A Woman Leader for the Isolated Jungle Village of Jharki Bisalpur When Sheila Devi was growing up in the village of Jharki Bisalpur, wild animals would frequently wander through, searching for water and food. She saw deer and wild boar, foxes, even a python. There were rumored tiger sightings. But in the last few years "even the animals have had the sense to move elsewhere" Mrs. Devi, now a Panchayat leader in her late thirties, says dryly. Jharki Bisalpur is situated on reserved forest land in the Koderma district in Jharkhand, the mineral-rich state carved out of Bihar in 2000. Access to the forest is tightly controlled, and outsiders rarely permitted in. Although the forest has been home to several generations of Ghatwar adivasis, or "original settlers," like Mrs. Devi, it is still only accessible through an overgrown dirt road. It can take over an hour and a half by car from the guarded entrance of the forest to the village, and during the monsoon the forest's numerous ponds and rivers swell and overflow with water, isolating the village even further. During these months, for days at a stretch, no one can enter Jharki Bisalpur, and no one can leave. The journey to Jharki Bisalpur is so arduous that even government officials are a rare sight, says Mrs. Devi. But they're not the only ones who are often absent. The village school employs four teachers, of which three live elsewhere. One comes from another state altogether, Bihar, which is 20 kilometers, or 12 miles, away. He drives his motorcycle up to the edge of the forest, and because he worries that driving the bumpy road will damage his bike, he parks it behind a tree and walks the rest of the way. The village "master," as he is known, spends three hours a day walking to and from the village through the forest, carrying with him only a bag of books and, for protection, a stick. Under the circumstances the villagers don't begrudge him or the other teachers for missing work, and they do so, frequently, not turning up at least three times a week. Even if the villagers did begrudge the teachers their frequent absences, says Mrs. Devi, it wouldn't matter. Who is there to monitor them? This is the jungle," she says. It wasn't always like this. The forest was once mined openly for mica, and private mining companies looked after their employees, many of whom were locals. The companies built them houses of brick, not mud like the workers had been used to, and some even recall having electricity. With the passing of the Forest Conservation Act (1980), mining lease agreements were allowed to expire, and the companies banished. With them went not just the modern conveniences they had introduced, but also everyone's jobs. For the next two decades the villagers faced harassment from local government bodies eager to clear the protected area of human habitation. To hasten the villagers" departure, the government proved intractable to pleas for electricity and running water. Then, as now, the villagers survived by coaxing a few vegetables from the dry, rocky land. They reared goats and hens, and, if they could afford to, a cow. The Forest Rights Act (2006), which grants traditional forest dwellers like the Ghatwars the right to live on forest land, was supposed to change things. But six years later, the villagers of Jharki Bisalpur still draw drinking water from the river and firewood for cooking from the forest. And they still live in the dark. Jharki Bisalpur's marginalization is more poignant for the fact that they once enjoyed some of the conveniences they sorely need - even if it had been at the cost of the very forest they live in. Now, although they're a part of the modern world, that world is also tantalizingly outside their reach. Every adult in this village of 100 families has a cellphone. But they can only charge their phones in the town of Koderma. It takes them four hours on foot to get there. In the village, they get reception only on the side of a particular hut close to the river. When they need to make a call, they must walk to the hut and wait. Some simply leave their phones tethered to the hut. As soon as they move away, their cellphone is, effectively, a paperweight. Bicycles are also common. But one villager, Lalit Singh, says that the forest road is so poor that he can never ride on it for more than a short stretch. "You are more likely to see a villager carrying his cycle on his back," says Mr. Singh, "than to see a cycle carrying a villager." The villagers" powerlessness is also epitomized in their inability to choose their line of work. With no employment in or around the forest, parents and children alike have no choice but to spend their days digging for mica. They use large hammers, sickles and knives, even their fingers, to dig pits, and then break and finesse the chunks of mica. Families that don't have the manpower to dig deep must be satisfied with foraging for mica "dhebra" or debris. On average, say the villagers, each family tries to collect at least 15 kilograms, or 33 pounds, of dhebra a day. But at 3 rupees (6 U.S. cents) a kilogram, a family in Jharki Bisalpur still earns less than half the daily minimum wage of 120 rupees. ""There are no guarantees of how much we will dig or how much we will earn," says Mrs. Devi. That there are no guarantees is the only guarantee we have. For years now the villagers have been selling mica not to companies but to low level "munshis" or middlemen who come to their village weekly. While they know that mica is valuable, they're so out of touch with market prices they cannot even guess what it might be worth. "If we knew," said one of them, "would we accept 3 rupees a kilo? The munshis keep us in the dark. And we can't do anything about it. Mica is graded and priced by quality. According to the Indian Bureau of Mines, the domestic market price of "dhebra," for which the villagers of Jharki Bisalpur receive three rupees a kilo, is 62.50 rupees a kilo. Better quality mica can sell for 115 rupees a kilo. Jharkhand contributes almost fifty per cent of India's mica, helping the country maintain its position as one of the world's chief exporters of the mineral. The long chain of supply and demand that starts with the families in the small forest village of Jharki Bisalpur ends in Japan, Europe and the United States, where the mica that women like Mrs. Devi, her husband and even her children forage for a few rupee notes is used in everything from electrical goods to rubber and cosmetic products. Over the past few years, with no government assistance forthcoming, the villagers have become proactive. In 2011, Jharkhand held its first elections for a Panchayat or village government, and 50 percent of the seats were reserved for women. The Jharia Panchayat, of which Jharki Bisalpur is a part, was one such seat, and the villagers urged Mrs. Devi to run on their behalf. She was already a known face, having previously worked with a nonprofit in town. After a vigorous campaign, during which she was "nice to everyone," she says, Mrs. Devi emerged victorious, winning 230 votes and defeating five other candidates. "She is her own person," says Manoranjan Singh, an activist with the Bachpan Bachao Andolan, a non-profit group that works with mining communities in Jharkhand and is familiar with Mrs. Devi's work. Unlike many women Panchayat leaders, she's the boss, not her husband. Mrs. Devi's victory has been bittersweet. She has power, but so far it has remained on paper. The local government is yet to release funds for her to implement a single project. Her days are spent running from one government office to another, her head bowed, hands folded. "They are determined to be unhelpful," she says. Representing a village with no running water, no electricity and a school that's open less than half of the time, Mrs. Devi has a lot of work ahead. When she is allowed to get started, what will be her first priority? "Why, building a road through the forest, of course," she says. Sonia Faleiro is the author of "Beautiful Thing: Inside in the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars." Read The NYT review here. You can read more about her work at www.soniafaleiro.com