Five Myths about Poverty in India!

Five Myths!
My career with NGOs spanned for five year and I learnt a lot during those. Some of the myths about underprivileged of India that I would like to negate are discussed in the following lines.

Myth #1- India is a poor country
It is not. Contrary to the belief, we are not a poor country, but there is a lot of skew ness in the distribution of wealth. This imbalance is not a result of a “bourgeois” rich and middle class conspiracy that my communist friends would like me to believe, but it is due to an acute system failure in areas where non-privileged population lives resulting into a situation where the poor don’t have basic amenities (health, education and employment) that enable them to avail the opportunities to grow. Government after government decides that these problems can be solved by allocating more money for these sections of the society, fooling the nation as they know fully well that this money gets pilfered in the way and gets back to them. Thus, more problems, more allocation of budget, more money for the netajis and bureaucrats. Unfortunately, communist politicians in this country are not different from the general lot of politicians who come to politics to serve themselves and not the country.

Myth #2: Getting more money is the answer to all the problems of India
Incorrect. Many of my friends who are doing well in their careers and are still compassionate for the poor of the country ask me about the ways they can contribute their money to help India get rid of the problems of poverty, ignorance and lack of basic amenities. To them, my message is- there is not dearth of money for the welfare of poor in India. There is, however, an acute shortage of political will to bring an end to these problems, a lack of character (integrity, honesty) in the implementing organizations in general.

Myth #3: There is nothing I can do as a well educated, ‘settled’ person- and to do something for the welfare of the country, I need to turn a monk- which of course I can’t!
False. India does not need your money, it needs you as an individual to come forward and help out. It is not necessary for you to turn a monk to do so. It is not necessary for you to leave that lucrative job and turn a full time NGO worker. The poor need you and your financial muscle to turn their luck They don’t want another ‘poor’ intellectual joining their ranks to exacerbate their existing problems. You can contribute by: voting religiously and asking others to vote too, volunteering part time for the good organizations, extend an helping hand to poor by teaching them and getting more like minded people to start working on a smaller scale rather than waiting for some miracle to happen on a big scale that would overnight solve all the problems of the country.

Myth #4: India is primarily an agriculture-based economy and multitudes can grow only when the agriculture grows
Incorrect. The agriculture sector in India today suffers with a number of problems- over employment, poor productivity, too much dependence on rains, lack of scientific attitude to count just a few of them. India needs industries and services sector to employ people from the rural and semi urban areas to help them come out of the vicious poverty that surrounds agriculture based communities today. No amount of government aid, loan waivers or promises are going to stop farmer suicides in Vidarbha unless there are alternative sources of employment in these areas (read- industries and services like rural BPOs and not sarkaari tamaashas –government sponsored eyewash like cottage industry, art and crafts etc).

Myth #5: Nothing can change this country-I am shifting to US, to hell with this country
Absolutely foolish thought. This country is in the state that is today because of us and not the vice-versa. It has got the super power potential and all the super-powers of the world know this (follow the international news for 2 weeks, and you would agree). If there is a problem, it is with us- as the people. We like to keep cribbing about the darkness rather than lighting a lamp. Running to US or some other countries would not solve your problem. You would remain a second class citizen no matter where you go and what you do. Moreover, the guilt of leaving the motherland in difficult times agonize you till your grave. Going abroad to work or for tourism is fine- it broadens one’s horizons but shifting your home entirely because you are afraid of tackling the problems at home is not only cowardly but also thankless.

Enough of Myths; now the Action points!
Like a character in Hindi Movie “Rang de Basanti” said- “Koi country great hota nahin hai, use great banana padta hai” (No country is great from the beginning- it has to be made great over a period of time). Couple of my suggestions as a NGO person about the action points with which you can contribute in improving the conditions of our country.

Action point#1: Take some action-no matter how small it is!
Volunteer as a teacher on Saturdays in the nearest NGO run school located in the slums. Sponsor a poor child’s health or education for one year.

Action point#2: Awaken your near and dear ones
Once you start working for a cause, no matter how small it is, discuss or send emails to all your near and dear ones- your brothers, sisters, parents, spouse, cousins, uncles and aunties, your close and distant friends, your colleagues- and try to get them thinking about these issues and eventually start working for some small cause.

Action point#3: Educate others about social issues
Write letters in the newspaper. The letters to editor are followed by other like minded people who are trying to read compatriots’ mind on the burning issues. They are also followed by the public grievances departments of the government. Spread awareness by writing in these spaces- but be careful not to write generalist or hateful messages that would be immediately banned from being published. You can also write your views in the online discussion boards.

Action point#4: Help Indians from other states, castes, creed and regions
Try to help people who are different from you. Regionalism is another big obstacle in growth of our country. When you help an Indian who is radically different from you, you make him/her a goodwill ambassador of India at large to his region/caste/creed.

