A cross-stitch

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KUMARAPALAYAM (NEAR ERODE), MAY 4: The May 8 Assembly election has evoked little excitement in Kumarapalayam, a bustling textile town close to Erode in Namakkal district of Tiruchengode constituency.

The nearly one lakh weavers, one-third of the electorate in the constituency, have other matters on their mind, like bonded labour, meagre wages and rising debts. While candidates have been screaming hoarse projecting sops offered by their leaders to the sector, like free power and life insurance schemes, many weavers have been quietly sneaking into hospitals outside Erode to sell their kidneys to escape the debt trap.

G Govindaraj, for instance, is recuperating at his friend’s house in Paalikaadu in the town after selling his kidney at the Coimbatore Kidney Centre five days ago. Last month, his ‘muthalali (employer)’ at Reddyarasanpalayam village, notorious for bonded labour, had given him a thrashing for not paying up the Rs 20,000 he had borrowed.

Last week, Govindararaj fled the village, contacted a tout in Kumarapalayam, left for Coimbatore, about 60 km away, and got his kidney removed. He was paid Rs 50,000. ‘‘I have the money. But I am not going to pay up immediately,’’ said Govindaraj, weak after his surgery.

His friend N Sekar had sold his kidney in September last. With four children and a mother to feed, Sekar and his wife Thangamani work at a ‘thara pattarai (loom)’ in the town. He gets Rs 3 per veshti. ‘‘We can do about 10 veshtis a day. So I make about Rs 1,000 every month,’’ he said. His wife earns less. She rolls dyed threads on to the loom. Over the years, the family ended up taking a loan of Rs 24,000 and were under pressure to pay up.

The villages around Kumarapalayam, like Pallipalayam, Pudhupalayam, Vidiarasanpalayam, Kallangaatuvalasu, and many more have turned into rural kidney markets with touts zeroing in on villagers sagging under debts, said N K Natarajan, a senior functionary of the CPI-ML, which has fielded a candidate, Thenmozhi, in Tiruchengode, an AIADMK pocket borough. Thenmozhi is the only candidate highlighting the weavers’ plight.