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Junmoni Gogoi, a resident of Bagchung block in Assam’s Jorhat district, remains guarded in front of the camera. A daily wage earner, Gogoi is a beneficiary of the state government’s scheme for marginalised women under which four million women were paid Rs 9,000 each, less than a month before the state goes to polls. As a poll pitch, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government claims that this is the largest ever direct benefit transfer (DBT) in the history of Northeast India’s most populous state.
Much like Gogoi, several women beneficiaries were reluctant to talk about these schemes targeting women voters, fearing that they may not get the next instalment once the BJP-led coalition comes back to power. “What happens if someone finds me talking to a reporter on camera,” Gogoi asks when asked what she thought of the government scheme called Orunodoi. “They keep tabs on everyone. I attended all the block level meetings. I feel that is why I got Rs 9,000,” Gogoi says.
Her neighbour, Champa Gogoi, a resident of Baghmaria village under the Bagchung block, however says that she has never qualified for the Orunodoi scheme, ever since its announcement in 2020, ahead of the previous elections. “I never bothered to attend these meetings at the block level. I am raising two children and I have a small grocery shop, and servicing two loans. I am from the BPL category, same as my neighbour. When I asked a local block level official, they said I will get the benefits if BJP forms the government. These schemes should come to us irrespective of our political choices,” Champa Gogoi told Down to Earth (DTE). “None of these women have received these benefits. So, we have decided to boycott this election,” Gogoi says.
On March 10, women in Assam were called to 2,500 meetings across 35 districts where BJP leaders and the party’s regional coalition partners disbursed Rs 9,000 each — Rs 1,250 per month from January to April and Rs 4,000 as bonus for the annual Bihu festival in April. Announced in 2020 ahead of the 2021 Assam Assembly polls amidst COVID-19 lockdowns, it is believed that these schemes brought back BJP to power with Himanta Biswa Sarma becoming Assam’s chief minister. The state government started the Orunodoi direct benefit transfer scheme with Rs 830 per month which has been revised to Rs 1,250 per month in its third iteration. The Rs 1,250 dole consisted of Rs 400 for procuring medicines, Rs 200 for 50 per cent subsidy on four kilogrammes of pulses, Rs 80 for 50 percent subsidy on four kilogrammes of sugar, Rs 150 for purchasing fruits and vegetables, Rs 170 for essential goods, and Rs 200 for LPG.
Besides Orunodoi, in the last five years, Sarma launched the Mahila Udyamita Abhiyan which promises to empower women entrepreneurs, schemes for girl child protection, health insurance for women, DBT for COVID-19 widows and for tree plantation. These schemes have been launched across the state on a pilot basis with a possibility of being scaled up if incumbent Sarma is elected back to power. However, he himself has been repeatedly insisting that these schemes are not election freebies. Contrary to Sarma’s claims, BJP quickly emulated this model of 2021 Assam Assembly polls and launched similar schemes to win elections in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. Sarma himself said 90 per cent of targeted women beneficiaries and their families were covered ahead of the polls while 10 per cent will have to wait till BJP forms a government in the state after the 2026 elections.
Across various mediums, the BJP-led coalition quickly transformed each of the fund disbursal meetings into an elaborate PR exercise targeting women voters across the state. Social media, video streaming websites and direct messaging services have been crowded with testimonials of marginalised women praising Sarma for the schemes. Assam’s cities, towns, pit stops across the highway are littered with hoardings, banners, wall paintings and posters loudly claiming that BJP stands for women empowerment with an oft repeated Assamese phrase, ‘Mohila Xobolikoron’.
On the ground, however, the elaborate PR exercise seems to have faltered in bringing the benefits to the last mile. In Bagchung, recently inducted into late Assam CM Tarun Gogoi’s stronghold of the Titabor legislative assembly constituency in Jorhat after delimitation, only around 10 per cent of women have been covered by Orunodoi, a panchayat member told DTE. Manashi Gogoi, a local panchayat member from Baghmaria, says that the previous iterations of Orunodoi were inclusive as the decision rested with the panchayat block committee members. “For Orunodoi 3.0, the disbursal has been done through electoral booth committees dominated by ruling party members. They are ones who are deciding who is eligible or not and this is creating chaos,” says Gogoi.
