Sohrab Hura INDIA. Jharkand. 2005. Two brothers toil hard for subsistence on their small piece of land in Bokaro. The soil is infertile and with the absence of irrigation as well, hardly anything grows. Such a (...)
situation exists in an overwhelmingly large part of rural India where a large number of farmers still struggle on subsistence agriculture and with the soil being their only source of livelihood. © Sohrab Hura | Magnum Photos
Sohrab Hura India. Madhya Pradesh. 2006. An inside view of the sparse home of one of the most economically stable families in the tribal village of Ubadgarh in Pati Block of Madhya Pradesh. Migration would usu (...)
ally be the only option of employment here. But with the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the family had decided not to leave their home for the first time. © Sohrab Hura | Magnum Photos
Sohrab Hura INDIA. Madhya Pradesh. 2006. At dawn, women of a family wake up early to finish some of the household chores after which they will help the men of the family in tilling the little patch of land tha (...)
t they own. Groundnut is the main crop that grows here and is barely enough to sustain the families in this region. Prior to the enactment of the MGNREGA in 2005, the average rate of employment was barely 7-8 days a year. © Sohrab Hura | Magnum Photos
Sohrab Hura INDIA. Orissa. 2006. In Kalinganagar what was earlier predominantly a tribal region had been replaced by a colony of steel giants. Since Indian independence an estimated 15,00,000 people have been (...)
displaced out of which industrial displacement alone accounts for about 5,50,000. Rehabilitation in most cases has been incomplete. In Kalinganagar, while the displaced remain unemployed and without a livelihood, there is an increasing influx of workers from outside. © Sohrab Hura | Magnum Photos
Sohrab Hura INDIA. Bihar. 2005. Punaram and Mupphat, the puppet, talk to dalit women workers at a ‘Food for Work’ site in Hisua. The Rozgar Adhikar Yatra, a people’s movement against unempl (...)
oyment was carried out in the summer of 2005 to push the government to implement the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) which would guarantee each household in rural India 100 days of employment per year at the minimum wages existing in the state. The puppet was the most effective means of communication throughout the yatra. © Sohrab Hura | Magnum Photos
Sohrab Hura INDIA. Chhatisgarsh. 2005. In Sarguja displaced tribals from the Hirakund region in the neighbouring state of Orissa listen intently as the 'Rozgar Adhikar Yatra' members talk to them about the mov (...)
ement and their rights. In the monsoon parliamentary session later in August 2005, the historic Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was passed. © Sohrab Hura | Magnum Photos
Sohrab Hura INDIA. Rajasthan. 2006. Women workers come together in searing heat at a newly opened NREGA worksite to listen to an activist speak to them about their right to work. Almost 4 decades ago this regi (...)
on was forested. But population pressure, excessive soil erosion due to step farming and exploitation of the forests to sell wood in the nearby town having been the only means to survive as no alternative form of employment was available has left this region desolated. High summer temperatures going up to almost 50 degree celcius lead to regular famine like conditions. © Sohrab Hura | Magnum Photos
Sohrab Hura In my mother's room; where a painting was hung once, the wall just peeled away. In 1999 she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Her condition is a cyclical one and when her condition deterio (...)
rates it reflects in the condition of the house as well. The paint on the wall is starting to peel off again. India. 2006. © Sohrab Hura | Magnum Photos
Sohrab Hura INDIA. Madhya Pradesh. 2006. A woman tries to mend her make shift home while out on migration in Shivpuri. She along her relatives, both close and distant had migrated from the neighbouring distric (...)
ts of Sheopur and Baran in Rajasthan to come here to break stones for the construction of roads. © Sohrab Hura | Magnum Photos
Sohrab Hura INDIA. Madhya Pradesh. 2006. After having worked at a MGNREGA site where they helped in building check dams, women workers wait anxiously outside the local Panchaya (village committee) office to be (...)
paid wages for the first time in their lives. At the time of the photograph the wages were about $1 a day. © Sohrab Hura | Magnum Photos