In the accounts of this “diary”, the picture of the northern region emerges sharply. The people struggle hard to tide over the hardship of the monga season, where food is scarce and work, scarcer.

by SHAWKAT MILTON

Monday, October 24, 2005 It’s 9:30 pm and I’ve just boarded the bus at Gabtali on the way to Nilpahmari. This is my first visit to the northern region as a reporter. Having spent a long stretch in villages of the South, I feel an affinity for the people of rural Bangladesh. I leapt at this chance to cover the monga of North Bengal, to come close to the people and their sufferings. After a long night on the road, I finally reached Nilpahmari before the break of dawn, greeted at my hotel by my relation Jewel. He was with a weekly, Nilsagar, and I would use his office as a base for my assignment here.

Tuesday, October 25 Nilphamari is one of the poverty-stricken areas of the north. We started from the town towards Chapra Saramjani union. We sped down the highway, flanked on either side by lush green paddy fields.

Ratan Sarkar had knocked loudly on my door that morning, rousing me from a deep slumber. Ratan was the Nilphamari correspondent of Sangbad. It was on the back of his motorbike that I was speeding along. I called him to stop, however, upon seeing women and children carrying kochu, the root arum which they used as food during hard times of monga. They were sorting out the kochu, some for eating and some to sell in the market. I started a conversation with Asiruddin of the village Thakthakiapara. He was a small trader. He would buy about 10 to 15 kg beef from the butchers of Jadurhat and sell it at the Chapra Kachhari bazar. Sales would fall to about 6 to 7 kg during the Bengali months of Bhadra to Kartik. After all, his customers were like him, poor and destitute. None of them would buy more that 250 gm of meat. Buying a full kilo of beef would be like Eid for the peasants.

I started talking about the monga. Asiruddin said, “If I can earn about 50 taka a day, that’s enough for us. If it falls below 50 taka, then it’s a problem. Then I have to turn to others for help.” That’s Asiruddin’s economics, plain and simple. Asiruddin was not the only one. Many with whom I chatted during this trip revealed that 50 taka per day was sufficient to keep them going. Less than that meant trouble – “a temporary natural crisis” in the government’s official lingo and “monga” to the locals. Things aren’t going well up north. The income per head is falling below 50 taka.

The people are dependent of agriculture. Rice is their main crop and there are potatoes too. The people work hard in the fields to earn a living. But in the month of Bhadra they find themselves out of work. This is a long stretch, up till Agrahayan. The people feel most secure during the months of Falgun till Jaistha. They have work the, they have cash. They earn up till 150 to 200 per day then. But during monga, their hands are empty.

Abul Hossain owns seven bighas of land. He has a small family of three members. He is of the middle class bracket in his village. Even he is filling the crunch. Rice is running out, but he can hardly turn to others for charity.

Leaving Thakthakia, we cross several flood-damaged culverts to reach Dhing Para. About 500 families live in this village and all of the households are needy. Adding to their sufferings is an onset of diarrhoea. As we entered the village, we were met with a wave of protest. They are complaining about Orsaline, VGF, UP members, the DC and such. Amjad Hossain has lost his 12-year-old girl to diarrhoea. He says, “After the newspapers wrote about our village, the DC was supposed to have come here. However, he just came up to the union council office and went back. He didn’t come here because there wasn’t a road wide enough for his car.” Says Sabed Ali: “The UP member, Chairman not even the MP has come to see us in our time of distress.”

Twenty-five families of the village have received VGF cards. Some complain that those who aren’t qualified to get the cards, got them. Sixty-year-old Zahir says that a businessman by the name of Azizur had received a VGF card, yet he wasn’t that needy. Many nodded their head in agreement with Zahir.

Mohammed Ali works in the fields for a living. It is Bhadra and he is out of work. He has already sold his labour in advance three times just to buy some rice. He has taken 200 taka in advance, to cut the paddy on a bigha of land for Bhajir member and another bigha of Kuddus. He has taken another 250 taka from Alep Miah in the faraway village of Belpukur to cut paddy on two bighas of land. He would get 200 taka per bigha in good times, but he gets less now because he is being paid in advance. He got 10 kg of VGF rice on Monday. He had borrowed some rice from a neighbour and so returned four kg from there. After a day’s meals, he now was left with two kg. He has no idea what he’ll do next.

