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SPECIAL
FEATURE: THE OTHER INDIA
Mission
Possible
Hundreds
of individuals are silently galvanising local communities into improving
their lives. This is their story, the story of another India within the
India as we know it.
By
V. Shankar Aiyar
Group
of women is accosted by henchmen of the local zamindar. "Wait till
your NGO bai goes. We will disrobe you publicly and ..." It's
a threat that usually works in India. And even executed. Then there's
the usual indignation and bleeding heart tv coverage capturing the despair
frame by depressing frame.
Not at Malshiras
on the outskirts of Pune. The women heard the threats, gathered at the
village square, hired a public address system and challenged the zamindar's
men: "Come, we are here. What will you do that you haven't done to
our mothers and sisters?" The women paused, applauded tentatively
and waited for the reaction. There was none. The threats ceased.
You couldn't
ask for a more powerful symbol of empowerment. How did it come to be?
Says Maneesha Gupte of NGO Masum: "The women told me about the threats
and I said, 'It could happen. I won't be here all the time. How you tackle
it is your decision'." Masum's strategy was: "Don't solve people's
problems, just identify them. The people will solve their problems better
than you would."
Sounds simple.
It isn't. Which perhaps explains the cliched image of India-outstretched
hands lamenting the lack of sarkari largesse 53 years after Independence.
Be it an epidemic, calamity or a man-made disaster, dowry deaths or just
taps running dry, we are used to seeing an India buckling under, unable
to get up and be counted.
But there
is another India, the Other India, found in random pockets. An India where
people have shrugged off their sloth and picked up the shovel to make
their villages, towns and cities better places, an India that Gandhi would
have been proud of. Gupte and partner Ramesh Awasthi are only two of the
hundreds of individuals who have taken the Mahatma's message to heart
to create this Other India.
Take education
and unemployment. Shrinath Kalbag in Pabal, Maharashtra, has helped hundreds
of dropouts to be economically independent. He has proved you don't need
multi-crore universities, only an understanding of what is required by
the villagers. And contrary to what governments would have us believe,
people are not looking for any largesse. "They did not want anything
free," says Kalbag.
It is not
just the dropouts enrolling at Kalbag's Vigyan Ashram who are willing
to pay. Earlier this year, pockets of Gujarat remained untouched by the
drought because people like Mansukh Suvagiya and Mathur Savani taught
villagers that it costs little to insure themselves against the vagaries
of nature.
The failure
of the government's development efforts clearly has more to do with systems
and less with resources. As T. Chandrashekar, the municipal commissioner
who led the transformation of Thane from urban chaos to a model township,
points out, "The current system underestimates the community's ability
to contribute. Finance is not the issue. More important is participation,
for them to see that things can be changed."
But no lessons
have been learnt. In fact, Jockin Arputham, who recently won the Magsaysay
award for his work in Mumbai slums, says, "Insensitivity is the rule.
Governments feel we don't know anything and they do! Every inch of the
270 hectares reserved for Mumbai's slum rehabilitation is under CRZ rules
where no construction is allowed. Ten years since Parliament divested
power, panchayats remain powerless."
Worse, the
political class has failed to recognise this. Former IAS officer and Magsaysay
award winner Aruna Roy of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan says, "Politics
is defined and understood as nothing beyond elections and the art of cobbling
a majority. There are very few opportunities available within this, for
bringing about basic change." Which is why disenchanted people are
turning to community initiatives.
Even urban
areas have sprouted pressure groups. The Express Civic Forum has been
working since 1990 to force the administration into fine-tuning its workings
to the needs of Pune residents. Clearly, even in urban India the system
has to be prodded to deliver. Sadly, replications of successful models
are few and far between.
Perhaps
because the replication is mechanical and cannot cope with the variables
of the human condition. Often while there is a need for group effort,
individuals are not there. Presumably the idea of dealing with vested
interests and the effort involved is intimidating.
Not many
want to deal with all this. Bunker Roy, who authored one of India's earliest
community initiatives at Tilonia in Rajasthan, also finds an absence of
role models. "Very few break out and it is difficult as you have
to combat different interests." True. However, given the abject failure
of conventional development more individuals and initiatives need to be
encouraged.
Perhaps
the answer is to forge coalitions between the initiatives and governments.
This has happened in Jhagadia where the Gujarat Government has handed
over the running of the primary healthcare centre in the region to sewa-Rural.
More such alliances may just help India come closer to the Other India.
For, as Roy puts it, the only hope now lies in ordinary people. Not in
Delhi.
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