Hingalganj- What Money Will Not Buy

Hingalganj- What Money Will Not Buy
Prof. Sipra Mukherjee*

Villagers queue up to receive essential relief materials in Santra Para village 

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought the world to its knees. And for the poor of Bengal, the extended lockdown and then the Amphan cyclone have together dealt a very severe blow. But in the wake of the horrendous cyclone, the experience of these teams bringing relief and health care to the villages further down the river from Hingalgunj, speaks of another finding - that another silent epidemic is sweeping through rural Bengal- as silent as the virus and as deadly in the way it saps strength and will. Stress and depression. The medical team that visited Hingalgunj and the remote villages of Rupmari, Kalitala, Chhoto Sahebkhali had gone equipped with the medicines for the usual suspects that plague human beings after a natural disaster: medicines for diarrhoea, fever, wounds, pains, skin diseases. All of these were needed, but the overwhelming need was found to be for anti-depressants.

I had, on first hearing, been taken aback at this overwhelming need for anti-depressants. At the very next moment, the ‘only to be expected’ nature of the situation came home to me. Yet most of us, outsiders all, had been taken unawares in varying degrees. Of course, the very next moment we had all realised the inevitability and naturalness of the situation. The minds and bodies of these people had been put to immense stress over the past 2 months. The sudden lockdown of the country left these marginalised people confronted with an unknowable future. With family members stuck elsewhere, without any source of income, these families were totally unprepared for this extended lockdown. And then came the cyclone and swept away what little they had.

Dr. Kallol Das prescribing medicines during a medical camp at Bainara village, Rupmari

The uncertainty of the sudden lockdown that they had no means of controlling, and then the violence of the cyclone. In the face of an unknown and unknowable future, the mind baulks, the stress is unmanageable. Why, then, the surprise? Why is it that ‘depression’, ‘stress’ are words that we associate in our minds with urban life? Is there really any truth in the belief that these are urban problems, related to lifestyle issues which the rich can afford to have? Or is the reality that depression and stress are issues that only the rich can afford to treat?

There is a certain loss of agency connected with depression and stress. The rationale usually believed to lie behind urban depression is a loss of power, a sensing of vulnerability that the individual cannot cope with, - and hence a feeling of hopelessness and futility that leads to depression. It is clear from the first-hand experience of my friends who are working on the ground, however, that this is a myth.

But the point of my writing today is not just that I have realised the falseness of an earlier subconscious belief in urban depression. It is, rather, the realisation that the very narratives generally used for the marginalised are false. The terms that are used to describe the poor: ‘vulnerable’, ‘weak’, ‘marginalised’, ‘powerless’,- are all terms coined from the perspective of the mainstream, the more powerful sections of society. While they all point to some reality and truth, these words all lead us to think about this section in one way: as victims. A victim by definition is one without any agency: passive, only present at the receiving end to absorb whatever pain or pleasure is meted out to them. For victims, it follows then, the possibility of depression is erased. For how can a person who is already without agency and power lose what s/he did not have in the first place?

There is obviously a falseness in this assumption of passivity and victimhood. For if the poor villagers of these villages believed themselves anyway to be always on the brink of destruction and extinction, they would not have been stressed or felt at a loss in the current scenario. It is this extreme situation that has made them feel a loss of agency. There must have been, consequently, an agency they did have. And in the past weeks, post the unplanned lockdown, the thousands of migrant workers have shown that agency when they took the conscious, superhuman, indeed heroic decision to walk home. It is, indeed, stupid of the mainstream to think of the poor as not having agency. When a large part of their lives is lived forsaken by law, basic facilities, and all that citizenship promises us, the marginalised could not have continued to live and work if they did not feel any agency. It is not possible to live in the absence of agency. We are overtaken by depression.

Villagers of Santra Para, Chhoto Shabekhali, comes to meet the volunteers of Kanaknagar SD Institution on bank of river Kalindi

The power of the economically poor is undoubtedly less than the power of the economically rich in the given scenario, but there is power. In fact, as many have argued in this never-before-seen locked down situation, if the rural belt of India decides to stay within its own periphery, and migrant workers decide to stay back in their homes, it is the allegedly powerful who will be left without food, houses and roads. Life will be difficult for the economically poor, but life will be impossible for the economically rich. For money will not buy.

It is in this context that Pulak Roy Chowdhury’s work becomes significant. Pulak, who is spearheading the Hingalgunj effort, joined Kanaknagar S. D. Institution school at Hingagunj in 2014. He has been working here for the last six years, devoting mind and body and soul to the holistic development of his students and their space. With the lockdown, however, Pulak has found his workload and area increased manifold- and has had to shift his priorities- for it is the very basic need of food and now, post-Amphan,- the needs of food, shelter and health that need addressing. Prior to the relief, immediately post-Amphan, Pulak and his friend Simanto, motivated their students and carried out surveys in the affected villages. What were their needs? What precise difficulties were being faced by them? This was unlike the usual narratives that treat the villager as passive, victimised and without agency, to heap relief upon, to not know what is best for him/ her, to be at the receiving end of the more powerful, the more knowledgeable city-dwellers. Of the huge team that Pulak is attempting to get together, I know of only the few who have reached there with Anindya: the team of doctors led by Dr Kallol (along with Dr. Ashish Kundu and Dr. Suvashish Mukherjee) and the team made up of the dynamic Subrata, Rivusoumya, Sourav, Tapas, Ribhu, Diptesh, and Ananda . Along with the 'Volunteer Army' of Kanaknagar SD Institution, in the forefront of which are Prabir, Suman, Paltan, Biplab and Aniruddha; they have completed two trips, and are gearing up for the 3rd trip this coming Sunday (14th June 2020). As Anindya wrote in the first blog here, almost with foresight: this will not be a one-time effort. Arriving with relief and doctors, Pulak’s connection with Anindya has been one of those fortunate coincidences that life sometimes rewards us with.


Standing at a historical juncture as we are now, it is imperative that we recognise the agency that those we call the ‘marginalised’ and ‘vulnerable' possess. If we see them as victims, we are myopic. For if victims, then the idea of heroes becomes distant, and all our food-growers, house-makers and city-builders are viewed as victims, will-be martyrs, with neither significant action nor direction. Nothing can be further from the truth.

Sri Pulak Roychowdhury engaged in conversation with villagers of Amberia

*Sipra Mukherjee is a Professor at the Department of English, West Bengal State University and one of key members of the Hingalganj initiative.