, were paved with fresh concrete. An anganwadi centre was constructed for womenfolk. Former state BJP chief Prabhat Jha and Tribal and Dalit Welfare Minister Harishankar Khatik even arranged to include Halki Bai's 22-year-old grandson Ramesh in one of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's mass marriage ceremonies on April 24, 2012.

But the efforts to win over the Gond tribesmen were feeble. Both Khatik and Jha went missing after Congress politicians, evidently trying to protect their leader's turf, alleged that Halki's new granddaughter-in-law was a minor. She was only 16 years old. Congress MLA Yadavendra Singh petitioned the local court, accusing the BJP men of arranging "illegal" marriages.

Besides having to contend with the Congress-BJP one-upmanship in the wake of the Rahul sojourn, Halki Bai is also dealing with the fact that her grandsons Bablu, Ramesh and Dashrat were forced to abandon their jobs in Delhi and return to Taparian on March 28 after Dashrat fell ill. While Bablu and Ramesh now do odd jobs as labourers whenever they find work in the village, the meagre wages Halki Bai earns from working on a local landlord's farms constitutes the family's main income.

Rahul's promise of a better life never happened but Halki Bai says he will always be welcome in her home. "I will cook for him the best meal I can afford," says the tribeswoman.