India lives in her villages

India lives in her villages. It is the rural population who suffer the miseries of the socio-economic-political adventures of the urbanites. The rural villages are beseeched by problems, the basic being illiteracy, lack of knowledge(ignorance) in upbringing children, unrestricted growth of the family, non availability of nutrious food, uncared expectant mothers, absence of protein, deficient food for pregnant woman, infant mortality growth, etc.

They need good food, clothing and shelter. The Directive Principles of the State Policy envisage providing basic education, for which Anganvadi Schools can be used, lower primary schools be set up, adult education to the elders be provided through NGOs, vocational classes for womenfolk through volunteers, training for men be provided so that they can take up skill jobs according to their orientation and Hospitals for giving medical care. The villagers must be educated to maintain a clean environment. The Cultural department must organize talent finding camps so that the youth should be encouraged to bring out his latent talents. Mobile dispensaries need to be opened wherein medicines and tablets must be made available to the poor, sick, needy and distressed. Encourage starting of tiny, mini industries to bolster their incomes.

Mahatma Gandhi, whom we quote at the slightest pretext, advocated starting of village industries as a panacea to solve the problem of unemployment at the rural level. He, the fantast that he was, limnered his arguments that the spider web of our economy had its foundations in the grass root village economy. Most often, in spite of the hard work put in by the villagers, the villager is in a limbo because the so called rural employment programmes and dozens of Schemes chalked out by the KVIC and rural department of GoI seldom reach them; they are only in paper. He cannot, like the ‘limpet’ cry hoarse and crescendo for higher wages, in the guise of collective bargaining by the militant white collared comrades of the urban areas, who are never satisfied with their pay and demand more and more. His task of making both ends meet is gargantuan. Let us take perishable goods like vegetables. The farmer sells tomato during seasons at Bellary (Karnataka) at Rs 1.60 per Kg. But the price for same commodity at a distance of 100 Kms is Rs 12/-. If a net work of marketing in the form of community service is available to him, the farmer could beget a higher price and the consumer for 50% of the existing rates. The warehouses of Agricultural departments must ensure that they collect these produces at a fair value and transport it to the final market for disposal. These Marketing agencies should collect, pool all their collections at the manufacturing point and routed to various destinations where there is demand. Bellary (Karnataka) has a poultry cluster, where one egg costs 0.80 paise, while it sells at Rs 3.00 at Mangalore and Rs 4/- at Karwar (These figures were compiled by me in 1980 for the Government from central and coastal Karnataka). A little planning and coming together of a cluster of farmers could reap rich dividends for them.

The Zilla parishads, and Village panchayats along with District Rural Development Societies, should bring together a group of people in every village, and create a voluntary group of people who could be trained to take up marketing so that they can pass on their expertise at the village. A dedicated band of young men, who would help ligament the various sections, should be formed so that it will inure them to responsibilities from their wayward fanfaronade.

The labour skills of the villagers have not been tapped properly. A good artisan with deft fingers at Ankola (Kumta taluk) hardly gets Rs 60 per day; he is idle for the 6 months of the year; the same is the case with a diva, or a pastiche or a Conti writer. Their talents garnish the village and their lives syncopate leading them to misery.

With a little amount of training, exposure and right fora experience, many of the rural folk, can put up commendable performance in art, craft, cultural programmes, sport etc. The Heggodu experiment (Magasasy award winner Heggde’s School of Drama) have shown how far the hidden rural talents can be brought about through the medium of dramas. Establishment of rural theaters, film criticism/appreciation courses, School of drama and dance, vocational guidance training camps for spotting talents in Sports, people with the gift of the gab chosen through elocution and essay competitions will boost the rural children’s appetitive to perform well in the Competitions enabling spotlighting talents. The Pople’s Action for Development (PADI), Ford Foundation, UNICEF and a hoard of Organizations have manifold Schemes aimed at providing training to the rural folk.

The Anganvadi Schools can start as vehicles of thought and learning to the tiny tots. Good nutrious food can make them healthy. Cleanliness should be inculcated at this level itself. This will make them seek School education, so that literacy can be gradually increased.

For the elder village folk, recreation facilities should be provided. Community halls, parks, recreation centers must be part of the social milieu in the village. The shyness of the rural folks can be overcome through exposure. They do not perform or show their talents in urban platforms for fear of inferiority. It has become modish to say that rural areas are backward yet a few fantasts come forward.

The Rural electrification programme, providing irrigation facilities to a wide command area, planting trees, growing vegetations, can be done in the rural areas with the support of the people. Pure drinking water can be made available by constructing storage tanks, at least one in a village. But poor villages continue to remain poor due to scanty facilities. Basic facilities, how far they are provided is a hundred dollar question. The artificial comforts of urban towns or Cities may be ditty in the rural. The urbanite loathes rural areas, its settings and environment. But the natural rural environment and the rural demizes, would more than allegro compensate the shortfalls of rural conditions. Any takers?