Deprivation and aspiration

The aspiration of the poor of a lifestyle probably has done more than any social program to motivate some of the disenchanted to become enfranchised. However, it may also be perceived that the multicoloured noisy enclaves of urban prosperity have promoted crass consumerism.

 

One may be distressed at seeing a dish antenna atop a ramshackle house, inside of which there is neither fan nor LPG cylinder but a 14 inch television set. Clean drinking water is also a distant dream for this household. Outside of this hut, children with swollen stomachs give visible signs of acute malnutrition. However the thought that struck me was the yearning of a people to have superfluous badges of affluence that may promise to them a more lasting peace than any political system has ever delivered. The same children, in a small community in rural India, adore Jackie Chan but are not acquainted with the name of country’s Prime Minister. I don’t mean to overlook the complexities here.

 

The aspiration of the poor of a lifestyle probably has done more than any social program to motivate some of the disenchanted to become enfranchised. However, it may also be perceived that the multicoloured noisy enclaves of urban prosperity have promoted crass consumerism. The trend is a classic demonstration of Marxist concept of ‘commodity fetishism’ implying that capitalist rulers in a bourgeois democracy can weave their ideology in the social consciousness by fetishizing market economy, and make it appear absolutely necessary to the citizens.

 

Since Marx’ times the Indian media has become a powerful non-violent tool in the hands of the budding neo-right urban middle class, to which also belong the journalists of the mainstream media like I am to be, in shaping public psyche in this mould. So I admit the ugly truth. After spending the last few weeks trying to understand the pull of the material world, I have become far more sympathetic to its blandishments and far more forgiving of its excesses.

 

Nehru’s grand vision of independent India determined to remove the barriers of class stratification and their far reaching effects on inequality and deprivation gave a thrilling image that could rival Alfred Tennyson’s eloquence: “For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see. Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.” All the same, there is disturbing evidence that the battle against class divisions has been substantially weakened by the designated warriors themselves.

 

While in the village no kid cares about the number of vowels in her name, or the colour of her skin, or whether you know the difference between like and as, when real Jackie Chan is playing with her — that’s got to mean something.

 

Cast(e) into school

There are subtle — often not so subtle — types of discrimination an SC student faces in the village. For instance, studying in an English medium school gives the MBC children the obvious edge over SC kids in proficiency in speaking English.

Caste/class inequalities emerge in every aspect of society and culture and even in the education scenario of Sakkangudi, a village in Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu. In Sakkangudi, the Most Backward Castes (MBCs) and Backward Castes (BCs) are roughly three times the population of Scheduled Castes (SCs), according to the 2001 census statistics of the village. But a look at the Panchayat Middle school’s enrolment numbers shows that the number of MBCs and SCs students is just about equal.

In Sakkangudi, the Vanniyars (MBCs) own most of the land in the village and majority of the SCs are agricultural labourers. Scheduled Tribes (STs) and BCs constitute a small part of the village population. The inequalities between the landed and landless classes in the village society are opened up early in the context of education.

The nature and type of schools have contributed to this evident polarization across class and caste. The Panchayat School has come to be identified with the poor, and more so with the SCs. This school has also come to be associated with poorer quality of teaching as compared to English medium matriculation school in the village, to which the MBC children go to subsequently find comfortable jobs in urban centers. NCERT has stated in the Sixth All-India Educational Survey that SCs mainly avail themselves of government schooling.

School attendance rates are lower for the SC and tribal students compared to boys from MBC and BC social groups in the Panchayat School. Data on school dropout of SC children remains fairly high at the middle school stage. For most of them agricultural and other wage labour becomes the primary occupation and poverty becomes a major deterrent to regular attendance at school. The adverse learning environment experienced by scheduled-caste pupils affects their educational aspirations and achievements.

There are subtle — often not so subtle — types of discrimination an SC student faces in the village. For instance, studying in an English medium school gives the MBC children the obvious edge over SC kids in proficiency in speaking English.

The School Education Department’s Policy Note 2007-2008 recognizes that most of the rural students fail only in English in Public Examinations and can not continue their study. The note also says that in a world of globalization, proficiency in English language is considered essential yet teachers imparting education in the Panchayat School fail to effectively follow the English Medium curriculum.

These are areas in which the equality of access and the promise of comparable outcomes provided in the Constitution are not remotely real to lower castes. The fact here, for too many people, is that their destinies are ultimately determined by their caste. There is much to be said about public education itself but the question of caste is all pervading. The lower castes can not be expected to have much faith in a system based on economic needs when it is so thoroughly misrepresented by the privileged.

NREGA: Digging deep for employment

The findings of the social audit of Palipadai Panchayat highlighted the irregularities and loopholes in the name of NREGS. The Gram Panchayat had not issued dated receipt to some applicants which it is bound to do under the act. Other irregularity that came up during the audit involved issuance of less job cards than applied by some households.

