On the periphery of change

Seeking change beyond sheer material progress underscores the need for placing dignity and freedom ahead of the prevailing ideology of development.  

Can a solitary heroic deed by one among them uplift the entire community from its century-old demeaning tag as rat-eaters? Could conversion of the culture of pig-rearing into a thriving business move the marginalized into centre stage in society? Has political representation in recent times contributed to giving the habitual drunk an agency to lift themselves out of the hierarchical social construct? Dasrath Manjhi’s landmark efforts in cutting through the hillock with a mere borer and a hammer; Babu Majhi’s success with conversion of pig-rearing tradition into a roaring business; and, Jitan Manjhi’s drawing political capital in the caste-dominated politics has the making of a legend but without rendering any corrective narrative to the stigmatized image of their community of the Musahars who have sizeable population in Bihar, and limited numbers in the neighboring states of Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bengal. Five chapters in this thin volume empathize with the lived realities of the Musahars who find themselves at the crossroads of human development, marred as much by the denial of development as their own culture of resistance to the process of enforced change. 

Counting them as one among many of its unintended victims, The Marginalized Self offers a well-reasoned critique on the project of development that contributes to the phenomenon of underdevelopment leading to further marginalization of the excluded. It is in this context that iconic Dasrath Manjhi, the mountain man, had exhorted his fellow community members to take cognizance of their own underdevelopment in getting beyond income poverty in understanding social exclusion as the cause for deprivation. ‘Change should necessarily respect the ethos of the community, and create enabling conditions where they have the freedom of choice.’ 

What gives purpose to the five standalone articles is an attempt to view development from a cultural lens, to position development as if culture matters. The slender volume may have been an outcome of a research project conducted over a decade ago, the insights and observations have not lost out on their contemporary relevance. The Marginalized Self offers an engaging multi-layered narrative, which questions the top down prescription of development. With a deep dive into myths, beliefs and practices of the Musahars, the writers suggest the need for producing a bottom-up version of development conducive with the cultural underpinnings of the community.

Much has been written in recent times on how ‘development’ has come to colonize the world ever since the term was first coined in 1945, at the end of the Second World War. However, there is no denying that the promise of development has failed the marginalized millions across the world. The seductively packaged idea of economic emancipation has continued to persist, a non-negotiable entity that has contributed to strengthening the political economy of the nation-state in the name of the poor. The Marginalized Self is an optimistic undertaking that raises the stakes of the marginalized community as it glorifies the marginal space it has been pushed into. 

All said, it is unlikely if the discourse on development will get a dent in the state where caste-based economic marginalization is more of a norm than exception. However, the fact that the Musahars are seeking change beyond sheer material progress underscores the need for placing dignity and freedom ahead of the prevailing ideology of development.  

The Marginalized Self
by Rahul Ghai, Arvind Mishra & Sanjay Kumar (Eds)
Primus Books, New Delhi 
Extent: 159, Price: Rs. 1,095.

First published in The Hindu, issue dated July 25, 2021.

Of paradox and possibility

While the collective power of many small (apolitical) efforts to bring about change is acknowledged, what gets missed out is the fact that development is inherently a political process.

India is a land of paradox: if there is poverty amidst prosperity then hope can be traced amidst despair too. Despite being an increasingly unequal society that produces real victims and genuine tragedies on a daily basis, it inadvertently leaves people to create possibilities for their own emancipation as well. With humane development far distanced from a sizable population, individual creativity is innovating new pathways for leftovers of the society to tread on. For millions trapped in the downstream economy of deprivation, ordinary folks are scripting extraordinary tales of bringing basic elements - potable water, safe food, and fresh air - within peoples’ reach.

Elemental India is an inspiring journey through this landscape of paradox and possibilities, a compendium of stories weaved together to reflect the essence of pancha mahabhuta – five elements that constitute nature. Within the geographical bounties of the sub-continent, a wide array of fascinating survival options are being created by enterprising individuals and institutions to keep the ‘five elements’ in harmony. Embedded in this quest for alternatives are personal journeys of some of these individuals in search of a meaning of life.   

Umendra’s crusade for organic agriculture in Punjab; Kanhaiya’s relentless pursuit for water in Rajasthan; and Pinki’s tirade for women liberation in Bihar are few of those stories, offering counter narrative to the dominant discourse on development that hinges on industrialization. That there is an alternate way of life and an alternate approach to human development that doesn’t compromise on any of the five elements is the leitmotif of these stories. Meera Subramanian does not miss out on details while capturing the vignettes of change sweeping the country.

Inspiring as the stories may be, these remain on the margins of mainstream growth agenda of the state. One reason for this being so has to do with the very nature of these initiatives, as these occur outside the purview of the state by non-state actors.  Consequently, the state is under no obligation to integrate such products or processes in its institutional architecture. Need it be said that successive governments have often been hostile to the environmentalism of its times. 