Action point#5: Be optimistic
Don’t ever think that our country would remain the way it is for ever. All countries have had their share of problems that they have fought with and overcome – or are even struggling with today. Our country is no different. By keeping a positive outlook towards the solution of the problems and trying consciously to solve them, we can overcome today’s problem. Talking about our country in poor light not just brings your and others morale down it also stops us from taking any corrective action to overcome the present scenario.
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PRADAN Memoirs- Alone in the forest in a scary night

It was a rainy night in October 2002- and I was returning from village Chaapu (some 16 kilometers from Sironj, where I lived during my stint with PRADAN). I had gone to Chappu to try for the revival of a Women Self Help Group constituted of very poor women of Gond Tribe. I had a very bad time in convincing them to come for the meeting and was only partially successful. It was late already about 10 in the night and I was in a very foul mood that day. It was drizzling, and my host in Chaapu- Umarao Singh asked me a to stay overnight as the rains would have ruined the dirt tracks of villages that connected it to highway- some 10 kilometers away.

However, highly pissed that I was, being unable to convince the women of village to run the SHG smoothly; I ignored his suggestion and decided to go back, taking the route through Ricchan village. Umrao Singh did not agree but he had no option but to agree as I had decided to go back, come what may.

He accompanied me on my bike (a 100 CC Hero Honda Splendor) till Ricchan as there was a big, half dug irrigation well next to the dirt track in Ricchan and Umrao feared that I may drop into it with the bike in the night- as it was drizzling and visibility was poor. He went back from Ricchan after explaining me the way from there to the highway- and I only 24 at that time could have cared less for the rain, night and mud on the dirt track. I took the way he told me and reached a part of forest- mostly scrubs and some trees here and there- deserted for almost 3 kilometers on both sides. It was almost 10.30 by now and there were no lights other than the headlight of my bike.

The drizzle had converted into downpour and I had to drive slowly to avoid the bike slipping into to mud. Suddenly, in the middle of no where, I realized that the front wheel of my bike has gone immobile.

Imagine- 10.30 in the night, heavy rains, alone in the forest and then this happens! I must confess that I got scared thinking it to be some super natural phenomenon. Thank God that I did not loose my presence of mind. I stalled the vehicle on the main stand while keeping its engine running and tried to have a look on the front wheel in the dim light reflecting from the ground.

Mud had filled the gap between the mudguard and tyre of the front wheel, and there was no room for the wheel to rotate. Thus, it had seized. I relaxed- so there were no ghosts after all, just some mud in the wheel! But then, there was night, there was heavy rain and the fact remained that I was in the middle of a degraded forest with wildlife at 11ish in the night.

I thought about breaking the mud guard with a stone, but then realized that it would cost me a good 700-800 bucks to replace it- and being an apprentice with Rs 8000 p.m stipend, I could not have afforded it.

"Think of something economical"- I told my self!

So glad, Hero Honda guys keep something called Utility Box just above the engine- i rushed for it and opened it. There was indeed a tool box and a first aid kit inside- and under those circumstances, I would have needed both of them dearly!

I took out the tool box- under the illumination of the headlight I got what I needed - a screwdriver and a wrench. I tried to scrape the mud out of the wheel but it was not successful. Even if it had, I had to go another 5 kilometers minimum in the muddy dirt paths and could not have afforded to get the wheel seized in mudguard again. I decided to go the rural way- take the damn thing off!

So, bending down on my knees in the heavy downpour, I started unscrewing the nuts holding the mudguard. There were some sounds coming from nearby bushes and it took a lot of my will power to convince myself that this is something like hare or wild fowl and nothing dangerous creatures. I learnt the patience and working with a cool head that night in the middle of nowhere, 11 in the night, alone in a degraded forest.

I cooly took the mudguard off, kept it on my shoulders and started driving the bike towards the highway. Without a mud guard all the mud from ground was getting splashed at my face and chest, but I was glad that I was going to get out of that scary place. After struggling for another half an hour or so, I would the road going to Sironj and drove slowly to my residence well pat midnight. I parked the bike in the front yard and went to sleep after a shower and change of clothes.


Epilogue

Next morning, my landlady called me down from my room on the first floor. rubbing my sleepy eyes I cam down to find her staring at my bike. No part of my bike was visible save for a thick layer of mud from the handle to rear brake lights.

"Had you fallen into a pit filled with mud last night?"- She asked, with bewildered looks.

"Something of that sort, yes"- I said and went back to my cozy and dry sleeping bag.

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The day we demolished a dam with our bare hands!

It was the rain season of 2003- my friend Madhukar had completed the construction of an earthen dam in Village Madagan with lots of trouble. The dam was some 80 meters long and was constructed at a very suitable site, but deemed unfit earlier because of the rocks in the place. It took almost a year, more than 5000 man hours, a bulldozer and finally an earth excavator to build the dam which would feed the parched fields of some 100 banjara (nomadic tribe) families and bring them out of the clutches of poverty. When it was completed, it was a cause of celebration- both to us, the team at PRADAN and more to the villagers for whom it was nothing short of a dream come true.

