Decades on and several election promises later, these Dalit families in Channapatna village continue to live in huts

C.P. Yogeshwar and Nikhil Kumaraswamy, who are contesting the Channapatna byelection, have promised the Dalit families to solve their housing problem

Around 5.30 p.m., Gowramma, in her 40s, is about to leave for her night shift at a popular eatery along the Bengaluru-Mysuru expressway. She says she will return around 6 a.m. the next day but will remain tensed about the rain that may pound the area around her thatched hut that has been her home for over a decade now.

It was on the night of November 29, 2022, that many in her Dalit neighbourhood called Gandhi Grama on the outskirts of Kolluru village in the Channapatna Assembly constituency had their lives saved in the nick of time as floodwaters rose to dangerous levels, drowning their huts. A widow with a young son, Ms. Gowramma works as a daily wager at the restaurant, a couple of kilometres away from her hut. She has left her son with her sister-in-law as she struggles to make ends meet.

As the election fever grips Channapatna with heavy political stakes involved, 10 families, including that of Ms. Gowramma’s — all belonging to the Adi Karnataka community — remain optimistic about having a house of their own. For over two decades, elections have come and promises of pucca houses have been made but the families continue to remain in huts. With about 171 electors in the Dalit colony, politicians make a beeline for their votes, the residents said.

While there are no individual water and sanitary connections, the local panchayat has drawn a common water line to ensure the supply of potable water; the residents relieve themselves in the farms nearby. The panchayat has also enabled solar power supply. Though stench and mosquitoes make life grim and unhygienic, the residents say they have no other place to go as they cannot afford anything else from the livelihood they eke out. Almost all of them work as construction labourers or as daily wage workers.

Incidentally, in 2017, the then Siddaramaiah government announced that Karnataka would be made a “hut-free State”. In the 2022 floods — the first rain-induced inundation in the area which was blamed on the elevation of the new highway — almost all residents lost their caste and income certificates, marks cards, and Aadhaar, among other documents. “We are slowly building these documents again,” said Sneha, who has dropped out of college due to financial constraints and works in a store nearby.

“Both Union Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar are aware of the problem. No one wants to help us,” Indiramma, another resident, said.

“After the inundation, the government gave ₹10,000 per family as compensation for the loss of cattle and goats.” The Gandhi Grama hit the headlines in 2022 when the colony got inundated and the then Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai visited the village, promising to build houses.

It was around 40 years ago that the Dalit families moved out of Koluru village and settled on its outskirts. While about 50 families living in huts were resettled on about 2.1 acres some years ago, the adjacent about half an acre land on which 10 families live in huts remains the bone of contention. “As the tenancy of the land has been given to an individual at Koluru, he is seeking money to transfer the land rights to those dwelling on it. We have been asking the government to buy it from him and transfer it to us. The Mudigere Gram Panchayat under which the colony comes also passed a resolution urging the government to help but to no avail,” said former gram panchayat member Lokesh Beeraiah.

While she acknowledges that the refusal of the families to move to alternative land shown by the government has brought an impasse, Kempamma, mother of Ms. Sneha, says it is difficult to leave the community and live elsewhere. “The government has funds to uplift the Dalits and it can help us. Do you think any of us here has the capacity to pay for a site and build a house?”

In the intense electoral battle being fought over Channapatna turf when every vote counts, Congress candidate and five-time former legislator C.P. Yogeshwar and NDA nominee Nikhil Kumaraswamy, whose father, Mr. Kumaraswamy, represented Channaptana twice before, have promised to develop the colony and provide houses for those living in huts. The residents, who have seen many such promises going up in smoke, however, still remain hopeful of a miracle.

Published - November 07, 2024 08:17 am IST