CASTE : A Formidable Exploitative Force in Tribal Regions

At the outset I must admit that I cannot claim to be an expert on a region's socio-economic dynamics through my few hours of its touring. Yet, the caste based divides and the exploitative character of this caste system in Shivpuri is so flagrant that any empathetic observer cannot help but notice it.

This district is infamous in the "global development circles" (meaning the UNICEF, UNDP and the other practitioners of top-down policy models) for its appalling malnutrition levels among children. Huge funds have been poured in from the very same agencies so as to uplift the "tribal masses". Yet the affect of such international intervention over the last decade is for all to see.

I would like to sum up a few observations that I came across in a few hours of my touring -

 

The region has been the "summer capital" of the Scindias who have used its jungles for hunting and building elaborate luxury castles. The same family holds all the representative seats in the parliament for this region; On the left side is a dalit landless agricultural worker who has never seen stable employment, and has never been "selected" for any MGNREGS based work (when it is their right to get 100 days of work per year) by the panchayat officials. I wonder how he can share the emphatic feeling of the seemingly omnipresent writing on the wall.  

 

 In the local political scene, the marginalised communities claim of political neglect by all the elected candidates of the last three decades. The First-Past-The-Post system has allowed some candidates to win even with less than 10% votes of the village. In such a case all the benefits are allegedly captured by those belonging to their political clan and the rest feel unrepresented.

 

In terms of administrative empowerment, the first major stumbling factor in policy administration process is that tribal communities are treated as passive beneficiaries, with no right to choose and no ability to decide. This kind of an approach favours development of nexuses that enrich a few while rendering all public intervention futile.

Almost all the tribals complained of the domination of the upper castes in the lower level bureaucracy. This "world class" medical facility opened at the heart of the remote tribal region of Charch using UNICEF funding seems to resonate the same trend. All the employees mentioned on the board are upper castes - the same as those of the anganwadi centres, panchayat secretaries and numerous other grass-root level public functionaries.

 

In terms of initial endowments, there seemed to be two groups within the SC population of the district - while some of the Jatavs (belonging to the SC community) were well-off (from rural Indian standards), most of the other Jatavs and other SC community were living in dilapidated conditions and held no land or stable employment.

 

 

For the adivasis (tribals), there was no land or labour opportunities to talk about. The businesses in the villages marked as "tribal" for the purpose of BRGF (Backward Region Grant Fund) always seemed to be owned by upper caste Hindus who employed the tribals as casual labourers. The tribal gentleman on the right laughed at the question when I asked him if he owned land or if any revenue land ("patta") was allocated to him. He explained how a tribal spends his entire life in a hand-to-mouth existence and the only jobs they aspire for are in the illegal mining quarries of the region.

I can't end the post without mentioning a grandeous statement made by the senior district official who was incharge of our visit.

 

"Arrey bhai (to his subordinate) inhein wahaan le jaana uss sansthan mein jahaan humne un adivasiyon ko nehla-dhula kar unka mundan karwaya tha. (to us) kuchch adivasiyon mein bimariyon ki badi samasya thi, maine dekha toh paaya ki inhe dawaiyon ki nahi hygiene ki jaroorat hai - unko badhiya nehle dhula kar shave banwa kar taiyar kiya aur ensure kiya ki voh nahaye - ab aap log jayenge toh dekhna - koi bimari nahi hai udhar ! (smiling to himself)"

[He asked his subordinate to take us to an organisation where he had made a set of tribals, complaining of health problems, to have a bath and shave daily - he claimed that itself cured the diseases in those tribals].

 

What struck me in this assertion was not the seemingly fuzzy connection between shaving one's stubble and falling ill (After all, hygiene is an important factor in health), but the way he said it. The air of superiority and wisdom he echoed could have been the same if he were to be talking of some non human species that are to be managed by him. Clearly, the idea of "participation of tribals in making of decisions that affect them", will be incomprehensibly bizarre for him in the near future.

 

 

 

What Shall Thou Seek? : A case of misplaced incentives in the Govt and beyond

Most "successful" people start their journey by chasing material gains and well-recognised targets like medals, public appreciation, competitive positions, etc. It takes some time, when they become mature (old? :)) enough to realise that they actually derive pleasure from the process and not the end result. eg. one swims because he likes to challenge himself in the pool and the medals won are of token importance, similarly intellectual curiosity is what propels him and not the greed for extrinsic recognition.

But, this transition from seeking outward incentives to finding joy in things one likes to do, is often an elaborate one - It takes years to mature. In between, there is a position (where I often find myself) when one starts doing something because he genuinely likes to do it, but when the possibility of gaining some extrinsically-awarded and socially-appreciated benefit lingers close - the mind goes back to the old habits of target-chasing.
It becomes a typical situation of a greedy man looking for everything he can grab - without knowing what he wants and what he would do even if he gets it all. (a common sight of dogs chasing a moving car and when they do outrun it, they don't know what they did it for)

It is in this context that we need to look at the incentive structure available in the Govt. of India. It is now urban legend that the usual incentives in Govt service - transfers, postings, and often (allegedly) awards in the Govt. are determined more on non-professional considerations than on merit. Sycophancy has its own sweet importance - and it pays! We have seen it not just in the field but sometimes even in the training regimen. (Although the field situation can be much more brutal, often not even offering a facade of distributional justice to help one heal his wounds). So what incentives are left for one to chase?

Clearly, chasing fame or money or even recognition can often lead to gross errors of judgement. Search for fame has made some officers "encounter specialists", "media savvy" and "news room commentators"; Those seeking recognition often confuse the latter with the appreciation of political and bureaucratic bosses and become just another cog in the wheel of exploitative state machinery; I guess I don't need to elaborate on the effects of chasing money while being in the public service.

So the only thing that is possibly left to chase is this cliched, catch-all phrase called "inner satisfaction". But as I had mentioned earlier, for less-than-mature people like me, this is often a difficult task, because the mind is still tuned to the old habits of seeking appreciation. After all, who would like to spend hours and days of effort into a risky, difficult and out-of-the-league endeavour when he knows that a much easier and cheesier presentation is likely to be more appreciated?

It's very intuitive for a lot of us to look at life as a process of walking the tight-rope-  there are two mutually competing contradictions and both of them are real. I guess "putting your best efforts in the service" would mean that you keep on propelling yourself (often by distorting the perceptions of the extrinsic incentives) and still don't become too concerned about whether you grab those incentives or not. (Another one of life's paradoxes).
That is the importance of cultivating hobbies - because pursuing hobbies often (though not always) keep a person tuned in to the fact that the process is more importance than the end, that perpetual chasing is not what life is meant to be. This attitude can enable one to allow the job to consume him- by exploring all the possible avenues for inward self-growth, yet not be too concerned about collecting praises. (In fact officers who fear losing their "popularity" (likability-quotient) can be more spineless than the outright pliable ones)

It's about eating your favourite ice-cream in your favourite store and not getting into the habit of collecting the bills for preserving the memory. And even if you do collect and store the bills (possibly in a photo album), then treat them only as the tokens and not the substance of the experiential pleasure you derived.

So in such a world of misplaced incentives, the choice is simply between the substance and the token; I know what to choose, but hope that my old habits of collecting the tokens dissolve over the course of time.