Village, where Mamata Banerjee ate fried ant eggs, still awaits a facelift

TMC Chief Mamata Banerjee has referred to her visit to the village and said people survived on ant eggs during the Left regime, but locals say there has been no progress despite her being in power.

Nirmal Sabar remembers the day, more than two decades ago, when the young, firebrand Mamata Banerjee came to his village on a January morning.

A non functional tank in the village. (Koushik Dutta/HT Photo)

Mamata Banerjee, who was then a Congress lawmaker from South Kolkata and the chief of its youth wing in Bengal, stopped over at Joram, an impoverished village in West Bengal’s Jhargram, during a padayatra on January 14, 1994.

She sat under a tamarind tree to speak to the locals and even shared a plate of fried ant eggs, a staple food for the local tribal population. The hardship of their lives, especially the malnourished bodies and hands swollen with ant bites, left an impression and she wrote about it in her first book of essays, Upolobdhi (Achievements), a year later.

Trinamool Congress Chief Mamata Banerjee has repeatedly referred to her visit to the village and cited how people survived on ant eggs during the Left regime. Since then, she has not only achieved her dream of sweeping out the Left Front government from West Bengal but is now hoping to contribute to unseating Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

However, locals say the chief minister has never returned to Joram, going back on a promise she made while leaving after distributing saris among some local women. And Joram continues to suffer administrative apathy.

“I still remember what I told her when she stopped by our village. We are happy that she still remembers her visit. We hoped that our village will get a facelift once she came to power but that, unfortunately, has not happened yet,” Nirmal Sabar, now in his early 70s, said.

One has to walk for a couple of kilometres on dirt tracks to reach the village, close to Jharkhand border and about 180km west to the state capital of Kolkata, surrounded by forests.

Electricity did reach one part of Joram and primary school buildings were upgraded but the residents, around 300 of tribal Sabars and Mahatos from the other backward class community, continue to defecate in the open as the houses do not have toilets and still collect ant eggs to eat.

“There is one deep tubewell in the village that remains non-functional most of the time. We drink water from wells,” Deep Mahato, a villager, said.

The villagers grow only one crop a year due to lack of irrigation facilities. There are four overhead water tanks in the village but they are not functional since there is no electricity to pump water in them from below the ground. The reservoirs were made two years ago but the wells from which water would be drawn have not been bored.

For basic medical treatment, its residents still need to travel 15km to Belpahari where the block primary health centre is located. The nearest junior high school is about six kilometres away.

“People depend on collecting saal and tendu leaves, ant eggs and mohua flowers (which are used to prepare a local brew). However, middlemen take away a large share of the collected forest produces due to the absence of proper trade channels,” said local resident Laxmikanta Sabar.

Between 1999 and 2012-13, Joram also became a stronghold of the Maoist rebels.

Local Congress leader Subrata Bhattacharya and former CPI(M) MP Pulin Bihari Baskey criticised Banerjee for capitalising on the impoverished lives of the people of Joram and doing nothing for them in return.

“From one rally to another she kept telling people that she saw how people in Left regime survived on ant eggs. Why didn’t she pay a visit to see how they are living in her regime?” asked Bhattacharya.

“The chief minister had a moral responsibility to ensure the development of Joram which she failed to do,” Sukhamay Satpathi, BJP leader of Jhargram district, said.

Trinamool Congress has denied the charge of neglecting the village.

“Development took place at Joram only after Banerjee assumed charge. The road is being constructed and some people have got houses under government schemes. They will also get drinking and irrigation water soon,” said local TMC legislator Khagendranath Hembram.