The Answer - they are contradictory, even at a micro -level of any single village.
For years, all Indian policies have been pushing people towards a smaller and nuclear family.
First, it was land ceiling act due to which influential big families broke up into smaller households to save lands. Then the poorer families broke up to get more benefits under our social benefit schemes including housing for poor, PDS and everything under the sun where the beneficiary unit is a household.
So, in short, we broke up families and default support systems, leaving us with individuals.
Then, we realised that when people are alone, they are susceptible to exploitation and hence we promoted SHGs, cooperatives. SHG as a unit of financial inclusion was touted as a good option - giving loans to a group against individuals for better recovery, for better outputs, etc.
Today, we are making each group member open their own bank accounts. Today we are making every member of the same household under a single job card open their own bank account. In effect, making finance the domain of the individual rather than the family.
Today, effectively, the developmental policies are breaking down societies --> families --> nuclear families --> individuals. And we expect people to come together and work together for their own development.
We undermine Khap Panchayats for their evil instead of working with them to help them bring out better diktats which will benefit the society.
We misrepresented Ghotul system prevalent in central Indian tribal areas, so much that it was reduced to only the freedom in sexual activity, while it has played a very important role in educating the tribals over the years. We forced these children into Big Ashram schools, 500 seater ones at times, and broke down their entire tribal way of living. We give, on one hand the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan norms expect us to provide schools within one km to each child. On the other, we force these kids to leave home and live in hostels little better than concentration camps miles away from home.
On one hand, we have MGNREGA to provide employment at home to each villager, to prevent migration and help a local area prosper. On the other, we have schemes like Special SGSY in LWE affected areas, now replaced by Roshani under NRLM which are basically - train poor tribals as some machine operators and then migrate them to some industry, where they act as cheap labour in unorganised sector, at a bigger disadvantage as they are first time out of their home and far away. paid at wages comparable or lower than MGNREGA wages, what is the point in this?
On one hand we empower tribals through acts like PESA, give gram sabhas power to decide their development course. on the other, we empty the villages of the youngsters, ensuring that the next generation is not their to prevent western development in these areas.
We can go on, about organic agriculture, renewable energy resources use, and so on.
A country as big as India needs multiple policies. each area has a certain context. may be in naxal affected tribal areas, you might justify encouraging Roshani program to get children out of the hell hole. but the reason these areas are naxal affected is also due to lack of development. the few youth who could, have been brain drained to serve as labourers and we are still left with undeveloped regions.
There seems to be a total lack of systemic, long term, holistic vision in this country. but then again, holistic has hole in it...
For years, all Indian policies have been pushing people towards a smaller and nuclear family.
First, it was land ceiling act due to which influential big families broke up into smaller households to save lands. Then the poorer families broke up to get more benefits under our social benefit schemes including housing for poor, PDS and everything under the sun where the beneficiary unit is a household.
So, in short, we broke up families and default support systems, leaving us with individuals.
Then, we realised that when people are alone, they are susceptible to exploitation and hence we promoted SHGs, cooperatives. SHG as a unit of financial inclusion was touted as a good option - giving loans to a group against individuals for better recovery, for better outputs, etc.
Today, we are making each group member open their own bank accounts. Today we are making every member of the same household under a single job card open their own bank account. In effect, making finance the domain of the individual rather than the family.
Today, effectively, the developmental policies are breaking down societies --> families --> nuclear families --> individuals. And we expect people to come together and work together for their own development.
We undermine Khap Panchayats for their evil instead of working with them to help them bring out better diktats which will benefit the society.
We misrepresented Ghotul system prevalent in central Indian tribal areas, so much that it was reduced to only the freedom in sexual activity, while it has played a very important role in educating the tribals over the years. We forced these children into Big Ashram schools, 500 seater ones at times, and broke down their entire tribal way of living. We give, on one hand the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan norms expect us to provide schools within one km to each child. On the other, we force these kids to leave home and live in hostels little better than concentration camps miles away from home.
On one hand, we have MGNREGA to provide employment at home to each villager, to prevent migration and help a local area prosper. On the other, we have schemes like Special SGSY in LWE affected areas, now replaced by Roshani under NRLM which are basically - train poor tribals as some machine operators and then migrate them to some industry, where they act as cheap labour in unorganised sector, at a bigger disadvantage as they are first time out of their home and far away. paid at wages comparable or lower than MGNREGA wages, what is the point in this?
On one hand we empower tribals through acts like PESA, give gram sabhas power to decide their development course. on the other, we empty the villages of the youngsters, ensuring that the next generation is not their to prevent western development in these areas.
We can go on, about organic agriculture, renewable energy resources use, and so on.
A country as big as India needs multiple policies. each area has a certain context. may be in naxal affected tribal areas, you might justify encouraging Roshani program to get children out of the hell hole. but the reason these areas are naxal affected is also due to lack of development. the few youth who could, have been brain drained to serve as labourers and we are still left with undeveloped regions.
There seems to be a total lack of systemic, long term, holistic vision in this country. but then again, holistic has hole in it...
2 comments:
Read. Liked. Gives much to ponder. Forwarding to some like minded friends. Keep writing.
Good start Yatin! But hope your next blog describes how these things can be balanced out. Lets try to say "how do we improve?" instead of "can anything be worse than this?"
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