CHAPTER 4 HOUSEHOLD AND COMMUNITY LEVEL...

CHAPTER 4

HOUSEHOLD AND COMMUNITY LEVEL ASSETS

Household and community level assets 116

CHAPTER 4

HOUSEHOLD AND COMMUNITY LEVEL ASSETS

The previous chapter examined the socio-demographic profile, the vulnerability

context and loss due to floods. It mapped the social landscape of the study villages

through the socio-economic profile of its inhabitants. The chapter highlighted how

hazard events such as floods mediated vulnerability and affected people’s livelihoods.

The current chapter examines in detail the household and community level assets in

the study villages. The socio-demographic characteristics of households presented in

the previous chapter form an integral part of the assets examined in this chapter.

Based on the conceptual frame adopted for the study, the assets are examined under

five conceptual categories – human, social, financial, natural and physical.

4.1 Human capital

One of the key aspects of human capital as seen in the study was occupation. In all the

study villages the predominant occupation of the working population (over 80%) was

agriculture related work. However in the context of recurrent droughts and floods

afflicting the area, the people were caught in the vagaries of nature. This uncertainty

led to irregular incomes and fluctuating economic conditions. The households had to

trade their assets which in turn affected their occupation. One of those who made this

shift was the village ‘elder’ of Khyada. He sold his livestock to focus on farming to

minimise his risk. He said,

‘… the past few years have been the worst that we have seen. We were faced

with one problem after another. Earlier we were only worried if it would rain

in a year. But now we are worried if it will rain, and also if the rains will lead

to floods. We had many cows. In the past three years we have sold almost all

our cows. We have only two left… that too because we could not (bear to) sell

them and so that we have enough milk in the house. We don’t get fodder like

we used to. If we get green fodder we don’t get dry fodder, if we get dry

fodder, it is not good enough. How will animals survive and give milk? I sold

them and just take care of our fields now and we get enough for our

consumption and we sell the rest. If anything happens to the animals, then we


will lose everything. Last year we lost all our crops due to floods. This year we

missed a season because the fields could not be ready in time.’

Most of the agriculture was rain-fed and irrigated lands were few. In such a context,

many of the households resorted to seasonal migration to cities and ports for work as

‘unskilled labour’. They used the networks they had built up over many years of

migration from the region in response to floods.

Box 4.1

Shifting occupation and migration

M, is a farmer from the SC community, who has an acre and a half of land. His fields

were badly damaged during the floods of 2007 and he migrated to Mangalore port to

work as a hamaal, where he could earn even upto Rs.500 a day if he worked long

enough loading and unloading cargo. He worked for a year in Mangalore and invested

all his savings into preparing his fields for the next crop and in buying seeds and farm

inputs. The floods later destroyed all his crops. He said, ‘as long as I can work hard

loading and unloading I will survive. We have survived many ‘baragalas’(drought

periods) due to this (migration).

Though people shifted jobs from being a farmer to working as construction workers

and hamaals in the places where they have migrated, this was often restricted in the

villages of their origin. The threshold for shifting occupations in the study villages

was very low in the study villages. A famer offering his services as a mason would

lead his ostracisation from the community. M, a farmer from Thaminala shared his

experience with regard to shifting his occupation.

‘When my crops failed two times in a row, I did not want to try again. I

decided to try my hand at construction. I had worked as a helper in Udupi for

three years some years ago and I was good at brick laying and concreting.

When the government gave money to SC people who had lost their house in

the floods (2007), there was shortage of construction workers. I offered to

construct houses for two people had worked with me in Udipi. They knew my

work and asked me if I could build their houses with them. I agreed. But as

soon as people got to know about it, they created lot of trouble. The other SC


people threatened them that they would not let the construction work to begin.

On the other side, my relatives and people (from the same caste) asked me

‘when did a farmer become a mason’. The same people who asked me this

question had gone to other cities and worked as construction workers. But

they found it below their level (dignity) to build houses in their own village.’

The panchayat president who was one of those who had opposed the work, sought to

explain his position by looking at it from the perspective of loss of work for the

masons. He said,

‘These people (farmers) have enough resources to survive, but the mason has

no other source of work. He has to build houses to live. We should not let

others take his job. Then how will he feed his wife and children and himself?

We explained this to him but they did not understand. He still insisted on

doing the work himself. We told him that we would not let it happen. Some of

our people are the ones who provoked him. They even told us, “it is our house.

We are doing this because we are not getting enough masons. If your house

was destroyed you also would do the same.” I replied, “tamma (younger

brother), my house has been destroyed too, but I did the work on my own. If

you are not getting masons, we will get masons from the next village. Let them

also get some benefit.” The houses were finally built by masons from our

village and from the neighbouring village.’

As seen above, traditional livelihoods linked to one’s caste was one of the hindrances

to changing livelihoods. The reasons were linked to control over resources. Sanctions

for defying the norms and traditions were imposed on people who defied these norms.

Box 4.2

Obstacles to shifting occupations

One of the study villages had a chakki (flour grinding mill) which used to cater to the

needs of the village. One of the dalit youth who had migrated to Managalore and had

come back and settled down in his village applied for a subsidy loan under youth

employment scheme to start a chakki in his village. The owner of the chakki in the

village was intimated by someone in the Taluk Panchayat office that this young


person had applied for a loan. The owner of the chakki called upon the ‘elders’ of the

village and the panchayat member from the village to oppose the application. They

called the youth and threatened him that they would issue a call to boycott

(bahishkaar) if he went ahead with him plan. And to teach him a lesson for applying

without consulting the elders, he was asked to pay a fine of five hundred rupees.

In the above case, the control over resources was not just at the level of the village

where the chakki owner conspired with the village owners. But the attempt to control

the resources was also at the level of the administration where a person with access to

the application had leaked the information so that it would be withdrawn.

While those who tried to create opportunities found their chances scuttled, a basic

problem was the lack of work opportunities itself. In interviews with school children

and their parents on topics of education and livelihoods, a recurring response was that

other than the functional aspect of literacy, they did not see how education was going

to help their children. A few of them hoped that their children would find government

jobs, but even they were aware that government jobs were no longer readily available.

The opportunities for livelihoods other than agriculture were very limited. This meant

that educated youth from the village were mostly working either as farmers, if they

had sufficient land or coolies (agricultural labourers). A couple of youth who had

passed Pre-University College (PUC) had joined the Indian Army from Thaminala

many years back and a few of the households in Budihala had members working in

the Indian Railways. However most of the village was engaged in agriculture related

work or as migrant workers in other cities and towns. A 17 year old boy who dropped

out of school when he was 12 years old said,

‘We don’t have land. When I was twelve years old, my father told me; even if

you study you will do the same ‘coolie’ work…... I had two sisters to be

married, and I was the youngest. I was sent off with my brother (cousin) to

Bangalore to work in a hotel. I ran away after three years. I gave all the

money to my father. One sister was married, one more is left (to be

married)…….. Studying and being here is not useful. You need to go to the city

to find jobs. But even in the cities, people find only manual labour.’


Box 4.3

Responses on education and livelihoods

Some of the responses on education and livelihoods:

‘….. when we ask them to study, they ask us what did education bring us….’ – a

mother of a 14 year old boy and 11 year old girl.

‘….. today you cannot do anything without education….. but what we do after our

education is the question?’ – a 14 year old boy.

