Thanks to Janab Amitabh Bachchan ji(http://www.facebook.com/AmitabhBachchan?ref=ts&fref=ts) and Bhashkar Bhatt
for bringing the story of most marginalzed people Musahar."Today
however at the recording of KBC we have had to devote time to a special
programme, on an issue, much like the acid attack victim, which has
been another most painful exercise. I was completely unaware of the
‘Musahars’ - a tribe that exists in the Eastern parts of U.P and bits of
Bihar, that has been declared as the lowest section of society, the
MahaDalits … a Dalit is an untouchable, renamed by Gandhi ji who
completely did not believe in the caste system as Harijans, now known as
Dalits. The ‘musahar’ through past centuries has lived in the worst
kind of squalor and poverty .. have been bonded labor for the land owner
who used them to work in the fields, and horror of horrors, deployed
them to protect the agricultural land from rodents that were destroying
the crops. They were called ‘rat catchers’ in that time and have since
been isolated by society to live in penury in dirt and filth with no
knowledge or idea of what it meant to be living in clean and sanitised
conditions. They were the poorest of the poor and many a times because
of the absence of any kind of food available to them survived by eating
the rats that they killed to protect the crops in the fields. A most
miserable existence, until a retired officer in the police force, gave
them hope a home a clean environment and took on the responsibility of
educating these people, who had never dared to be educated for they knew
that it would not be of any use to them. The literacy quotient within
this community has been 3% , of which for the women it has been 1% !!"
From Blog of Amitabh Bachchan ji.
Please see a documentary:
Blog on Musahar:http://musahar.blogspot.in/
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