Perceived reality!

It was a revelation for me, I should say. Padasalanatha, a small hamlet amidst the 77 hills of the Malai Mahadeshwara Wildlife sanctuary beckons strongly but in vain. What is it I am trying to comprehend, I ask myself at this point. I have got a lot of feedback on the outbursts of my not so positive thoughts all these while. Putting everything in this world under my own umbrella, took me only that much ahead, but has really not helped me to be where I intend to be. This I realize now. But what is that I am trying to tell myself about what I saw in Padasalanatha. 15 kms by jeep from the Malai Mahadeshwara Temple to reach a village called Indiganatha and a further 6km hike from there, in the line of elephants to reach the un-electrified, non-irrigated, completely off the radar hamlet of Padasalanatha. This is not so different to a lot of places with similar conditions in our country. I have seen places even worse. And my connections in this village are not prominent at all. I have been there just once. And once was enough for me to get inspired, not so much at the place but at one person’s idea. I will try to put things into perspective. But before that just see how many times I use the letter ‘I’. Talk about putting everything under my own umbrella. Anyway, I will this time try to be more open to the situation around and not be sticky.

Mettur dam built across Cauvery is around 20kms from this place. These distances I mention can be questioned on its accuracy. Anyway, past the mettur dam is Tamil Nadu. Quite a few soligas are scattered around this place and the area is quite dynamic. It houses a powerhouse and a big water pumping facility serving the people visiting the Malai Mahadeshwara Temple with power and water. The forest cover there is quite thick and the wildlife quite active. It needs to be protected. This thought shall always remain at the back of my mind in whatever opinion I throw on the place and the development activities there. Brilliant engineering to make these two things available to tourists of MM hills. But very bad social engineering. I shall make a point out of these facts eventually. For now, all that I am leading myself to is to have a starting point to my thoughts which are a result of a brilliant discussion with the school teacher of the Padasalanatha Government Primary School, Mr Sikander. S. Basha, that fine evening under the moon light sitting on the base platform of the flag pole. With the winds picking up, it offered one of the best settings for an intense conversation with a lot of critical opinions. But what mattered to me at the end of it was the helplessness of a person filled with awareness and intention. And that is pushing me to reflect back on it to see where my efforts can fit in to help improve the reality.

Around 50% our country is villages. It has reduced around 20% in a decade. Still, the primary building block of our country remains the villages and the responsibility for the same is vested upon the respective Gram Panchayat. I initiated the communication to understand more about the life in Padasalanatha. It was difficult to comprehend the description that followed. It was elaborate. For me it was new, but for him a routine from the last 8 years. And I could sense how boring it has been for a man from Hassan, a tier-2 city to have spent his last 8years in this village. Nothing had changed in 8 years. Not a single stone taken out and placed elsewhere. Except for those heavy winds in the night that shook a few branches on the tree, Not really threatening. But that’s the only thing I figured that moved in this place. All the efforts from the teacher to help mobilize things was evident but its results in vain. The MM hills Gram Panchayat has in its record the existence of this village and the story ends there. Really, there.  

Government at both the state and centre depends a lot on such teachers to get data on everything, every damn thing about these villages. I wish I could have taken the video and posted here, so that it comes out of the man himself on how the facts are viewed to build a record. I mean, all these big white collars discussing statistics on the increase in literacy rate, child school drop-out index, women empowerment, sanitation index, drinking water provisions etc for me is a big joke now. The spending on health by the government is very much evident. The ASHA workers through the National Rural Health Mission are all there, I don’t deny. It is also a fact that the children still move around with running nose and nobody is bothered about it. The reports are consolidated every month and a stock taken at the end of it to issue new set of prescriptions to the villages. The cycle simply repeats. Children continue to play in the mud with a running nose. Sanitation in the entire MM Hills gram Panchayat is at a staggering 7% for those below poverty line. (Analysis of Data from the website of Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation). The statistics scare us right? It does, because that’s the only thing we understand sitting outside their reality. And I am convinced that it is far from reality.