‘…..when it is harvest time, nobody attends school, atleast not the older children…. in

a way they learn more there (in the fields) than they learn in the class with out-dated

syllabus which is not connected to their lives…’ – the headmaster of one of the

schools in the study villages.

High rates of illiteracy and lack of schooling, especially among women was common

in the area. Over seventy percent of adult women had not gone to school in two of the

study villages and and were completely illiterate. Even among those who had gone to

school, some of them were semi-literate and could not read or write fluently. A

teacher in a primary school said,

‘When we ask the mothers to help them with their homework, we find that

many of them cannot even read the simple notes in primary text book, even

though they have been educated in this same school. They cannot even solve

simple (mathematics) problems. They would have dropped out at seventh and

eighth standard and got married early. Some of the mothers of my students are

barely twenty one…twenty two years old. They would have already had the

second one (child) also.’

Another teacher elaborated on the reasons for drop-out among girls.

‘…. we don’t have closed toilets in the school. Even lady teachers use the

toilets as a group because there is no door. Girls, when they get older, run

home when they need to use the toilet and some of them don’t come to school

for days every month. There is no high school in this village, and parents are


afraid of sending the girls to the next village…. You can’t blame the parents.

There have been cases of girls eloping, being raped…..’

In one of the study villages, fake bank accounts were opened in the name of people

who have been led to believe that they were signing something else. The payments for

the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) was

channelized into these accounts which was then cleaned out by the contactors from

the same village. One of the persons who was cheated in this manner said,

‘… I have never felt bad that I did not know how to read. But when I realised

that I had been so easily fooled, I wept. When I was sent to school, I would

never attend classes. I would always roam here and there with my friends. I

wish I had atleast learnt how to read and write. Today I see my son doing the

same thing, but what to do….’

As seen above, the illiteracy mediated through lack of information caused problems of

serious ramifications, while the positive effects of literacy was recognised. For

instance, the Auxillary Nurse Mid-wife (ANM) of Thaminala said,

‘if the mothers are educated, I have no problem, they come to me for their

child’s immunization…… and women come for tablets(Iron and Folic

Acid)….. but with others I have to go behind them.’

This fact was also borne by data from the District Level Household and Facility

Survey (DLHS-3) of Bagalkot district. On evaluating the proportion of children who

had received atleast one dose of Vitamin-A, it was seen that a low proportion of

children of non-literate mothers (58.8 percent), had received the dose as compared to

children of mothers (82.6 percent) who had ten or more years of education (IIPS,

2010).

As seen in the study villages, awareness about the importance of immunisation and

other basic health information was also very low. The doctor from the government

hospital in Badami taluk said,

‘… when the people come for treatment, they want injections, not just in one

hand, but in both hands, as doctors in private (practice) do. And they get upset

when we don’t give them injections. But how much ever we tell them about


immunizing their child, they don’t follow. They think ‘we will go when there is

a problem, why bother now?’ Every year, we are harassed by the department

saying, you have the lowest immunization figures… do something, do

something… what can we do?’

The district had the lowest rates (41%) of complete immunization in the state,

consisting of BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, a vaccine against tuberculosis), three

injections of DPT (a combination vaccine against three infectious diseases: diphtheria,

pertussis (whooping cough) and tetanus), three doses of Polio and measles. In others

areas of health information too, Bagalkot district had the worst figures. According to

DLHS, the percentage of women aware of diarrhoea management was only 51.6

percent (IIPS, 2006). In reproductive health too, percentage of currently married

women age 15-44 years who knew about any contraceptive method was reported as

only 26.2 percent (ibid).

The lack of awareness and poor health care indicators as seen above was not just

linked to characteristics of the household, but also pointed to the dysfunctional

government healthcare services. While the primary health care model envisaged the

role of health services to include prevention and promotion of health, these aspects

were totally absent in the area. A Self Help Group member in a group discussion said,

‘…… the doctors told you that we don’t get our children immunized. Don’t we

love our children? Do we want anything to happen to them? They are the ones

who don’t give proper information. They don’t tell us anything properly. Have

you seen how they see patients? They don’t even touch us or look at us. Then,

how will we know when to give what injections? The ANM does not visit us,

the doctors do not tell us, then how will we know… are we educated people to

know these things?’

The above section examined the human assets of the household. The following

section examines another related aspect of assets – social assets.


4.2 Social assets

Since most of the social networks and associations in the study villages centred on

land and agro-related activities, it effectively served to marginalise the landless people

from the more powerful networks. A member of the dalit youth group said,

‘We formed a group recently for those who are dalit, landless coolie workers.

We formed it as a ‘swa sahaya sangha’ (Self Help Group) to get some benefits

from the Government such as revolving fund. Till now all the benefits had

gone to famers groups who claimed all that the government promised.’

These associations and networks which included credit societies, co-operative banks

and government sponsored facilities like ‘raitara sahayavani kendra’, ‘raita mitra’

and ‘krishi samparka kendra’ were out-of-bounds for the landless. Speaking of

facilities available for the landless workers, a worker in the agriculture department

said,

‘… there are soft loans for setting up vermi-composting, bio-gas plants and

kitchen garden. These activities could be done on common lands or in areas

close to one’s house. Agricultural lands are not required for this purpose. Lot

of subsidy is also provided under these schemes.’

Some government schemes were also available for everybody in the village, however

they had not been availed by any landless households in the study villages. Explaining

why none of the schemes had been availed by any of the landless households from the

study villages. An officer from the taluk panchayat, on conditions of anonymity said,

‘… there are a lot of schemes in which the landless and small farmers can also

apply. But is it possible for us to go to all the villages in the taluk and tell

every landless person about these schemes. Some schemes have posters which

we put up in the taluk panchayat office….. the remaining they have to come

and ask…………….. but let me tell you, most of these schemes are given to

farmers groups and people known to the MLA or the officers………. Who

wants to take the risk? If all the paper work is not clear, then we will be in

trouble. They (farmer’s co-operatives and networks) come with all the paper

work ready and neatly done. It gets sanctioned by the officer. He also gets a

cut of that money, and the people also benefit. That is how most things happen

here.’


In addition to availing of facilities meant for the landless and small farmers, the

farmers groups have also used their links with the political classes in being

beneficiaries of government grants which have bypassed the landless and small

farmers. The Agricultural Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme which waived off

loans for famers was a case in point. The waiver benefitted the famers with bigger

landholdings who have availed of loans from banks but defaulted on payments. Banks

which did not entertain small landholders for loans were not able to avail of the

benefit as most of their loans were from private money lenders at higher rates of

interest. A farmer with 1 acre of land, who is also a leader in the youth group said,

‘With one acre of land, my cost of farming is much higher (per acre) than a

person with four or more acres of land. But the bank does not give me loans,

as I am not a member of any credit society and because I am not able to keep

any security. The credit societies take only big farmers. The credit societies

make a deal with the banks that they will take responsibility for repayment.

Then they pressurise the government to waive off the loans to farmers. This

always happens. Only people like us do not benefit.’

Box 4.4

Misuse of Government schemes

The landless households who failed to find employment during seasons of crop loss

were the most hard-hit and faced hunger. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural

Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) which was especially useful in such a

scenario existed only on paper. None of the houses in the study villages had received

any employment through the MGNREGS prior to the floods of October 2009.

