The very fact that the Tendulkar Committee has found that 38 percent of the people in India are poor is an indictment of the present development model. This poverty is more visible in all tribal areas.
The tribals living in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Borivli, near Mumbai, is to be seen to be believed. They have no schools and no medical facility.The tribals in Thane area are dying of mal-nutrition and suffering from TB and other diseases. This is in Maharashtra.
The tribal land in other states ( Jharkhand, Bihar,Orissa etc) is rich in minerals and is being mined by Indian and foreign companies displacing tribals without compensation and rehabilitation.
The people displaced due dams and irrigation projects have not been rehabilitated in adequate measure.
We all know what is happening in Vidarbha Thousands of farmers have committed suicide. People flock to cities in search of work and live in slums without proper sanitation.
There is injustice everywhere. However, can we set all this right by taking to the gun ? What development activities have the Maoists undertaken in their area of operation ? Blowing up schools and bridges cannot be called development. Maoists are like Jehadists who believe theirs is the only way of upliftment/salvation.
Maoists and their supporters have answer these questions before condoning heir violence. Violence cannot solve anything. It will delay development.
However, imperfect our democracy is, it allows change of government and change of policy. Cutting heads is not the way change things. The counting the heads also can change things. It used to be said if there is a general election, there is no need for a general strike. Democracy has changed countries like UK,USA and France. It can also change India too. All it requires is mobilization of people's will to change and a programme of change which should include the following to empower the people to solve their problems themselves :
1. Every village or a cluster of 5 to 10 villages should have a primary and secondary school, not just imparting literacy but empowering the children with knowledge/information on modern agriculture practices which can increase production and make them self-sufficient in food. Even adults should be encouraged to avail them. Every school should have several teachers for basic literacy, maths, science and agriculture.
2.Every village or a cluster should have a primary health-care centre. This should be possible now as at long last government is planning to have three-year medical course to cater to the needs of the villages.Ayurvedic and Unani medicine should be given its due place in this scheme.
3.Every village should have one or more gobar-gas plants or solar panel to light up the villages and their huts. Villagers should to trained to maintain them.
More could be added depending on the need of each village or a cluster.
Where is the money for all this ? All that the government has to do is to divert mos of the money allotted for various rural development schemes which do not reach the people. " The government can raise about Rs.341,000 crore by reducing its stake in listed public sector undertakings to 51%, according to the 13th Finance Commission report ( DNA,26/2/2010).
How do we do it ?
Encourage graduates to go back to their villages to change them. We have a very good example which has been highlighted in the newspapers. His name is, Popatrao Pawar, who changed the face of Hirve Bazaar, 100 miles from Pune in Ahmednagar district.He is a commerce graduate who returned to his village. This rain shadow region receiving 300-400 ml of water, was changed into a green oasis with watershed programme. ( Mumbai Mirror, Nov.9,2009).
India produces 3 million graduates which includes 450,000 engineers, 600,000 plus commerce graduates and 1.1 million in humanities. There are 95 agricultural colleges and 15 agricultural engineering colleges. Many of them are unemployed. Send them all to their own villages with a salary they could get in a town or a city, half to be paid every month and the other half after they transform their villages.
In an interview to DNA ( 30/11/2009), Faquir Chand Kohli, (formerly of TCS) and one of the founders of Agricultural Consultancy Management Foundation, has given a blueprint to increase agricultural production. He says that the agricultural production in California is six times that of India because we do not use science and technology to the agricultural set up.In an experimental farm, his foundation was able to increase corn from 700 kgs to 3,100 kgs. and sunflower from 300 kgs. to 1,100 kgs.
We should have a plan to use science and technology to agriculture with the thousands of graduates who come out from our colleges. Task is gigantic and it requires a national will. If the government can mobilize the corporate sector's management skill, empathy of the NGO sector and the cooperation of political parties, we can change the face of our villages in ten years.
Can our civil society take up the challenge ?
In the meanwhile, violence of the Maoists has to be eliminated at all costs.
( A response to the discussion on the subject in Karmayog.)
May 25,2010.
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