Another reason for non-acknowledging such transformative stories has to do with the state’s obsession with double-digit economic growth, wherein ecological concerns are viewed as middle-class ‘lifestyle environmentalism’ aimed at stalling progress. With ‘Make in India’ being the current dictum of growth, it is quite unlikely if equity and ecological concerns will merit any serious consideration in the prevailing political-economy of development.    

Unlike most first generation non-resident Indians, the author carries compassion for country’s rich culture and its intrinsic value system. With a stint at one of the environmental non-profits in the US, she has developed empathy for deprived people and appreciation for bottom-up change. Building on her investigative analysis, she argues in favor of a new economy that neither loses sight of the last man nor country’s irreplaceable natural resources. 

Having been privy to most stories and people featured in the book, I am both at an advantage and a disadvantage as a reviewer. The advantage is that one can quickly relate to the stories, and the disadvantage being that one closely understands their unresolved complexities. While the collective power of many small efforts (largely apolitical) to bring about change is acknowledged, what gets missed out is the fact that development is inherently a political process. How two divergent forces can be made to enter into a dialogue has remained a vexed question?   

No surprise, therefore, that the author toes the predictable line of argument in renewing her hopes that small stories have the potential to trigger big change, towards a secure, sustainable, and prosperous future. The issue of scale has remained unaddressed, though.

In addition to making an interesting reading, Elemental India is a grim reminder on the challenges confronting the country, and gives a timely call to the policy planners to evolve an intrinsic Indian model of development which is more proactive and permanent. Neither Nehru’s monolithic top-down industrialization nor Gandhi’s austere agrarian model can suit the changing India, which is young and aspiring. It needs a new script for change that draws the best from both, capitalizing on its human and natural resources. 

Elemental India
by Meera Subramanian
Harper Litmus, New Delhi
Extent: 340, Price: Rs 599

This review was first published in The Hindustan Times dated July 23, 2016.

Just the right amount of wrong

Las Vegas, the Sin City, has altered perceptions: gambling substitutes for income, night is interchangeable with day and, the scale of excess refutes the idea of scarcity

It is a poignant tale of greed, chicanery, betrayal and manipulation which created an edifice of affluence in the middle of a desert. The public-private plunder had the sanction of the State for robbing the natives of their rich cultural inheritance. It was a misfortune that the natives were sitting atop the biggest coal reserves of the time that the political-industrial complex had aimed to wrest. 

Projected to the outside world as an epic struggle over land between two Indian tribes, it has instead been a divide-and-conquer game played in disguise by the powerful and the corrupt. Judith Nies narrates the shocking facts behind the making of Las Vegas, the gambling capital, where the dark markets of America intersect with the upper world markets of ‘free-market capitalism’. Set in the late 19th Century, the phenomenon of usurping rights of indigenous people by giant corporations has continued ever since. In what was termed ‘low-intensity conflict’, thousand of tribes were driven away at gunpoint to labor camps, their sheep slaughtered and their children jailed. 

Unreal City is a chilling account of the tribes’ struggle and the right amount of wrong by the government to edge out the so-called impoverished societies for the subsequent creation of Las Vegas, the Sin City, which has only altered perceptions: gambling substitutes for income, night is interchangeable with day and, the scale of excess refutes the idea of scarcity. But it is the scarcity that is haunting the city that gets 39 million fun-loving visitors each year. Having sucked it’s deep aquifers and with shrinking Lake Mead (created by the Hoover Dam) on the Colorado river not able to meet the city’s allocation, a multi-billion dollar water pipeline has been planned to tap a mountain aquifer 250 miles away to not only keep fifty golf courses green but to keep the showers and flushes running in fourteen of the largest hotels in the city. There is nothing ‘real’ about the city. 

Award-winning author Judith Nies questions the wisdom behind the incredible cost of sustaining an unreal city. Located in the middle of the Mohave Desert, a water-guzzling city with just four inches of annual rainfall can only suck the nearby rivers and far-off aquifers dry. Shockingly, the new pipeline to feed the Sin City will be the only project in the world that lifts water twenty-nine hundred feet.  Curiously, the city residents don’t seem anxious (like most urbanites elsewhere in the world) about where they get their water from, but support the political-business nexus that controls infrastructure. At the end, it is the business that flourishes at the cost of problems which only continue to amplify. No wonder, company like Bechtel, which started with two mules and a slip grader in 1898, is now one the largest multinational corporations.