Then, in July 2003, Madhukar went away for a training program to Delhi. Our team leader was also not present that day in office when in the afternoon some villagers from Madagan came rushing and told that the because of continuous rains, the dam is full up to the brink and if it rains any further, the water would flow over the dam, breaching its bund and reducing it into a heap of rubble.

I asked Laxman, a civil engineer by profession (who had joined the same week) to come with me for an inspection of the site. We reached there in about an hour through muddy grounds and found that villagers were right indeed. The water level was only about a feet below the top of the dam. It was surprising as there was a provision of a spillway, that acts as safety valve for the dam to let the water flow out safely and effortlessly after dam gets filled up to a particular level, making sure that the water never reaches the top of the dam. Then why was it happening?

To find out, we went to the spillway to find that the local contractor working on the dam had made the level of the floor of the spill way higher than what it should have been. this and the reason that the soil of the dam had compacted during the rains were the reason for the current situation.

We were in a dilemma what to do- remaking the spillway would take a lot of time and may be by then the dam itself would be breached. The villagers were looking at us, waiting for our decision. Since I was older in the organization- the responsibility came to me to ensure the safety of the dam.

I had once asked about the cost of the dam to Madhukar and he had told me that it was some where around 200,000 rupees. He had also told me that the spillway had cost us some 14,000 rupees. Under the circumstances, the natural thought came to me- to sacrifice a 14,000 rupees structure to save the bigger, 200,000 rupees structure.

I concluded that we will have to demolish the floor of spillway. But how? It was made of stones with a plaster of cement concrete on the floor and sides. Getting laborers or explosives to break it was impossible as the day was setting.

I had a quick look at the floor of the spill way and thought - may be we can break it. But how? There was no implements (spades etc) available. We were quite far from the village. I saw a rock lying on one side of spillway and decided to try breaking floor with it. I raised it high over my head with both my hands and slammed it on the floor with all my might- lo and behold!

There was a crack in the floor- thanks to the poor work done by the local contractor! Another try -more cracks! Then I decided that this is how to do it- break the floor with the rocks and then pull out the stone under the floor to make the spillway deeper. Laxman also helped me out- and we started demolishing the spillway of the dam with our bare hands!

Sometime later, a few villagers passing by saw us working to save their dam- they lent us their hand and some of them even got the spades from the village after a while. Before sundown, the floor of the spillway was broken totally- mostly through the bare hands of me and my colleague. The stone of its floor were excavated and soon the water was flowing out of the dam smoothly as originally designed. Villagers around us were smiling ear to ear and so were we.

After all, who gets an opportunity to demolish a dam with their bare hands every other day?

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An article on IIFMites, Development and Market Forces for Sampark, IIFM magazine

Completing 4 years of my sojourn in the development sector almost six years after passing through the lofty IIFM gate (the water tank) for the first time, I am reflecting about how the journey has been so far and what lies ahead for me… or rather, for us.

Always keen to work for the development sector since my graduation days, I joined the 13th Batch of IIFM in June 2000. Experiencing the course in the next two years made me sure that I was meant for the grassroots and so did both my OTs with grassroots organizations – SRIJAN and PRADAN. In the same spirit, I joined PRADAN in 2002 just 15 days after passing out from IIFM.

I worked with some of the poorest people of the country in the Vidisha Project of PRADAN, in a small place called Sironj. It was a real eye opener for me – I had no idea how hollow all claims of development, cried hoarse by the media, were. I witnessed the abject poverty resulting from a total failure of the development system – lack of basic amenities (health, education facilities, safe drinking water and proper roads existing only on paper) and rampant corruption in government agencies. My studies in Forest management were left behind somewhere; there was no forest to manage and in face of such grave deficiencies, even talking about rejuvenating the barren forest land felt criminal to me.

For a little more than two years that I worked there before leaving the job on the face of serious health complications, every day approached me with a new learning, not just as a development professional, but as a human being. One of the many things I was unable to understand was how a human being could exploit another in such a blatant manner! How someone could rob a penniless peasant for providing a copy of land records to him? How a health worker could refuse to visit his villages in spite of knowing about a disease killing infants like an unrestrained banshee? I was humbled as a human being; I felt ashamed witnessing it as a mute spectator. I did whatever I could within my capacity as a development worker and as a human being, but soon realized that the problem was not just the providers of amenities and the services. It was the community as well.

