On July 25, nearly three hours after Droupadi Murmu took oath as the first tribal President of India, hundreds of women, mostly from tribal communities and Other Backward Classes, held a rally at Puncha block in West Bengal’s Purulia district, about 1,300 km from Delhi. Demanding that they be paid pending wages for work done under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the women shouted, “ Keu khabe ar keu khabe na, ta hobe na, ta hobe na” (Some will eat, some will go hungry. That can’t happen.) Some of them were not wearing shoes, but they walked without wincing on a tarred road that sweltering afternoon. “ Jaat dharm baad dao, bhuka pete bhaat dao” (Set aside caste and religion, give food to the hungry), they cried.
Entering the administrative complex of the block in Puncha town, the women gathered around a display sign of MGNREGS. It featured a photograph of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as well as details about who is entitled to work under MGNREGS and for how many days. The women said they had not been paid since December 2021.
Ranu Mahali had come to the rally with a nine-month-old child in her arms. She said she had worked for 14 days in the financial year 2022-23. Her husband, Dibakar Mahali, who had been unable to find work, had left for the neighbouring Bardhaman district to work in potato fields. On his way back home on April 4, Dibakar died in a road accident. Ranu was desperate for her pending wage of ₹2,982.