However the official records showed that the scheme had been implemented and

money withdrawn in people’s name. Even after individual houses, mostly from the

dalit community came to know about the misuse of their names in the scheme, there

was nobody to take up their cause. Instead they were threatened to keep quiet and let

the matter rest. A householder on conditions of anonymity said, ‘they promised us

that they would return a part of the money if we kept quiet. But till now nothing has

happened. Everybody is too scared to talk.’


Political affiliations were another important source of social asset. The division based

on party lines was one of the main divisions seen in the study areas. The area which

was primarily an Indian National Congress (INC) strong-hold has seen a strong surge

of support for Bharitiya Janata Party (BJP) since 2008 when the BJP came to power in

the state assembly for the first time. Since then they have won most of the local-level

elections held in the state. The influence of the party affiliations has stretched right

down and influenced the intra-community and intra-family relationships. In a family

in Khyada TS, two brothers were political workers in different parties. Their uncle

said,

‘both of them are capable and have decided their own parties. We support

both of them. The older son is a contractor and the younger fellow is a social

worker. They don’t talk to each other, but they have no problem with others in

the family. We are happy if either of them win.’

Speaking of how political afflictions helped, a former panchayat member in Budihala

said,

‘if you need to win contracts for civil works and get to know about any scheme

(government), you need to know someone. Through party work you meet so

many people and become close to them. Today even for small things, people

go running to party people (workers). All young people are in one part or the

other. They all think they are leaders because they belong to a party.’

The remarks of the panchayat member highlighted the sense of power felt by young

people with links to political parties, mainly because of their closeness to people in

power (or who could potentially be in power), and due to access to important

information.


Box 4.5

Other benefits of political party affiliation

Opinion of households on the benefits of political party affiliation:

‘… we have not seen too many benefits so far. From the beginning Congress (INC)

candidates supply liquor and sarees before elections. Now after BJP has come, they

also give us money and serve food.’ – a 51 year old homemaker from Thaminala

‘… it is an emotional game. Because people we know are workers in different parties,

we support them…… We don’t vote based on the candidate or the party. They are all

the same…’ – a 36 year old woman from Budihala

‘… we feel that if we know the people in power it will be useful when we need

something. But who knows how they will behave after they are elected. They also will

have many people pulling them from all sides. Its better to know somebody…’ – a 58

year old male respondent from Khyada TS

The structuring of community life in the village was primarily on caste lines, with

housing areas, common property resources like wells, washing areas and grazing plots

divided on the basis of caste and access to these determined by each caste based

groups. It was seen that conflicts arose when it came to sharing of these resources

across caste lines (see Box 4.6).

Box 4.6

Protecting turf: struggles over livelihoods

In one of the study villages, a SC household was discouraged from purchasing

buffalos since the grazing space available in the village was limited. But they went

ahead and purchased it. The upper caste members of the village did not let them use

the grazing land, which they said could be used only for cows. But the older son of

the household who had taken the buffalos for grazing reasoned with them saying that

they did not have money to purchase cows and so he bought buffalos. But they did not

allow him to take the buffalos any further. He tied the buffalos outside the grazing

land and went home to have lunch. Soon he received complaints saying that his

buffalos had broken the rope and entered into the grazing land and the owners had


thrashed the buffalos. He says, ‘they did not want SC people to own cattle and to use

the grazing area which they control. Even when they were stopping me, there were

buffalos inside the area. They told me that the buffalos belonged to one of the people

who had come with their cows. What kind of rule is that…? There was no way our

buffalos could have broken the ropes which I had just tied, unless someone did it on

purpose….’

The housing pattern was such that the upper caste houses were towards the entrance

of the village in all the study villages. The dalit houses were located towards the far

end of the village, and commonly referred to as ‘keri’. This facilitated blocking access

to the dalit houses to control the flow of resources or to block physical access to the

area whenever required. The cases seen below (boxes 4.7 and 4.8) highlight the

mechanisms through which the flow of resources were controlled.

Box 4.7

Creating barriers: a case of caste control

In one of the villages, four of the dalit families started to reconstruct their houses

using money sent by their sons who had migrated to Mangalore. This created a lot of

discussion among the community about the wealth of the dalit families. A few youth

from the upper castes decided to take matters into their own hands. They got together

to prevent the entry of four wheelers carrying materials to the ‘keri’. They collected

money from the entire village except the dalit houses, and in two days, they built a

compound wall for the gudi (shrine) extending onto the path leading to the ‘keri’.

That just left enough space for a two-wheeler to squeeze through. The construction

materials that were brought for the houses in the ‘keri’ had to be unloaded before the

‘gudi’ and carried manually into the ‘keri’.

Box 4.8

Call for boycott: a case of caste control

In another village, during a conflict between the dalits and upper-caste families in the

village, a blanket economic ‘bahishkaar’ (boycott) was imposed on the dalits.

Nobody was to deal with them, hire them for labour, buy anything from them or sell

them anything. Even the flour mills were not to serve them. When the dalit


community did not apologise and complained to the district administration, the road

leading to the keri was dug up so that even two-wheelers could not be taken across.

These acts of collective obstruction also did not yield its desired result. However,

when one of the upper caste men died they approached the dalit men to carry the body

as was the customary practise, which the dalit men refused to do until the boycott was

lifted. That night the upper caste men along with supporters from other villages

surrounded the keri and beat up all the men. Some of them suffered grievous wounds

and had to be hospitalised. It was only then that the district administration stepped in

and threatened to take action against anybody who followed the ‘boycott’.

The lack of organisation among the dalit communities was evident in all the study

villages. Speaking about the lack of organisation among dalit communities, the former

panchayat member of Budihala, a dalit woman said,

‘…. we are not like the others. We don’t have the unity between us, or the

pride about our community. We still feel as being under authority. If we are

beaten we keep quiet, but sometimes people go and become so angry that they

kill when they can take it no more. The others get together and plan and act as

one. We see this all the time, but we are all very separate. When somebody

gets beaten we all cry with them, we all get angry, but then we go back to our

work, because we have to feed ourselves. But things are changing, parties like

DSS (Dalit Sangarsh Samiti) and Dalit Panther are beginning to mobilise

people.’

Festivals were often a source of community togetherness where different caste

communities came together to play different roles such as donation of food materials,

conducting pooja, cooking and conducting cultural events. Households from which

people had migrated reported that their family members who migrated timed their

visits back to the village during these festivals to be part of the festivities. Cooking

specific traditional foods for different festivals was part of the celebration. It was also

a major source of expenditure. A dalit woman with three children, whose husband

expired four years back remarked,

‘While my husband was alive these festivals were a source of enjoyment and

we would cook all the dishes and even send it to all our relatives living in


other places. After his death, I don’t feel like being part of any celebrations.

We are struggling to buy food for our everyday needs. We live entirely on my

wages as a coolie (agricultural worker). Every month there is some festival or

the other. If I don’t cook anything special the children get upset. Even our

neighbours come and ask, “didn’t you make anything?” They say that

something bad will happen to us if we don’t celebrate and please the gods.

What more bad can happen now? But I don’t argue with anybody. I just cook

whatever I can.”