Centuries of colonial rule of the British has made the once self-reliant Indian villages and its community totally dependent on the system (read Government). Once all the resources of the village used to belong to the community. But in the beginning of the 19th century the market, and the resource-hungry British Government, took over all of them – land, water, forests, everything – and made the community totally dependent on it. Due to a conflict in interest between the government and the community, a series of famines followed, in which more that 85 million Indians lost their lives – not to disease, not to invasion, but to the greed of a colonial power. Unfortunately, no one even talks about these unfortunate compatriots who lost their lives to hunger then. Today, famines may have stopped, but the dependency has not. In Kankerkhedi, my first village in PRADAN, which has a population of 150, 14 people including infants lost their lives in just one year due to water borne diseases, yet despite having sufficient funds I could not get a hand pump dug there for a full year, as the community simply refused to deposit Rs.2500 as part of their contribution, mandatory in the Project in which I was working. They demanded to know the reason they had to pay when the government provided everything free (at least in principle, with all bribes and everything!).

Now, this particular aspect of the process of development makes it a little difficult. It is comparatively easy to create infrastructure – roads, houses, schools, wells, dams, etc. – but changing the attitude of a community is an arduous task. It is a slow process and all the more difficult when you are trying to do it in an environment which is otherwise exploiting and corrupt – the poor being taken for a ride by traders and big landlords, politicians, government servants and the mushrooming fly-by-night NGOs in connivance with each other.

However, in the recent past we have seen the attitudes of Indian communities being changed in many instances. The same market forces that once ravaged Indian villages in the form of the British East India Company are today changing the scenario of urban and rural India. A few decades back no one had heard of Maggie Noodles, Pepsi or Coca Cola. Today, colas have penetrated deep inside the Indian hinterland. At times you may not find safe drinking water in some remote corners of the country, but the mighty cola is omnipresent (never mind the CSE revelations)! Thus, we have witnessed that the community attitude can be changed in relatively less time, but it needs specific factors like an environment promoting change, desire and motivation to change, a foolproof strategy and huge resources to bring about such a change. This does happen, where market forces decide to provide a particular service or product in rural areas – not for charity but for profits.

The biggest and most visible example today is that of the mobile phone services. I remember, during my schooldays in the late eighties and early nineties there used to be a long waiting list for getting a phone connection. One had to either approach a neta or pay bribes to get a phone connection. Hardly two years ago in Sironj mobile phone was unheard of. Today I frequently receive calls from the Sarpanch of one of the villages who, calling from his cell phone, asks me which new Yojana is being dispatched by the Sarkaar in Dilli! Not just he, but many in the villages where I used to work have got mobile phones now, which is not a luxury for them but a boon to their remote villages that are cut off from the rest of the country for many months every year during rains.

Unlike NGOs (which have limited resources, vision and motivation) and the government (with its red-tapism, attitudinal and human resource problems), the corporate sector has huge resources, man power, access to the latest knowhow and the biggest asset – an ability to think out-of-the-box to achieve their goal. The biggest challenge in this case is how to link the problems in rural India to the market forces. In other words, how a problem of rural India can be translated into a corporate revenue model, thus transforming the problem itself into a solution. Can the human resources of villages be tapped as in China? Can our agricultural productivity be raised as in Brazil? Can there exist local BPOs operating from rural India? Can there be a wind power park on the coast of Orissa? Can there be a thousand megawatt super solar power plant in vast, sunny spans of the Thar Desert? All these ideas may sound impractical and too dreamy, but we have to remember, before petroleum was discovered, the Middle East was just another desert!

Here lies a great opportunity for IIFMites. With our exposure to rural India and its problems and our training in management, we can act as a bridge between the rural issues and the market forces. If some of us can come up with a feasible revenue model of linking one of these issues and converting it into an opportunity for the Indian corporate sector which is currently undergoing a boom, there is no dearth of capital for an off-track, yet feasible business model. The biggest example here is the foray of Reliance Industries and Bharti Group into the agribusiness sector with thousands of crores of capital. Another good example is the advances of ICICI Bank Ltd in rural banking and microfinance, which will literally capture the rural credit market in the years to come. To set an example as well as benchmarks within the IIFM fraternity, some IIFMites have already pioneered developing the linkage between the process of development and market forces. Vineet Rai (PFM 1996) with Aavishkaar, Mumbai; Sameer Singh (PFM 2001) with IFC, New Delhi; Deepak Mitra (PFM 2002) with Phillips India Ltd., Gurgaon – are a few among many in this growing genre of IIFMites, who are noted for having performed exceedingly well in this relatively less traveled path for IIFMites.

For the current IIFM batches, some more inputs from IIFM – in terms of some research in this aspect, more related courses of enhanced quality, distinguished visiting faculty from the industry – would go a long way in turning IIFM students into stalwarts of a new breed of industries: hybrids of corporate spirit and rural resources. At the same time, the students too have a major responsibility in bringing about this change. Rather than considering our course in IIFM as a ‘paid holiday’ (as one of my seniors told me on my first day at IIFM), we need to widen our horizons of knowledge working hard 24X7, keeping our eyes and ears open, reading and learning latest developments and looking for opportunities that would take us beyond the current trends in IIFM, lest the ‘paid holiday’ (sic) turns into a holiday that has to be paid for all through one’s life!

