On Datia

It all started naturally! To be precise, from naturopathy! My friend Rajesh and Prakash had come home with a naturopathy aficionado Mr. Hilal. Among many other things, he suggested remaining only on fruits and vegetables for fifteen days to cure me of my chronic sinusitis. Though I was tired of the many solutions that I had been attempting, since sinusitis was still an issue, I decided to give it a try.

Since I did not believe it possible that a human being can survive on fruits and vegetables alone (despite what historians have to say about settled agriculture making cereals available), I decided to follow Hilal for lunch and dinner, and stick with my convictions for breakfast. The result was almost instantaneous! Whether the theory of giving space and time to the body to repair itself, rather than bothering it with digestion is correct or not, I do not know. What I do know, is that I have had to use the nasal spray only twice in the last two months and that too in the first week of the same.

That I was able to breathe was perhaps inspiration to live and work better. I found that the instruction that I had given to my district officers to regularly visit the rural areas, prior to my going on leave had not really materialized as I would have hoped for - from my (non existent) motivational skills. The instruction had been given right after the Lok Sabha model code of conduct was repealed - after which more enthusiasm could be displayed on development work! It would always have been tough for my officers to follow the schedule of 3 village visits in a week. With the captain away cooling his heels in Cochin, the team perhaps tried to emulate the same in Datia.

Bhaskar told me it won't be worth trying if I were to be transferred out soon. I had been myself wanting to be able to see something other than Bundelkhand. My friends have started joking that I am trying to be a Bundelkhand expert. With eight of my nine years of service here, I, perhaps, was not able to see what was right in front of my eyes. Reason why, I had enjoyed the rains in Dindori just as much as the cows relished the fresh green grass there. I travelled to Bhopal with a strange request of being transferred right away to see something outside "seen" areas before it is too close to September when my family is expecting a new entrant. I remember calling Bhaskar from Bhopal in the early days of June and telling him that we can forget about the transfer thing and go full steam ahead with work. In retrospect, forgetting the three Ps of posting, place and promotion as advised by the metro man, is always the best way to be! I was reiterating my trust and adulation for Mr. Sreedharan. Little did I know that the two months up ahead would be of such quality that now I brag about being ready to trade it off for the rest of my service.

When we decided to follow the schedule that we had given ourselves, we found we had not been too meticulous in the design of the schedule. Perhaps no body was “hopeful” that it would ever be attempted. The village panchayats were divided into unwieldy sectors. Multiple versions of village visit plan got circulated confusing all as to when exactly visits were to happen and where. Finally on the 'palendromic' date of 14 July we finalised the time table for our visits which appears OK till date.

The idea was to make village visits in a systematic manner. When the district administration is visiting a particular village, no one is really sure when the next visit would be. With many villages claiming that no Collector has ever come to their village since independence and with some being able to pin point on the exact person who was the Collector who had made his/her visit to a particular village, the general feeling was that tour is mostly tourism! So, the time table was so set that we would be visiting the same sectors on the same day of the month, every month. Mondays were for Datia, Budwar for Bhander and Shukrawar for Seondha - I would reiterate to my fellow officers emphasising on the ba ba - sa sa rhyming in an attempt to coordinate their tour programme in the general direction that I had set my tour on. Then we also realised that the block of Datia is actually half the district (almost). So all sectors being accommodated into mondays, wednesdays and fridays was at best clumsily achieved. Tuesdays of jansunvai and Thursdays of Parakh was left out for office work and court work.

When we started visiting villages, we realised that the effectiveness of the tour could be increased if we were visiting with notice - helping people to gather and participate in the visit. Yes, there is a value in surprise inspections. But that is when you are being deceived into a feeling of things being OK on an arranged day. When the records and statements of the people on the ground on the pre appointed day is innocent of any such pretensions of perfection, no effort has to be made in trying to find fault by attacking with stealth. Instead, regular open meetings with active participation of people would help improve the system as all stake holders are present and decision making and implementation could be better and transparent.

When we reached Hatlau village, an island in the sea of Shivpuri (as far as Datia is concerned), MDM was not happening as it should have been, despite our visit being 'pre- intimidated'. My first reaction was to suspend the SHG and to suspend the CAC and to suspend the BRC and to suspend the DPC. The solution has perhaps always been finding where exactly the fault lies outside ourselves! The villagers thought different and perhaps they are right!

In the mandated gram sabha, the mystery of the missing MDM was discussed. My contemplated solution of ending the work of the SHG had the support of only 30 percent of the people. 70 percent of them came with the "weird" logic that though MDM was not being made as mandated, since the 'husband' of the SHG (actually he was husband of the SHG chairperson, but he was also doing SHG husbandry ) was disabled with a hand cut off by a careless thresher, they should be given a chance to improve. This was subsequent to his appeal to the public on allowing him to continue after he had apologised for the mistake. Bhaskar and I decided to go with the decision of the majority.

