Events & Issues
New Delhi, 13 January 2016
Village Development
VITAL TO TAP LOCAL EXPERTISE
By
Moin Qazi
Why have
information-driven initiatives not flourished in rural India? Given
that seemingly simple knowledge can have a big impact on the farming communities.
It is no secret that many women collectives have struggled to save Rs. 20 per
month, forget trying to become the catalysts of change in their communities. Indeed,
their struggle was not due to lack of ability, but due to a lack of
willingness.
In fact, one witnessed
the construction of a community well and installation of a hand pump by money
which was voluntarily contributed by women, without any prompting or external
assistance. Whereby, the villagers got together and decided to take up the challenge.
This is not all. The
villagers went about this job in a very organized manner. They maintained records
on how much each family had contributed and worked. One saw how both men and
women diligently worked together busy hauling stones up a steep hill. The
entire project was completed within a month. Notwithstanding, this was the same
village whose collectives could not manage to meet together once a month to
save Rs. 20!
Alas, if only one could
convince them that building the foundations for development, such as
constructing water-harvesting structures or investing in thorough bred animals
for future dairy profits was of equal importance as that of building a
community well, then rapid changes in the peoples’ livelihoods could happen.
Undeniably, this project
was a watershed. It showed us the potential for collective action that lay
beneath the villagers’ apparently passive exterior and paved the way for
building of the village centre.
Villagers worked
together, stitching banners, painting posters, erecting flagstaffs on roofs and
stringing wires across the street to in organizing a reception for Government
officials who came on a visit. Pertinently, all marvelled at the local
community’s voluntary initiative. For the bureaucrats too, the visit not only
opened their eyes but was a lesson in community development.
Besides this, one
observed villages which saw a dramatic increase in crop yield and incomes after
agricultural scientists advised farmers on watershed techniques. Namely, by
digging ditches so that soil was not washed away.
True, this alone will
not solve India’s
deep-rooted agriculture problems but better information can significantly boost
food production and thereby rural incomes. Although there is much discussion in
public forums of involving stakeholders for appropriate development of rural society,
poor people rarely get the opportunity to develop their own agenda and vision
or set terms for the involvement of outsiders.
Notably, the entire
participatory paradigm illustrates that rural people are participating in plans
and programmes designed by ‘outsiders’ nee those residing in urban areas.
Consequently, not only is there little opportunity for villagers to articulate
their ideas as also an institutional space wherein their ingenuity and
creativity in solving the problems they face can be recognized, respected and
rewarded.
Shockingly, this is akin
to placing the proverbial cart before the horse. Against the backdrop that any
community project requires meticulous planning and careful implementation,
involving complete and accurate information on all the important variables: socio-cultural,
environmental and economical aspects.
Importantly, as one
delves deep in to a rural community one detects a subtle dehumanization of the
people. Undoubtedly, this might not be intentional, but happens, especially when
village projects have already been formulated.
Remember, there is a
difference between being invited to live in a town and learn where one can help
with the endogenous development process already underway, and arriving with
ready-made solutions to problems one has not yet encountered, but assumed (or
hoped) existed.
Wherein it is akin to
getting a hammer and then looking for nails. This approach shifts the people in
your new community from the subject to the object of development.
Besides, if the
inhabitants have not yet given one their trust and shown the community’s social
topography, the rural folks might even seem like obstacles! Resulting in urban
planners cursing, “If it weren’t for these damn people and their baffling
behaviour, I’d have had these women’s projects finished long ago!”
Importantly, one needs to realize
that tackling poverty requires an approach which must begin with the people
themselves who are encouraged for their initiative, creativity and drive from
below.
This strategy must be at the core of
any transformatory exercise if the results are to be lasting and enduring. One
has had the privilege of watching village women acquire a sense of dignity once
they were given tools for self-sufficiency. Raising a moot point: Are poor
clients last in the long list of our objectives? And should not one listen to
the heart and not just my head?
Sadly, villagers no longer trust the
elite. In this, their instincts are right. Alongside, the gram panchayat
members too are handicapped as on their backs ride the power brokers who
dispense patronage to convert a mass movement into a feudal oligarchy.
These self-perpetuating powerful cliques
thrive by invoking caste and religious sloganeering by enmeshing the panchayat in their net of avarice. For them,
the masses do not count.
Bluntly, their lifestyles and thinking,
or lack of it, for self-aggrandizement as also their linkages with vested
interests and sanctimonious posturing are wholly incompatible with work among rural
people. Wherein they are busy reducing panchayats
in to a shell organisation from which the spirit of service and sacrifice
has been drained.
More shocking, panchayat leaders, block officials and
the local elite lack sensitivity towards poor people’s problems during their
visits to villages. All busy strutting around arrogantly, treating others like their
praja.
Already, villagers speak
of visitors scathingly due to their snobbery. Our planners seem to forget and realize that community
up-liftment requires individuals with a temperament honed in noble
values and ability to mix easily with all ranks for all-round community
development and peoples’ well being. ----
INFA
(Copyright, India
News and Feature Alliance)
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