Namita Murmu and a child in Mallickpur, Dhanekhali

When I met Namita Murmu in Mallickpur in Hooghly’s Dhanekhali block to enquire about the Janani Suraksha Yojana, she began to tell me the story of the death of her child. After it was born — a pale, frail-looking creature — the doctors at the block hospital had informed Namita that she was entitled to a sum of Rs 500 for six months before and after childbirth under the JSY. Namita qualifies for the provisions of the JSY because she is the holder of a valid BPL card. Namita had carefully followed the procedure to avail herself of the benefits of this scheme. She had informed the block development office, filled the application form and was told that her name had been included in the list of beneficiaries. Yet, the money had not reached her, and one morning, she found her sickly child lying cold and still. She still believes that the money could have saved her child’s life. Namita is now a mother again, but she still does not know why she did not receive her dues.

About 25 kilometres from where Namita lives is another village — Maharampur under the Gurbari II block. Here, a man claimed to have an answer to the question that baffles Namita. I met Achintya Ghoshal quite by chance. He seemed to materialize suddenly from behind a mud wall as I walked towards a cluster of huts by an unpaved road in Maharampur. This former Krishaksabha member, who is at present the gram pradhan, has been a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) since 1995. For a moment, he looked at me as if I was a trespasser. Ghoshal claimed to share none of the arrogance of his comrades, although he has served the party for over a decade. When I told him about my meeting with Namita, he surveyed the huts first and then said that the woman’s misery lay in the criminal failure of the state government to implement social welfare schemes such as the JSY, the widows’ pension scheme (bidhaba bhata) or the national old age pension scheme (bardhokko bhata).

Families living below the poverty line are eligible to receive the benefits under these schemes. The criteria of selecting a beneficiary vary, as do the provisions of the welfare programmes. For instance, to be eligible for the widows’ pension, a woman has to be over 40 years old. But in the case of pension for the aged, the the recipient has to be above 60.

Bengal’s dismal performance in the implementation of the national rural employment guarantee scheme is well known. (On an average, rural households in Bengal have received only 22 days of work out of the stipulated 100 days.) However, the state’s equally appalling record in distributing the benefits of smaller welfare schemes merits scrutiny as well. The JSY list for Mallickpur upakendra (primary health centre), which falls under Dhanekhali hospital, accounted for 43 women who have not received the benefits of the JSY. In a country that has denied the poor their rights for years, 43 might not look too bad. But one has to bear in mind two factors. First, these are the official figures. There are undoubtedly countless mothers, illiterate or uninformed, who slip through the gaps in the JSY system. Second, programmes like the JSY have a limited ambit. Only pregnant women living below the poverty line are eligible as beneficiaries. Given that the JSY is expected to benefit only a specific category of women, an official headcount of 43 women being denied welfare benefits in a single primary health centre is proof of considerable negligence.

This negligence has had a political cost. Ghoshal is convinced that the CPI(M)’s electoral reversal in the Lok Sabha elections in Hooghly could be at least partially explained by the party’s inability to extend the benefits of such local welfare programmes to the people over the years. Several of these welfare schemes are meant to assist the socially weaker sections. The SCs, STs and the Muslims have used the ballot to avenge their neglect.

Dhanekhali is a reserved constituency for SCs, as I was told by a subdivisional block officer at the imposing administration building built by the Dutch in Chinsurah. In this block, Rupchand Pal, the CPI(M) candidate, obtained a lead of 9,000 votes over his Trinamul Congress rival in the elections to the Hooghly Lok Sabha seat. On previous occasions, the margin of the lead varied between 30,000-40,000 votes. Pal, who had won the 2004 polls by 1,83,000 votes, lost to the TMC’s Ratna Dey Nag by 83,000 votes this time.

Namita, deprived of her entitlement, and Ghoshal, with his allegiance to the ruling party, stand at opposite ends of an inequitable and inefficient system. But the ironies of democracy are such that when the wheels do turn, though still too slowly, it is people like Ghoshal who have to reach out to those like Namita for the party to survive politically. So I did not find it strange when Ghoshal admitted that the welfare schemes are beset with problems. There is a scarcity of funds, which, when available are also siphoned off by corrupt partymen. Ghoshal’s revelations make clear the culpability of the bureaucracy in failing to implement these schemes. The benefits of some of them, like the widow and old-age pensions, are routed through the tiers of the bureaucracy that has to identify target groups, inform them about the schemes and dole out the funds. But the politicization of this bureaucracy, like that of the education system, has meant that money often finds its way to the ruling party’s coffers or is distributed among its supporters, instead of reaching those who are legitimately entitled to it.

There are other lacunae, some of which are integral to the welfare programmes themselves. I was told over the phone by a subdivisional officer that unlike the NREGS, there are no provisions in the smaller welfare schemes for people to approach the judiciary when they are denied benefits. This has further strengthened the collusion between an exploitative State and a corrupt and ineffectual bureaucracy.

Ghoshal is a man in a hurry. A lot needed to be done, he told me, and he had less than two years to accomplish his task. He looked across to the fields on our left, with the tall, gently swaying paddy, and said that sometimes he could feel that a terrible wind of change was on its way. But the change that he fears so much may not change the lives of people like Namita. In Mallickpur, Hamida Begum, the mother-in-law of Hasiba who too is yet to receive her JSY money, told me that their family had supported first the Congress and then the CPI(M) to hold on to their precious, but disputed, plot of land. Now the Trinamul Congress has threatened that the family will be denied welfare unless they changed sides once again.

Changing sides comes easily to Hamida and Hasiba. It means nothing to them, they said laughing. The fertile, green stretch of land that lay just behind their crumbling hut meant a great deal more.