No one eats the mid-day meal because a dalit is preparing them
**
In Karnataka school, every day she writes in midday meal diary: ‘No one ate today’ **
Every day Radhamma takes out a diary she is required to maintain as part of the mid-day meal scheme in government schools in Karnataka and writes four words, “No one ate today.” Every day for the past five months.
Radhamma is a Scheduled Caste, and the condition that she not make food is the only way she can retain her job of head cook at the Government Higher Primary School in Kagganahalli village in Kolar district of Karnataka. In January 2014, there were 118 students at the school, from Classes I to VIII. Since her appointment in February 2014, 100 have left. The remaining 18 continue on the condition, laid down by their parents, that Radhamma not make the mid-may meal.
It earns her Rs 1,700 per month, but every paisa counts for her family of seven persons belonging to the Adi Karnataka caste.
Related Stories
Water Crisis: Cities Running Dry Across India
Delhi's groundwater levels have fallen approximately one meter per year for two decades—a decline that is measurable, inexorable, and unsustainable. Bangalore's aquifers are nearly depleted despite being a major metropol...
Tier-2 Cities: India's New Growth Engines Are Still Sputtering
For the past fifteen years, development experts and policy makers have confidently predicted that India's Tier-2 cities—Pune, Surat, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Indore, Nagpur—would absorb India's relentless urbanization and be...
The New Indian Middle Class: Aspirations, Anxieties, Consumption
India's middle class—roughly 250-350 million people with annual household incomes between ₹10 and ₹50 lakh—represents a purchasing power that shapes entire economies. Yet their consumption patterns reveal a psychology di...