Cards, ludo and low wages: Tales from Maharashtra’s hinterland

The women are nowhere to be seen during the day. They rise early, finish the housework and board pickup vans to work as farmhands in nearby villages. They pluck chillies and cotton, harvest wheat and chickpeas, or plant paddy saplings, depending on the season. The work is backbreaking but the pay is low—between ₹150-200 per day. The men are not interested. They would rather work at construction sites, where the wages are higher—upwards of ₹300 per day. But those jobs are hard to come by.

The men of Jiwnapur joke about themselves, to cover the humiliation of not being able to provide for their families: “While the women are out working, we play cards and ludo.” The unemployment crisis in Jiwnapur is heightened by the fact that the villagers lost their land to a hydroelectric project. They relocated in 2011 after their farms and homes were submerged.

“There are over a hundred graduates in this village but not even 20 have a regular job,” said Akash Ramesh Narule, 25, who is a member of the village gram panchayat, the local governing body elected by residents. Pressed for funds, Narule did not finish his graduate degree and dropped out mid-way.

The predicament of the educated is stark. For instance, Shubham Khobragade, 29, who failed to find a job despite completing a master’s degree in commerce, offers private tuition to school students. He earns less than ₹5,000 per month. Or a little over ₹150 per day—lower than what unskilled workers receive under the government’s rural employment guarantee scheme ( ₹297 per day). For the unemployed youth, education appears to be a handicap—they hesitate to take up menial work after spending years pursuing a degree.

“Ten to twelve lakh students apply when just a few thousand government job openings are announced. It’s a lottery,” Khobragade laments. To be sure, the jobs crisis is not limited to rural Maharashtra. A recent report by the International Labour Organization showed that 29% of graduates in India are without a job—the extent of unemployment among educated youth is nine times higher than among those who cannot read or write (3.4%).

Shifts and splits

The village of 2,500 residents will vote on 19 April, in the first phase of the 42-day-long seven-phase general elections, voting for which ends on 1 June. Results will be announced on 4 June. Part of Ramtek parliamentary constituency in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region, much is at stake for the voters in India’s richest state. An unemployment crisis among educated youth coupled with a hit to farm incomes—gaps flagged by India’s multi-party opposition alliance—will square off with welfare schemes and the nationalist-religious pitch of incumbent PM Narendra Modi. But these are not the only issues for a voter to mull over.

In Maharashtra, the voter is also puzzled by splits in regional parties and a redrawing of alliances. There are now two Shiv Senas—one led by chief minister Eknath Shinde and the other helmed by former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, whose government was toppled by a split in the party in June 2022. There are two variants of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)—one led by the formidable Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar, who served as the state chief minister for four terms, and the other by his nephew and current deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar.

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Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is contesting with the Shiv Sena-Shinde and NCP-Ajit Pawar faction as allies. On the opposition side, the Indian National Congress has allied with the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) and NCP-Sharad Pawar, as part of the wider INDIA alliance. INDIA, a coalition of over 40 political parties, is an acronym for Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance.

Local candidates switching parties have added to the confusion. For instance, in Ramtek (a scheduled caste reserved constituency), the candidate for the incumbent National Democratic Alliance (led by Modi’s BJP) is Raju Devnath Parwe, a member of the state assembly who left the Congress in March after being denied a ticket and joined the Shiv Sena-Shinde faction. Parwe faces Raju Barve from the Congress, who is the husband of the original nominee, Rashmi Barve, whose candidature was cancelled after her caste certificate was declared invalid by the election authorities. In the last general election in 2019, the seat was won by the BJP-Shiv Sena (undivided) alliance.

Earlier this month, Mint spoke to rural voters from the Ramtek and Wardha parliamentary constituencies. Other than the anger around unemployment, farmers complained of low crop prices and repeated losses due to disease, pests, and unfavourable weather. Women spoke of high food and fuel prices, and the rising cost of private schooling.

In Maharashtra, the voter is puzzled by splits in regional parties and a redrawing of alliances. There are now two Shiv Senas and two variants of the Nationalist Congress Party.

“What is the point of electing a government if they cannot provide us with clean drinking water and affordable education,” asked Nita Bhagwan Mishra, member of a newly formed women’s self-help group in Mandhal, a short distance away from Jiwnapur village. Her frustration stems from the fact that she purchases drinking water, paying ₹15 for a 20 litre can, every day. Mishra’s daughter goes to a private school 50km away, for which she spends ₹70,000 in a year. It also costs the family a minor fortune, ₹2.5 lakh every year, to cover the fees for a bachelor of technology course for a teenage son.

While the disenchantment among educated youth and farmers has dented PM Modi’s popularity in rural Maharashtra, it remains to be seen whether it will alter his party’s fortunes nationally. In the villages of Vidarbha, the elderly and the poorest, beneficiaries of free food, pension, and housing schemes, appear to be rooting for Modi.

For now, Maharashtra, which elects 48 parliamentarians, second only to Uttar Pradesh (80) among all the states and union territories—is a critical battleground. In the last general elections held in 2019, the Modi-led National Democratic Alliance won 41 of those 48 seats. That year, the BJP won 23 of the 25 seats it contested, with the rest coming from its ally, the undivided Shiv Sena.

Voter as a ‘beneficiary’

“You cannot change a country as large as India in just ten years. Modi deserves another five-year term,” said 40-year-old Anil Kukudkar, who works as a collection agent for a local cooperative bank. He is also a booth-level worker of the BJP. “Our PM has increased India’s stature globally. He has resolved long-pending issues by revoking Article 370 (which granted a special autonomous status to Jammu and Kashmir) and constructing the Ram temple at Ayodhya.”

