Sample – 1: Class Contradictions and NREGA:

Sociological theory would give you what are class contradictions, how they emerge in a society, how they sustain, how they create the corresponding class consciousness and how the class structure makes the dominant class manipulate power in a such a way that, class persists and perpetuates. Even though many people denies the existence of class as such, rather want to stick to the term status groups, there were prominent sociologists who spoke of the interrelationship between caste, class and power like Andre beteile.

Even though our research was not a sociological research, the evident class contradictions in the society drew us towards the subject. We wondered how true the sociologists were when they spoke of the dominant class and their mentality when we ourselves met these rural people. The class contradiction can be easily felt with their opinions over the MGNREGA in their region. We met nearly 200 MGNREGA workers in the Kolanalli Gram panchayat. For them the MGNREGA is a boon which has helped them to live a meaningful life. When we met the farmers, they were furious over the issue and didn’t spare the govt, as well as the manual labourers.

The Farmer’s point of view can be summed up as follows

1. Land labourers are lazy and they don’t want to do a tough job even if they are paid Rs. 200 a day.
2. Agriculture will die if the MGNREGA continues.
3. The govt. is using NREGA to decrease the profits of the farmers, there by making the farmers to sell their land to corporate in the future, by the way they are laying foundation for the corporate farming.
4. They actually pay more wages than the MGNREGA wage of Rs. 100 a day, but still the people do not have the attitude to work.

The workers points of view can be summed up as:

1. The farmers do not give more than Rs. 80 for most jobs.
2. There is no job for at least 5 months a year in the farm for all. 
3. As the marginal farmers also work in the large farmers field for lesser wage, the landless labourers who demand reasonable wage is ignored.
4. There are few old age people who are jobless for at least 8 months a year.
5. They say when there is work in the farm they will first go there and will come here only after finishing it.
6. The farmers select only young persons and persons with good physique to work in their farms and reject the others and hence many go jobless most of the time.
7. Farmers use insecticides and latest technologies as promoted by the agricultural board which in turn reduces the need for the manual labourers.

The striking feature is that the labourers come from nearly all the castes in the area. They jointly in a single voice abuse their own caste people, but here they see them as upper class; the owner class; the rich class, not their own caste people.

At least among the NREGA workers there is no distinction of caste evident, at least when they work. The class feeling asserts itself whenever their class is in threat. We can see the importance of the economic necessities of a man in decision making.

Sample – 1: Democracy : Theory and Practise:

What is democracy? Even a elementary school student would easily answer you as “It is a govt. by the people, for the people and of the people”. It is the most complicated answer but still presented in a simplified form. To me, the most simple but still powerful definition is “democracy is consensus”. As Earnest Barker (political scientist) has pointed out, the consensus should be there at all three levels – Basis level, the regime level, and at the policy level. Democratic institutions like elections, panchayats etc is a means by which consensus is obtained.

We, Indians believe we are the largest democracy of the world. But do our democratic institutions function as per the theory of democracy. To get answer of the Question, we met 2 ex- chairman of kodumudi union. (NOTE: During the time we visited the place, the place was undergoing a political turmoil as 2 of 6 ward members were kidnapped for political gains. There was no chairman at that time. To add to that, previous chairman also lost his elections in spite of spending (allegedly) Rs.1 Crore(during elections) for that small union itself.)

We met Mrs. Revathi Thangavel, ex-chairman (AIADMK Party) and got the PRI structure. The total kodumudi union consists of 10 Gram Panchayats (Kolathupalayam and kolanalli are also part of these) and 7 Town panchayats. Every person in a gram panchayat has 4 votes in PRIs (Panchayat raj Institutions). 1^st vote is to election the ward member of the gram panchayat, 2^nd vote is to elect the president of gram panchayat, 3^rd vote is to elect the ward member of Kodumudi union (middle tier of the 3 – tier PRI) (NOTE: These ward members in turn elect their Chairman), 4^th vote to elect the ward member of Erode district (Apex tier of the 3 – tier system) [NOTE: These ward members would in turn elect the district chairman.] {Other than that we also know that the same people has to vote to elect MLAs and MPs, so finally they have 6 votes to uphold democracy!!!}. Another information we got was political parties are not allowed in the gram panchayat level. Before explaining about the interaction we had with Mrs. Revathi thangavel, and with giving respect to all the people we met during the research, we have to say she was the best. She understood the questions very aptly ranging from political economy to grass root democracy, in the exact sense and gave the answers precisely and neatly. Persons who feel women are not suited for politics should reserve their opinions till they meet her. But the point which worried us was, even she had the class consciousness.

According to her, the people in the gram panchayats or union level or district level panchayats do not decide what kind of policies they want. They don’t decide polices regarding cultivation, agricultural technological necessities, about human development, education of children, kind of social security measures suited to their place etc. She accepts every region has its own subculture and practices and hence, decentralized way of administration would actually help to develop the human community in the particular region than any centralized concept. She accepts even they don’t try to get consensus among the people in local administration as well. They are just agents to implement the govt. Schemes like free overhead tanks, free toilets etc. When we enquired about the rationality of so many votes in the system (because despite casting 6 votes, the people of the region seldom participate in decision making) she accepted the fundamental flaws in the practice.

