Opinion Seeing like a state

Way back in the early nineteen sixties,the Government of Madhya Pradesh,at that time the largest state in the country,and my cadre state in the Indian Administrative Service,had taken up a programme for the welfare of tribal people,who constituted a big part of its population,and still do.

As a part of bringing modernity and progress to these supposedly backward sections of the society,brick and mortar houses were built for them as a pilot project in the Betul district,located in a picturesque part of southern MP. This was a favourite district of the British civil servants as it reminded them of the rolling,sylvan countryside of their own country. These houses were to replace the traditional huts which were made of bamboo,plastered with mud,covered with thatch on the sloping roofs,and often decorated with beautiful tribal drawings and motifs.

A good deal of money was spent (maybe there was a World Bank loan!),houses were built in an urban row-house pattern,and these were handed over to the tribals with much fanfare by political bigwigs who got a nice photo-op,and maybe even some genuine satisfaction at having done something good for these ‘ ignorant,poor people’.

Three months down the line,a team went to visit the place to see how the tribals had taken to the new life style. To its utter disbelief,the team found that the tribals still continued to live in their traditional thatch roof huts,and were using the newly built houses to keep their beloved livestock!

Buffaloes,cows and goats were happily munching their feed off cement floors,and the air was redolent with the unmistakable smell of dung and droppings. The tribal people just could not sleep in those brick and mortar houses,or use the strange toilets,or cook in the confined kitchens,and so what better use of the new houses than to utilise them to keep their precious cattle? The project,obviously,was not a success.

So much for well-intentioned development plans conceived and implemented without any real understanding of the people being ‘modernised’,and without any consultation with them.

ANECDOTE TWO: RURAL HOUSING IN EARTHQUAKE HIT GUJARAT,INDIA,CIRCA EARLY 2000’S.

A devastating earthquake hit the Kutch district of Gujarat in January 2001,a most unwelcome millennium ‘gift’ to this arid part of the country.

The reconstruction work brought in many donors and civil society,apart from the government agencies. What was done to rehabilitate some of the villages has thrown up an interesting story of contrast with that of the tribals that I have narrated above.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB),Manila, was one of these donors,and that gave me,as the Indian executive director on the board of that Institution,an opportunity to visit Kutch along with the ADB President Tadao Chino in early 2002.

We visited two newly built villages,and received the warm and traditional welcome of rural Gujarat. Gujarati being my mother tongue,communication with the local populace was not a problem,and there was no fear of ‘lost in translation’,as I also functioned as the unofficial interpreter whenever needed.

We found that the newly built villages had small but neat two room houses of brick and mortar,with mosaic floors,electricity,and even an attached toilet. To me,it seemed that these would be rejected by the villagers the same way the tribals of Betul had rejected the houses built for them.

However,when we got to talk to these people and the officials and the NGO representatives who had helped build the houses and donated substantial amounts themselves,we found that even though these houses were very different to the traditional village houses,the rural folk were actually quite happy to live in them!

The major reason for this positive reaction was that in their own eyes,it marked a transition,in fact elevation,from being poor villagers to becoming something akin to the urbanites,whose lifestyle they saw on TV and which they now aspired to.

I was rather surprised to learn that they did not mind too much that the new design meant a major change in lifestyle,or that it was not possible to keep their cattle in or near the houses,or that the toilet was a part of the house and not far from the kitchen. They were still happy,and loved the comfort of sleeping under a fan and the convenience of not having to trudge to the fields for their daily ablutions!

In fact many of them appeared to be planning to shift from their traditional occupation of agriculture to some other activity,or just keep a small hut on the farms to sleep in when they needed to tend their crops,but otherwise continue to live in the newly built habitats. The new villages,with their pucca houses,community centres and amenities like water pumps and electricity were,for them,a dream come true,and the earthquake a blessing in disguise,at least in this respect.

I asked myself,why this difference in attitude from that of the tribals of Betul,and realised that the main reason why there was no criticism or rejection by them of these new style houses was that the state government had,very wisely,followed a participative process,and had in fact left the planning of the new villages and houses largely to the NGOs and the end users,unlike in the case of Betul where all planning was done by outsiders who wanted to provide what they considered to be ‘good’ for the tribals to them.

I asked myself two questions. One,has India changed so much over the years as to throw up such a diametrically opposite reaction to the same type of development initiative? Two,is there a lesson here for the planners and practitioners of development?

The answer to both these questions is a definite yes.

What is really relevant is that the lesson is the same now as it was forty years ago,which is that only development initiatives which are done in consultation with the beneficiaries shall succeed,and where they feel that they are participants in development and not just recipients of charity. They are no fools,and the professional practitioners of development and well-paid warriors against poverty are not as wise and all knowing as they might think they are.

The writer is a former civil servant.