Women voters in Assam make up about half of the state’s electorate. Since March 10, the state has witnessed six big protests by various women groups regarding Orunodoi. In Digboi constituency, hundreds of women from six villages gathered outside a panchayat office on March 11 with a lock accusing the incumbent BJP MLA of siphoning their Orunodoi funds. Women residents of Gossaigaon, Bhaoraguri, Dotma and Serfanguri staged protests outside the deputy commissioner’s office in Kokrajhar under the Bodoland Territorial Region demanding the benefits of the Oronudoi schemes. Similar protests were held at Dhing in Nagaon district, Tamulpur district bordering Bhutan and Morongi in Golaghat, with women activists accusing the BJP government of favouring women with ties to the ruling coalition.
Uma Pator, the Nagaon district secretary of All Assam Progressive Women’s Organization, an umbrella organisation says that political allegiances matter in getting benefits of the scheme. “I am very vocal about various issues that women face in my constituency. I have been working with women who face work abuses or are trapped by microfinance scams. I have criticised the government. I am a widow from a scheduled tribe. I should have been a beneficiary of the Orunodoi scheme but I am not. I was being told that I should change my political leanings to get these benefits,” Pator tells DTE.
Moloya Borah, a daily wage earner from Pathori block in Nagaon, received Rs 9,000 under Orunodoi on March 10. Worrying about untimely rains in March, she spent the entire sum she received to buy tin sheets to replace the roof above her head. “I was servicing two loans from a microfinance institution. I could not pay the instalments during the COVID-19 period as my savings dwindled and my husband fell sick. CM Sarma announced a loan waiver but our CIBIL score continues to remain poor till this date. Due to a low CIBIL score, I am unable to borrow anymore to fix my house that was damaged last year. We do not have any land. The money we got from Orunodoi is not enough to meet my husband’s medical needs but I managed to buy a roof and fix my house,” Borah said. According to Pator, Moloya and several women in Nagaon have been receiving notices from Lok Adalat or from lawyers threatening them with legal action for non-payment of their loans.
In Bokakhat constituency, beneficiaries of Orunodoi 3.0 have decided to go with a local independent candidate, Pranab Doley contesting against state agriculture minister Atul Bora. Lakshmi Naik, an Adivasi daily wage earner belonging to a tea garden worker family in Kakochang village, did receive the promised Rs 9,000. “So, what if I got Rs 9,000. The first thing I did was to service a microfinance loan by paying Rs 5,400. With the Bihu bonus, I am supposed to pay for the expenses of my children’s education, buy medicines for my ailing parents and my in-laws, and then join the beeline for LPG cylinders?” Naik asks. She claims that close to 300 women in Bokakhat, mostly Adivasis, were duped by microfinance companies over the last two years with a police investigation still on a look-out for the accused. “We have decided to lend our support to the local independent candidate because he stood with us, when no government functionary was willing to listen to us — that as beneficiaries of the government schemes for women, we are only paying our debts,” Naik claimed loudly in an election rally when Doley filed his nomination on March 23.
Around 250 kilometres away from Bokakhat in the easternmost constituency of Assam at Sadiya, hundreds of women under the banner of Nari Mukti Sangram Samity, an umbrella organisation for women, marched to the local stadium demanding loan waiver from microfinance companies on March 5. “Along with schemes like Orunodoi targeting women voters, CM Sarma before assuming power in 2021 also promised loan waivers for 2.6 million women who were paying heavy interests for loans of Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000. The schemes paying Rs 9,000 or Rs 10,000 are meaningless if they are used to service loans. There is no real empowerment,” Gogoi told DTE.
Aayefa Begum, a leading women’s rights activist who has been studying the impact of microfinance on rural women across Assam, maintains that schemes like Orunodoi had put a big stress on the state’s economy. “We have 2.6 million women in Assam who owed Rs 12,500 crore to 41 microfinance companies and non-banking financial institutions in 2021. Based on the budgetary allocations, from 2021 to 2024, the Assam government only waived Rs 2,839 crore of the Rs 12,500 crore with MFIs covering only 1.193 million borrowers. On the other hand, debt-to-Gross State Domestic Product ratio increased by 107 per cent in four years since the Himanta government assumed power with authorities repeatedly borrowing funds and mortgaging state bonds to power these popular schemes. How long will this bubble last?” asks Begum.