In Baingwadi, a small villagetucked deep inside Uttarakhand’s Pauri district, the silence begins long before the houses appear. “There are only empty houses and hanging locks to welcome you here,” says Pratap Singh, 85, a retired sub-inspector of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, who lives alone. Of his two brothers, one has settled in Pauri town, the other in Dehradun. His three daughters and one son all live outside the state. “There is no one left,” he says quietly. “People come back only when there is a wedding or a ritual that must be held here.” Village pradhan Manvendra Rawat says of the village’s 392 registered voters, 125 live elsewhere. “Even the MGNREGA public works are incomplete. There is no one left to do it,” says Rawat.
