Sample – 1: Condition of Dalits

In the gram panchayat of Kolathupalayam, small villages like Devampalayam and Arampalayam has lots of Dalit settlements. The region consists of parayars (Adidravidar) and chakliyars in large numbers. Almost all of them are land labourers. At least 50 % of the total people live in houses with palm or coconut leaves as ceilings and 40 % of the people live in Asbestos sheeted houses and Only 10 % of the people live in concrete houses. During the MGR period in 1980’s, few houses and plots were donated and during Kalainger period of 1996-2001, many others got houses. But still, we can see that literally all the people are without basic amenities. In fact, one full settlement of chakliyars in Devampalayam, consisting of 52 houses is without 

sanitation facilities. We Indians should be ashamed, for having entered into the 65^th year of democracy, we still have failed to ensure our own brothers and sisters, a dignified life. Myself and my friend couldn’t control our tears when a 40 year old lady was describing the problems she and her teenage girl children use to face when they defecate daily in the open. Truly, i felt ashamed to be called an Indian.

Regarding education, the scenario was slightly better as most of the children go to school. At least some 20 to 30 % of people between the age group of 20 to 30 years are degree holders. But we have to say the education has not changed their fate. I met 5 people (including women) who are degree holders (2 of them hold 

master degree), but still rely on manual labour for their livelihood. When we enquired the reason, they said they did not have sufficient contacts to get them a dignified job in towns or cities (Which they felt was important) when they went to cities in the search of jobs. Even if they got some jobs, the cost of living in the towns and cities and the problems they faced there out weighed the money they got. People, who defend education as the best form of mobility should visit this village, to understand the dynamics of social structure and stratification and how it negates the so called benefits of education.

The economic situation of the dalits was also relatively worst. 95 % of the people don’t have a savings bank account although few of them had availed bank loans once. Only few own pieces of land (Self earned) or a house and their numbers are negligible.

Almost 80 % of the people eat ration rice only and almost all have got credit from the pawn – brokers in heavy rate of interest (Kandu Vatti) at least once in their life and among these at least 75 % of people get such credits frequently. And only few own vehicles (like TVS 50 etc).

The overall condition of dalits was pathetic. Many govt. have come and gone, but nothing has changed. They cast 6 votes in total, also has representation among themselves in the Panchayat, but could do nothing. Instead of democracy, political dynamics, caste dynamics and above all money dynamics, rule their lives. Only thing that we could do at this pt. of time is feel for their patheticalness. But remember, the time will change. We will change it. 

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!