The list of the major festivals and the traditional festive food is given in Table 4.1. In

addition to the major festivals, there are also religious car festivals and festivals of

different holy places which are also important events where traditional norms and

ractices are followed and communities participated with great devotion. Banashankari

jatre (temple fair) celebrated in the Banashankari Amma Temple (located in

Cholachagudda near Badami), Bhutanatha group of temples festival, Mahakuta

(which is a place of religious significance for Shaivites), and Godachi Jatre (held in

honour of Shri Veerabhadra during the months of November-December) are some of

the famous temple festivals in the region which the communities participate in.

The festivals occupy a socially sanctioned space in the community life of the villages,

and extend beyond being a religious event alone. From being a place for recreation to

being a spot for earning income to finding a spouse, the jatre tend to have different

meanings in the lives of people.


Table 4.1

Major festivals and foods of North Karnataka

Source: Vijayalaxmi Inamdar and Bharati V. Chimmad, Journal of Human Ecology, 17(3):

233-236 (2005), Traditional Festive Cuisine of North Karnataka, New Delhi: Kamla-Raj

Month Festival Ritual Traditional festive foods

January Sankranti Festival of harvest Madeli, Holige of gingelly seeds,

Bengal gram dhal Ground nut Jowar

dosa, Bajra roti, Bharta, Chutney

powders of niger, linseed, ground nut

February /

March

Shivarathri Foods consumed

after a day’s fast

Godhi huggi, Allittu, Bengal gram

usali, Moth bean usali and Holige

March Holi Destruction of evil Holige, Jowar wade, Pumpkin gargi

(some caste groups prepare

nonvegetarian curry)

April / May Ugadi New year of

Kannadigas

Holige, Karigadabu, Vermicelli

payasam, Bevu bella, and Godhi

huggi

May Basava jayanti Birthday of 12th

century regional

religious leader

Holige, Karigadabu and mango

Shikarane

June Karahunnive Bullocks

worshipped

Holige, Karigadabu, Jowar wade,

Pumpkin gargi, Kodabale and

mango Shikarane

June Mannettina

amavasye

Clay bullocks

worshipped

Karigadabu, Holige, Jowar wade,

Sajjaka, Pumpkin gargi and

Vermicelli payasam,

July Nagarapanchami Cobras worshipped Laddu of semolina, Bunde, Besan,

Sev, Ground nuts, Gingelly seeds,

Gulladki, Puffed jowar,

Kuchagadabu, Allittu, Bengal gram

usali, Moth bean usali, Bajra roti and

Jowar roti

August Ganesh chaturthi Ganesha

worshipped

Godhi huggi, Holige, Modaka,

Sajjaka, Jowar roti, Mesta bhaji,

Curds rice, Panchakajjaya,

Karigadabu, and Gudagana huggi.

Vermicelli payasam

September Dasara/

Mahanavami

Durga puja Holige, Karigadabu, Sajjakada

holige, Sajjaka, Taraga, Foxtail

millet holige, Karachikayi, Pumpkin

gargi and Jowar wade

October Shigehunnive Farmer’s festival;

Worship of standing

crop

Foxtail millet holige, Chakli, Akki

huggi, Kodabale, Holige,

Karigadabu, Undigadabu,

Kuchchida khara, Bhaji of capsicum,

cluster beans, pumpkin Chutney

powders of niger, linseed, ground nut

(some caste groups prepare non-

vegetarian curry)

October Diwali Lakshmi puja Holige, Karigadabu, Karachikayi,

Laddu of semolina, Besan and

Sajjakada holige


Box 4.9

Changing face of village festivals

‘… when we were small, only religious songs used to sung and played at these

festivals, but now as soon as the pooja is over, all we can hear is film music and

vulgar songs played on the loud speaker.’ – former panchayat member of Budihala.

‘…. since the past two or three years, movie tents have come up near the place of the

jatre, where they play ‘blue’ movies. These tents are always full and they play five to

six shows everyday.’ – a youth from Khyada TS

‘… we go to cut wood for the Banshankri jatre and earn more money than we earn

throughout the whole year. My mother also sells food items like jollada roti (jowar

roti) and snacks. She sells out whatever she makes.’ – a youth from Thaminala.

‘…we went to the jatre hoping to meet known people from other villages who could

bring a suitable alliance for our son. We are hoping that we will hear some good

news soon.’ – a mother of a 24 year old young man.

Though the festivals brought people together in a common celebration, the festivals

also turned out to be sites of conflict among communities which brought simmering

discontent to the fore.

Box 4.10

Conflicts in social gatherings

In a jatre in one of the flood-affected villages, jowar for the feast was traditionally

donated by the dalit families. In 2009, a new demand was placed on them by the

committee managing the temple comprised of men from upper caste communities.

They said that the dalit men should go from house to house to beg for the jowar and

offer the jowar collected through begging. The dalit youth refused and questioned the

need to change traditions in this manner. The committee decided not to allow any

person from the dalit community to participate in the festivities. A youth from the

dalit communities said, ‘They (upper castes) have been angry with us for a while.

People from our village have been migrating to other places for work and earning

well. When they (migrants) come back to the village, they don’t go to work in the


fields of these people and they get very angry. They thought that the jatre was a good

opportunity to teach us a good lesson. And since it was an issue of our Goddess, they

thought that nobody would object so strongly. The older people from our community

wanted us to go and beg to avoid fights. The temple committee threatened to beat us

up if any of us came near the temple at the time of the jatre. We called the police to

sort out the issue. Even the police took sides with them and asked us to do as they told

us, to avoid fights. We asked the police, ‘do we look like beggars? Why should we beg

when we can afford to give the jowar otherwise as we have been dong that all these

year?’ They kept quiet.’

4.3 Natural capital

The study villages were primarily agrarian villages where most livelihoods revolved

around agriculture and agro-related activities. In such a context, the quantity and

quality of agricultural landholding was seen as an important part of one’s asset base.

The first distinction it created was among those households with land and those who

were landless. The data from study villages showed that forty to seventy per cent of

households in the different study villages were landless.

Notwithstanding the quality or productivity or yield of the land, the ownership of land

in itself was an asset which safeguarded against catastrophic payments which were

sudden unplanned expenditures beyond the paying capacity of the household. One of

the major benefits was the ability to sell, lease or mortgage the land in times of crisis.

The study revealed that in the absence of such landholdings, catastrophic payments

were made mostly through utilising labour as capital, such as migration of a able-

bodied family member to higher paying areas, normally involving more strenuous

manual labour (such as loading or unloading in Mangalore ports) or migration of

more members of a family (such as construction work where men and women find

work). In the absence of these, the household resorted to jeeta (bonded labour). Seven

instances of bonded labour were identified through the study. The information

obtained during the field work pointed that there were more cases, but the family was

not willing to talk about it for fear that the information would reach the media or the

police.


Box 4.11

Catastrophic payments and bonded labour

A dalit landless household from Thaminala incurred very high medical expenditure

when the householder, who was the sole earning member met with an accident. His

leg was crushed under the trailer of the tractor in which he was travelling. The

orthopaedic operation was conducted in a Government Hospital, but due to post-

operative infections which did not subside he had to be admitted to a private medical

hospital. The family pawned all their jewellery and still could not pay the medical

bills. Without finding any other alternative, their son, aged 14 years old was sent as

bonded labour (jeeta) in a brick making unit (the family did not reveal the location of

the boy). The mother of the boy said, ‘we got thirty thousand rupees in hand. The

malik (owner of the unit) has promised to give another thirty thousand rupees after

two years. He also gives food and a place to stay for our boy. We did not have any

other way, and had to send him for work. We have to get our daughter married in one

or two years and all our savings have gone. We are hoping that he (her husband) will

be able to go back to work.’

