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Sold for Rs 40, Banita cries for justice

Bibhuti Mishra

1985. Kalahandi made the headlines for the first time.

Driven by hunger and starvation, a woman, Phanus Punji had sold off her 14-year-old sister-in-law Banita for just Rs 40!

It shocked the country and then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and his wife Sonia rushed to the remote, backward village Amalapali in Khariar block in Kalahandi.

Fourteen years have passed and Banita lies untraced in the debris of people's memories. Today, at 28, she is a pitiable victim of acute poverty!

Perhaps that is why Banita gets worked up at the sight of a car. Must be a leader or a journalist; for either she has no sympathy. "Why have you come again? To take my photos? What do you want to see? My sorrows? My poverty? My empty stomach? My blind 'husband' and my (five) hungry children?" she shouts.

Fourteen years of despair and disappointment have changed Banita from a meek and mild teenager to a vocal woman!

In 1985, she was sold off to Pati Poda for Rs 40. His blind son Bidyadhar Poda is Banita's 'husband'. "There has been no marriage. I have just lived with him. My daughter is grown up now. If I get some money to marry her off, I shall also get married at the venue," says Banita who is facing a social boycott of sorts in the village as she is not Bidyadhar's legally wedded wife!

The eldest child is 10 while the youngest is a few months old.

Why did not she go in for family planning? "My husband forbade me from going in for an operation. He would have left me if I had defied him," says Banita.

Banita is the sole breadwinner for her family of eight including her widowed mother-in-law. She works as a cook in the anganwadi centre at Mohara, eight kilometres from her village Badatunda. "I walk to work every day. Some days we eat and some other days we sleep on an empty stomach. The government has done nothing for me. I wanted to be transferred to the anganwadi centre in my village. But nobody pays any heed to my request," Banita reveals without any emotion.

It is obvious that all her hopes and tears have dried up. Her salary at the anganwadi is Rs 250! And this she gets once in five/ six months. Even the grocer refuses to give her credit.

Has Phanus Punji been more lucky?

"No way," says Phanus who still lives in Amalapali, "I have got a job in the anganwadi in my village and am staying in a house under Indira Awas yojana. That's all I got from the government."

However, Banita has not been blessed with even such mercies.

Her eldest daughter Kalavati seems to have inherited her bad luck. She looks after cattle, and gets a few kilograms of rice as compensation! But she wants to work so that she could feed her parents, her brothers and sisters. But who would give her work when her mother herself depends on charity?

"We will go to Raipur. We cannot live like this anymore," says the blind Bidyadhar.

Banita is unusually calm; obviously a storm is brewing inside her and soon enough comes the outburst. "I have became a showpiece; they published my photos and forgot that I am a human being needing food to live! That is why we don't meet anyone. Yes, we will go away"

Frustration is palpable and gloom is in the air.

The original cry of Kalahandi remains unheard still.

Chances are that the next time somebody goes to meet her, a year or two later, Banita would still be there in that village, forsaken by all, leading a life where even dreams are denied!

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