Even though one is not very sure on what happened to MDM thereafter, this process could have some positive results. One, the SHG and its husband owe it to those 70 percent that they are still continuing to have work. The SHG would not thankfully be under the patronage of the babu who would dissolve complaints against it and the field officer who would resolve the issue of how to divide the booty of the instituted inquiry. That the SHG's life depends on support in the next Gram Sabha on the same day next month increases the probability that he would try to bribe the decision makers; Bribe to decision makers could also be in the form of MDM to their kids!

We were finding the long agenda of the gram sabha that we had suggested disgusting if not exhausting. Governments perhaps should start issuing a list on what not to concentrate on - we would joke! The number of things on which 'sarvoch prathamikta' is to be imposed is too many to count. We would have gone ahead with our conviction on the need to concentrate, but for the blind girl who changed the way we thought about it.

She had come to the gram sabha to complain on her pension not coming to her. To be precise, she was brought there by her father. Typical of Bundelkhand, they believed in the value of disrupting proceedings to make themselves heard. After some cajoling they resigned to the fate of having to listen to the whole list of initiatives that we were inventing in our brains waiting for the right beneficiary to benefit from the same -  HITAM, UTTARA, SAMAGR, PRAGATI, Maryada, PC PNDT, Suposhan, Sarva Shiksha, YUVA and what not! When things were about to wind up, this blind girl with her stare fixed on eternity used the little sound space that had been afforded for any general comment by any one. Facing the onlooker, she asked in the most pleading of voices - "kya mere liye ek shauchalay ban sakta hai babu ji". We realised that blind eyes could cry. Not hers. Ours!

She had come for her pittance as pension. And she told me something I have not heard (I don't say it was not said) in many workshops on Total sanitation. The Superintendent of Police who was with us made the immediate connection to the burgeoning crime on women and lack of sanitation facilities. Yes, I had read the same. But the way she makes my soul stir as I remember that day is perhaps what she alone could do!


Then we decided that every issue was as important. Let us just leave it there in the agenda for the right eyes to behold them. It might be over looked. But to activate thoughts, we could use some bullet points.

With dinner restricted to 'papita', one started getting really early in the morning. The sleep was more complete and I was not complaining. Getting up at four, file work was a welcome precursor to reading Ragdarbari or watching 'Before Sunrise'. With the whole world sleeping around you, suddenly you have a lot of time of your own. Facebook started receiving my literary tortures. Since I did not want to spoil my name, I (mis)used the DM Datia handle to inflict upon unsuspecting people my nonexistent prowess in a language in which I am almost listless.

I had posted on facebook on some plan of tree plantation drive when I received a comment that said that no one cares for trees after they are planted. I responded and asked if any of my friend citizens in Datia are willing to contribute to the effort of conserving trees. No direct replies. But one was kind enough to suggest the name of an environmentalist - Pradeep Rajput and with his contact obtained over facebook, I started on a drive to clean the “lala ka taal” in  early mornings at 6'o clock as a start for the environmental drive as rains were still being delayed. Public representatives and some officers assembled to 'watch' nagarpalika staff doing their share of "janbhagidhari" work and discussed on the need to do more of discussions. The laughing 'hass club' was full of ideas for others to do. People would fall over each other to point out to me as to what they thought was the most crying issue in Datia town.

My To Do list went berserk. I realised I am carrying so many little monkeys on my back and every next person was meeting me with the cruel intention of loading the one more monkey on my back. The problems were immense. Yes, I could solve any of them. But I could not solve all of them!

This was perhaps when I drove away to Tikamgarh to give my examination of IGNOU on Masters in Rural Development. Having read almost nothing till then, this one week sabbatical was immensely enjoyable. Among other nuggets of wisdom, it also mentioned to me about the need to move from a control oriented law and order state to welfare orientation - from welfare to access, to involvement, to participation, to ownership and control BY common man!

 I decided to try this handing over of ownership and control to people. I went back to the Hass club and asked them if they could take the responsibility of monitoring the cleanliness of laala ka taal. They said yes. I requested them to organise as a society which could be given responsibility to monitor use of resources from nagar palika. They agreed. They also agreed to take up responsibilities for malnourished children in their neighbourhood. Interacting with them, I realised that a lot of well meaning people are available in the early hours of the day and as the day goes by the general level of positive spirit and warm heartedness is replaced by lesser emotions.

Responsive they were to the call of participation, but not as much as ward number 23, where we reached in search of the solution to the sanitation problem that was damaging laala ka taal. The ward was not having a community toilet they direly wanted (not just needed). They had issues of encroachment and there it was I found resonance in the need I had felt in Manisha's house for efforts for Good Housing as a Right. So many has no GHAR.

