The Hindu Business Line : Falling short on rural reach

Existing rural development schemes are so badly riddled with corruption and inefficiency that they will not remedy the ills of even our well-off villages, let alone those of Naxal-infested ones, says P.V. INDIRESAN.

Waiting for change to come their way.

Slowly, it is dawning on the authorities that rural-urban disparity has become excessive. Introducing the Eleventh Five Year Plan to the National Development Council, the Prime Minister made a pointed reference to the danger of agriculture growing (optimistically) at no more than 4 per cent even as the national economy grows at 9 per cent or more. On the other hand, as we are witnessing in Nandigram, rural modernisation is being violently resisted. On the face of it, villagers are perverse; they are misguided by Naxalites.

In a negative light

The general perception of Naxalites is negative. Most people will agree with Mahindra Karma, founder of the “Salwa Judum” (peace march) movement in Chattisgarh, when he complains: “What have the Naxals done for the people? Has the standard of living in the villages controlled by them improved? Why don’t you understand that the Naxals want “revolution”, they want to change the system and tribals are the best fodder.” (Journal of Transparency Review, September-October 2007).

In all fairness, let us consider what the Naxals have to say:

(Tribal) occupants should be given land deeds according to the census of 2001.

Permanent ban on the purchase of Tribal land by Non-Tribals.

Against the setting up of heavy and ultra modern industry.

Not against manual mines or Indian industries without foreign collaboration.

Problem is lack of education, health, employment, irrigation, and good market and price for small forest produce.

Temporarily opposing the building of roads and railways as they will be utilised mainly for the movement of armed forces.

The act of blowing up the passenger bus is our careless mistake and we regret it.

(extracted from a letter written by Gudsa Usendi, Spokesman CPI (Maoist), dated March 8, 2006. Taken from National Security: Rise of Naxalism in the National Security Series of 2006.)

One may not agree with everything Usendi says, yet there is not much to disagree with either. In particular, we must commend him for expressing regret at the killing of innocent passengers which is much more than any of our leaders have done after staining their hands with the blood of innocent people. We must consider the background too as well as the horrors the tribals have gone through.

Mary Tyler, who was imprisoned for her sympathies for the Naxals, writes in her book, My Years in an Indian Prison: The Naxalites’ crime was the crime of all those who cannot remain unmoved and inactive in an India where a child crawls in the dust with a begging bowl, when a poor girl can be sold as a rich man’s plaything, where an old woman must half starve herself in order to buy herself social acceptance from the powers that be in her village, where countless people die of sheer neglect, where many are hungry while food is hoarded for profit, where usurers and tricksters extort the fruits of labour from those who do the work, where the honest suffer while the villainous prosper, where justice is the exception and injustice is the rule, where the total physical and mental energy of the people is spent on the struggle for mere survival.

Security challenge

Addressing the Chief Ministers in April 2006, the Prime Minister said:

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the problem of Naxalism is the single biggest internal security challenge faced by the country. . . . In many areas, the phenomenon of Naxalism is related to underdevelopment. . . . Exploitation, artificially depressed wages, iniquitous socio-political circumstances, inadequate employment opportunities, lack of access to resources, under-developed agriculture, geographical isolation, lack of land reforms — all contribute greatly to the growth of the Naxalite movement. All these factors have to be taken into consideration as we evolve solutions for facing the challenge of Naxalism.

That is excellent diagnosis. What about the treatment? A committee headed by no less a person than the Cabinet Secretary has apparently decided on a wide spectrum treatment composed of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the Prime Minister’s Gramin Sadak Yojana, and the Backward Regions’ Grants Scheme. Considering how poor have been their success even in well settled and peaceful rural areas, that is a fond hope.

These traditional remedies will not cure Naxalism because they will not induce Naxals to change their opposition to government schemes. Nor will disillusioned villagers accept them; they will prefer the rough and ready justice meted out by the Naxalites.

What villagers want

In a recent survey in villages bordering Naxal areas, the villagers expressed as their priority: jobs, healthcare, education, including job-oriented vocational training, and (in contrast with Naxals) bus services. These priorities can be taken as universal and commonplace throughout the country. In particular, the demand for jobs comes mainly from educated youth.

There is no “yojana” of rural development that actively tackles any of these expressed priorities of our villagers. For instance, there is not a single scheme of rural development that promotes jobs for educated rural youth. In a manner reminiscent of Marie Antoinette, many policy makers opine that if such youth cannot find bread in villages, they should look for cake in cities. As a wag put it, the only educated people who got jobs from rural development programmes were the friends and relatives of politicians and officials, and the true (at any rate the major) beneficiaries of such schemes were, once again, politicians and officials.

Let us face it: Existing rural development schemes are so badly riddled with corruption and inefficiency that they will not remedy the ills of even our well-off villages, let alone those of Naxal infested ones.

To succeed, any programme to treat Naxalite violence should meet more than half way the priorities listed by Usendi: Education, health, employment, irrigation, and good market and price for small forest produce. For tribals, the official local language, whether it is Telugu or Hindi, is a foreign language. If the policy is to teach tribal children a foreign language, why not teach them English and offer them a quantum jump with no extra strain? If they desire healthcare, why not give them functional secondary care hospitals? If the tribals are provided hospitals, schools and modernising industries, will that not automatically fetch jobs, even for the educated among them? As efficient hospitals, schools and industries cannot be in every hamlet, will the tribals not give up their opposition to roads and welcome them (the way better-off villagers do)?

People fondly believe that government schemes will cure Naxalism; in truth, they feed Naxalism.

(To be continued.)

(The author is a former Director, IIT-Madras. Response may be sent to: Indiresan@gmail.com)

(This is 216th in the Vision 2020 series. The previous article was published on December 10.)

More Stories on : Security | Rural Development | Vision 2020

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