For those of us who have already passed out, probably the need of the hour is that the entrepreneurs among us come up with an idea out of their experiences in rural India and understanding of Indian economic scenario as of now. The pioneers in this venture are most likely going to leave a lasting impression on the Indian economy and society in the days to come. This is the ultimate opportunity to establish brand IIFM in Indian corporate and development sector with a paradigm shift in the perception of others for us, once and for all.

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Jowar Mata (Mother Sorghum)-The Backbone of poor farmers in Indian villages

While the green revolution has considerably reduced the importance of grains like sorghum and maize in the Indian agriculture, the poor farmers still treat Jowar (Sorghum) as their mother- for the simple reason that it feeds the farmers with least resources- inferior soil, less rains and no or insufficient resources for fertilizers.
(Photo: Courtsy www.ativabio.com)


Before the Green Revolution (a dramatic increase in the food grain production in India) in the 60’s whereby the production of food grains shot up with the use of high yielding varieties (HYV), rapid use of fertilizers and irrigation facilities, particularly in the north Indian states of Punjab and Haryana, practically whole of India the farmers were taking food grain crops of sorghum and maize. The production was less and so was the economic value of these grains to support the market driven village economy. Because of this mostly these crops were used for bartering other commodities like clothes, vegetable and agricultural implements.


The green revolution led by Dr. M.S. Swaminathan with the help of the dwarf varieties developed by noble laureate Dr. Norman Borlaug has changed the scenario totally. The rural markets in India are dominated by various varieties of wheat and rice today. With a good production, these varieties have changed the economic and food security situation in these areas. Not only are these families more food sufficient as compared to the past, the cash flow in the rural economy has increased many folds, thanks to these crops.


However, this otherwise rosy dynamics changes when we think in the perspective of the poor families of the marginalized sections of the societies- scheduled tribes, scheduled castes, nomadic communities etc, who have very small landholding of poor soil quality and little or no credit availability for purchasing the high yielding seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. In such situation, the high yielding wheat verities are of little use to the poor farmers.


So they depend on the humble crop of past-Jowar. Marginal farmers (with small piece of land of poor soil quality and less water for irrigation) rely on Jowar for the food security of their families. The modus operandi is simple- borrow bullocks and plough from a co-villager, plough the land and sow Jowar seeds, with little or no fertilizers. Like a caring and understanding mother, Jowar grows very well in even the most undulated, rocky soil with little water retention capacity, depending totally on the rains or the residual water in the soil for the irrigation and feeds the family like a mother with its humble offering.


Even 2 quintals of Jowar from a small landholding of one bigha (one fourth of a Hectare) provides the poor family a food sufficiency for two months. Also, during this time, since they are not working in their own lands, they find employment in the fields of other people for various crop related operations and earn enough money to sustain their family for another 2-3 months. Jowar provides good amount of fodder to the cattle and is used in many places for fuel and thatch as well. No wonder its called Jowar Mata (Mother) by poor in many parts of the country.
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Tractors- vehicles of development???

Tractors- do they really mean development?

Many of us consider tractors as a general symbol of development in rural India regardless of the profile of the family owning it. Probably tractors as symbols of development have been borrowed from the western societies but having spent sometime at the grassroots, I beg to differ.

First of all, the cost of purchasing a tractor is very high even for a well to do big farmer. Although through subsidies the total cost of a tractor may be around Rs.4.5 lacs, but farmers seldom are able to purchase them by offering cash up front. Rather they have to get it financed from the banks, and the yearly installments for the same comes to be around Rs. 80,000/- which, by all means is an astronomical amount for small and medium farmers. Add to this the cost of maintenance and diesel and the actual money required to have a tractor shoots through the ceiling. The farmer eventually has to pay about Rs. 7-7.5 lacs for even the low end 25 HP tractors and when they are unable to do so, the tractor, which is under hypothecation with the bank is snatched away and auctioned off.

For this threat, many a times the farmers are forced to sell off a portion of their land to pay for the installment of the tractor, which actually makes them poorer rather than adding to their riches by creating a vicious cycle of reducing means of production and increasing the liabilities. Probably for similar reasons, even Mahatma Gandhi opposed the mechanization in agriculture in his book 'Hind Swaraj' written in early 30's.

So, what is the solution?

In my opinion, it is much better for a small or medium farmer to hire a tractor during the crop season on rates varying Rs.400-450 per hour rather than purchasing one. It limits their liability, keeps the cost of maintenance off, and best part- provides employment to another villager, usually a young entrepreneur. The basis for this argument is that the tractor is not able to support its cost if it does not works in at least 10-15 hectare land for various crop operations like tilling, sowing and weeding. Thus any farmer having less than these much land either has to hire out the tractor to the other farmers or bear losses.

So simple! Then why the hell do they get one in the first place?

