"Why should we go and listen to their speech? It'll not fill our stomach in the morning and evening," Ram Singh said when asked the reason for not participating in the event.While lawmakers Raju Khanal and Anita Devkota were reading out the draft to the participants of feedback collection program, stone crushers kept crushing stones in the nearby riverbank. They kept earning bread for their families.
But it's not only bread that kept them from participating in the program. It's the trust the locals have on the politicians. "They will just shake their heads affirmatively to our feedbacks. It will change nothing," Aaitamala, 65, retorted back when asked for her absence at the program. "Tell the leaders that there are no suggestions from the riverbanks," Ram Singh said while continuing trashing hammer on the stone.
They earn as little as Rs 3,000 monthly for crushing one truckload stones. "We hope we don't have to crush stones anymore. If not, let there be an environment where we can crush stones without being chased away," said an elderly citizen Bhakti Sunar. They complained of facing threats to their means of livelihood, time and again, from government and private sector players.
Likewise, principal of the local school, Kishor Chandra Gautam, said, "The feedback does not matter. The constitution will not be made on the basis of public feedback. It'll be based on the will of leaders."
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