Basanta Sada of Kamalpur, Rajgadh Rural Municipality-2, Saptari lost her father in her childhood. After her father's death, her mother Remani Devi Sada found it difficult to make ends meet with the wages she earned from her daily wage work. Basanta was forced to work as a domestic worker since childhood. However, because her father Silt Sada built a house on someone else's land in the eastern Musahari toll, they could not stay there for long. The squatter mother and son Basanta were forced to move out of there when they were 15/16 years old.

They wandered around in many places in search of a place to live. For a long time, the mother and son could not find land for a place to live. 'At that time, the situation of caste-based untouchability was much worse than it is now.' As soon as we heard the name of Dalit, we were not allowed to live on the public land around the village,' he said. 'While searching, we found 3 acres of vacant public land on the bank of the pond in Kamalpur. Since the Sada community had already been living there, it was not difficult to build a house there.' Basant got married and started his family's daily life.

The Sada couple had two sons and two daughters. As the children grew up, it was difficult for everyone to live in a one-room house, so Basant allocated two rooms there. However, after the Sada couple's sons Azad and Agar got married, they had no place to sleep or live. 'The elderly slept outside for a while,' Basant said. 'We can't sleep outside all the time. We came here looking for land to build a house for the elderly.'

They moved to the river bank a decade and a half ago. There, they started building a house by filling 25 trolleys of soil on government land. However, before the house was built, the locals uprooted the pillars they had planted due to political hatred. Even when the pillars they had collected and demolished were demolished, the couple could not speak. Even after that, they tried repeatedly to build a house. However, as the obstacles persisted for a decade and a half, the couple and their grandchildren are forced to spend a difficult daily life in a tent.

It was also decided to build a pucca house for the couple under the Janata Awas in 2069/070. However, due to a land dispute, their house could not be built. ‘There are 95 bighas of government and public land around this village alone, but most of the land has been grabbed by the local farmers and built pucca houses,’ said 62-year-old Basanta. ‘I tried to build a house on only 10/12 dhurs of land here, but as a Dalit, I was not allowed to build.’

Basanta, who is forced to live in a tent with his wife, 60-year-old Punamdevi, and two grandchildren from his daughter-in-law, is sad. ‘We are making ends meet by working as wage laborers and our daughter-in-law’s grandchildren. When we sleep in a tent, we cannot sleep at all during the night when it rains and winds come,’ he said. ‘At that time, all four of us have to lean against the wall of someone else’s house and stay until the rain and winds calm down.’ He said that it is even more difficult to sleep in a tent during the summer. The Sada family, who are very poor financially, have been drinking water from someone else's tap. Sometimes, they are forced to go about a kilometer away to fetch water when they are not allowed to fill it, Basanta said. 'Maybe because they are Dalits, some people do not even let them fill water. There is no one to understand and look after our problems,' he said. 'We hope that the new government will understand our problems.'

The Sada couple have two sons, Azad and Agar. They have a wife and 7 children. Both sons are working as laborers in Punjab, India to support the family. Basanta said that both the daughters-in-law and grandchildren have been living in two separate rooms in a house there. 'We had planned to build a hut there for the elderly to live in, but due to lack of space, we moved here. There is no particular opposition. Only Raghunandan Yadav of this village is protesting,' he said, 'He (Raghunandan) did not listen to us Dalit poor people despite all our requests. The ward chairman also does not listen to us.'

Raghunandan said that Basant was not allowed to build a house on the land that was blocked by someone else as per the advice of the panchayat. 'Before the local level came, Basant was given the contract for the pond there on the advice of everyone and he started living there. But before that, that public land was blocked by someone else. The panchayat's decision only stopped the construction of the house. The pillars have not been demolished,' he said, 'There is also vacant land in the place where Basant was living before. They have been living there for more than a few times and are refusing to go due to the instigation of others.’

The current ward chairman Lalit Prasad Singh said that despite his efforts to build Basant’s house during his tenure, it was not possible due to the opposition of other people’s representatives. ‘Some people there have not allowed Basant to build a house for Sadako due to casteism,’ he said. ‘Sadako has been living there for a decade and a half and all the land around it is government land. Only the bamboo grove on the north is one and a half bighas of government land. It does not matter if Sadako is given 10 dhurs of land to build a house.’