Being a collection agent, Kukudkar is aware of the precarious financial situation of most families due to low wages, rising expenses and lack of jobs. The savings he collects every month from nearby villages have halved for most families, compared to the pre-covid years (2020 and earlier). “It is true that inflation and unemployment are hurting…but these will be solved by Modi ji in his next term,” he added.

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Kickstarting the Maharashtra campaign on Monday at a public rally in Vidarbha’s Chandrapur, Modi reminded the electorate of his signature schemes—rural housing for 40 million families, free cooking gas connections for 100 million families, free foodgrains for 800 million citizens, a ₹5 lakh annual health insurance cover for 500 million individuals, and direct cash transfers to 110 million farmers. The BJP is expecting to reap rich electoral dividends from these initiatives, as the welfare outreach covers a significant portion of the country’s 970 million eligible voters.

“The poor and backward have benefited because of your vote,” Modi told the gathering. He blamed the Congress for not attending the Ram Mandir inaugural ceremony held in January.

The Congress, to counter Modi’s welfare pitch, has offered five guarantees in its manifesto: apprenticeship and jobs for the youth, an annual cash transfer of ₹1 lakh to a woman member of every poor family, a loan waiver, legal status for the minimum support prices (MSP) offered to farmers, a national minimum wage of ₹400 per day, and a nationwide caste census to ensure social and economic equity.

The BJP is yet to release its election manifesto.

Kickstarting the Maharashtra campaign on Monday at a public rally in Vidarbha’s Chandrapur, Modi reminded the electorate of his signature schemes.

Voting choices are often determined by factors like national pride and religion, not just economic realities like lack of jobs or stress in incomes, said Sanjay Kumar, political analyst and co-director of Lokniti-CSDS which tracks public opinion during and between elections. “In Maharashtra, the NDA alliance is unlikely to repeat its 2019 performance because BJP is likely to contest fewer seats. Its allies also appear to be weaker and bickering with each other.”

A sense of unease

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An hour and a half away from Nagpur, at Rotha village in Wardha district, a motley crowd of elderly, women and farmers had gathered at the local temple. The voice of Amol Thakre, a farmer in his late-thirties, thundered over the rest. Thakre narrated in detail how in late January, after running around for days to sell his cotton crop to government agencies at the MSP, he set a few quintals on fire in a show of protest. Cotton yields fell by half from the year before due to pest attacks and unseasonal rains.

“The elected member of parliament from the BJP representing Wardha (who won consecutive terms in 2014 and 2019) never cared to solve our problems. Farmers do not need a cash dole of ₹500 per month ( ₹6,000 per year under the PM-Kisan scheme to every farmer, launched ahead of the 2019 general elections), which is too little to cover the rising cost of farming. Instead, the government should ensure a fair price and compensate farmers for crop losses,” Thakre said.

The BJP-led NDA alliance has targeted winning more than 400 of the 543 parliamentary seats in the Lok Sabha—a feat achieved only once in India’s history.

Next to the village temple, 51-year-old Praveen Bidkar runs a small shop selling farm inputs. He said the BJP is unlikely to repeat its 2019 performance in Maharashtra. “Farmers are very upset…and this target of winning 400 plus seats has created a sense of unease, even among the less educated. People are wary of a government that may function like a hukumshahi (autocracy).”

The BJP-led NDA alliance has targeted winning more than 400 of the 543 parliamentary seats in the Lok Sabha—a feat achieved only once in India’s history. The Congress won 414 seats in the 1984 general elections, riding a sympathy wave following the assassination of then PM Indira Gandhi.

‘Super warriors’

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In the villages of Vidarbha, the mood is rather sombre. There is no palpable excitement around the upcoming elections. A certain fatigue is in the air. On a hot April afternoon in Wardha district, Dorli, a remote village with a population of less than 400, wore a deserted look. Back in 2005, Dorli, along with a few others had put entire villages and farmlands up for sale, in a unique protest to draw attention to the region’s acute farm distress and soaring debts. The protest prompted then PM Manmohan Singh to fly down to Wardha to meet farmers. Subsequently, the government announced a loan waiver and a steep increase in crop support prices.

“We have lost hope…the present government keeps talking about vikas (development) but look at our state. We are barely able to manage household expenses. From fuel for tractors, to cooking gas, everything is expensive except what we grow for a living (cotton and soybean),” said Dharampal, 63, former sarpanch (village head) of Dorli.

32-year-old Alka Gaike, a farm widow from Dorli and mother of two young children, whose husband committed suicide in 2020, said she does not expect much from political leaders. “Their faces keep popping up on my mobile phone…I had to work hard on a small plot of land to repay the debt my husband left me with. No government helped me with a penny,” she said.

Swapnil Raut, a BJP functionary in charge of 29 booths (18,000 votes) in Ramtek, is hoping to counter the angst among voters through continuous engagement with youth and women. The ‘super warriors’ (dedicated workers) of the party have been working for six months on every voter in every village. “It may be tough for us in the state elections (to be held later this year). But this election is all about Modi ji.”

But not everyone will fall in line. “There are more than a hundred graduates in our village who cannot get married because they do not have jobs and do not own large plots of farmland,” said 32-year-old Suraj Shankar from Agra village in Nagpur district, who is a marginal farmer dependent on casual day jobs.

Shankar holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and is not yet married. And he doesn’t see that happening anytime soon: “I think twice before buying a bottle of hair oil, on which the government levies 18% GST (goods and services tax). How can I afford to marry and raise a family?”