About the Website
This website has been created for the above project and will carry short field reports from researchers who are currently conducting ethnographic research into the meaning that elections hold for the electorate. Shifting the emphasis away from 'who will win', this study of elections will investigate the reasons for why people vote at all, what their motivations are, how the election campaign is experienced by ordinary voters and what their experience of casting their vote on election day is like. We hope to update these posts frequently during the period of the elections.
Project Specifics
This project is entitled 'Panchayat and Vidhan Sabha elections 2012-2015' with Dr Mukulika Banerjee of the London School of Economics and Political Science as its Principal Investigator and is a part of a larger study launched by the European Research Network Programme: "Explaining Electoral Change in Rural and Urban India". It is funded by the Indian-European Research Networking Programme ANR-DFG-ESRC-ICSSR-NOW Joint Funding Scheme, Reference Number: 465-11-031.
Project Site
This study currently being conducted during the State level Vidhan Sabha elections in the states of Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, is part of a larger three-year project to investigate these questions. The four project sites identified for this year's project are: 1. Kelabari, Dalli Rajhara, Chattisgarh, 2. Sirohi, Abu Road, Rajasthan, 3. Raghubir Nagar, Rajouri Garden, Delhi and 4. Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.
Project Execution
Governance Now, a print and web publication on public policy, is executing this project study under the supervision of Dr Banerjee. Two senior journalists of Governance Now will be observing the elections for one month by living in the vicinity of the project sites. They have been on the ground since November 14.
Researchers
A senior journalist with more than two decades of experience working in some of the biggest media houses, he is stationed at Kelabari, Dalli Rajhara, Chattisgarh.
Brajesh Kumar: A special correspondent with Governance Now, Brajesh is winner of this year's Press Council of India's National Award for Rural Reporting for his reporting from Revdakalan, Abu Road, Rajasthan. He will revisit the place for this project.
Jasleen Kaur: A principal correspondent with Governance Now, Jasleen has covered Delhi extensively in her career. She will track Raghubir Nagar, part of the Rajouri Garden constituency of Delhi.
Srishti Pandey: A correspondent with Governance Now, Srishti will cover Samardha, close to Madhya Pradesh's capital Bhopal.
Earlier Project Sites
As part of this project last year, Governance Now journalists covered two constituencies in Gujarat. Click here to read their reports.
ABOUT KELABARI
WHAT: Tucked in the foothills of Dalli mines, municipality ward numbers 11 and 12 are part of Dalli Rajhara, a town in Balod district of Chhattisgarh. The wards are largely inhabited by squatters once employed in mining carried out by and for Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP). Like the rest of the town, the land belongs to the BSP and Indian Railways.
A majority of the inhabitants (municipal councilor of Ward 12 Narmada Sahare puts them at over 90%) have been unemployed form over a decade now, when they were laid off due to reduction in mining activity, engagement of private contractors and installation of heavy machines.
The others still work as helpers, drivers and technicians for private contractors involved in mining or other activities
WHERE: The wards are located about two and a half kilometre from the centre of Dalli Rajhara on the road leading to Dondi and Narayanpur. They are sub-divided into small settlements called Pump House, Dam Side, Manual Camp, Ram Rama Dafai and Kelabari Bajrang Chowk.
The wards are situated on either side of a bridge that hides a drain flowing downwards from the mines. Majority of the residents in the two wards live in kuchha houses barricaded by thatch and wires and are deprived most basic amenities. They defecate in the open, bathe in wastewater of mines and traverse long distances to fetch drinking water. A few sustain on a well.
The streets are uncarpeted and the only sign of development are open drains built in a part of the wards. During rains, waste from the mines flow into their houses. The general modes of transport are motorbikes, scootys and bicycles.
The population of the three booths (192, 193 and 194) in the two wards has remained static or decreased on account of reverse migration. Recently 165 families were relocated from the wards to make way for a railway track to Narayanpur, which will allow the steel plant to tap new sources of minerals.
According to the last municipal elections, there are 1,109 voters in the three booths (557 females and 552 males). The booths will be located in a middle school in Kelabari.