4.4 Binita’s plea
Binita Chaudhary, a resident of Urahari-3, Dang, was living a happy life with her husband Buddhi Ram Chaudhary. The couple had no worries about their livelihood as Buddhi Ram was earning enough to support the family.

He had started a business of buying and selling hens in the nearby markets, while most of the Tharu community is engaged in farming which is often a seasonal occupation. Unlike other families in the village the economic condition of the Chaudhari family was improving; their bad days were coming to its end.

On the evening of 23 November 2001, Buddhi Ram came back home from Nepalgunj, where he had gone for his business. The couple had been sharing the joys and pathos of life while drinking ‘Kho ya’, a local wine, when security personnel barged into their home and arrested Buddhi Ram alleging that he had taken part, along with others, in the murder of a Brahmin.

Binita begged for mercy. She pleaded with the soldiers that her husband was innocent. He was not in the village when the incident took place. Clinging to the army vehicles she wailed her heart out and asked them to arrest her along with her husband, but in vain. In no time, her husband was out of sight. She collapsed where she was standing as if someone had swiftly pulled the ground away from her. She kept on staring blankly at the dark road that had taken away a part of her life.

The next morning Binita set off to visit the security office. She recognised a soldier there as one who had taken her husband the previous night. He assured her that her husband would soon be released. “It is just a simple enquiry, he will be free after the formal procedure,” he said. The villagers arrested with Buddhi were released a week later but not Buddhi.

Binita rushed to the security office. Different soldiers had replaced the former officers. When she asked them about her husband, she was told that her husband had never been there. In anguish and betrayal, Binita returned home. It has now been more than four years since she heard anything about her husband. Although years have passed, her feelings remain full of anguish: she still has hope that her husband will return. “God may send him back to me one day," she murmurs time and again.

Despite receiving a hard blow with the disappearance of her husband, she has been struggling alone for survival. Now, Binita is a member of a women’s savings group in Urahari, supported by SEED. She is generating income through vegetable farming and pig rearing. The income generated has helped her sustain her family and send her two children to school. She aspires to do more than seasonal farming. “I want to do something through which I can earn money regularly to support my family," she says.

After all the hardship in her life, Binita is trying to understand her own capabilities and to find her own identity. She walks with dignity and a smiling face but never shows her feelings of being separated from her spouse. Besides the wish of having her husband back, she wishes for the restoration of real peace in the country, “I wish, there could be peace in the country. We would no long hear the news of death and disappearance.”