Dhelapir is near Syedpur. It’s a big marketplace for the nearby unions. The poverty-stricken people have come here to sell whatever they have left – chickens, ducks, cows, goats, whatever. Dulu has come from a village in Sonarai union to sell his cow in order to pay off a 2000 taka loan. He also needs the money to tide over the remaining days of monga. He has been offered 4500 taka for the cow, but he is holding on to it, hoping to sell it for 5500. Nuru and Akhterul are here to sell their chickens. Jalauddin has brought hay all the way from the village Hamurhat to sell here. They are all striving to earn enough to get them through the hard spell.

Wednesday, October 26 As we went along, we stopped the motorbike upon seeing a small crowd of people by the roadside. They had found an old man who had been walking along and then suddenly fell and died. Some say he died of hunger. The administration has refuted this.

In Nilphamari town itself there is no evidence of want or suffering. But outside the town it is a different story. The crisis has been made worse in Sonarai union by untimely floods. The UP Chairman tells us that the floods have destroyed many fish farms here. Sixty percent of the rice crop was destroyed. Ginger, potol, eggplant, bitter gourd and radish fields were completely wiped out. The area was quite well-known for its coriander production.

Sheuli, a housewife of monga-struck Sardar Para says that they hardly get to eat rice three times a day and she couldn’t feed her children properly. As a solution, she now fasts during the day. “At least I will be blessed for keeping roja!” she says. Her whole family is fasting. At sehri in the early hours, her seven-member family had eaten 750 gm of boiled rice and the cooked leaves garlic. Sheuli’s father-in-law is a beggar and husband a rickshaw van puller. But during these hard times, no one gives alms to a beggar and no one can afford to ride on a rickshaw van.

The government is providing relief in the area, but not adequate in amount. Then there are the inevitable irregularities.

The families of the village Berakuti are at a loss. They had taken up fish farming to ward off poverty. But excessive rainfall and floods have washed away their efforts. In the month of Magh, Shishu Rani Das had borrowed 10 thousand taka from an NGO, leased a pond and was breeding fish herself. She has lost all now, but is still having to repay her loan in weekly installments of 320 taka. She can hardly afford food and then there is the burden of repayment. She has taken 3000 taka from a local moneylender to get her through these hard times. Many of her village are in the same situation, surviving on meagre meals, suffering...

The picture is the same in the other villages nearby. The landless people here work on others’ land and hardly have much demand. Marjina Begum lives with her daughter and grandchild. Her daughter’s husband has abandoned her. During the floods they got some puffed rice as relief, that is all. Now they are out of work. They have borrowed two and a half maunds of rice, but that too is ending. They are having to repay loans as well. It’s the same story for Abdur Rab, Delwar Hossain, Jalauddin, Rabeya and Surtan too.

UP Chairman of Sonarai UP, Aswini Kumar Biswas admits his area has the most monga-hit people and the relief hasn’t been sufficient. So far he has received under VGF in two phases 40 tons of rice and under GR four tons of rice. This was distributed about 2850 people. He says, “If the really suffering people could be identified and given rice four times a month, the problem could be resolved.”

Thursday, October 27 On the way to Syedpur by motorbike. This is perhaps the glossiest town of the Rangpur region. It may be an upazila, but it far outdoes the districts in appearance. It has the airport, its the centre of Nilphamari business and even has pretty good hotels. Journalist Aminul bhai runs a weekly here – Alapon. We arrive at his office and meet him and Saidul Huq Sathi. Sathi is Samakal’s correspondent for Badarganj upazila in Rangpur district. He has come to take me to the monga-hit Badarganj. I say goodbye to Ratan, thanking him for bearing with me the last few days.

While riding behind him on the motorbike, I listen to Sathi’s account of the area’s problems. He said that monga was new to the people of Badarganj. It is the floods caused by the river Jamunaswari that has caused this suffering, he explains. The floods ruined the aman crop.

