The political economy of Uttar Pradesh

Shailendra Singh (left), Congress candidate at Saiyadraja constituency in Eastern UP talks to villagers in Ranpur.  Villagers were fairly upset about the escalation in fertilizer prices as they feel that farming is increasingly becoming unviable in the wake of rising input costs.

Students in a government primary school in Ranpur village.  Most families in UP try and send their children to a private school if they can afford it as they feel the quality of an education is better there.

Students at the assembly in NCD Public School, a private school, at Navdhan village, which is on NH2 that connects Varanasi to Allahabad.  Most farmers in this village have managed to send their children to an English medium school as they feel it provides them a better chance to transition into jobs outside of farming.

A villager in Iliya, Chaduali district, turns away from a locked Primary Health Centre. The centre functions just a few hours a day and villagers complain that women, at times, have delivered on the path in front of the centre as they have nowhere else to go. The Union Health Ministry says infant mortality in the state (2008) was 67 as compared to a national average of 53.

Manoj Kumar Pandey, who trained at a World Health Organization (WHO) unit for a year, functions as a kind of doctor in Rohaki village, Chandauli district. Pandey says most people who approach for treatment have malaria and he finds a way to cure them. Patients with fractures are sent the nearest hospital which is about 21 km away.

Nanki Devi, a villager whose land was acquired by the government for a power plant, protests the acquisition at Karchana.  The villagers accuse the government of betraying them as the land was eventually transferred to a private entity, Jaypee group, and the villagers are unsure about getting promised jobs at the power plant.

Tirth Raj Kesharwani runs an electrical goods store at Nivadha Samoghar Dairy, on the Varanasi-Allahabad road.  Kesharwani says that on average he sells six televisions a month and most village households have a television.  The images that have been from other parts of the world have begun to impact local politics as villagers have begun to ask their politicians why life should be better elsewhere.