The question is, if they can not afford to have a tractor, how and why small and medium farmers end up getting a white elephant to their home? The answer lies in the greed of tractor companies and the bank managers. The tractor companies are always in the look out for increasing their sales. For this, they employ agents in the nearby villages who act on dealer’s behalf. This dealer is, in turn, connected with the bank managers of Commercial banks as well as the Regional Rural Banks and Land Development/ Cooperative banks which have got targets to finance tractors under various schemes. Financing a tractor is their favorite finance plan as it is a big transaction and they need to conduct fewer such transactions to achieve their targets rather than going for many smaller transactions like those involved in funding a diesel engine.

The Gameplan of Tractor dealer

The agent in the village provokes the fancy of the farmer, whets his ego by promoting tractor as a mean to show that he is a big guy in the village and brings him to the dealer. The dealer, at times pays off some amount of the initial deposit required for the bank by providing a loan to the farmer on exorbitant interest rates and keeping a blank stamp paper with the farmers sign or thumb impression on it with his land record as a security. Then he gets the tractor financed by the bank, but not before the manager extracts his pound of flesh in form of bribe from the farmer. Thus, the deal is struck. The dealer gets his margin, the agent gets his 'cut' and the manager gets the increment as well as the bribe, but the farmer pays through his nose for all of this.

That’s how another farmer is drawn into the debt trap for the so called symbol of development. Adding to the existing number of tractors in the village, it further reduces the rate that a young entrepreneur was getting as tractor hire and thus the farmer not just hurts his financial interest but also that of others in the village.

Later on, as the farmer is unable to pay the installments in time, he sells of some of his lands, and ultimately the tractor is either snatched off by the bank or the farmer has to make a distress selling to some biggy of the village to pay off the remaining amount of the loan.

It is evident with this that selling tractors to small and medium farmers- without any ethical considerations about their paying capacity and how it would effect their finances in the long run- is ruining thousands of farmer of India.

Is anybody listening?

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A mail- September 2005

Here is a mail that I wrote to members of IIFM Alumni (at yahoo groups) in September 2005 after Katrina struck some parts of US and horrifying images from New Orleans filled our living rooms through various News Channels.

Although this incidence was one of human suffering and tragedy, some sections of Indian Society tried to use this opportunity to draw comparisons between India and US; trying to prove that India is superior to the US - as we were able to address the floods in Mumbai in a better way the US Government did in case of Katrina. One such mail was forwarded in the forum.

I felt hurt with this opinion and wrote back to the forum my opinion about it. I had almost forgotten about this mail, when I recently saw it posted on the blog of one of my seniors from IIFM quoting my mail. I am reproducing the same here to make it a part of my blog on issues of development in India.

"Dear All,

This mail is in context of the recent comparisons drawn between US and India by certain sections of Indian society. Some of us agreed to that point of view and some did not. With this mail, I am trying to put in front of you my thoughts on this. I would like to request you not to view my thoughts as some kind of generalization. Our country is so vast that it is impossible to state a fact that applies true for each and every nook and corner of the country. Whatever I am expressing is based on my personal experiences as well as the information that I could gather from the newspapers, books and articles, as well as the experiences of my friends and colleagues working across India. Please feel free to disagree where ever you think I am wrong and point it out to me. I would be grateful for the same, as you would help me in getting over some of the number of imperfections that I have as an individual.

In the midst of all the development that has been happening, India scaling new heights in many fields, growing confidence of Indians, booming Indian economy (Sensex breaking the 8000 ceiling), new jobs and avenues that are being created, Indian IT professionals dominating the silicon valley, recent Goldman Sachs report of India being one of the economic superpowers in coming few years and our comparisons of the tragedies-Mumbai and New Orleans, there is a threat of us becoming complacent and start blowing our own trumpet while the world moves on. I don't have the slightest doubt about the capacities of us the Indians and the potential that our country has to become a non-belligerent, supportive superpower (unlike the US) in the days to come, but, in words of Robert Frost- '...miles to go before I sleep....'.

Disparity in Indian society is growing by the day and there is a total system failure in terms of the education, health, livelihoods and law and order in many parts of the country.
So, while many of us in past few years have been promoted from the Indian Railways to Jet Airways customers, there are still millions of our countrymen who don't have access to a pucca road on which they can travel to the nearest haat with their produce in their Ox-carts. While the galloping Indian economy in developed parts of the country treads on the six and eight lane highways, most parts of the country are still inaccessible for whole four or five months of the rains- unfortunately this is the time when the morbidity and mortality due to various diseases is at the peak and the people desperately try to reach the nearest block or town for medical assistance.

While we in metros see the vulgar display of wealth in terms of new longer and costlier cars, expensive consumer goods and shopping malls full of the best products of the world market, millions of our compatriots are still going without two square meals a day.

Bonded labour, in form of Harwaha system is still going on in our villages. So, for Rs.8000 a year (A year, mind you, not a month), it is still possible to have a dignified slave to work for you 14 hours a day in our villages. Most of the times, it is poorest of the poor SC and ST families of the village that get into the cob-web of this system.

