A Walk into the Villages of India

I was in my final semester of B.Tech in Electrical Engineering in IIT Madras with a Master’s degree in Social Policy from the University of Pennsylvania waiting for me in August 2018. I came across this workshop – “A Dialogue on Rural Development” by Sahaj Foundation and thought it’ll be a good exposure for me in summer. Having never been to Himachal Pradesh, I also thought it’ll give me a chance to get a glimpse of Himalayas to where I always wanted to go. I applied for it and got in. I flew to Delhi and then travelled to Bir with a few other students from all across India with whom I was set to spend the next one week.

Our instructor Ashish wrote to us a few days before the start of dialogue stating that this workshop is not just about discovering the villages of India but also about discovering yourself. I was confused about the kind of workshop I signed up for. I had really bad experiences in practicing meditation and I hoped there was no such thing there.

Deer Park Institute welcomed eleven of us on day one with we having to clean our own plates after every meal! Having grown up with a huge support system around me, I was taken aback but thought it’s no big deal. After doing the dishes, we started our dialogue with a basic introduction and a discussion on the rough itinerary for the day. We had a meditation session. Unlike my previous experiences, this wasn’t that bad. Throughout the six days, we had six simulations and three field visits along with an everyday session of meditation. Simulations put all the eleven of us in hypothetical situations with some base assumptions and gave us questions to ponder. During Field visits, we went around villages to validate the simulations we did. Meditation for 30 minutes every day was to stay focused from 9 am to 9 pm in the sessions. We were also given additional maintenance work of Deer Park with me being the in-charge of cleaning dormitory. The beauty in the whole thing is no one teaches anything in the workshop. The simulations are designed such that we had to make use of our common sense to come up with our own realizations. All of this magically worked in driving us to connect with the rural communities of India. Can’t believe it right? Next, I’ll tell you what I’ve learned.

In this globalised era, we have been taught the disadvantages of Self-Reliance (maybe not all of us), and advantages of Governments and Markets (this for sure) right from our childhood. The main focus of the workshop was to make us realise the advantages of Self-Reliance, and disadvantages of governments and markets so that we end up with a neutral perspective without any bias towards either. Let me make it simple by explaining the three terms first.

• A community which tackles all the needs by itself without any external intervention and trade is Self Reliant (imagine villages of ancient India).
• An authoritative body which helps the communities to fulfil their “needs” is Government.
• A third party that helps communities by providing goods and services through a currency system is Market.

In our urban lifestyle, most of us generally don’t question the practices around us and take them for granted. We feel we don’t have enough time to bother about them while we are busy catching up with the ever-changing world. Being in isolation for a week made us ponder on the journey mankind (more specifically in India) has made from diverse communities to a globalised world. There is no doubt that globalisation brought a lot of comforts and luxuries into the world. The question is to whom were these luxuries brought to. It will be a big lie if we say it is to everyone. For example, industrialisation made the life of humans very simple. It was born in Europe with there being a demand for productivity due to lack of human resources. When this spread across the world it was a sudden change being rubbed on countries due to colonisation. A stable change is the one that happens at a very slow pace. A sudden change will definitely disrupt the existing structure. A sudden entry of machines into a few nations caused unemployment at an unprecedented scale. Always remember that ‘Employment in the formal sector comes at the cost of creating unemployment in the informal sector’. Industrialisation forced countries like India which were self-reliant within their communities to adapt to machines causing unemployment in various sectors of production. This forced a majority of the population towards agriculture as that was the only field without a major intervention of machines. This sounds like a very practical justification for India being called an agrarian economy, the name it has acquired after various other economies collapsed due to external factor intervention.

Okay, too much information to process. Let’s make it simpler. In the Self-Reliant communities, everyone works for everyone with a sense of family. There’s dignity of labour as everyone has some work to contribute which others need. There was a value for people. When an external factor called ‘Market’ fulfils these needs, I don’t need to depend on another person. I need to depend on Markets using the currency which came into India after British created formal employment. British gave me a job. I get money. I go to markets to buy what I need, not to the people of my community. And these markets contained the products by British. This turned what was ‘work’ into ’employment’. Work was for our own community whereas employment was for someone else in exchange for money.

Governments have been trying to fulfill the ‘needs’ of villages by creating these ‘needs’ but not making them self-sufficient. Today’s education sector, formal employment, banks were all brought in by British. Surprisingly nothing much changed in these sectors after independence. None of the Governments have disrupted this system. Why? British have been in India for 400 years. What we see today in India has been built with an effort of four hundred years. We can’t change ourselves absolutely in just 70 years. It takes time. And we need to work towards it.

The whole world is into globalization through currency. It is always about catching up with the world. The word “Development” is very dangerous because it has been pre-defined for us. It is ‘development’ to stay in concrete houses though mud houses are more comfortable. An old man in a village was building a concrete house beside his mud house. He said he’s doing it just because others in the village are doing it. He said he likes mud house better as it’s cooler in summer and warmer in winter. It is ‘development’ to wear a suit and not desi clothes though one finds the latter comfortable. It is ‘development’ if one has a job but not if one is doing agriculture. We running after modernity in the disguise of development is what is taking us away from villages and self-reliance. Our villages today are protesting for almost everything like water, minimum price on crop and livelihood. ‘Developed’ countries are becoming richer economies over time. Their solution for development is not applicable in our context. But that is what Governments and Markets have been trying to do over years.

A closer look into the villages made us realize this. Unlike urban communities, rural communities still have glimpses of self-reliance left to show us how India was long back. Indian communities were lauded all over for our ‘living together’ and harmony. Every community worked towards sustainability and self-sufficiency. Today sustainability has become a mere choice. We do not actually think about the impact of our purchases, our choices and our lifestyle on this world. In fact, we are affected every day by choices someone else had made somewhere else in this world. All of this contradicts our thought process and day to day life right? Let it be. We should learn to live with contradictions. These little battles within ourselves are what will make us grow. Question yourself today on what ‘development’ is to you. Take every decision according to that inner voice. Don’t let this world decide things for you. All of this is good in theory. But practically, what is it that we can do in this globalized world?

Maybe learn to look at a bigger impact every small decision we take is going to make.

At the end of all this, I really miss doing dishes, sweeping room, working for the community we lived in. I miss those villages. Whenever you have a doubt about life, run to the villages of India. You might find your answer.