After meditation I’m doing some writing at the garden table, thinking again about the documentary video. At the end of the film a list of atrocities is read out. Dalits killed by landlords. Women raped. The thing that sticks in my mind is a man who had his eyes gouged out. His crime – buying a piece of land. I try to imagine this man. Perhaps his wife put by a small handful of rice every day and every week they sold the rice and put the money in a cloth and hid the cloth. They had a pact between them never to take any rupees out, even if that meant going hungry, because with a piece of land they can grow their own food.
They save like this for a number of years. Eventually they have enough. He haggles over the price for the small plot but eventually it is his. He is walking home to his wife, his heart full of happiness and pride when it happens. His wife finds him lying on the ground and brings him home. How will he work now? He tried to better himself but now he’s even worse of than he started. It’s dawning on me that we’re not just working with poor people we’re working with people who are oppressed; Dalits. People who are kept down; who are punished for trying to better their situation.
Talking about this in our team meeting, tears flow.