While in our cosmopolitans, corporate hospitals like Max, Apollo and Escorts are coming up, in most of the rural areas it is the Quacks (Jhola Cchaaps), who are not qualified enough to treat animals are treating human beings for diseases ranging from common cold to cancer. I witnessed in one village of Madhya Pradesh of population 160, 15 people dying in one year, of which 11 were children below 15 years of age and 12 of the dead had died because of lack of safe drinking water.

With all hungaama in the name of IT in rural India, the farmer is being charged exorbitant amounts for getting a copy of his land records by the soochak of the Gyandoot Project in Madhya Pradesh. E-governance is still a distant dream for most of the districts in the country.
On two ends of the spectrum, NGO activists are either making wealth or are getting killed for their work and rapport with the community depending on the degree of integrity and honesty that they display. They are finding stiff resistance from the stablished players of the rural and urban development- government officials, and businessmen who are hand in gloves with the corrupt and inefficient Government machinery at many places.

Forests are vanishing, despite JFM, SFM and whatever Forest Management, many forest areas are rapidly turning to deserts. Our tigers and leopards are being poached at alarming rates to be sold in the international markets and danger of extinction is looming large on these magnificent animals. All this goes on while we are trying evade this reality by burying our heads under the sand like an ostrich.

Other natural resources are fast depleting- worst hit is water which is being recklessly pumped out in whichever areas it is still available. Land quality also is depleting due to the reckless use of fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture and improper management of organic matter disposal. People turning towards the cash crops for more and quick income have also got a bearing over this situation.

Governance has become a victim of politics, corruption and vested interests of individuals. While the numbers of management institutes and engineering colleges in India have gone up drastically in past few years and in some parts they have come up like mushrooms, churning out tens of thousands of engineers or managers (so called) a year in a single state, in many other parts of the country there are only two or three 8th pass persons in the whole village!

Atrocities on weaker sections of the society- the poor and women- is common in rural areas and in some ‘disturbed’ states of India, it has assumed dangerous proportions. All said and done, the persons from both of these categories are still being subjected to a second rate citizen treatment and this practice is continuing unabated in many parts of the country.

Separatist movements are going on in many parts of the country, with a lot of bloodshed and brutalities both by militants and security forces. This has support of many countries who don’t want to see a strong India and are ready to go to any extent to check the movement of Indian juggernaut in the direction of becoming a developed nation. Lack of development and prosperity in these areas are helping the separatist movement by providing a pretext of these movements to drag in the youth into this.

The crux is- there is no chance for our country to think that we have achieved what we wanted to achieve and relax, even for a minute. They say- ‘Rome was not built in a day’ and neither would be our country.

My intention is not to dampen the spirit of India emerging as a developed country. I am a total nobody to say this, considering all the big-wigs are going gaga about the achievements of the country in the recent years. All I want is to point that lets not get complacent with the achievements of our country so far. Let’s not start relaxing so early and start living in a false sense of well being, as all is not well.

If at all this is going to be a triumph for the nation, it is just the beginning. The fight has just started and a lot of struggle is ahead. There are millions of Indians waiting for their fair share in the development of the country. With the growing rhetoric about privatization and commercialization a panacea to all problems of the country, there is a chance of dumping this responsibility totally on the market forces (as we had done in past, dumping the total responsibility of development of the nation on the government and its agencies, and there by making them feel like God- all pervasive and omnipotent- without any answerability whatsoever). None of them- either the Government or the Market- would ever be able to single-handedly perform the Herculean task of the development of the multitudes of our country till the time we, the individuals assume a portion of this task as an individual responsibility and do our bit about addressing these problems.

And for this, the first thing that is required is a lot of soul searching and a well participated discussion amongst us, and to find out the exact role that we can play and how to optimize it in the favour of the Indian version of the Chinese Long March that we are witnessing. In a way, we are in middle of making of the history- emergence of the modern India as a developed country. It is akin to the freedom movement and as we ask our previous generations, tomorrow’s generations are going to question us how we participated in this process and what role we played in this. Victory or defeat-in both cases, we would be responsible for some role or the other. It’s now up to us, what we want to be- performers, or the fence sitters.

I would like to quote Late Dushyant Kumar, one of the famous Hindi poets of modern times before I close.

‘Ho chuki hai peer parvat si, pighalni chahiye/

Is Himalay se koi Ganga nikalni chahiye/

Sirf hungama khada karma mera maksad nahin/

Mera maksad hai ki koi tadbir nikalni chahiye/

Mere sine mein nahin to tere seene mein sahi/

Ho kahin bhi aag, lekin aag jalni chahiye……"

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A Post on Delhi- for a change!

How I landed up in Delhi

In June 2004, I left PRADAN with a heavy heart. A part of my mind asking me to stay where I had spent some of the best days in my life, working with some most poor, yet the coolest people, and I lived a part of their life on a daily basis. I am going to discuss this separately, as many readers of my blog send me mails asking why I left PRADAN when I loved it so much.

