Big dreams in small places

The Hindu, Feb 8, 2010
D. Murali

One of the villages in Kalahandi district of Orissa is Rupra Road. “The village is bustling and cosmopolitan, judging by the four different styles and weaves of women’s saris on display at the market: adivasi, Dalit, Marwari, and Oriya. Children yell out, ‘Sarpanch, sarpanch…’ as our jeep goes by,” writes Indira Maya Ganesh in one of the essays included in ‘Sarpanch Sahib’ (www.harpercollins.co.in).


Yes, Indira is with ‘28-year-old Deepanjali Majhi,’ the first woman president – the sarpanch – of the Rupra Road panchayat. Deepanjali’s father, a mailroom attendant in the postal service, had worked hard to secure the finances for her education and was keen that she acquire an Arts degree; and not wishing to let him down, she ‘completed two years of her BA degree at Bishwanathpur College in Bhawanipatna,’ the author continues.

A breakthrough in Deepanjali’s understanding was that the 33 per cent reservation does not mean that women can contest only from those seats, it just means that men can contest only from 67 per cent of the seats. ‘Ask people here if they know this, and you will find that they do not,’ she challenges Indira.

Enhancing livelihood opportunities
The important thing for Deepanjali is to start working to improve the village. One of her first tasks was to petition the block administration to sanction tube-wells for her panchayat; and her commitment is to improve the lives of women and children, and enhance livelihood opportunities for the entire community, Indira reports.

“Deepanjali noticed that women were consistently excluded from government pension and food schemes, but were still willing to involve themselves in community activities. So she urged women to apply for work under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), gave SHGs (self-help groups) the priority when local ponds were auctioned for pisciculture, and transferred some PDS (Public Distribution System) responsibilities to SHGs as well.”

There are hurdles, however. For instance, of the Rs 50-60 lakh sanctioned to Deepanjali’s office, only 10 per cent has actually been received, the author finds. She traces the hold-up in the transfer of funds to other panchayats in the block which have not utilised their existing funds, nor accounted for them.

“Thus the Department of Rural Development Activities (DRDA) in the block administration has stopped all further disbursements till all the accounts are in order. This delay has upset the youth groups who were keen to get their projects underway – projects that Deepanjali had promised they would be funded for…”

Invest money to make money
Another story, in the book edited by Manjima Bhattacharjya, is Sonia Faleiro’s ‘The Ballet Dancer,’ on Maloti Gowalla of Titabar anchalik panchayat in Assam’s Jorhat district. “A few months ago, to bolster her panchayat salary of Rs 500 a month, Maloti opened a store in her front yard with an initial investment of Rs 14,000. It’s a typical village store crammed with a vivid mix of goods – black pepper, Colgate tooth paste, ‘Pizza’ biscuits, sacks of garlic bulbs and peas,” writes Sonia.

She notes that Maloti was waiting for her husband’s annual bonus (from his Rs 2,500-per-month job in a tea estate) to make a further investment of about Rs 20,000. “You have to invest money to make money,” Maloti tells Sonia.

Wages are low in the estates, Maloti rues. And poverty goes with illiteracy, she adds. “The estate’s labourers, who are largely illiterate and migrants from impoverished tribal areas, believe their children will follow them into the bagaan. They view education as a waste of money. Although the village school is free, it charges an exam fee equal to a day’s salary for a permanent worker on the estate. Parents also need their children’s wages…”

One of Maloti’s decisions as the panchayat president was to build a boundary wall around the school’s football field and to strengthen the school gate. A small measure, but an important one, observes Sonia. “The boundary wall prevented wild animals from the neighbouring forest from entering the school. It stopped children engrossed in a game from running out of the field and onto the main road. It kept the village children safe, and was therefore a success for her…”

Maloti, who bought a bicycle when she turned 40, finds that the vehicle ‘fundamentally altered the length of a working day’ and resulted in ‘less physical exertion.’ The cycle comes handy when she goes about supervising ‘the reconstruction of two dams in the village, projects collectively worth over Rs 43 lakh.’

Business model
An interesting snatch in the essay is about the unusual method that Maloti adopts for easing the financial burden of new families starting to work in the tea estate. She quietly suggests that they collect armfuls of the protein-rich fern, dhekia, which grows wild in the ditches on either side of the gardens. It is a popular vegetable in Assam, consumed in a number of preparations, and while the villagers won’t receive money for it – the Titabar vegetable market functions on barter – they will get rice and pulses, Sonia informs.

“She has also come up with her own solution to enrich the lives of the village children by starting the cultivation of a three kilometre stretch of sasi grass, a local rubber plant, whose value, when fully grown, is over Rs 20,000. The profits, she says, will be invested in equipping the village schools with computers.”

Maloti’s dream is that every home in the village has educated children who can read under the light of bulbs and drink water from the taps. “‘Maybe one day I will fulfil my grandfather’s dream and become a mantri,’ she says, laughing lightly. You dream big, I tell her. She smiles. ‘We women have to. Otherwise how will the world work?’”

Earthy read, for its insights on how creative solutions emerge at the grassroots level to ‘change the face of India,’ despite financial and other constraints.