2012-11-27 : Hamara Manch Update on Ram Sharan’s Death
(Note: Some names removed. Related pages: Death of Shri Ram Saran Rai.)
HM got to know that the family of Ram Sharan arrived on 25th November sometime late in the evening. One of our volunteers went to meet them in the night itself and invited them for a meeting on Monday (26th) on the issue. The volunteer (a worker friend who has been unfairly dismissed from IITK and is now working in a factory in the city) offered to come and pick up the family and get them to the meeting site. But neither did anyone get in touch with the HM volunteer nor did anyone turn up for the meeting. Meanwhile the petty contractor (who had got Ram Sharan and other workers from Mansahi, Katihar) did get in touch with one of us to give us an update (on 26thmorning). Late in the evening on the 26th itself we got to know that the petty contractor had left the city, and the family members are apprehensive that he may have struck a deal with the authorities and have left them high and dry. We called up the petty contractor on his mobile and he told us that he had to leave on some urgent business in his village but he has left behind several of his men to take care of affairs here. Given these conflicting views HM volunteers decided to go and investigate ourselves.
Conversation with Family
We reached the site around 4.30 pm on 27th November. We found a few men hanging around outside the partly made small building where Ram Sharan and co-workers were residing; some of them we knew from our earlier visits. We were told that the wife and children have arrived along with a cousin brother of the wife. One of us (a female) went inside to meet the wife. The lady in question looked about 4 feet tall, extremely emaciated and could barely walk straight. She was barefoot and looked extremely dishevelled and listless. Her clothes were filthy and in tatters and she seemed to have not had a bath in ages. Two toddlers were with her, a girl about 4, and a boy in her arms who seemed about two. Both the children looked malnourished, had no warm clothes (the temperatures have really dipped in Kanpur) and also were awfully filthy. The volunteer tried to build up a conversation with the woman but could not understand much, she seems to have a speech problem which probably has been compounded given the trauma she was in at the moment. We called out for her brother to help and this is what we made out about the family:
The wife’s name was Suntala and the children’s names were Mayawati and Ajay.
Suntala is the second wife of Ram Sharan, whose first wife died childless. Suntala has been married for around nine years, she lost her firstborn, a son, a few years back.
Suntala lives in the village with her mother, does not have any close relatives and does not seem to have any contact with her in-laws either. They do not have any land and Ram Sharan was the only source of income.
They left the village soon after the cremation of Ram Sharan and did not carry any change clothes or warm clothes. Therefore they had not had a bath probably since the day Ram Sharan died.
Sunatala is expecting a third child.
Since they had come here they have not moved out of the room, have not met anyone outside the (4-5) petty contractor’s men, but more importantly no one has bothered to come and meet them, to reassure them in the aftermath of this terrible tragedy. No one from the Institute or the main contractor M/s Ramki.
The only thing we could gather from Suntala’s incoherent speech and tears is that she is extremely uncertain about her fate and the future of her children including the unborn.
When we asked the petty contractor’s men why they had not ensured that Suntala and her children had clothes and a bath, first they tried to tell that this was a ritual for widows. When Suntala’s brother (Ranjan) contradicted this, the man said that what could they do, she was after all a woman and they could not interfere in her affairs. When we persisted he told that how they had tried to convince Ram Sharan’s wife, that since ‘sahab log’ would come to meet her she should make herself more presentable, but she did not comply. And finally he assured that when the family would be taken to meet the ‘bade sahab’ they would be cleaned up and made presentable! We had to shut up after that.
Later in the evening we bought two sets of clothes and warm clothes for the family and tried to impress upon Suntala that she and her children should freshen up and change or they might fall ill.
Conversation with Co-workers/contractor’s men
Of the co-workers present were two who were there at the site when Ram Sharan died, they were the first ones to reach the body and pick him up. They confirmed that Ram Sharan died almost immediately, and in the exact manner as we have described in the HM report. From the others present (petty contractor’s men) we learnt that there has been a meeting in the Institute regarding this case where several of Ramki’s officials as well as an entourage of IWD officials were present. It appears that M/s Ramki even tried to bribe some workers to lie about the incident but it seems that the petty contractor took a firm stand and called off their bluff. At the moment the status is that the apparently there were some errors in the papers submitted and Ram Sharan’s father was coming in the next two days with the correct papers, only then the compensation procedures would move further. Meanwhile the contractor gave 1000/ for eight people (three co-workers whom sub contractor has left behind, wife two children and two relatives of wife) to fend for themselves for two days. It seems he will give some more money tomorrow.
This interaction left us with several important questions:
· The Late Ram Sharan was working for the Institute when he died under such tragic circumstances. Isn’t it the Institute’s responsibility to treat the family with some minimum dignity and take care of their stay till their compensation is sorted out. This is probably the minimum the Institute can do to make up for the irreparable loss, which was probably due to the negligence in safety measures.
Then why is it that no one has bothered to meet and reassure the family?
· Why is the family constituting of a recently widowed person and fatherless children left to fend for themselves (with neither proper clothes, nor food, nor a place to stay) in an alien place where they have no social support?