Just a few weeks before the extension of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) to all the rural  districts in the country, a brief field examination in Cuddalore revealed some potentially important concerns over its implementation. This District in Tamil Nadu was one of the 200 districts where NREGA was implemented in its first phase in 2005. The act is the first step towards realising the right to work, which is included in the Constitution as one of the Directive Principles. It says, “The State shall in particular direct its policy towards securing … that the citizens, men and women equally have the right to an adequate means of livelihood.” The act essentially addresses urgent and immediate issues of hunger and deprivation, since it is this lack of livelihood, lack of food security, and endemic poverty that sends rural households into the downward spiral of destitution. However, as economist and social activist Jean Dreze says, legislation alone will not guarantee employment; continuous mobilisation is required.

The NREGA experience in Cuddalore led to a central observation about insufficient awareness among the people that their participation holds the key to the choice of works and their execution under NREGA. The act empowers ordinary people to play an active role in the implementation of employment guarantee schemes through gram sabhas and participatory planning. However, NREGA labourers were not sufficiently aware of their legal entitlement that they could go to the gram sabha and put forth their demands regarding NREGA projects. Even though the gram sabha gives support to the works, it emerged that the prioritisation is still done by the sarpanch, and other Panchayat officials.

The statute also emphasizes the participation of women (a third of the intended workers are to be women) and encouragingly 60-80 per cent and sometimes all of the labourers working at the NREGS sites were women. A woman explained “the fact that women are paid less than men in the agricultural labour. I consider the 100 days under NREGS work as a better source of income.” Even though the work is back-breaking, women are earning hard cash for their efforts. This might lead to some empowerment and financial independence among rural women, with important repercussions on how the money is spent within the household. Nevertheless, there were some instances where womens’ wages were collected by their husbands or brothers.

NREGA, additionally, is aimed to have an impact on rural-urban migration. On the flip side it came forward that it had not completely succeeded. The Kolakudi village Panchayat President said “the villagers” whose 100 odd job cards, applied for in February and March last year, he possessed in January this year “had migrated to Kerala in search of work. So these job cards were not issued.”

The findings of the social audit of Palipadai Panchayat highlighted the irregularities and loopholes in the name of NREGS. The Gram Panchayat had not issued dated receipt to some applicants which it is bound to do under the act. Other irregularity that came up during the audit involved issuance of less job cards than applied by some households. For example, in case of household number 230, four members had applied for the job card but only three job cards were issued. Also numerous discrepancies between date, name and age mentioned in the application form and that shown on the records figured. Records regarding issuance of job cards sent a signal that records can be “adjusted”, and open the door to further, arbitrary “adjustments.” According to the books some job cards were issued weeks before application forms were received.

The legislation, which “guarantees” employment for every rural household for 100 days per financial year, rests on the logic of using the productive capacity of ordinary rural folk to build and nurture assets, while simultaneously alleviating the problem of chronic unemployment and poverty. The nature of assets depicted a distinct story this year in Pallipadai. According to the Tamil Nadu state policy, the scheme is implemented with all the funds going only into the wage component, and these jobs are de-silting canals and laying mud roads, which are taken up under NREGS in Cuddalore. In Pallipadai, 10.56 lakhs were sanctioned for three de-silting projects, out of which only one was completed owing to unexpected rains. The projects were put on hold after July and never to be resumed since regular monsoon season started. Moreover, in contrast to the specifications in the act aimed at making implementation transparent, neither the list of projects and finalised works nor list of job cards was displayed at the gram Panchayat office. Even the file containing photocopies of all job cards was not available for inspection in the gram Panchayat office. Largely, awareness about unemployment allowance that the act provides for was lacking in most of the villages.

The tremendous potential of NREGS in some of the areas was evident where work was available. This is an unprecedented opportunity for the rural poor, and there was modest appreciation of it among casual labourers and other disadvantaged sections of the population. Some of them even hoped that NREGS would enable them to avoid long-distance seasonal migration, with all its hardships. The key to how the process spreads lies in how intensively people are empowered with information and awareness and to what extent people will ultimately own up and drive the process independent of any backing, for it to sustain itself in the long run.

 

A life, that too, is lived

Chandan, who came to Chennai with four pairs of trousers and shirts, takes order with a straight face, serves food without delay, cleans the table and adjusts the stool for other customers and even assists in preparing meals if need be. The boy symbolizes the fate of the landless poor and the unskilled classes, who had no choice but to migrate to far regions in search of a paltry income. In States such as Tamil Nadu where there is a perennial shortage of manual labour, as more and more people graduate to better paying jobs, lads like him are welcomed.

