Inspiring Voices from the Ground

swaraj1

It is always a good learning to hear the experiences of those grassroots activists who have been working for long years in villages to create a better society. At a recent dialogue organized in Delhi on strengthening rural communities and increasing their self-reliance (swaraj samvad) there were several presentations by such activists which were widely appreciated.

First in line in these voices from the ground (awaz zameen se) was a presentation by Popat Rao Baguji Pawar. He related his experiences of 35 years of Hiware Bazar village in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. He worked very hard and with deep involvement as panchayat leader for swaraj model of self-reliant development in village. He was involved entirely in this and never aspired for political leadership or other gains on the basis of the success in this village.

35 years back there was widespread liquor addiction, water shortage, poverty and hunger and forced migration in his village. In the course of swaraj model of development taken up with the enthusiastic involvement of village community now instead we have a lot of greenery, no water shortage, high level of farm productivity, no liquor problem, Pawar stated. People are willing to contribute, they come up in large numbers if a forest fire is to be extinguished. The success of this village led to this being featured in the famous TV program Satyamey Jayate and involvement with famous personalities like Aamir Khan. Several visits by dignitaries led to this model being taken up for replication to the extent possible in several villages including tribal communities, and in Vidarbh region some very encouraging results came such as suicides of farmers stopping in a village from where earlier a large number of suicides had been reported. Another positive aspect is the well-conducted social audit of the panchayat to help in transparency and avoiding misuse of resources. On the whole this has been a very encouraging example of a problem-ridden village moving to sustainable progress on the path of self-reliance with enthusiastic involvement of people.

The next presentation was by Chaami Murmu) from Jharkhand who along with her friends has been involved in planting nearly 3 million trees during the last 30 years or so, at the rate of about 1 lakh trees per year. Remembering the situation over 3 decades back, she said that women like her were supposed to have a very narrow existence within their home and any efforts to go out for a larger social role were frowned upon. But overcoming such hurdles, she and her friends picked up skills in the course of their work for forest department and started planting trees in a big way first on vacant land and later also in and around the farms of several villagers once they had started appreciating their work after seeing all the benefits which the increased green cover was bringing to the entire village. With growing recognition this Padma Shri awardee was able to form several groups of women to empower women and to use this empowerment also for planting more trees in several villages.

Next came the presentation of Patael Kumar Sahu from Odisha who has been an organic farmer and protector of biodiversity for four decades. He has been involved in the protection of hundreds of plant species and has also involved students in their study and understanding. Protection of soil and diversity of seeds and crops has been a passion in his life. He becomes very distressed when he hears of any plans to set up industries in forest areas and feels strongly that this should not happen. He said—people complain that elephants are creating problems in villages but I ask them who snatched away the natural shelter of elephants as it is only after this happened that they came towards villages. When forests are lost, this has a very harmful impact on rains, he said.

Anita Damor, an activist, presented a different perspective. While in earlier presentations indigenous knowledge was highlighted, what the presentation of Anita emphasized was that when some wrong or superstitious thinking exists among people, then removing this is also important. Giving example from several villages she said that breast feeding to the new-born child was being denied but she and other women activists helped to take the right message of breast feeding the new born child and after some initial hesitation this has been widely accepted now.

swaraj2

Anita, who is from Amlipara village in Banswara district, Rajsthan, also said that earlier the women who prepared chapatis only ate after feeding everyone else in the family and sometimes hardly any flour was left for her own chaptis. Anita and her colleagues campaigned for everyone to eat together and this also changed the existing practice in some families. So if anything traditional is having a harmful result or impact, then this too should be changed, Anita said.


At the same time she emphasized several good aspects of traditions such as mixed farming system in her area which gives so many different crops that some crop or the other is being harvested during 8 out of 12 months, improving food security.

Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Man over Machine, Planet in Peril and A Day in 2071.

Support Countercurrents

Countercurrents is answerable only to our readers. Support honest journalism because we have no PLANET B.
Become a Patron at Patreon

Join Our Newsletter

GET COUNTERCURRENTS DAILY NEWSLETTER STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX

Join our WhatsApp and Telegram Channels

Get CounterCurrents updates on our WhatsApp and Telegram Channels

Related Posts

Join Our Newsletter


Annual Subscription

Join Countercurrents Annual Fund Raising Campaign and help us

Latest News