Village Visit

The first activity in FC which I found relevant to the job I will be doing was the village visit which was from 29th oct to 6^th Nov.

All the curiosity/anxiety/excitement that I had regarding the village visit programme crushed the day I saw the district’s name to be Haridwar. It had nothing to do with the place per se but the state from which I was seeking an exit, at least on this account. But all my apprehensions disappeared as soon as I landed in Haridwar. Lovely, sunny weather, lush green fields, clean Ganga and 4 lane roads greeted me, a welcome break from the bitter cold and hilly Mussoorie. I loved Haridwar city instantly and wondered why on this earth they made Dehradun the capital instead of this!

Day 1:

I was the leader for the village sub-group – not an enviable job at all. After completing a short journey of about 3 hrs from Mussoorie to Haridwar, we went and met the district officials at the Vikas Bhavan. A belaboured presentation about the schemes being implemented followed, that too in chaste hindi, which I could see only few people from our group were following. Then we were allotted villages as per our sub groups. My group, which had Karun , Kapil and Saroj with me got Ulheda village in Narsan block of the district. The BDO of NArsan, a lady , and her assistant took us to the allotted villages. On the way stood sprawling campuses of Patanjali Yog Pith of Ramdev. I wanted to go around but decided against it due to lack of time. We then reached Roorkie,  another bustling town, passed by the huge IIT Roorkie campus , then travelled 45 minutes more to reach the village. At first sight, Ulheda looked like a well off village with many 2 storied concrete houses, some with 4 wheelers. We were first taken to the primary school where the village elders gave a warm welcome , fed us with tea and dry fruits(!) and showed us the resting arrangements they had done for us in the school campus. My team was very enthusiastic to stay there but the BDO did not share our excitement and gave us numerous reasons as to why we should rather put up at Roorkie where other 3 teams were also expected. Our first impression was that she wasn’t ready to take responsibility for our stay at the village. Left with no choice, we made our way back to Roorkie after talking for some time with the village headmen(including the Pradhan’pati’ as , well, the lady Pradhan of our village never steps out of her house). The accommodation at National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkie was very comfortable with most of us getting single rooms ( a luxury not entitled to even at academy). Left us all wondering what course was our proposed village visit was taking.

Day 2:

Eating the sugarcane grown in the fields of Ulheda on the way back to the guest house, I dwelled upon the day spent. It was a very different and enjoyable experience in the village. We started our day with a walk through of all the streets to get a general outline of the village. We came across distinct regions of settlement based on caste lines. The periphery regions of Harijans and the middle portions of Tyagi,Saini,Kashyap and other castes. Living conditions of a few were dismal with fallen roofs but we did find contrasting scenes with a few households even owning cars.

The fields were sprawling with sugarcane,turmeric,coarse grains,mango and the most popular ‘poplar’ trees. The lands here are truly blessed – rich alluvial soil and Ganga to feed them. Definitely these regions had to be rich but sadly productivity is not so high. Then we had water chestnut or ‘singhada’, their equivalent of groundnut for snacks.

As the day went by and our walk continued, we started meeting more people and different perspectives started to come out. The Pradhan’pati’ always accompanied us which was very irritating. God knows what he feared. We did plan to give him a miss on our future trips through the village to get the true story. Almost everyone we met had a story to narrate – mostly involving orrupt Government officials. Some cases stood out like one Bhoot Singh, whose pension had been stopped because he was shown to be dead in the register.I can still remember his pleading eyes. Then there was Gyanendra, a 28 year old B Sc graduatewho is unemployed and wasting his time idling in the village due to lack of opportunities. Mr Brahm Tyagi, the self professed ‘elder’ of the village gave us a timeline of important happenings in the village. The totally unbelievable things he said , like mobiles being in their village from 1995 were obviously edited by us!

The team of 4 we had gelled well and I just loved it.It is really hard to find like minded people and I felt extremely lucky about having got one on this trip. After having lunch at a local dhaba (Roti, paneer,rice,dal – what else?) and paying for ourselves(as Pradhan’pati’ would not let us pay), we visited the PDS distribution site. Wheat was of lower quality and kerosene looked ok(I don’t know how to check that, so must be ok J ) We then checked the registers. The expression of those people was a sight not be missed. We were already treated as officers and people were willing to comply! Not just that, we also got lots of petitions from people regarding their issues. The most unfortunate part was that we couldn’t do much other than asking the VDO(Village Development Officer) to speed up or petition in front of the collector. We were left with a sinking feeling of being akin to politicians who just promise and don’t deliver.