The main aim of the grass root democratic institutions and structures should not be representation, but participation. It should make people participate in the decision making. But it doesn’t work that way either. They don't even democratically decide how to spent the allocated money because of caste, class segregations. One group always tries to manipulate power on the other group and eventually they succeed, putting an end to the spirit of democracy. As told by a ward member, the main use of these 3-tier system is that, when people need a street light they meet gram president, when they need roads they meet union chairman and when they water in their canal they meet district chairman. That’s it. If that is the case the why should there be so much elected representatives. The people should decide about the type of street lights to be cast, where to be cast, design methods to improve electrical administration which benefits their society, rather than requesting their gram president to allot a street light via a petition. That can be done to a VAO itself. Why do we want a elected representative to do the work. If the policy makers think administrative failures can be negated by elected representatives, the govt. is wrong in such an assumption. These elected representatives with so many allegiance like towards their caste, political parties, class, are the worst performers than the administrative officers. The system makes them corrupt than the other way round. The thrust for power and the pride attached to it makes them indulge in cheap power politics rather than helping the real persons in need.

The reality is that these PRIs enables the political parties to solve their internal power politics. The local economic giants, who previously fought for MLA seats alone now settle with district chairman, union chairman posts etc. The party leaders also use this to satisfy the power thrust among their party cadres. Other than that there is literally no use in these PRIs, at least in the region of our research.

Sample – 1: Government Records about Kodumudi Union

When we decided to do a research and designed the first step to understand the society, we decided the government machinery should also come under our module of research. The Main reason for including the govt. Machinery also into the research module is because of our methodology ‘material dialectics’. Nothing should be read in isolation. The society is continuously influenced by govt. policies and schemes and the govt. policies and schemes also reflects (in fact should reflect) the peoples needs and aspirations. when we read the society we also read the associated change in the society; infact nothing can be read as a static entity in our methodology. Govt. machinery being one of the chief tool of such change, that has to be read. Also, we wanted to see whether such changes are planned, follows any logic or just institutional without any spirit.

We first went to the Block development office, kodumudi union and met the Assistant Block development officer there. First Let me sum up, what were the Questions asked by us, then I will give you the rationality behind the Questions along with the answers got (if any) from the officer in charge.

The important Questions which were asked were,

1. Do you maintain the people’s profile, like their job profiles, economic statistics etc?
2. What is the economic structure of the village concerned and the employment structure of the corresponding people?
3. How many land labourers, farmers, carpenters, barbers, small merchants, big merchants, intermediaries etc are present in the village?
4. What are the jobs of the people during different periods of the year?
5. What the peasants do when there is no work in their field?
6. What the labourers do when they have no agricultural work?
7. Do people migrate from our place to other place during any particular period of the year?
8. Do any set of people from some other district migrate to our place during any particular time of the year?
9. Do the village has any bonded labourers?
10. How many child laborers are there in the village?
11. How many children work without going to school?
12. How many beggars, differently-abled persons, sex workers, transgenders, destitutes are there in the village?
13. Does in any form Untouchability is practiced in the villages concerned?
14. Did the region witness any recent caste clashes?

I have listed only some important questions which were asked to the officer. Actually we asked more than 50 questions to the officer. First of all we have to commend the patience of the ABDO for listening to all our questions. He was a nice personality in the individual capacity. But in the official capacity, we have to say he aptly represented the office concerned, ie “ an empty vessel.”

Other than very few questions like caste fights etc. None of the questions was answered by the ABDO. He said that the office do not maintain these records and asked us the rationality of those questions. The rationality is the concept of development should be human development rather than just infrastructure development. We accept the importance of infrastructure and its potential to develop the human community, but wanted to see whether the concept of human development, the ultimate goal of development has penetrated to administrative wing in a simplified form. The Block development office, which function as the sole grass root department to implement the govt. policies should also have mechanism to provide the statistics of the grass root for effective policy formulations. Policy cannot be framed on vacuum. If you do not know how many people migrate to your place, in a particular of time how would you will provide civil amenities for their harmonious living? Even if the collector wants to promote a innovative idea of development it has to precede with datas. The ABDO said, we don’t work in that logic, we are just agents of the govt. machinery to implement some centralised govt. policies. He guided us that we could get some of these details from labour office, Erode and local police stations. He asked us to meet the agricultural officer to get details on agriculture. We met all the concerned persons of the above said departments and also many other department offices. Either they were very busy to contact or did not have any details we asked for. The Labor office in Erode, did not have even a smallest Labour details of the district. We were shocked to see that, but still they defended by saying “we are just agents to implement govt. policies, we are not statistical organisations to maintain those statistics”. One officer even argued that “what you are saying is census. We are just govt. office”. We disagreed and said census gives you exact details for some of the questions, but each office should have some approximate details for Implementing policies. Like, we can have the number of beggars in the village or union sorted into different categories VIZ category A ≤ 3 persons, category B ≤ 7 persons etc. This will be helpful to get the over all picture of the block and will be useful for govt. policies. The Labour officer asked us to refer the Human development report of TN, Economy survey of TN if published. He also said he is not actually aware of any such thing being published consistently every year as the union govt. does.