This 12-year-old doesn’t know anything about Delhi’s monuments, museums, galleries, gardens, the only city he had gone to see, but remembers precisely what the big gate and garden lawns of one of the country’s largest jails, the Tihar jail looked like. Besides, fascinating architecture of the Delhi High Court captured his mind’s eye and he retains a vivid memory of it.

Chandan, a child migrant labourer from Bihar finds himself as a boy in attendance, ready to serve Paranthas at a roadside eatery in South Indian city of Chennai, in the present. He was paying a visit to his grandfather in the jail, “nana danga kara tha toh jail gaya tha (my granddad picked up a fight and went to jail)” Chandan tells. He had been a poor peasant, the cook in the eatery, from Chandan’s village informs, and was bailed later. The time courts took in granting bail gave this boy of 11 a peep into the world of prisoners and cops while other kids his age admired India gate and Red Fort when visiting the city. “The walls of the jail were grey concrete, rising high and topped with barbed wire. Wild hemp plants grew all along the side below and I felt nervous as the prison gates came into view.” Chandan recalls a year old experience. “I walked through the entrance with my uncle. We followed the drift of people towards an office where we lined up at several places before meeting nana. I also spent some time in the jail canteen where the seats and tables were all metal unlike these” he points at the seats in the restaurant and draws comparisons “and the cops wandered in and out in this atmosphere. I imagined a team of thulla (policemen) would jump on me at any moment and march me off for interrogation.” After the wait, he barely saw his nana standing at the corner of a right angle of dark corridors through three wired fences on the other side. “The chaos was further augmented by the guards who rang the bell overhead with no particular purpose” he recollects.

Born amid the locale of Indian rural poverty and pungent mystery of the Bihar’s tropics, he became friends with good climbing trees when his mother cooked; father worked; and his five brothers and one sister educated themselves in school. The trees in the jungle in his district were his lair for all games and adventures but not for long could he run in the rain or play gilli danda with his friends. Nine months later he starts his day at 9 AM to sweep the eating place as he looks down the crowded street where children of his age walk to the school but soon gets back to what his life has imposed on him. Then he prepares tea for all the workers which is extensively appreciated even by the waiters at the next door snack shop. In little time he has made friends with rest of workers who are much elder to him.

Rajasthani Roti Ghar, his work place is a small and cramped area where bare feet he has to squeeze through the tiny sit down area with stools put out to reach the kitchen, time after time, during the days work. “I came to this city to work because I did not like it there. There is no work, just jungle in my village” he says while rattling the menu to a customer “sattu parantha, aalu parantha, gobi parantha, aalu or pyaaz parantha…” alongside he eagerly sweeps the table of a customer to accommodate the next one. With his brilliant mind, Chandan has become adept at solving arithmetical problems of addition in a jiffy. For this reason he has been nicknamed ‘child computer’ by some of the regular customers at the eatery.

This kid, who came to Chennai with four pairs of trousers and shirts, takes order with a straight face, serves food without delay, cleans the table and adjusts the stool for other customers and even assists
in preparing meals if need be. In the little space available next to the eating place, he fills water bottles from the water can and keeps the used dishes in a bucket to be washed later as soon as a customer
vacates the table. To sum his days work, the owner of the eatery calls it waitergiri (the job of a waiter). He is too mature for his age, tells a customer he is attending. “He is a workaholic kid, may possibly make a shrewd business man. It is even difficult to make him smile.”

Under the fluorescent tube, amid the smell of parnthas, chandan’s little hands struggle with the aluminium foil cover to pack the paranthas, even as he talks a little, after being unforthcoming for a long time, the story of severe poverty. Poverty among the biggest group of migrant labour, whom one is bound to see anywhere in India, comprises Biharis. He toils here for a mere two meals a day and meagre monthly earning of Rs. 2000 “Main saara paisa ghar bhejta hoon, wahaan pe zaroori hai (I send all the money back home, they need it)” he says with a hopeless expression in the eyes. He takes out a packet of his favourite Parle G biscuits from his pocket “or tip ke paise ka biscuit khata hoon ya picture dekhta hoon (I eat biscuits or watch money from the tip that I get).”

The boy symbolizes the fate of the landless poor and the unskilled classes, who had no choice but to migrate to far regions in search of a paltry income. In States such as Tamil Nadu where there is a perennial shortage of manual labour, as more and more people graduate to better paying jobs, lads like him are welcomed.

Chandan carefully washes his hands and sits to eat his much loved sattu parantha for lunch on the same chair where the prosperous bits of Hindi Speaking India, living in the lodges of Triplicane High Road, satisfy their taste buds in this unfamiliar land. In contrast to the migration of the poor, illiterate and the downtrodden, who make living out of carefully serving the thali that comes with a bit of pumpkin, potato curry and piling paranthas.