THE lowest of the low in eastern India’s social hierarchy, there is little the Moosahars haven’t seen. But this is an indignity that is unprecedented.

Families of at least 12 Moosahars who died of hunger in the hinterlands of eastern Uttar Pradesh over a 15-month span have been told by the administration that they could not be called victims of starvation because they had had something—anything—to eat in the days leading to their death.

‘‘A government official who visited our village once even told us, ‘Log khana khane se mar jaate hain, ab bhookh se koi nahin marta (People die of eating, nobody dies of hunger now)’,’’ says Algu of Kodara Tola village.

Whatever be the official explanation, the nomadic Moosahars have their own name for the cause of death: Bhookhmari. That’s the word Jasiya of Thadibhar village utters reluctantly when asked what claimed her husband Shambhu Moosahar, 40, on December 27.

‘‘Bhookhmari ki bimari se mar gaya (He was down with hunger and so died),’’ says Jasiya, who also lost two of her children over the past year. She now begs for food in a Moosahar village where almost every family copes with hunger-related conditions.

IN adjoining Ghurpatti Tola, Bindhyachal’s skeletal frame lies covered with flies and mosquitoes in his hut. He looks 80, but is probably half that. His brother Eta died two months ago of, as locals inform, of bhookhmari; Bindhyachal may just follow suit. A third brother, Bijlal, has found no work for the past eight days and there is little to sustain the family.

... contd.