Dashrath Manjhi

Dashrath Manjhi was born in 1934 in the village of Gehlour in Bihar to laborer parents who were very destitute and needy. India was still under British Rule then. Gehlour is situated in Muhra Tehsil in the district of Gaya, and the Gaya Town was situated several kilometers away.

Not much is known about his childhood and early life except that he started working as a woodcutter while still in his teens in order to make ends meet. Dashrath got married in his childhood, keeping with the traditional and cultural norms of his caste.

Gehlour, the village Dashrath was born in, still happens to be backward and the villagers continue to follow the orthodox caste system that by its very nature is disruptive. Villagers belonging to the lowermost hierarchies of the caste system are treated as outcasts and their womenfolk, regarded as mere chattels.

The majority of villagers residing in Gehlour are Dalits who tend to eke out a livelihood by serving others and working as scavengers. Before Dashrath hammered his way through the hillock straddling Wazirgunj and Atri subdivisions in Gaya, villagers had to trudge via a narrow and precipitous path going over the mound to hail a transport.

Manjhi left his village and traveled all the way to Dhanbad, the 2nd largest city of Jharkhand, situated in Damodar Valley—called ‘Ruhr of India’—as the region accounts for 60% of India’s coal deposits. He toiled in one of the collieries of Dhanbad for close to seven years before returning to his village.

Upon his return, Dashrath was smitten by a village belle by the name of Falguni. Later on he discovered that the young woman he fell for was the same girl he had been married off to during his childhood. However, Falguni’s father dissuaded Dashrath from taking her along with him owing to his unemployment.

Manjhi’s steely resolve to reunite with Falguni saw him eloping with his childhood bride. Subsequently, they started living together under one roof as man and wife. Very soon, they became the proud parents of a baby boy and Falguni became pregnant again with their 2nd child in 1960.