As seen in Budihala, a small land-locked village, the scarcity of land meant that even

housing plots were highly valued and were routinely not available, unlike in other

study villages. In larger families, this creates a problem when the sons get married and

they have to share the same homestead. It also impacts the quality of life and makes

the younger couples vulnerable economically, emotionally and physically. It is even

more difficult in the case of the landless households, where they have to depend on

the kindness of other households to provide them a place to stay. Their lack of asstes

leads to take decisions to protect themselves and their family members. Early

marriage of girl children was one such decision seen in the study.

Box 4.12

Landlessness and early marriage

Seethavva lives with her fourteen year old daughter in a bamboo shed in a corner of

the fields of one of her husband’s relatives. Her husband is a migrant worker in

Mumbai. Her husband is the son of a devadasi who owns no land. Her older daughter,

who was adopted by her when her sister died was married off the previous year at a


young age. Speaking about the reason for the early marriage she says, ‘When you live

alone in the fields you are never safe, especially if there are only women. But we had

nowhere to go, and had to build a shelter here. My mother-in-law lives with my

husband’s two brothers and their wives and children. When my husband got married,

it was made clear that we would have to make our own arrangements for living. But

in our village you cannot find a place to live. Since we didn’t have land, our relatives

allowed us to stay here. But they don’t behave with me well (referring to sexual

advances made on her and her children by the male members of the family). I thought

it was better to get my daughter married as early as possible before someone spoils

her life. I am now waiting to get this one (referring to her younger daughter who is

also in the room) also married. But I can do that only after we repay the loans we

have taken from different places for the older one’s dowry.’

The landless and lack of shelter also had other implications. The voices of those who

lacked those assets are given blow.

Box 4.13

Issues faced by landless and homeless people

- I don’t go to work now as we have no place to keep our valuables. I used to

go to work, but everything from animals to people have destroyed and taken

away our things…’ (a 26 year old woman)

- We fall ill all the time as we live in the open. But we are now used to it… (a

14 year old boy).

- People don’t respect us. They think we are prostitutes because we don’t have a

house… (a 33 year old woman).

- My dream is to own a house. My husband goes to Mangalore and works for

four months at a stretch and comes back for a month and then he goes again.

In three of four years we will buy land somewhere and build our own house. (a

27 year old woman)

The quantity or extent of land-holding played an important part in determining the

viability of farming becoming the primary occupation of members of the household.


This was further influenced by the floods. A farmer working as an agricultural

labourer said,

‘I used to work on our farm. But since the past year, we have not done

anything on our land as it will cost a lot to make the land reusable again……..

we won’t even get half of that from the crops in this one acre. Now, I go for

‘coolie’ work, but hope to restart (working on his own land) after 2-3 years

when the land becomes productive again.’

It was seen that the landholding mediated through social processes also played an

important role in the economic situation of the households. For instance, the

availability of farm labour was determined partly by the extent of landholding coupled

with the social assets of the household. With the advent of the Mahatma Gandhi

national Rural Employment Guarantee Act, there were livelihood alternatives

available for those landless households. This also led to a greater demand for farm

labourers.

Box 4.14

Social assets and finding workers

M, a farmer from Budihala suffered losses of over Rs.40,000 because he could not

find enough labour to work during the harvesting season. The rains which followed

destroyed the standing crops before he could harvest them. M’s family belongs to the

Ambiger caste and are well-off economically. However they are loggerheads with the

agricultural workers due to soured relationships with those who worked in their lands.

In the previous season, one worker belonging to the dalit community was beaten by

M’s family members after he was allegedly found stealing some food stock

(according to M’s family). The workers belonging to the dalit community decided that

none of them would work in M’s house. M brought workers from other castes paying

higher wages, but he still could not get enough workers to work in his fields.

The possession of livestock was an important agro-related capital asset in the study

villages for use in ploughing, transportation of materials, and had value as an easily

saleable asset aiding liquidity. However the value of the livestock was determined by

the combination of many factors including the health and build of the livestock and

the demand for that particular livestock in that season. Another another important


factor was the precipitating matter for the owner of the livestock and the urgency with

which the owner required the money.

Box 4.15

Sale and price of livestock

The weekly livestock market (santé) near Badami is witness to distress sales on a

regular basis. During a visit to the market towards the closing part of the day (every

Tuesday) one can find people willing to sell their livestock at any price, as they need

the money urgently. The healthier ones are bought in the morning sessions, and the

evening sales are of the remaining livestock (cows, bulls, goats and sheep). If an

owner does not need the money urgently, she or he would not sell it until they get a

good price, but those in need sell it at prices 30-40 percent lower than the market

price.

The milch animals also provided a source of nutrition for children. However the

possession of livestock warranted the use of common lands and access to fodder and

grazing pastures, which was based on one’s socio-cultural profile and political

connections. This led to tensions between the dominant Kuruba community and the

dalit community. A dalit woman, with three children shared about her experience with

milch animals.

‘We had a cow which we bought using loans from the self-help group. Later

we bought one more cow. For the first time after moving here (temporary

shelters) we had milk in our house. Children used to drink milk everyday and

we used to have curd and butter milk. After we bought the second cow, it gave

birth and we used to have sufficient milk. We began selling the milk.

Sometimes we would make butter and sell it. After we began selling, we had

lesser milk for the house, but I used to keep aside some milk for the children

everyday. All the children would go to school, and I couldn’t go looking for

fodder everyday as I had to go for ‘coolie’ work. The others who would graze

near the foothills of the hills would not allow us saying that it was their

traditional right. When one of the cows became very ill because of not getting

proper fodder, I sold them to the veterinary doctor itself, who offered to buy

them.’


In Thaminala, fights have broken out over grazing of goats in the land belonging to

the gudi (shrine). The priest who intervened said,

‘people used to leave their goats freely and they would come and destroy all

the plants. I stopped them from bringing their goats near the gudi. But the

village leaders including the panchayat member who are supposed to look

after the whole village don’t listen to me. They still allow their goats to roam

freely. When I ask them they say that, they are using the school grounds. There

is no wall between the school and the shrine.’

The seasons of drought which appeared intermittently added to the vulnerability with

regards to livelihoods, which were already affected due to floods in the region.

- ‘We move from one disaster to another and people are stuck between floods

and drought. Earlier in the sowing season and harvest time people would

come back (from migration) as they would get work here, but now they are not

sure if they should leave and come. If this cycle of floods and drought

continues for another two or three years, no young person would be left in

these villages ’ (NGO worker from Bagalkot).

Being close to the river, drinking water was usually available, however the

accessibility and availability at one’s convenience depended on the availability of

physical infrastructure such as pipe-lines and taps. The thirty six households in the

temporary shelters of Khyada had to depend on three public taps. Water would be

released for three hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. In Thaminala,

in the dalit colony, people did not have taps and relied on public taps, while in the rest

of the community, individual water connections were the norm. In Budihala, there

were no individual tap connections and most lanes had public taps which were close

to the houses of each community.

