This summer, I undertook a journey transcending boundaries; boundaries whose existence I had till then been unaware of, or to be fair whose reality I had not yet acknowledged. Boundaries that define the ‘New’ and the ‘Old’ India- two separate worlds, separated not so much by distance as by time- A day long train journey that seemed to cover not just dreary kilometers, but years of progress. I found myself in an orbit around both these worlds-in a paradox working for a NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) Survey team on one hand and as an Intern at Google on the other. From being part of a voluntary survey on the implementation of a State sponsored Employment guarantee scheme promising minimum wages for the poorest for their sustainence , I moved on to join a high paying internship of ‘the’ Company that regularly features in the World’s Best Employers’. The paradox was not lost on me. If ‘irony’ were a song, it would be the national anthem of 21st century India.
As is apparent, my reason to take up the two ventures was neither sheer career mindedness nor academic lust. If I may be as crass as to say- it was a pure whim to see the world in black and white. And indeed, I was not disappointed in my discovery of the two worlds which might as well have been a photograph and it’s negative.
Surguja (Chattisgarh), the district which I toured as a surveyor was exactly the way P. Sainath had described in his book ‘Everybody Loves a Good Drought’ in 1994. Much touted as one of the poorest districts in the country, inhabited by tribals, the villages of Surguja are a picture of photogenic poverty and atavistic lifestyles, finding a place in many a concerned newspaper report. Though, even on their own my experiences here left a deep impression on me, their true impact was felt afterwards, when I entered the equally ‘glamorous’ Gurgaon. Gurgaon of course is hardly a “gaon” (village). A symbol of Globalised India, it is more appropriately an established centre in the Global Village (perhaps a glorified cybercafé), attracting the best of the educated with the promise of a king-size life.
However I have no wish to resort to age old clichés; my objective here is to share the perceptions of a much bewildered young mind. Indeed sometimes the contrasts are so damning, that simply stating them would be enough to make a statement. I shall thus take the liberty of giving the facts the shape of a report card.
REPORT CARD -India 2008
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Status
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Villager, Badegoan, Surguja, Chattisgarh
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Employee, Google, Gurgaon, NCR
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Employment Status
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Seasonal Agricultural laborer/ NREGA worker offering unskilled labour at minimum wages, migrate under conditions of extreme distress.
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Permanent employee, with on the job training. Pay with perks. Migrate to different company in the case of heftier pay packet or offer of better post
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Nutrition
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Daily diet of coarse rice, potatoes (wheat is a luxury), Men survive on only Mahua the local alcohol sometimes (sic). Ration Cards for procuring basic necessities ( also used as collateral, mostly forced)
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Breakfast and lunch served at in-house café run by top class chefs, that pride themselves in offering cuisines from across the world. Snack bars with all varieties of chocolate, chips, brownies; fruits for the health conscious. Free of course (perks). Sudexo Coupons for the choosy.
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Water
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Hand pumps at respectable distances. In some regions the iron content is slightly higher giving one the impression it’s Mirinda*. Surprisingly did not prove fatal.
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Hot, Cold or Lukewarm? 6 coffee machines. Numerous Fruit juice refrigerators, A Costa coffee counter. Recent addition – coconut water stall.
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Sanitation
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Non-existent. Unless riverside bathing and bush-toilets qualify. All morning chores to be completed in groups- An ordeal specially for women.
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World class; Perfumed toilets complete with toiletries, loo-assistant and flowers?! Sanitary napkins and dustbins available in every cubicle.
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Transportation
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In the rare presence of “kachcha” roads in the interiors- minivans hosting humans, chickens and sometimes policemen with AK-47s. Jeeps on hire for rich farmers. Stops are undefined and wait can last 2 hours. Cycles for the slightly better-off. Kilometers of walking in the forests for poor, sometimes with 10Kgs of ration on their back.
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A/C Cabs available for pick up and drop from home every morning. Drivers pulled up for delays. Cabs leave every half an hour in the evening. Toll bridge constructed to ease traffic jams in the area due to presence of similar such cabs for every office.
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Electricity
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Non-existent again. In the most remote areas however, to give credit some places do have overhead wires in place. The only hitch is, as a resident pointed out – There is no electricity anyway… if only these wires were lower we could have at least dried our clothes on them.
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The most brightly lit offices. Power cuts are unheard of, Google servers host the world’s information- it shows. The infrastructure has to be seen to be believed.
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Security
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Chattisgarh has a history of Naxal terrorism, a fact that is driven home by the presence of Police lookouts in most villages. The survey team too was stopped at gunpoint on entering a village, only to be let off, after submitting a handwritten letter to the effect that we were responsible for our own safety, not the police.
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Before joining the company, even as intern for 6 weeks one is subject to a thorough background check by specialized agency hired for this purpose. On the floor the regular security procedures are followed; identity cards issued for entry and even an electronic signature for visitors.
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State Presence
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Villages under Gram Panchayats. At one GP the Sarpanch was a woman, who was serving us tea, while her husband answered questions about the administration. He held no post. At another village after we finished with our questionnaire we were informed that the interviewee who had been running the show was infact the Sarpanch’s brother who had been unable to run for the post as his family size (children) made him ineligible under the law.
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(* Mirinda is an orange colored aerated drink)
To a development economist, this might be the extreme but expected truth, but to a not-even-graduate it is an eye opener- to watch Romeo and Juliet after having read Cinderella. The premises are the same - a world of great inequality, of unfairness and lack of opportunity, of exploitation and of Fairy-God Mother like schemes. The tragedy and irony of the real play however are striking. It is one thing to read about vicious circles, lack of facilities, failure of policies and plans, study the why and the why-not, and the haves and the have-nots and simply quite another to be with the people caught in the vicious cycles, plagued by the deprivation, betrayed by the policies, and without answers to the questions, not of where the Indian Economy is headed, but where their next meal is coming from.
Admittedly, the divides must run deeper, the chasms wider than even what meets the eye. But what meets the eye has definitely opened my mind to the world that exists outside the walls of my classrooms and textbooks. True, several important questions remain unanswered. True, the scope of my little sojourn to the Great Indian Village and the brief embrace of the Great Indian Dream does not allow for much academic discourse-one that my limited knowledge would in any case not be able to sustain. But the questions have begun to form. The boundaries that I had spoken of earlier which are now so clear in my mind…I wonder where the lines of division are drawn ? Where does “the” prosperity end and poverty begin? Who draws these lines? More importantly how do they come into existence? One can talk of islands of prosperity, but the real issue is –what about those who are at sea?