We are met at Badarganj by photographer Adar Rahman from the Rangpur office. He cross the bridge over the river and reach the unions Ramnathpur, Madhupur and Damodarpur. It looks like 80 percent of the Aman crop has been wiped out. Even vegetables have been destroyed.

We then arrive at village Muksidpur Banua. Floods have wrought destruction here too. Mud houses have been washed away. They are not exactly living under the open sky, but in makeshift abodes of bamboo, wood and whatever they can lay their hands on.

Fifty-year-old Jotsna Begum is selling the wood and bamboos of her damaged house to buy half a kg of rice. All they have to eat with the rice is some salt. Ziaurul has sold his rickshaw van so he can buy rice. He sold it for 2100 taka and is managing for quite some time. From the government all he got was three kg of rice.

Mujibur is known as the crazy man of the village. His two daughter have dug up some kochu and go from house to house in search of rice. Sometimes they get rice, sometimes they don’t. They got six kg of rice from the government.

The shopkeeper Munshi explains the situation to us. He’s been running his business for the last eight years. Before the monga, he would sell an average of one and a half maunds of rice daily, about six litres of kerosene, six litres of soyabean oil, five kg of khesari lentils, 10 kg of potatoes. But this aren’t going well now. The people don’t have money. He now sells only 10 to 12 kg of rice a day, that too mostly on credit; 2 to 3 litres of kerosene, 4 to 5 kg of potatoes and about a kg of khesari lentils. And a single litre of soyabean oil is sold over a period of two or three days.

Chikarpara. The people here cultivate vegetables. They don’t own their own land, but lease land for cultivation. When we enter the village, the people almost accost us. They are angry that no one is paying attention to their hunger, their suffering.

Abu Bakr Siddique says, “The 60 families of the village are all facing the same suffering. After the floods, 10 people got three kg of rice each. There has been nothing since then.” He says that this situation wouldn’t have arisen if the floods hadn’t taken place. He had spent 4000 taka to plant vegetables on 50 decimals of land. But the floods destroyed it all. he doesn’t have the money now to plant sugar cane as planned. Rafiqul Islam had taken a loan of 10 thousand taka to plant chillies, potol and eggplant.  He has lost all and has nothing to do but lament. The same fate is faced by so many others of the village.

Friday, October 28 Behula of Haran Gathu is at the end of her tether. She says that her children have got used to eating so little that they hardly feel hunger anymore. Her husband has gone to Dhaka in search of work and she is left to fend the family consisting of seven members. She got eight kg of rice twice on her VGF card. They need three and a half kg a day. Last night they had a kg of rice with cooked kochu saag. She has accumulated a large amount of debt and hopes her husband earns enough to repay the loans.

Kurigram perhaps is the most needy of the districts up north. The people of this district are victims of erosion by the rivers Teesta, Brahmaputra and Dharla. They have been living on the land of others. At noon we reach Kurigram. We meet up with correspondent Faruk bhai and start off for Moghalbasha Ghat. We then go by river to Begumganj union of Ulipur. Little islands or chars have arisen along the river. Rice and sweet potatoes have been planted here and there. We alight the engine boat about two km from Mollahat.

Most of this village has been washed away by Brahmaputra. The poor people have erected houses on the land of distant relations and acquaintances. Amir Chan comes from Kaliganj which is now in the river bed. He stays at Harangathu now. He would catch fish for a living. But his boat has been taken away by the river. He has been struggling for survival and has now left for the capital city. Wife Jahanara Begum says, “I had two kg of flour and I used that to make food for five of us over the past two days. I had sent my son to borrow a kg of rice, but the neighbours turned him away.”

Saturday October 29 In the Kurigram district town, one can hardly understand the suffering in the rest of the area. Kurigram has 140 chars and it is on these river islands that the people face hardships. We started off for Chilmari to get a look at the picture there.

After a 30 km trip to the Ramna Ghat at Chilmari, we climbed into a “shallow” engine boat there. There were many boats there, but no passengers, no business. Our boatman Abdul Huq’s face lit up with a bright smile when we chose his boat. It had been 12 days since he had any passengers and the prospect of making some money washed him with relief.

