My column last week (‘An ideal village, an inspiring leader’) about how one idealistic and determined grassroots leader, Popatrao Pawar, transformed his tiny village Hivre Bazar in a drought-prone part of Maharashtra into a model of all-round rural development received a lot of response. Nothing cheers a columnist more than readers’ voices. Every single mail in this case was appreciative, a tribute to what the villagers of Hivre Bazar have collective and cooperatively accomplished.

One letter gave me the idea for this week’s column. Dilip Risbud from San Jose, USA, wrote: “One could argue that a small village of 1,400 people is easy to transform into an ideal one and maintain it as such, ...but how do we lift our crumbling cities?” Turning somewhat autobiographical, he said, “I am an NRI currently vacationing in India. I have been living in the US for the last 28 years, but the pull towards home is only getting stronger and stronger! I have gone well beyond ‘write-a-check-feel-good’ stage and have been getting actively involved. These projects need time involvement more than money. My mission is to promote basic cleanliness.”

A good question: “How do we lift our crumbling cities?” It prompted me to ask myself several other questions. We talk of Ideal Villages. Once in a while, we visit them or read about them. The government launches schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana, as the finance minister announced in his latest budget. But why doesn’t anyone talk about creating Ideal Cities? I know of no government that has launched an Adarsh Shahar Yojana. Is it because we have convinced ourselves that it is an impossibly lofty goal to pursue? Why have we given up hopes of turning any Indian city into an Ideal City? And if we city-dwellers are unwilling to set such an ambitious goal for ourselves, what right do we have to expect villages to become ideal villages? Isn’t it all the sign of our failed idealism, of idle romanticism, of an obligation-free fascination for the vanishing Indian Village?

... contd.