Rural change in Gujarat – Minimum Government, Maximum Governance in action

Originally published in The Pioneer. Meera Sanyal’s blogs on life in Gujarat’s Villages can be found below. Also don’t miss the tailpiece at the end.

- The Catalysts of Baroi
- Charity begins at home
- Villages of Mehsana
- Haribhai of Kiyadar and the Blue Revolution
- Hamlets of Meghraj

Gujarat’s economic success in recent years has been widely written about. Its performance on agriculture has also been widely reported. Beyond the mega projects and macro-statistics is a story of change at the grass-roots level that has not been as widely reported or appreciated. Given the polarities that any discussion on Gujarat draws, it is no surprise that a narrative on change deep inside rural Gujarat has not emerged from the mainstream media. In fact, much of the commentary on Gujarat in the mainstream media remains hostage to stereotypes and shallow analysis that seeks to reinforce previously held biases and prejudices over that State’s Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi.
To find more interesting and deeper analysis on Gujarat that comes free of bias or the mandatory politically correct references to the 2002 violence, one has to go beyond the shallow world of Indian news media. It thus was no surprise that one of the authentic from-the-ground reportage on transformation in rural Gujarat, comes not from a news organisation but from a public intellectual with no hard political affiliation. Meera Sanyal first made news back in 2009 during the Lok Sabha election, contesting as an Independent candidate. Since then she has been in the news, associated with a variety of public causes including most recently championing a slate of citizen candidates in the Mumbai local poll. RBS Foundation, a NGO associated with RBS India Bank headed by Ms Sanyal has been involved in a variety of rural initiatives. Over a series of four blog posts Ms. Sanyal recounts her first hand experiences from different parts of Gujarat on her personal website http://meerasanyal.wordpress.com.

The space in this column would not be enough to go over all the details shared by Ms Sanyal, but it would be in order to highlight four aspects of her findings. The first aspect is the spirit of enterprise that comes through all of her first-hand accounts. The second is the under-appreciated ethic of low to no dependence on Government in finding local solutions to local problems. The third is a grass-roots validation of near 100 per cent success claimed by some of the macro development initiatives. The fourth is, of course, on the ground that remains to be covered in the last mile of service delivery and rural governance.

From the villagers of Mehsana to the farmers of Sabarkantha, the spirit of enterprise is ubiquitous across Ms Sanyal’s accounts. Particularly striking is the account from a village in Sabarkantha called Navagraha and the story of Babu Bhai and Jaya Ben, where entrepreneurship through a self-help group became a second source of income to help finance an additional third source of income, even as their first source of income, which was agriculture, was looking to leverage market forces to be viable. It comes as no surprise, as Ms Sanyal herself observes, that farmers don’t need protection. Instead, they need to start thinking of themselves as entrepreneurs with access to a genuine level playing field.

The same spirit of enterprise comes through from the various villages of Mehsana with varying degrees of effectiveness, from dairy farming to animal husbandry to vermiculture.

Much of the discourse in our mainstream media is about Government, more dependence on Government. Since 2004, this dependence on Government has assumed an even greater proportion thanks to the Left liberal agenda pushed by the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council. By passing a series of laws that have created a long list of ‘rights-based entitlements’, the UPA Government has gone about deliberately fostering a culture of entitlement and a mindset of dependence on Government. It was, therefore, heartening to see that deep inside the villages of Gujarat there is still that ethic of seeking local solutions to local problems, with local communities taking responsibility to reduce the burden on Government and in the process limiting their own dependence on officialdom.

From Ms Sanyal’s detailed account of Hari Bhai of Kiyaadar and the Blue Revo- lution we see ‘minimum Government, maximum governance’ in action. Reading through Ms Sanyal’s narrative of the Blue Revolution, I was reminded of the Forest Rights Act, and the multiple parallel layers of governance it introduced by which individual and community claims would be on land use. The approach of local self- governance adopted for water management in the villages Meshana is the exact opposite of the top down governance model that the NAC Left liberals have been seeking to enforce through a variety of Legislations.

In Ms Sanyal’s words the governance model here is local, voluntary and mutually beneficial, and a great example of how grass-roots governance can grow to scale. The reduced burden of administration on the Government also earned the villages a rebate from the State Government on water cess to every village with a Pani Panchayat (or WAU), and to all villages that were members of a Canal Federation. The ethic of moving away from dependence on Government also comes through from examples in Sabarkantha, where villagers, who initially depended on the benefits from MGNREGA, finding a second source of income by creating a cooperative enterprise through a self-help group.

Every one of the villages Ms Sanyal validates had electricity. But as is to be expected, the last mile of service delivery and rural governance continues to be work in progress, with many areas still needing attention, from basic zoning and planning to toilets in every home.

As Gujarat goes to polls later this year, it will be interesting to see if the State will defy conventional wisdom to demonstrate that reduced dependence on Government, local self-governance and co-operative models of enterprise as an alternative to Government-sponsored job guarantee schemes, can be good politics as well.

Tailpiece (not in the original column and unrelated to Meera Sanyal’s blogs): 
Much is made on the lack of coherence and clarity of the Indian Right by the so called “secular right”. A secular policy regime that

fosters the Spirit of Enterprise
encourages a reduced dependence on Government
creates incentives for finding local solutions to local problems

is about Center Right as one can get.
Will our sanctimonious “secular right” pass the “smell test” on recognizing this ?

Source:  http://blog.offstumped.in/2012/04/09/rural-change-in-gujarat-minimum-government-maximum-governance-in-action/