Suneel was educated, radical and was quick to grasp the idea about the need to organise as a mohalla samiti under the rules of 2011 so that we could contract work to people's committees rather than leaving them to complain for lack of quality in construction and absence of municipal sweepers. When I reiterated openly the commitment to decentralise work, I could feel the strains on the face of the adhyaksh pati of nagar palika which made me suspect less about the veracity of the allegations there were. Slowly I could see that systematic and active meetings in wards/villages to aid development were more of people and less of “dealers”. There was now a new mechanism for access with equal privileges for all. The market mechanism for privileged access alias corruption can sure take a beating if this continued - I was beginning to feel. On my last samwad sabha in Datia I had to ask for the cordless mike from my vehicle which was till now only needed in village sabhas.

I could see in the eyes of some unwilling leaders, like Suneel, the spark of setting up a system which everyone could aspire to control. At first they said that they were uneducated to do such organising. When counter posed with the impossibility of controlling the district or municipal administration with their will, they could see the point in the need to associate at lowest level. Third Thursday Town Hall meetings were held to set up a regular system whereby people could organise into mohalla samitis. More people came forward. These meetings were one in which everyone was invited and no one was invited in special. The townhall had not seen any activity for long and had to be cleaned up by an unwilling nagarpalika which could not understand why meeting could not held in the AC meeting hall of the Collectorate.

In the first townhall meeting a man with no legs and a long beard and not the best of clothes came into the hall. When he was requested to sit on the chair, he was visibly moved. He sat there for the whole meeting without speaking a word. And, he then went back - perhaps not understanding a word of what was being discussed! But when I came for the next townhall meeting, he was already there in the first row. It was perhaps destiny that a prominent political personality who is a descendant of the erstwhile royal family also came in and sat beside him giving me a snap shot that I will treasure all my life.

Back in the village sabha, the most daring decisions were being made by the gram sabha with the ease of saying aye. The Indira Awas Yojana waiting list had the 132nd position reserved for a couple where the lady was paralysed and the gentleman was blind. When the request came up in the gram sabha every one was in agreement that the waiting list needs correction to afford the next Indira Awas to this couple. All, perhaps even without the exception of those who were being overlooked, were happy with the decision - political decision made in the most transparent manner with perhaps not too much scope for complaint as the rising ovation of the gram sabha was caught on camera.

It is a constant challenge to keep the grasslands free of encroachment in village areas. After a shadow fight, the authorities invariably end up on the losing side with the 'dabang' doing agriculture to the exclusion of the customary grazing rights of the landless. When the matter was discussed in the gram sabha a solution of forcefully sowing the charnoi with su babul impressed everyone. The gram sabha turned itself into a gang which picked up the seeds brought in by the veterinary department on loan from the forest department. With a hand full of seeds sown in full public view by the multitude, the charnois were now safe for the cattle. Same acceptance was there for the decision of shifting the television provided by the Rural Development Department (and adorning the drawing room of the GP sachiv) to the anganwadi where women groups could watch it attracting more women and children to anganwadis.

Two months is perhaps too little a time to write a success story about. I should be more categorical and state that there is no success story here. Whether it was a success or not to have this system of systematic social audit and action, I am not well placed to judge. But the way it was turning out to be was indeed a matter of satisfaction. I was not grudging an effort which was physically taxing for me. And perhaps for the first time in my career I had my agenda set for the next six months. It was satisfying. Period.

In the context of corruption, I would always quip that even if I have not been able to change my environment, it  has not been able to change me either. In this new experience of public participation and ownership and control, I don't know how much I have been able to impress or change Datia. I do not know if the keys of the monthly meetings that were purposefully left in the hands of time would be made use of. Perhaps we needed more time to consolidate our gains. Perhaps (and hopefully) it will be a greater success now that I am leaving.  I don't know if changing Datia by trying to spark in them the wish to organise at grass root level succeeded or not, but I admit Datia has successfully changed me! Hopefully forever!! Sharing with All their Rightful Access to Justice now seems possible, but with a lot of effort up ahead. Is there a light there at the end of the tunnel?

MDM – Mid Day Meals

SAMVAD – Systematic and Active Meetings in Villages to Aid Development

UTTARA  - Universal Transparent Tracking of Applications and Responses to Applications – www.uttara.nic.in

YUVA – Yuva United for Value Addition

GHAR – Good Housing as a Right

HITAM – Hitgrahi Tracking and Management

PRAGATI – Project Review Guidance and Tracking Initiative – www.dwatch.nic.in

PC PNDT –  Pre Conception and Pre Natal Diagnostic Test

CAC – Cluster Academic Coordinator

BRC – Block Resource Coordinator

DPC – District Programme Coordinator

DM – District Magistrate