Day 3:

Another busy day.We had decided to study the gender issues, which definitely wasn’t encouraging at first sight. After breakfast(Methi Parantha for a change) we landed in the village and got down to work by interviewing the main Anganwadi worker Indira Sharma. She looked knowledgeable and also evinced interest in the issues of the village.

Next came the most awaited event – the chance to meet the de jure Pradhan Saroj Devi. We were irritated by the constant lurking of Pradhanpati and hence this interest about meeting his better half! She looked pitiable – expectedly, and after constant prodding by Saroj and me, started opening up behind her Purdah. A truly enlightening session followed in that Kashyap household – from her compulsion to be Pradhan( with her pati forcing her, of course) , social stigma attached with not following purdah, her illiteracy which cuts her off from all her duties, her poverty and her 5 kids. The helplessness in this first citizen of the village was very apparent. A woman who had never ventured out of her house being chosen the leader of her village is nothing short of a farce and pity us who have to study this disturbing reality. She made a lot of sense too, she never hid any issues and rightly came out with the most pressing issues facing them – lack of toilet facilities. Later, we too realized the importance of this issue – mosquitoes and flies being companions everywhere and open defecation continuing unabated. The Kashyap women had other issues too – no institutional deliveries,large number of kids and huge misconceptions regarding maternal health.

Disturbed as we were, we next proceeded to the greener part of the village – place where we could find women who were better off, the Tyagi community. The houses were huge with tractors and cars and women were clean and healthy. The interaction revealed their high qualification(our host was a BA graduate) and they had at a max 2 kids. However, even behind this rosy picture were the subtle hints of things not being right. These women were also behind the veil, they too never went out of their homes, never attended a single Gram Sabha meet,never were allowed to work even if they possessed a PG degree and definitely had no say in any decision making. Ultimately they too spent time in household activities. None owned land too. Manju Tyagi, our lovely host and her mother in law – examples of the only ‘supposed’ women empowerment in the village.

The Harijan Basti and their women were the next stop. Highly anticipated portion of the day’s itinerary and they didn’t disappoint. Women here had too many problems – no girl went to school beyond 5^th, most women worked as labourers(none had their own lands) with wages as low as 60 to 100 per day(men were paid 200), huge debts with finance corporations, discreet/open caste discrimination, missing BPL cards, widows not getting pension, no sanitation facilities, huge number of kids, unending poverty – to list a few. The atmosphere was emotionally charged with more and more women coming up with problems.

Allegations, counter allegation and counter-counter allegations later, we were let perplexed. We Were caught between the officials who paint a certain picture and the villagers who say the exact opposite. Of course truth lay somewhere in the middle and its pursuit had to be our focus.

Day 4:

Day spent at the village was rather short. We reached at 11.45 and proceeded towards the school. We interacted with the kids and found the conditions of a few dismal. Multiple classes were held in single classrooms and we were left wondering how could they concentrate. It was impossible to say which child studies in what class looking at them and the drop out rate was high (although the teachers vehemently denied that).The village had classes only till 8^th and only the poor went there. For the better off, Gurukul Narsan or still better, Roorkie held a bright future.

The Anganwadi was located next to the school and it was surprisingly a welcome sight. The one we cheked out was colourful with charts.There were 30 kids aged between 3 to 6, whose mothers were mostly farm labourers. Few kids were malnourished, but the rest looked normal. We checked out the nourishment being provided to pregnant women(sattu). The registers were up to date and somehow I felt fully satisfied for the first time in Ulheda.

Next we had food with the school kids under the mid day meal scheme.Rice was properly cooked(although not of great quality)  and potato,chana sabzi was tasty. We had the privilege of eating food cooked by the headmistress herself as the cook had been banished by the village ‘elders’ for some petty reasons! The male teachers, well, looked on.The headmistress, for some strange reasons felt it was her sole responsibility to cook for 100 kids as,’ the other teachers were men and they are not expected to cook or help’.

Then we went on and conducted an exercise involving the villagers about their health related problems.Since it was preference ranking, we had a lot to explain, it took a lot of our time and energy. Nonetheless it was worth the effort. We met the ASHA of the village and interviewed her.One thing which struck me was the meagre amount of income of all the village level workers, be it ASHA or Anganwadi.I still cannot comprehend how they can make ends meet. Especially considering the fact that the dinner bill we paid at the Chinese Restaurant  at the end of the day at Roorkie was equal to their monthly salaries.

