)
Every day Kusumbhari Parhaiya walks into a dense forest with her axe to fell dry twigs for hours. She then races to join a queue of other barefoot women who walk briskly through the dusty road snaking out of the village.
Her headload of wood sells for Rs 50-100. "Most men have gone to work in cities after the environment ministry completely stopped mining in the area. We feed ourselves with this," says Parhaiya, who lives with her family in Karma village of Palamu constituency.
Parhaiya's tribe is one of 32 tribal groups facing the threat of extinction. Together, tribals constitute 28 per cent of Jharkhand's population. Scheduled Castes make up another 12 per cent.
Overall, the state has 32.9 million people, and three out of four live in the hinterland. The rest live in cities like Ranchi and Bokaro, not too far away from the Maoist strongholds of Palamu, Latehar, Chatra and other districts.
According to the 2011 Census, of the nearly 20 million voters in Jharkhand, Palamu constituency alone has 1.6 million. Chatra has 1.3 million. People aged 18-40 represent 59 per cent of the voting population. The bulk of the population lives off agriculture or by doing sundry jobs.
"Had we been educated, we would have been working either in Ranchi or Delhi," says a Santosh Oraon, the conductor on a decrepit mini-bus connecting Palamu with state capital Ranchi. On a good day, he earns Rs 150 and has a family of five to feed.
A glimpse from Oraon's bus shows the assortment of jobs available. A set pattern of barber, tailor, mobile-recharge, snacks and grocery shops repeats itself in dusty village after dusty village. The scene doesn't change much as the bus inches towards smaller towns, except for auto-rickshaw showrooms, motorcycle repair shops and the odd mini-market.
In neighbouring Bihar, which has made headlines of late for its high growth rates, development has bypassed its Red districts. In seven years, the state grew at a compounded annual rate of over 12 per cent. Four of its Naxal-affected districts - Jamui, Gaya, Aurangabad and Rohtas - grew at eight per cent. Among these, Gaya grew fastest at 8.86 per cent due to a rise in tourism and Jamui was at the bottom with seven per cent.
"There has been an improvement in recent years," says Ramesh Kumar, a hotelier in Gaya town. "Roads have been paved. Since November, we get 22 hours of power. Tourists now stay in Gaya. However, development is yet to trickle down to rural parts of the district."
The per capita income in Gaya district almost doubled between 2004-05 and 2010-11. However, at Rs 10,514 it is still one-sixth of the national average.
The story repeats itself in Aurangabad, which grew at an average rate of 8.73 per cent in the last seven years.
"Several major industrial projects have come to the district, including two ambitious power projects. However, as most people are dependent on agriculture here, there has been no real progress," says local journalist Premendra Mishra.
Be it the undivided Koraput region comprising Koraput, Rayagada, Nabarangpur and Malkangiri in south Odisha, Mayurbhanj in the north or the western districts of Sambalpur and Sundargarh, the state's Red zone is awaiting its economic turnaround. The voter base is predominantly tribal and the economy driven mainly by farm and forest produce.
Concerns mostly revolve around education, roads, health care and electricity for most voters at the bottom of the pyramid, as people in Naxal pockets seek a corridor to growth.
Take Rayagada. Endowed with mineral resources, chiefly bauxite, it has found itself on the industrial map. The district has 84 per cent of all bauxite deposits in Odisha and has attracted the attention of the Birlas, Sterlite and L&T. But with a literacy rate of 35.61 per cent, it still figures among the country's 250 most backward districts. Locals feel industrialisation will improve the area's social indices.
Bastar in Chhattisgarh scores better in education - the literacy rate in the constituency is about 53 per cent - but the backwardness is stark just 20 km away from town. A single electric point in a mud hut remains the abiding image of rural Bastar.
K K Jha, an educationist and expert on Bastar based in Jagdalpur, says tribals may be dubbed backward in other fields, but politically the people of Bastar are very alert.