Any person who can read or write is termed literate. One should know how obligation becomes a tool to maintain a social status during such surveys. People in such places, in my exposure to a few of them, I have realized that they are mostly living in a complex. Thanks to the contrasting showcase of the developing part of the country in the backdrop of their immobile villages. They are convinced on their state and most of them have lost belief on their own place and are looking out. The concern is not on the showcase. It is on the lethargy that has inherited the system responsible to develop these villages. The Gram Panchayat can well be converted into a 100 thousand Gigabyte hard drive, if their only job was to collect and record data. The revenue officers at the Gram Panchayat and block level do assess the situation and put it on paper. But what happens next nobody knows. The winds then take charge to move at least the branches of the tree. It is far better, it cools of the sweat at least. I am not being hopeless, but it is disturbing. The numbers however are stacked and sent across at the end of the day. People will still approach the teacher to draft a letter and get one read out for them, the next day. So when I gave a reference of the Sanitation statistics above, somewhere I felt safe that I have a place to point out when questioned on its authenticity. But did some part of me care to understand the actual reality at the place? I question myself.            

The federal government structure positions the policy makers and the executive wing in its right places. And in that the activity should start at the Gram Panchayat. Systems are all there, policies are rolled out and schemes announced. Even with the unavoidable excuse of funds shortage for these schemes, whatever that rolls in has to be used properly. And for that Gram Panchayat should take a stand and have a clear commitment. For this to happen, the people of the villages should stand up, question and follow up. It is not all that easy. It is extremely difficult. It is easy for me to sit under a fan, listening to music and type it out on my expensive laptop and think that my outbursts and feedback will change the situation around. Just imagine, how many of us have stood up to the issues that happen in our locality? How many of us have approached BBMP to get our issues sorted out? How many of us at least know what our issues are? Most of us are vested only in our personal interests at the workplace and crib about paying taxes sitting in a posh café and screw the shit out of all the politicians who feature on the primetime news hour debates, without even knowing who our area corporator is. It is a general human tendancy to take the easiest possible route. For us we can still make a living without being concerned on what decisions the government takes. It doesn’t directly affect us. But in villages, the impact is direct. The Panchayat’s decision is of prime importance and they are clearly ousted from the whole ecosystem, except on papers. The water pipelines from Mettur dam ran beside these villages to MM hills but provided no water. The grid lines from the powerhouse that gave power to MM Hills ran over these villages, but people here never got power. I am still dumbstruck at the way these high investment projects are planned. Little additions to the agenda of those projects would have solved a lot of issues of the Panchayat. It is simply bad social engineering and a clear run over by the people in power.  

And in this whole agenda of various parties with vested individual interests thronging the place making it a dynamic workhorse which is running but going nowhere, calls for some immediate response to the situation. Corruption is one thing which is an inevitable symptom for the epidemic that has spread across our villages. Locals are divided in their own homes. Thanks to the vote bank. They are investing in some banking system at least. Concern is just on the promises on the returns that never show up. Leave apart their financial inclusion. What is the point opening a bank account when they have nothing to eat in the first place. What can they possibly save? Some rice out of their disfigured plate? In this whole understanding, I am not cornering the policy makers. They have done a fantastic job. All these outbursts at the end of the day will really transfer onto the people themselves who remain silent and the people responsible who take an advantage of this silence. Do they want an improvement in their lifestyle? Do they want their children to be educated and skilled to be employed? Do they want their agriculture to improve? Do they want to prosper and flourish in their own place? Of course they would want to. We all want to improve. We know that for a fact. As Al Pacino says in Scent of a Woman and I quote, “I knew what the right path was. Without doubt I knew it. But I didn’t take it. You know why? Because, it was too hard!” I mean this attitude is what is spoiling things around.  I questioned myself there through these discussions. How much silent have I been on the issues around, all my life? The answer was a resounding shame on my part! I knew I had to involve more.

I was taken into the field of development without any prior plan and any personal interests. It just happened. I am not announcing myself to be a part of this sector yet. It is just baby steps into it for now. After having informally worked in this area, I am convinced on my further engagements in it. And this pushes me to critically look at the discussions I had the other day. What can be possibly made out of a discussion with a primary school teacher in the middle of the forest, right? I had a similar mindset before I sat for a discussion with Mr Sikander. S. Basha. I was sure that this discussion and the hue and cry of our own opinions cannot change the world. But, I was wrong.