Day 5:

I was totally pepped up regarding the day’s visit as we had loads of programmes stacked up – major being the Gram Sabha meeting we had called. Although we have no powers to call for that meeting, yet, being probationers its fun to digress rules J So it began, the great meeting of locals at Gram Sabha. About 75 people turned up, men and women almost in equal numbers. Although it might seem too less for an adult population of about 1000, it was a good strength, considering no one cares to turn up.

What we had hoped would help us understand the working of the Panchayat, turned out to be a grievance sunvayi/ bashing session with the villagers almost mobbing us. Most had similar issues – pension being withheld or BPL cards not issued. Since we could not do much at this stage,we had the VDO make the people understand the rules. The villagers, however weren’t satisfied until we wrote their names in our books – which we promised them to put before the collector.

I often wonder at the depth of responsibilities I would have to handle henceforth. This was just one village, that too a small one – beset with all problems conceivable and once we head districts, we would be flooded with a million issues from thousands of villages. But I’m sure its going to be an amazing challenge for me. One big lesson of this visit has been to remain impassioned while dealing with problems, the same way a doctor sees his patients. I find it real tough to put this into practice but I know I will reach that state of mind soon.

Next we met the select bunch of Panchayat members. 5 turned up out of 9 including 3 women, all in purdah, now even more longer than the last time I had seen them in their homes. They were dummy participants , of course and with their respective ‘patis’ ready to jump on every occasion to talk for them, we were witnessing the real women empowerment in out country. Attempts were made by us to drag them in, but with little success. All of them, including the lady Pradhan didn’t have even the faintest idea of their rules or responsibilities.

After some exercises on village problems and getting information for drawing the customary venn diagram, the 3 tired souls, Kapil, Karub and Sindhu had had enough.So, there it was, lunch served at school, brought to us by the pradhanpati.Then we went and roamed around the richest farmers’ land.Kapil was ready with his agri related questions which made little sense to the two of us, so we killed time by eating sugarcane from their farms. Tiring day ended, we made our way back, decided to write something sensible in our reports and went for dinner – this time at a supposedly 3 star hotel at Roorkie. Day always ends on a high note in Roorkie Jespecially IIT campus – its amazing!

Day 6:

Divinity abound, this day marked the high point of my trip. The diyas rose as sun set on the banks of the mighty Ganga at Haridwar and the aarti that followed mesmerised me.

If my day ended with such a visual treat, morning was no less. This day we got a break from the routine village visit in order to visit Haridwar to meet our DM and present our findings. Most were excited about this proposition as it meant that they can run off to Delhi after this formality was over.So all the cheerful faces left Roorkie and reached VIP Ghat first – our (or my) first brush with babudom and its powers.As is evident, this ghat was for a chosen few people like us to bathe and cleanse ourselves in the Ganges, so it was devoid of any ‘commoners’ and on the opposite bank we spotted a sea of humanity. We put in a request to be taken to the ‘common’  ghats as we were public servants who had to be with the public, but it was strongly turned sown. We must surely be national assets!

Next incident went a step beyond. At the famous Mansa Devi temple where people take a minimum of half a day to get Devi’s darshan, we set a record of our own. The queue runs for kilometres, there is a ropeway up the temple which leads to one more queue to get in and finally see the deity. But with great people like us, it was a cake walk as we were the aam aadmi in the queue cursed us – something all of us, helpless souls silently endured.

We then met the DM, very nice chap who heard us out patiently and invited suggestions for improvement. We did our best to come out with our finding, problems or otherwise that each of our villages faced. Some of the issues which the villagrs had themselves requested us to convey to the district administration were duly put forth by us. He then asked us to prepare a master plan for or villageand send him – something that most detested(as it meant more work, one more day at the village and more importantly giving up hope about the Delhi trip)

Nonetheless it was an enlightening day which taught us what to expect from now on in our careers. After resting at the beautiful dam bungalow we made our way to HAr Ki Paudi. This time we had Gaurav Thakur playing both guest and host. The way back to Roorkie was filled with harmless banter and fun.

After dinner we met about 40 students of IIT Roorkie to ‘inspire’ them about civil services.I was happy to see so many people wanting to opt as this for a career option. Discussion went on till 12 PM and I liked it very much

Then, the next day I went to Delhi and stayed at Isha’s sister’s place. There I caught up with my friends Rajeshwari,Prasad, Mitali, Vimarsh and Anirudh. Truly wonderful 2 days spent there. Something I will cherish for a really long time to come.