It's the lunch break at the government school in Bibipur village in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
As soon as the bell goes off, hundreds of children run out into the ground to eat and to play.
Dozens of them swarm like bees in front of the kitchen where their meal is being prepared.
According to government rules, all children in state-run schools should be given a free midday meal.
An hour later, the children have gone back into their classes, hungry.
"We got the food supplies late today, that's why it's taking us longer," explains their teacher, Anirudh Singh.
Complaints
The midday meal scheme at this school has been in the news in the recent months for all the wrong reasons.
In December, a dalit (low-caste Hindu or so-called untouchable) woman was appointed to work in the school as a cook.
Phool Kumari fitted the bill perfectly, as the job was reserved for a dalit and a widow.
But when Phool Kumari began cooking, many children refused to eat lunch.
"There were lots of complaints about her cooking. The children said her food was burnt, it was tasteless. We tried to explain to the children, we told them that she will improve. But we had to give up, we couldn't force them to eat," says Singh.
Less than a week after the students' protest began, Phool Kumari was sacked.
An angry and bitter Phool Kumari says the criticism against her cooking is unfair.
In Indian villages, girls begin cooking as soon as they turn 11 or 12. Phool Kumari is nearly 50 and she says it's absurd to suggest that she can't cook.
Reports from the village suggested it was not simply a matter of taste – most students who boycotted Phool Kumari's cooking were from the higher castes, who have for centuries shunned the dalits.
Polluting
And Phool Kumari belongs to that group of nearly 240 million Indians who have been traditionally kept out of the Hindu caste system.
Mostly considered unworthy of touch by the higher castes, some even consider their shadow to be polluting.
And caste barriers may not be that evident in the cities today but they are an everyday reality in rural India.
Officially, the school authorities and the children deny that caste was a consideration in boycotting Phool Kumari's food.
At Singh's prompting, some dalit children said they too boycotted Phool Kumari's cooking.
"She was very unhygienic. She burnt the rice and the lentils had no salt. And she served rice with her bare hands," says 13-year-old Nirmala Gautam.
But many of the children tell me they have little interaction or connection with the dalit households in the village.
On the periphery of Bibipur is the Harijan basti (or the dalit colony) where Phool Kumari lives.
"Only the lower caste children ate my food. The higher-caste children said they would not eat the food I had cooked. They said that to my face."
She says the children had been coached by the school teachers, who belong to the Rajput or the warrior caste, considered fairly high up in the caste hierarchy.
'Threatened'
Many of her dalit neighbours corroborate her statement. "My daughters Subhashni and Roshni study in the same school. They said their teacher Anirudh Singh had told them not to eat the food cooked by Phool Kumari. He told them that if they ate, they would be beaten up," says Prem Kumari, a neighbour of Phool Kumari.
"My daughters ate on days Singh was absent, but they would not eat when he was there," she says.
Singh denies all the charges. In his defence, he says Phool Kumari has been replaced by another dalit woman, Bitola.
I spend half a day at the school, watching the midday meal being prepared by the school's main cook, Kalavati.
Bitola helps clean the rice, brings in water for cooking. But at no time does she enter the kitchen. Neither does she serve the food.
Phool Kumari says she has been threatened by the members of the upper castes. "They said they would gag me and kill me if I went back to school," she says.
Once the story broke, hordes of media and officials descended on Bibipur.
In January, India's Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Meira Kumar shot off a letter to the state government expressing concern.
'Poor performance'
The matter assumed extra sensitivity since the state government is headed by Chief Minister Mayawati who herself is a dalit.
But after an inquiry, the state administration upheld the decision to sack Phool Kumari.
Says senior government official Sailesh Krishna, "Phool Kumari was removed on the basis of her performance, caste was not an issue here."
At the Harijan basti, Phool Kumari and her neighbours are livid at the explanation.
"To stay in power Mayawati is wooing the upper-castes. She doesn't care about us. She wants our vote, but she's not bothered about us," says Phool Kumari.
"But I'm going to carry on fighting. Even if they kill me, I won't give up," she says.
That Mayawati government is not standing up for dalit rights may seem odd but Phool Kumari and her neighbours insist the issue is dictated by political considerations.
Although high-caste, the school management, including teacher Anirudh Singh, support the chief minister's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
The head of the village council Ram Babu Chaurasia – who backed Phool Kumari for the job – is a supporter of the opposition Samajwadi Party.
Singh accuses Chaurasia of playing politics to sully the name of the school.
Chaurasia denies the charge, he says Phool Kumari's dismissal is a result of caste conflict.
While the two sides continue to engage in a verbal punch-up, Phool Kumari remains trapped in the middle. A dalit, a woman and a widow, she is at the receiving end. As always.
By Geeta Pandey
Source: http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/158298/1/7988
Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.
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