As per official data, Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes in states like Bihar, Jharkhand, and some central Indian regions show persistently high poverty ratios, often due to historical marginalization and reliance on fragile agrarian or forest economies. Yet, from my desk in Delhi, I must argue that the highest poverty is now among landless rural *mazdoors* and displaced peri-urban dwellers like me—people caught between a lost *gaon* and an unaffordable *shehar*. My own small rented plot, where I count every drop of water, shows how tenuous livelihood becomes when you are no longer counted as a farmer nor included as a city resident. The policy obsession with state-wise rankings misses these vanishing people entirely.
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