He started the engine and we set off. We had hired his boat for the day for 50 taka. He’d get 20 percent of that, the rest going to the owner of the boat. That means he’d be getting 100 taka, but that made him happy.

As we went down the Brahmaputra, we listened to the story of the river. This once mighty river was famous for its fish – rui,. katla, chital, baghaair, kajali, koirali, bashpata, gharua, bacha, kotti, chela and more. But now sand bars covered large expanses of the river and there was hardly a fishing boat in sight. It was no longer a lucrative business to catch fish. A fishing boat would have a crew of five or six people and then there was the owner. At the end of the day, after selling the haul of fish, each would get only 35 to 40 taka. And each had a family with about seven members on average. So it was hardly worth the hard work.

After travelling for about one and a half hours, we came across another “shallow” engine boat anchored at the river bank. We stopped to talk to the boatman. Boatman Chan Miah told us he had got passengers after 10 long days. They were two employees of BRAC. They had come to set up a solar energy unit to illuminate the dark houses on the char. The solar panel was being fitted on the house of a relatively well-to-do household in the area. Chan Miah spoke of his own hardship, saying he was struggling with his seven member family. On Friday they had received one kg of rice which they ate with khesari daal (lentils). They actually needed three kg of rice a day. He had also borrowed 1000 taka do far.

We went to see the “nuclear” house where they were setting up the solar panel. There was a grocery store in front of the house. The shopkeeper would sell about one or one and a half barrels of fuel oil to the boatman a day in the past. He had brought a barrel of oil 10 days ago, but still hadn’t finished it. The boats were being hired, how could he sell the oil?

It is afternoon now and we are having lunch of the boat. We are looking out for any fishing vessel and finally find two. The first fisherman Aminul had caught a few shrimps and some ghushra fish. He wouldn’t sell them to us, though. Alef Miah, the other fisherman, had some kajali fish. His catch was not bad, each fish about five to six inches long. We bought about one and a half kg of fish for 130 taka. For the first time in four days Alef Miah had sold fish worth over 100 taka. He himself admits that he wouldn’t have been able to sell it at such a high price to the wholesaler. Yet, in Dhaka’s fish market that amount of kajali fish would sell for at least 450 to 500 taka, and even I hadn’t seen such big kajali before. We had bought rice and daal from the Ramna Ghat.

One realisation hit me hard this time. It wasn’t the lack of food that made monga, it was the lack of work. They people were lacking in purchasing power. It was a vicious cycle in which the people had been caught up, a vortex called monga. We saw this in the case of the farmers, the boatmen and the fishermen.

Animals were having it hard too. Fodder was scare, hay was costly. Omaruddin was standing at the riverside on Barabhita Char. He needed to cross the river and was waiting for a boat, if we would be kind enough to take him across. All he had was two cows and two claves. There was no grass. He had come from two km away here just to cut grass to take back for his cows. He sells two seers of milk a day to earn 36 taka. He strives to feed his four-member family with that. He feels better off than most others – at least he gets to eat rice once a day!

Many of the char people are trying to start cultivating the land again. On Fechna Char we see them planting chillies. Some were cultivating peanuts and sweet potatoes. It was evening by the time we returned to Chilmari. We paid are fare and started down the path. Abdul Huq called us back. “Please remember to write my name,” he requests. After spending the entire day with us, he feels perhaps if his name is on record, he may get something.

Sunday, October 30 We reach Manushmarar Char. The people here struggle with the vagaries of nature for survival. Malnutrition is starkly evident among the little ones. Even infants can hardly get enough milk from the breasts of their hungry mothers. They are fed a thin gruel made of flour and water, or rice starch.

The remote areas of Ulipur, Chilmari, Roumari and Rajabpur are for far from civilisation in the urban sense. It can take almost the whole day from Kurigram to reach some of these areas.

We meet Bachena Khatun. She was named thus because she was born after many siblings, none of whom has survived. Now she is struggling for survival with her children. She lives with her in-laws. Her husband has gone to Dhaka in search of work. They have VGF cards with which they got 18 kg of rice in two installments this month. They need eight kg a day.

This is a common predicament of the people on Manushmarar Char. The children hardly get any milk from their mothers.