It was found that the access to agricultural equipment such as irrigation systems and

farm inputs such as improved seeds, fertilizers and pesticides was mediated through

one’s membership in co-operative societies and access to credit from suppliers which

was usually determined by one’s socio-cultural context including caste and financial

clout. None of the dalit families including those who owned over four acres of land


had membership in these societies. A dalit farmer with over four acres of land in

Khyada said,

‘We have to buy everything from the (open) market. For small quantities we

don’t get any price reduction. Some (co-operative) societies sell to us at rates

slightly lower than the market, but they give higher discounts to their

members…. we can never be members in their groups…. They are all rich and

powerful people and are members of (co-operative banks). They won’t even

give us loans, then how will they take us as members. They have their rules

and we follow ours…’

As seen above, the landholding coupled with the social and financial capital of the

household determined if they could enhance the productivity of the land through

additional inputs.

4.4 Financial capital assets

The financial assets formed one of the weak links in the overall asset base of the

communities. As seen in the section on natural capital, the membership of formal

financial institutions including co-operatives was restricted to households with large

landholdings, mostly implicitly rather than through explicit rules, which in turn

affected their financial conditions through access to credit for seeds, fertilisers and

other farm inputs.

Most of the households in the study area did not have bank accounts in any scheduled

bank at the time of the floods. The panchayat president, from Thaminala said,

‘Earlier only those who have got subsidy from the government under different

schemes had opened bank accounts. That was only a few people. Later we

found that many bogus bank accounts had been opened under ‘narega’

(Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act) in the name of our

village people. After the sansthe jana (workers from an NGO) came and gave

information to us about narega, most of the households got a job card and

opened narega accounts.’


However these accounts can only be used for receiving payments for work completed

under MGNREGA. Due to this, all the money earned by households were kept in the

form of cash. They did not have any access to savings facilities. The money was

either carried around by the person or stored in some safe-place in the house.

Box 4.16

Lack of financial inclusion and loss

SM lost forty five thousand rupees (of which thirty thousand was a loan which had

been taken for the marriage of his daughter) during the floods. The money had been

stored in the house. He did not want to carry the amount with him when they fled the

house during the rains, as he expected to come back when it subsided. But his house

was completely destroyed and all household goods washed away including the

money. The marriage was called off and SM has gone back to Mangalore for work.

He has not returned after he went back. He has told the family that he will return only

after he has made enough money for the marriage. The loan had almost been fully

repaid back with an interest of sixty percent per annum.

As seen above, parallel to lack of savings facilities was the lack of access to any

formal credit or loan facilities. Most households, other than those who were members

of co-operative societies, did not have not have access to any formal credit or loan

facilities. The only source of loans for most households was the private money-lender

who visited the village every week to either dispense loans and to collect back the

instalment with interest. The non-reducing interest rates varied between sixty percent

per annum to one hundred and twenty percent per annum depending on the source, the

urgency, one’s credit history and the relationship with the money lender. Suicide due

to indebtedness was also reported from one of the study villages.

Box 4.17

Indebtedness and death

NS committed suicide by consuming poison. His death was declared as natural death

after the family paid money to the doctors as they wanted to avoid any legal hassles.

The officials who knew about the death also turned a blind eye as any farmer’s

suicides would grab media attention and would be followed by a government enquiry.


His wife said, ‘He had a taken a loan of fifty thousand rupees from a person and

twenty thousand from a relative in the village. Both of them used to harass him for the

money. He told them that he would work and repay them back with a year, but they

knew that he couldn’t pay back fully with interest in such a short time. They kept

pressurising him to take loan from Ujjivan or SKS (micro-finance companies) in my

name. But he didn’t want to take a loan in my name. He said that he didn’t want me to

get into trouble if we were not able to pay. He just left one morning saying that he

was going to the temple, and then I heard that he was found dead near the river after

drinking poison……….. I wanted to file a complaint against the two people (who

harassed him for the money)………… But I just followed what everybody said and

didn’t do it. Some people later told me that if the truth about the suicide had been

written in the (death) certificate, we could have asked for compensation.’

Pension was another source of financial capital for old age, destitute widows, persons

with disability and devadasis. The pension ranged from Rs. 400 for the elderly,

destitute widows and devadasis to Rs. 1000 for those with over 75% disability.

However, all those receiving pension complained of huge delays in receiving their

pension, sometimes lasting upto two months.

Box 4.18

Pension and meeting basic needs

HS, has been living in temporary shelter of Khyada since 2007. She is a person with

orthopaedic disability and due to the uneven surfaces outside the temporary shelters

she is not able to move around too much. The family survives on her pension as her

mother works as a coolie (agricultural worker) whenever there are jobs around the

shelter. She does not leave her daughter and go far for work. Her father abandoned

them when she was two years old. Her mother said, ‘sometimes the pension gets

delayed so much and we get two months’ pension together in the third month. The

postman does not come to the temporary shelters. So I have to go and wait at the main

village to meet him and ask him if the money has come…………. he takes 20 to 30

rupees from the amount we get and gives me the remaining amount….. During such

delays (in pension) we even have gone hungry…’


The corruption and payments made to the postman was reported by almost all the

people receiving pension. Another commonly cited problem in receiving pensions

was the tedious procedures involved in getting the pension.

S’s cousin brother who ran around to get his pension sanctioned said,

‘We spent over three thousand rupees to get all the certificates and to pay all

the people in the office to move our file. If we didn’t pay, then we would have

to take him (S) all the time to Badami and they would make us run around.

Still we ran around for three months to complete the process.’

As seen above, the progression of getting certificates to claim pension, to applying for

the pension to getting the pension sanctioned, to finally receiving the pension was a

vivid illustration of corruption and inefficiencies in the systems. The common

response of the officials which were reported by those households was, ‘anyway you

are going to get this money free, why should we do this for you free of cost?’

An officer at the Zilla panchayat office explained the delay. He said,

‘the delay is from the treasury and the department side. We send the files if all

the documents are correct. People think we delay the files. The payment is

also delayed because they don’t release payments on time. The post office

further delays the payments because postmen cannot carry all the money on

the same day. He has a limit (Rs.10,000) for the amount which he can carry.

Sometimes the people are not there as people would have migrated and then

the money order is sent back. The people fight when the postman refuses to

hand over the money to any other person.’

It was seen that none of the three persons in the study area with mental impairments

had received any pension. The government hospital had not issued certificates to any

of them, as they ‘did not know where to get the certificates’ (the mother of a child

with mental impairment).

Remittances by those who had migrated formed another source of financial capital

asset for households from which people had migrated.


Box 4.19

Remittances and survival of families

• …. our house (kitchen) fire is burning only because he (son) sends the

money…. (a 72 year old woman)

• We lost everything in the two floods. We are surviving because of the money

my brother earns in Mangalore (a 19 year old woman).

• …. money sent by brother and son has kept us from starving. If the money

comes late, we have nothing to eat. I can’t go to work as I have two small

children and an ajji (grandmother) who is bedridden (a 26 year old women

whose husband has sent her away with two children aged 3 and 1).

The payment options were very limited for the migrant families, and restricted to

people handing over money to their families either during personal visits to the village

or sending it through friends or family when they went back to the villages. The

payments through banks and other formal money transfer channels had not been

established. Hence it caused lot of uncertainty and fear in the minds of those who had

been left behind in the village, as they had to wait for somebody to come back with

the money to meet their needs. A 66 year old woman, whose son has migrated to

Udipi said,

‘He calls us and tells us that he is going to send money through a friend, and

we go and collect it from their house. But sometimes if nobody comes for two

or three months, it becomes difficult for us. It has happened three of four

times, and each time money comes we are scared when it will come next.

