What killed Jagdish Chouhan?

NUAPADA: On paper, Jagdish Chouhan died of burn injuries. Truth is, the Dalit man was failed by a bureaucratic insensitivity that has shackled the government system into a painful tardiness. All that the physically challenged spice-seller from Nuapada district’s Jonk police limits wanted was to sell a part of the family land so that he could pay off the loans - one for his sister’s wedding and another, for a moped.

A resident of Kalyanpur village in Amsena gram panchayat, Jagdish used to cycle to nearby villages to sell spices and groceries for a living. His elder sibling Prem Shankar and younger brother Bhavanlal are daily wage earners.

Since the 37-year-old had a condition in one of his legs that made walking difficult, he could not work much. He would take out his bi-cycle 3-4 times a week to sell spices that earned him barely about Rs 200-300 a day which was never enough to make ends meet for the four-member family. His two sons study in Class IX and Class V in the village school. Jagdish needed money for his treatment. Besides, the brothers had married off their sister for which he had taken a loan.

In late 2021, the Chouhan brothers decided to sell a chunk of 3.12-acre land, the only landed property belonging to their father Atmaram Harijan. As agreed among the siblings, Jagdish applied for permission to sell off 16 decimals of the land. But the application took months to travel between two offices, barely 20 metres apart, in Nuapada.

On January 15 last year, Jagdish filed an application with the sub-collector’s office for permission under section 22 of Odisha Land Reforms (OLR) Act, 1960, say the family members. He was hopeful when his plea was finally moved to the sub-collector on March 23, almost two months later.

However, it took another two months before any further movement. On June 9, the sub-collector ordered tehsildar Debendra Rout to verification of his application. The sub-collector and tehsildar office in Nuapada is located 20 metres from each other. The nine months of administrative inertia that followed killed all his hope - and in the end, him too.

After the sub-collector ordered verification, there was no progress on Jagdish’s application. He had also taken a group loan of Rs 80,000 in two phases to marry off the sister. As time passed, the interest burden kept growing.

The crest-fallen family members reveal Jagdish decided to buy a Luna hoping that it would help him travel farther and earn a little extra so that he would be able to pay off the loans. With savings of Rs 10,000 left, he made a down payment for the moped and took another loan of Rs 70,000 from a private finance company in November. He was supposed to pay Rs 2,600 as EMI but could only manage to pay only the first instalment. The next three EMIs defaulted.

“Jagdish had taken the entire loan for our sister’s wedding. This apart, he also had a few other loans which we wanted to clear by selling off the land at the earliest. He ran to the revenue offices several times in the last year but would come back disappointed every time. I too have been there a few times myself but received the same cold response every time,” Prem Shankar recounts.

A day after he set himself on fire before the tehsildar's office, Jagdish succumbed to his injuries on Friday. Collector Hemakanta Say acted swiftly and placed tehsildar Debendra Rout under suspension. While the family has lodged a complaint against the tehsildar, the memorandum submitted by District Bar Association and District Civil Bar Association alleged Jagdish was subjected to humiliation and ill-treatment by the tehsildar as well as the two additional tehsildars.

After the death of the sole bread-winner of the family, Jagdish’s wife Preeti and their two minor sons Lokesh and Tushar now stare at uncertainty.“He had taken a loan for Luna but could not pay the EMI beyond one month. Though the finance company has not troubled us yet, the liability is now on us. However, he had managed to repay the previous loan of around Rs 30,000. I don’t know how I will manage now,” Preeti says.

Though the bar association has demanded a job for her the family is less hopeful since she is illiterate.
Social activist of Nuapada Rabindra Mangaraj said every year, over 150 such applications of SC/ST members are received but hardly half of them are resolved. “Jagdish’s application was supposed to be settled within 90 days,” he said.