After two months of silence, the clickety-clack of looms was back in Bajardiha, but it no longer reverberated through the neighbourhood. In...
After two months of silence, the clickety-clack of looms was back in Bajardiha, but it no longer reverberated through the neighbourhood. Instead, in the first week of June, the sound emerged only from a few homes in this sprawling weavers locality in Varanasi.
“Maan lijiye, if there are 5,000 looms,” said Mohammad Ramzan, standing in a clearing where children played with marbles and young men fiddled with their phones, “then only about 30 are working.”
“Jitna ladka hai din bhar baithe rehte hai. All the boys spend all their time sitting around,” said the 50-year-old, waving his hand around. “There is no work, no trade.”
Had the raees log, the wealthy members of the community, not distributed food through the lockdown, people would have starved, a chorus of voices rose as a small group gathered in the clearing. “Prashashan se koi vyavastha nahi. No help from the administration.”
A faint glimmer of hope emerged in early May. Application forms were distributed in Bajardiha, with the promise that weavers would get cash assistance under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana, the Central government’s relief package announced on March 24. About 350 people filled the form in Bajardiha, said the men.
A few days later, a list circulated with the names, addresses,...