The lack of savings bank accounts have meant that people don’t have access to quick

and secure payment options. Explaining the reasons for low rates of bank accounts, a

sixteen year old girl from Budihala, a student of Pre-University Course (PUC) said,

‘I write the Self Help group (SHG) books for women’s SHG in our village.

They pay me fifty rupees per week. None of the members in the group know

how to write or maintain accounts (her mother is a member of the dalit

women’s SHG). But when they ask me to go to the bank to deposit money, I

refuse. The bank people (Karnataka Vikas Grameen Bank – the only bank in

the vicinity) treat us very badly. Even if we go to withdraw our own money,


they make us run around, wait for long and don’t care for us. Madam (NGO

worker) had asked us to enquire about opening accounts where you don’t need

to have money always in the bank (no-frills account). She told us that

Government had asked all banks to open such accounts for poor people. The

Bank people laughed at us when asked them about it. People are scared to go

and put money in the bank because of this.’

4.5 Physical capital

Among the physical capital assets, the shelter or homes were one of the key assets of

households which were most vulnerable in the context of floods. The random rubble

masonry which was common in the area was particularly prone to damage during

floods as they were most suitable for the severe summers which the area was

accustomed to. With high intensity floods as seen in 2007 and 2009 being a relatively

new phenomenon in the area, the structure of houses which once was an appropriate

practice has become one of the key vulnerabilities in floods. The panchayat president

of Thaminala said,

‘we are used to building these kind of houses (random rubble) for generations.

Everybody knows how to build these houses and make them strong using

jiggery and lime. Our masons can build these houses with a week to ten days.

But nowadays, after the floods, people want to build cement and brick houses,

which is expensive and also very hot. But for safety, they build such houses.’

The study villages ranged from 10 to 16 kms from the main taluk headquarters of

Badami. The infrastructure of the areas is very poor. The condition of roads is very

poor. Most of them have huge potholes and have not been asphalted in a long time.

These are mostly single lane (though double-laning has commenced in some

sections). The former women panchayat member from Budihala said,

‘every year we hear budgets being spent on roads at the panchayat meetings,

but nobody has seen any roads being built. We have been travelling on these

same roads since all our life and we have not seen any improvement. Every

few years, they come and apply some tar, but even before the next rains start,

the roads return back to its original shape.’


The transportation to the village is very poor. The main source of transportation is

“shared autos”, most of which are driven by teens, without driving license or plying

permits. In place of six seats (five passenger and one driver), the autos ply with

twelve to fifteen people. In the absence of any other regular mode of transport, people

are forced to use these autos. In case of health emergencies or complications during

pregnancy and delivery, these autorikshaws tend to be the only source of

transportation to the nearest health centres. Due to lack of poor physical infrastructure

in the region, most of the professional staff prefers to stay either in the taluk

headquarters or the district headquarters, commuting to work on a daily basis. This

has affected the state of even essential services like health services. For instance, the

Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) has been provided residential quarters within the

sub-centre complex. However, it was found in the District Level Household and

Facility Survey (DLHS-3), 2007-08, that less than 50 percent of ANMs reside in Sub-

Centre quarter in Bagalkot district (IIPS, 2010).

Box 4.20

Non-functioning services and people’s lives

A woman with three children was widowed when her husband went to defecate in the

fields at night, and a snake bit him. As the sub-centre was closed, they rushed him to

the PHC, where the doctors were not available as the doctor was staying in Bagalkot.

By the time they reached the district hospital, he had died.

The only public health system service that seemed to be operational was the curative

services. However even that was only partially operational with the lower level of

health services such as the sub-centres being permanently shut or intermittently

operational. The sub-centre used by people in Khyada and Thaminala has been shut

down since the past seven years even though the centre is shown as functional in all

health department records. The sub-centre meant for Budihala was located in such an

inaccessible place that people found it easier to go to private clinics in Hole Alur.

Access to healthcare services was one of the factors influencing health. Even the

timings of the services (9.30 a.m. – 3.30 p.m.) which coincided with the work timings

of people was a hindrance to access, as people would have to lose a day’s wage to

access the government health centres. This led to people utilising the services of


private healthcare providers who designed their services to cater to the requirements

of the people. Most of the health care providers, most of who operated from one room

shops in the towns, were open early in the morning and continued late into the night.

A government doctor who also does private practise in his government provided

residential quarters said, ‘we joke that the only people who work late into the night

are the liquor shop owners and us, doctors. They cause diseases and we heal them.’

Hence, even if the physical infrastructure was there, the operationalisation of the

infrastructure made it ineffective to meet the need.

Sanitation was another area that was lacking in the area. Most of the districts in

Karnataka were poorly developed with respect to toilet facilities, however, Bagalkot

had the least coverage with 13 percent coverage. This was in spite of money being

spent on sanitation since 1986, starting with the Central Rural Sanitation Programme

(CRSP), launched in 1986 with the support of United Nations (UN) and other external

agencies, Nirmal Grama Yojane (NGY, 1993), Integrated Rural Water Supply and

Sanitation programme (IRWSS, 1993) and the Swatcha Grama Yojane (SGY, 2000)

(Veerashekharappa

and Bhide 2009). In a group discussion with the village

development committee (VDC) formed by an NGO working in the area to focus on

development issues with a focus on health and hygiene, one of the members said,

‘we are aware that going to toilet (defecating) on the roads and places near

our house and water bodies is harmful. Even small children know that. But we

don’t know how to change. We keep falling ill, especially the children. But

without toilets what can we do? We want to build toilets, but the houses are so

close that we can’t find land to build toilets.

The president of the VDC who had gone of an exposure tour organised by the NGO

and supported by the Total Sanitation Campaign responded, ‘I don’t agree with that.

Even where we went (for the exposure visit) they did not have place to build toilets,

so they built it on the roof of their houses. If we make up our minds, we can do

something.’


Household and community level assets and the vulnerability context: A summary

This chapter examined the household and community level assets in the study area

under five key areas – human, social, natural, financial and physical. The nature of

key assets of the households in the study villages were analysed in terms of its role in

forming the capital asset base of the household. The key assets as seen in the study

villages are listed below.

Human assets: The occupation of the members of the households formed one of the

key human assets. Caste linked traditional occupations in the village was still the

norm. Migration for construction work opened a window of opportunity for landless

people to seek work elsewhere which helped to tilt the power balance between the

landless households and landholders, but conflicts ensued as a result of this. The

conflicts occurred over landholders claiming upon traditional owner-worker

relationships which were not being honoured by the younger people in the landless

households. Due to low wages, sometimes as low as sixty rupees a day for men and

forty five rupees a day for women, migration for construction work to Mangalore and

Udipi was a much better attraction, where the daily wages ranged between rupees two

hundred and fifty rupees to four hundred rupees a day, based on skill.

While migration provided an avenue for pursuing occupations other than caste-based

ones, those who tried livelihood diversification in their village faced several barriers.

As seen in the study, an agricultural labourer becoming a mason, or a landless person

opening a flour-mill was not easily accepted in the village. The main reason was

linked to control over resources by those traditionally engaged in the trade. They

maintained their control over the trade by calling in the established power structures

in the village such as the village elders and leaders to impose sanctions on people who

defied these norms. Caste-based networks across geographic divisions and positions

were seen to work together in maintaining this status-quo.