The Agricultural office also did not have any such details. we asked them about the prevailing rate of wages for weeding, planting etc. We also asked about the wholesale rates (market) and other intermediate rates of food items. They did not have any such recorded details and just gave the approximate rates from their own knowledge(at least they gave that)

Ok. Now lets sum up the govt. officer’s point of view. They are just public servants. They serve the public as told by their govt. executive (ministers of Govt. of TN). The govt. executes its policies and programs, which are framed not by administrative means but by political means. Political institutions functions in all the levels till the grass roots (Panchayats and Municipalities). They formulate the required policies of the people and is reflected as programs administered through these govt. officers. Hence, policies are made democratically they say, instead by administrative way. ok, even though there are many fundamental flaws in that argument, we accept it for the time being and lets see how the political institutions function in the next post.    

Sample 1: CHIEF ECONOMIC ACTIVITY – AGRICULTURE:

As we already saw, the chief economic activity of the people of Kolathupalayam and Kolanalli is agriculture. Once we understood that agriculture is the chief economic activity, we went to office of agriculture in Kodumudi union to get the necessary details. According to the agriculture office, 5 chief crops of kodimudi are 1. Turmeric (Manjal) 2. Sugarcane 3. Tapioca (Maravalli kilangu) 4. Banana 5. Paddy. There are 2 canals, whose water is majorly used for irrigation. One is Kalingarayan canal and the other one is canal from Bavani sagar dam.

Almost all the people earn their livelihood from agriculture in one way or other. When we interacted with the people we understood that most of the upper caste people invariably owned some land and the land labourers were of mostly dalits. But we have to say that even among upper castes there were poor land labourers.

The striking feature of kolathupalayam and Kolanalli gram panchayat were that we can easily feel stratification (class based) rather than hierarchy (caste based) in the society. The corresponding class consciousness can also be easily felt in the society.

We met the Assistant agricultural officer and enquired about the latest technologies introduced into the farming. Our questions where mainly focused on; what were the new technologies that was inducted in the region by the board? what are the schemes to support it? what is the mechanism for induction and feedback? and what was the overall reception among the public?

We found from the officer that some technologies like drip irrigation, new techniques like tissue culture in banana, have been given subsidies by the govt. to make the farmers use them. Especially for using drip irrigation, in case of small peasants 75% subsidies are given and for big farmers 65% subsidies are given. Many agents were recruited to spread the benefits of the new technologies and techniques to the peasants and farmers. Many farmers meeting are conducted, field demonstrations, university tours are arranged to spread the new ideas. At the same time, the officers of the Kodumudi agricultural office also attend workshops with scientists every 2 months to get updated and trained in new technologies and practices, so that they could teach the same to farmers under their Jurisdiction. According to the officer, the board is functioning well and most people welcome the technologies and techniques introduced by the office.

But when we met the farmers we got a slightly different picture. Farmers say many techniques do not work in their field and they are skeptical in using them. They feel that traditional practices yielded them more results than the new ones. They also blame the officer for their lack of timing in introduction of new techniques. They blame by saying that during the time of weeding the officers come with techniques of harvesting and vice-versa, which are not useful. Few young peasants admit that even though the new techniques are truly advantageous, it is hard to convince their parents to use it as their parents generally don’t believe in govt. officials!

 

Sample – 1: Kolathupalayam and Kolanalli (Kodumudi Union)

As we decided the first step is just understanding the society, we decided to go to a place which is very convenient to start with. One of our own teammate, Mr. Karthikeyan BABL, helped our cause and took us to his village Karattur which is in Kolathupalayam – gram Panchayat, Kodumudi – Union, Erode – district, Tamil Nadu state. Interestingly, we are starting from the place where Tamil Nadu’s greatest social reformer ended. We were very happy to start our maiden research, the research which we believe will take us close to our dream, from the land of Periyar.

After going round all the places, we finalised our sample region as Kolathupalayam gram Panchayat and Kolanalli gram Panchayat in Kodumudi Union. Kodumudi Union (see Map) consists of 10 gram Panchayats and 7 town Panchayats. For govt. records, we visited Kodumudi Union, Block development office, kodumudi union Agricultural development office and for some records we visited Erode – Labour office.

Our team consisted of myself and Mr. R. Dilip, MSW, a student of Madras school of social work(MSSW) and Mr. Karthikeyan BA.BL. Sincerely we thank on behalf of our team, all the friends of MR. Karthikeyan and all the other people who made our stay comfortable and our research possible.