Written with passion and precision, Unreal City is a painstaking work that narrates the undertold story of (mindless) development albeit euphemism for deceit, betrayal, corruption and despoliation. Apparently written for the North American audience, the first of the three sections of Unreal City may remain somewhat of a geographical puzzle for readers elsewhere. Rich in detail, Judith Nies painstaking narrative raises uncomfortable question which are often considered ‘unpatriotic’ and ‘anti-national’. 

The Unreal City 
by Judith Nies
Nation Books, New York
Extent: 292, Price: US$25.99 

The days of the jackals!

Are the rich, educated people as clever as jackals? Dressed in the garb of development, with the laws to their side, don’t they devour fields and forests to create a new social class – of the disposed and displaced? Forced to bear it with gritted teeth and suppressed whimpers, the injury of displacement has left permanent scars on the souls of millions! In this award-winning novel, Vishwas Patil lends voice to the pain and anguish of the people of Jambhli, who have been ousted to make way for the construction of a large dam.   

Close to reality, the saga of resistance conjures up multiple images of people who refuse to surrender their ancestral land to the juggernaut of development. Rooted to their cultural inheritance, they question the veracity of forced relocation which in no way can compensate the sweat that they had poured into their lands. Caught in the rehabilitation trap, the Jambhlikars find themselves battling petty politicians on one hand and apathetic officials on the other. Patil’s accomplished prose and fine sensibility captures their unending ordeal. 

Utterly relevant to our time, the heart-rending narrative exposes the system that acts like a ghost, riding on poor’s neck and pushing them deeper and deeper into the quicksand till they perish. Since the dams get choked with silt much before the oustees are resettled, the plight of the displaced rarely persists long in popular perception. Who will mourn someone who dies everyday! Full of rage and disbelief, A dirge for the dammed is a painful saga of the new ‘class’ of people exiled from their homelands. 

Divided into seven parts, the novel braids together several lives and desires. If there is Khairmode Guruji who is in relentless pursuit of justice then there is Haibati whose unending search for alternative employment reflects system’s hostility towards the displaced. Between these two lead characters are many others whose frustrating struggle sustains narrative tension in flawlessly elegant prose. The politics of rehabilitation, which forms a major part of the plot, is explored with a thoroughness befitting an investigative journalist, and yet retaining all the elements of a primarily fictional work. 

With an innate desire to bring the hidden dimensions of development to light, Patil spends inordinate amount of energy elucidating the details of every intrigue. The sub-stories of men and women whose lives have been destroyed by the project evoke strong empathy, mocking at those who hold notion of ‘public interest’ supreme in the quest for development. Poor don’t have ten doors open for them; they have to squeeze their lives through the only door. Development shuts the only door! 

It is heart-rending story, translated to perfection by Keerti Ramachandran, that is a must read for all those who have some stake in ‘development’.
  
A Dirge for the Dammed 
by Vishwas Patil 
Hachette India, New Delhi 
Extent: 471, Price: Rs. 450

Questioning the tyranny of development!

Need it be said that the term 'development' has lived up to what President Harry Truman had presumed it to mean in his address to the US Senate in 1945 - to denote that a large part of the world was 'underdeveloped'. Within its broader framework a vast pool of professionals worked overtime to create an attractive vocabulary that includes terms like 'participation', 'empowerment', 'accountability' to keep the underprivileged mesmerized into believing that their concerns were being looked into. That we have more poor people than ever before exposes the hypocrisy of development which ensures that poverty persists.

Without doubt, development has remained a mischievous tool in the hands of development donors who have broadly been guided by what is known as the Bretton Woods system of economic governance. Over the years, however, the idea of development has got buried under the weight of its lofty ideology. Donors are getting increasingly concerned about the effectiveness of their taxpayers’ money. At this time when development itself has come under scrutiny, Robert Chambers' unsettling provocations should help locate a substitute for the term 'development'.

Though insightful and reflective, the short provocative essays remain confined within the framework of aid, participation and poverty. Without doubt, this framework has created development fatigue not only for those who preach it but for those on whom it is practiced. Global power dynamics and economic realities have gone through unimaginable transformation, and with it has changed the notion of poverty. That poverty is relative is a glaring reality of our times, when even the most impoverished is seeking 'freedom' and 'dignity' at the cost of 'aid'. More than 'provocations' the world needs 'transformation' in the manner in which 'development' has been perceived and delivered. 

Nothing short of substituting 'development' can undo what has thus far been unleashed in the name of development. Provocations for Development opens a Pandora's Box of development myths and fallacies that development thinkers and practitioners must engage with. The author doesn't insist that the book be read cover to cover. However, there is enough for the reader to feel provoked, at least five days a week for next fifty-two weeks....Link

Provocations for Development
by Robert Chambers
Practical Action Publishing, UK
224 pages, £8.96
(available online at www.developmentbookshop.com)