As migration provided an avenue for earning income in the settings away from the

village, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA)

provided income-earning options within the village setting. However, illiteracy

coupled with lack of information regarding the scheme led them to be defrauded and

denied of their rightful benefits. As seen in the study, fake bank accounts were opened


in the name of illiterate people and their signatures or thumb impressions obtained by

leading them to believe that they were signing something else. While the importance

of literacy was commonly understood, the lack of job opportunities and its perceived

ineffectiveness in rural life context ensured that education was not given a priority. In

the case of girl children, the situation was even more complex with security issues and

cultural context of getting them married soon compounding the matter.

Social assets: Since most of the social networks and associations in the study villages

centred on land and agro-related activities, it effectively served to marginalise the

landless people from the more powerful networks. The networks were not only based

on land holdings, but were linked to caste structures and kept people out implicitly,

rather than through explicit rules. For instance, none of the dalit families including

those who owned over four acres of land had membership in these societies. The

networks provided access to credit facilities for purchasing agricultural inputs which

was linked to viable farming and stable livelihoods, the credit facilities after the

floods also helped its members to have a relatively better flood recovery process. The

associations also played an important role in political bargaining and in using their

links to get access to government grants and loan waivers. The waivers benefitted the

famers with bigger landholdings who availed of loans from banks but defaulted on

payments, but bypassed the landless, small and marginal farmers as banks did not

entertain small landholders for loans. They had to take loans from private money

lenders at higher rates of interest.

Political affiliations were another important source of social capital. Political contacts

were helpful in securing public work contracts from the panchayat. It also helped in

getting access to information about Government schemes and in benefiting from

them.

The location of houses in the village also led the dominant higher castes to control

access and block the flow of resources to the houses of the Schedule Caste members

which were located towards the far end of the village. The two types of blockades

seen were physical blockade (by building physical structures) and economic blockade

(bahishkaar). In case of flood reliefs, most of the relief by non-governmental agencies


were done in the entrance of the village or in the temple premises which effectively

excluded the participation of the dalit families.

Festivals were a source of togetherness when different communities came together

and yet there were divisions in terms of roles assigned to each community. Conflicts

arose when the higher caste people tried to impose new roles on the lower caste

groups during festivals. Another source of divisions seen were at the time of eating

when food would be eaten separately by different caste groups. A mirroring of this

was also seen even during the floods when all communities were together during their

flight to safety and in the fields where they had escaped, but when it came to ganji

kendras (gruel centres) there was division among the people and different caste

groupings had their own cooking and eating arrangements.

Financial assets: Most of the households in the study area did not have bank accounts

in any scheduled bank at the time of the floods. Due to this, all the money that is

earned by households in kept in the form of cash. They do not have any access to

savings facilities. The money is either carried around by the person or stored in some

safe-place in the house, a lot of which was washed away during the floods. Most

households, other than those who were members of co-operative societies, did not

have not have access to any formal credit or loan facilities. The only source of loans

for most households is the private money-lender who visits the village every week to

either dispense loans and to collect back the instalment with interest. The non-

reducing interest rates vary between sixty percent per annum to one hundred and

twenty percent per annum depending on the source, the urgency, one’s credit history

and the relationship with the money lender. The lack of access to financial institutions

meant that money transfer options were very limited for the migrant families, and

were remittances were made by people handing over money to their families either

during personal visits to the village or sending it through friends or family when they

went back to the villages.

Pension was another source of financial capital for old age, destitute widows, persons

with disability and devadasis. The pension ranged from Rs. 400 for the elderly,

destitute widows and devadasis to Rs. 1000 for those with over 75% disability.

However, all those receiving pension complained of huge delays in receiving their


pension, sometimes lasting upto two months. Corruption in receipt of payments was

reported by almost all the people receiving pension. Another commonly cited problem

in receiving pensions was the tedious procedures involved in getting the pension. In

many of the households of devadasis and people with disability, pension was the main

source of income. This was particularly beneficial for the households in the aftermath

of the floods when all other sources of income such as labour work near the villages

were not available. The cap on pension in each talk and state was a policy level issue

which led to even eligible people not able to receive pension.

Natural assets: Landholding played an important role in maintaining income and

sustenance of households. The disparity in landholdings as seen in the study villages

also played a role in maintaining the imbalance of power between the landless (and

small land-holders) and the bigger land owners. Majority of those with small land-

holdings (less than two acres), stopped cultivation after the floods and worked as

agricultural labourers as they had taken loans for agriculture before the floods. Those

needed to be repaid. Removal of silt and debris from the fields was an expensive

affair which all of them reported they could not afford. Over one-third of these

farmers had given their land on lease to bigger land-holders in the village for a period

of 3-5 years. They would work as agricultural labourers in their own lands and other

lands. Less than two-thirds of those with small land-holding had not done anything in

the fields, or had cleared small portions and were cultivating in the cleared portion.

The ownership of land in itself was an asset which safeguarded against catastrophic

payments (sudden unplanned expenditures beyond the paying capacity of the

household.) One of the major benefits was the ability to sell, lease or mortgage the

land in times of crisis. In the absence of these, the household resorted to jeeta (bonded

labour or migration.

Another asset which had value as an easily saleable asset aiding liquidity was

livestock. However the value of the livestock was determined by the combination of

many factors including the health and build of the livestock and the demand for that

particular livestock in that season. Another important factor was the precipitating

matter for the owner of the livestock and the urgency with which the owner required

the money. Some households with capital who were able to purchase livestock at low


rates in the aftermath of the floods were able to sell them at even double the rates in

about four months time after the floods. The possession of livestock warranted the use

of common lands and access to fodder and grazing pastures, which was controlled by

the dominant caste and village leaders. This led to conflicts in the village.

Crop losses were borne by land-holders, most of whom had small or marginal land

holdings. The loss was harder on them, since, for all the landowners this was the

second loss in three years (the previous one being in 2007) in addition to loss due to

droughts.

Physical assets: Among the physical capital assets, the shelter or homes were one of

the key assets of households which were most vulnerable in the context of floods. The

random rubble masonry which was common in the area was particularly prone to

damage during floods as they were most suitable for the severe summers which the

area was accustomed to. With high intensity floods as seen in 2007 and 2009 being a

relatively new phenomenon in the area, the structure of houses which once was an

appropriate practice has become one of the key vulnerabilities in floods.

The study revealed how a shelter intervention of the Government after the 2007

floods had helped in reducing the vulnerability of physical assets in the subsequent

floods. One of the common problems of households affected by floods, especially

those who had suffered partial shelter damage or shelter loss was that they had not

received temporary shelters. Several households were not given temporary shelters

and were living with other households who had received a temporary shelter. The

infrastructure and condition of access roads to the study villages were very poor. Due

to poor physical infrastructure in the region, most of the professional staff (from

health, child welfare and education departments) preferred to stay either in the taluk

headquarters or the district headquarters, commuting to work on a daily basis leading

to irregular services in the villages.

The possession and dispossession of these assets along with the interaction between

them framed the context in which the vulnerability to floods took place. In turn it also

formed the basis for the recovery of the households from the impact of the floods.

This aspect of recovery is presented in the subsequent chapters.

CHAPTER 4 HOUSEHOLD AND COMMUNITY LEVEL...

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