Obviously, it was a painful episode for me, and I am sure, many others- my friends in PRADAN and more then them, some of the beneficiaries who had started treating me as their family member. I am waiting to write that part of my story; and so would you have to!

After leaving PRADAN on 30th June 2004, I went to my parents at Rewa, my home town, to spend some time with my family. It was also a necessary break for me to get a break to relax, rest and recuperate. I spent about 15 days in home, talking to my ailing grandfather, who, in many ways, is my ideal in life. I also discussed future with my parents, who were not very convinced with my leaving PRADAN without having another offer in my hands. May be they were feeling insecure, and to some extent even I was, but one thing was sure in my mind; I could have stayed in PRADAN looking for a job, biding my time, but that would have been a treachery, not just with PRADAN, but more importantly with the community, as healthwise I was no more in shape to do justice to my work in PRADAN. I told my parents that I have got enough savings to sail me through my days of unemployment, and besides, we still have our land of 11.5 acres in the outskirts of Rewa. I told them what I had told one of my colleagues in PRADAN- “Thanks to PRADAN, I know how to cultivate soyabean and wheat. I have some idea of cultivating vegetable as well. So, if I don’t get a job in 2-3 months, I would simply come back and become a farmer in my home.” I knew it was easier said than done, and was also confident about getting a job in Delhi.

With this background, I landed up in Delhi in the third week of July. Madhukar, who was with me in PRADAN and was in fact my room partner there, had reached Delhi a few days earlier after quitting PRADAN to pursue higher studies (read MBA). He had already taken a house in Khirkee Extension (Malviya Nagar) with help of Cchavvi and Haresh (ex-apprentices in PRADAN, Sironj).

A Party Going on?

I distinctly remember, it was a Saturday when I reached Delhi and unfortunately lost my way in Malviya Nagar. The autowallah dumped me on one of the intersections after taking his charges, and here I was, in a very bad shape, long hair, a day’s stubble, dirty clothes due to the travel and holding a bag and a suitcase- on a typical Saturday evening of Delhi. Having lived in villages for two years- I was looking at everybody passing through with wide eyes. Latest bikes, luxury cars, well dressed young people, an overpowering fragrance of a variety of deos, cologne and talcs in the atmosphere, car stereos blaring music all around- and I was looking on, as I had never seen this ever. ‘What is this’, I thought, ‘is there a party going on somewhere?’ I was soon to realize that this ‘party’ is a pattern of life in Delhi and probably in other metros of the country.

A Cultural Shock- but the poor remain poor

It is a cultural shock when a guy like me hailing from a small town and having lived in rural areas comes to Delhi. For days all I kept doing was to compare this life with that life. I and Madhukar used to discuss about our days in PRADAN and how things are here in that comparison. Our flat was in one of the dirty alleys in Khirkee and fortunately there was a balcony in which we would stand in the mornings. Here we came to know that by no means is the number of poor less in Delhi, no matter how insensitively we try to push this issue under the carpet.

Because of our orientation, we would see number of poor coming to sell something or the other. The first ones to come are the Koodawallah or the janitors who collect the garbage bags from each house and take them away for disposal. With them there are people selling the vegetables, along with the night watchmen who start their second shift by washing cars, making Rs 100-150 per month per car. They are joined by the drivers of school vans along with those of the call center cabs who ply 24X7 like their occupants. There would be a second wave of these street vendors- people selling incense sticks, house hold articles, utensil repairers, cobblers, The third wave is of delivery guys (some providing 20 liter cans of mineral water, some providing pizzas, burgers or other eatables), There are religious people- sadhus, shani maharaj and fakirs who are grateful to the religion for their livelihood. All these people would keep coming and going throughout the day. As both of us were out of the job, we would observe all this throughout the day and were quite amused in finding so many ways by which poor in Delhi earn their bread!

There are thousands of taxi drivers, porters, loaders and domestic servants that keep this city going. They are at the bottom of the pyramid that concentrates the surpluses at the top. Apart from the apparent availability of jobs, there is hardly any other factor that makes their life better in Delhi than what they use to live in their homes- small Indian towns, villages and hamlets.

A Dirty Secret of the National Capital

The other day I came across a gentleman in my neighborhood who maintains a Mercedes yet lives in a rented flat. I asked him why and he told me one of the little acknowledged secrets of Delhi- the prevalence of a covert money lending system.

He said- “Why should I block my money in the flat? I’d rather lend it to some small timer. It fetches a great interest.”

“How much?”

“About 10% a month”- the guy said coolly.

My jaws dropped. 10% a month is a whopping 120% annual rate of interest!!!

“How do you make sure that your money comes back?” -I asked.

“Ha ha ha! Do you think any of these poor rascals have guts to embezzle MY money?”- said the gentleman, menacingly.

Now you know how money earns more money in a materialistic system like ours!

(to be continued)

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