Lockdown impacts cotton cleaners
Dudekulas want BC welfare min to hear them out
The Dudekula community gets its name from ‘dudi’ (cotton) and ‘ekadam’ (separating, cleaning). The community, found both in TS and AP, is considered to be at the bottom of the socio-economic order among Muslims.
They are referred to as noorbash, laddaf and pinjari. Such is their marginalisation that the terms “pinjari” and “dudekula” are often used as invectives.
Many members are Dalit converts. A group of families in Shahalibanda traces its ancestry to Dalits from Bundelkhand, who had settled in Hyderabad state. In TS, they are classified as BC-B.
The lockdown has been brutal for the city’s marginalised Dudekula community. There are around 300 families that are involved in their castebased vocation of cotton cleaning and most of them live in a threekilometre radius of Shahalibandi in the Old City.
Ahmed Hussain Mansoori, one of the community’s more politically active members, said most of them have had no income since April. The community’s “crisis fund” too has been exhausted.
“We are a close-knit group who often help each other during a crisis. During normal times, families give some money towards a savings pool, which anyone can take from. Two months ago, this pool had around `3 lakh. After the lockdown began, this money was over in two weeks,” he said. Many are surviving on money borrowed from private money lenders.
Many families reportedly don’t have ration cards, making them ineligible for the free rice that is being distributed by the government. Abdul Shiraj Mansuri says that obtaining government documents can be notoriously difficult for them.
Shiraj and many others said this applies even for caste certificates for reservations. “(Government officials) ask for ‘surety’. They want some government employee to give ‘surety’ for us. But no one in our community has been able to get a government job. Who will vouch for us,” he asked.
The number of graduates among the 300-odd families can be counted on one’s hand, due to financial difficulties. Mohd Abid Mansuri said his son Akbar is a civil engineer but was unable to find a job and is back to cotton cleaning. Abdul Gaffar said his son dropped out of BCom second year as he could not pay the fee.
In over an hour of conversation, nearly 30 members of the community couldn’t remember a single government employee, or even an IT sector employee, in their families or acquaintances.
The community wants BC welfare minister Gangula Kamalakar to take note of them. Members have been unable to meet him. Hussain Mansoori said, “We want the government to help us during this testing time. We are requesting it to understand our situation. We only want to claim the benefits we are entitled to.”