SMART VILLAGE - SHADOW IS LARGER THEN LIFE
Learning and sharing goes to gather.Yes at 60, I am still learning ! Ever since i came across a very inspiring personality Jagat shah and his interest to develop indian Villages and make them SMart involving the Non resident Indians . He with his initiative mentor on road approached many NRI in USA and announce to adopt 62 villages through this NGO.
To approach the concept of Smart villages i decided to analyses with three views 1) Divergent view 2) Convergent view 3) Peculiar view to scan through it and derive something which may give some direction to this haphazard and a new concept .
In a divergent view, we analyze data related to different organs . In a convergent view, we do an over all assessment . And do a fusion of both and concentrate on its peculiarities and temperament This is well described in the depiction of a Panchtantra story of an elephant with four blind men.
we need to learn in its totality the concept of smart village .
in a natural process , we can thus develop a very flexible smart village model for india which fits with the fast changing culture, behavior, tradition , aspiration,relations and expectation of the people ofindia and cover the 6 lakhs villages .in last 2 decades the behavior of indian villages have changeed drastically due to technological invasion which has distorted in its entirety the one time very good fabric of the the society in general .
A clear change towards man to man, man to nature and man to animals are visible.All changed very fast in a decade or two.For an instance Farmer of Saurashtra , a just decade back were upbringing bullocks with love and admiration and they were looked after like their own sons, traditionally and even during the times of droughts they were not abandoned or sent to slaughter houses. They worshiped Cow and considered her as mother.But slowly but steadily ,the love towards animal is missing .People want the cow for milk but they don't want the bullocks for farming . They produce milk and they are still malnourished because of commercialization they sell it to the city dairies for earning extra money at the cost of nourishment.
Adopting new technology ,new market philosophies and deviating grossly from the traditions have created a giant man made problem - The problem of stray bull , taking over streets of villages during day and spoiling the corps during the night.They used tractors instead of bullocks for conviniency and invited trouble to keep awake so that the stry animals do not spoil the corp.In short,we must revive our old traditions for solving new problems which are the outcome of blind and selfish use of technology.
Thus model of Smart Village must be rooted to grounds .Without attending the minds of the masses we cannot have a SMART VILLAGE ! Smart village needs to be a SANSKARI village first .
During the big startat my native Balambha by Jagat shah ,We filled the questionnaire covering 70 points to find out the 10 major pain points by using a diagnostic matrix.The primary survey was backed by secondary survey and one on one meeting on 24.02.2018. We all knew the problems . What was the root cause of these problems which made a thriving village of decade back with 15000 population has reduced to 3500 population in just 10 years?
There are man made problems, there are nature made problems and there are bureaucracy made problems. Man has blindly used technology.Man has become selfish.Man has become corrupt and above all man has become less efficient and has stopped working hard. Nature has given natural resources but these resources are not conserved properly and are allowed to be exploited .
The bureaucracy works under the rotten and corrupt political leadership.The new younger political leadership is not emerging .Wherever in India ,at some isolated places such young and educated leadership is emerged and a revolution is seen in that village .Villages like Hirwe bazar where efficient leadership made a huge difference .Just by investing 20 cr in 3 years through various government schemes the village is turned around. The Hirwe bazar has per capita income of 10 lakh ruppees, highest in India ! Modi government has various scheme but at village level there are problems of management and leadership and implementation of the schemes! Youth is not inspired, encouraged and paid well to look into the village as a professionally run company utilising all unused resources and making it a profitable place looking after the welfare from the profits they generate .
It is said that the first idea of a Adarsh Gram or Smart Village was stuck to Gandhiji. However to my mind and my study ,the experiments of a ideal villages had been started long long ago in India with the start of Agriculture. Ancient Rishis invented Krishi -means agriculture .And agriculture has given us culture tuned to the nature and thus from beginning the concept of Indian village is holistic in nature.ISCON Vrindavan Eco Village Model is the best holistic model .We must visit it which is near Palghar .The definition of smart village attributes to Gandhiji is because he was a leader who revived village as a Self sustained,Swadeshi unit.
Prime Minister Modi has a vision of Smart village wherehe needs to appoint MBA gradutes instead of Talaties .The holistic ancient village where love flourishes and digital technologies thrives which makes the life of people easy and adoptable so that there is no migration of people from village to cities. Due to poor infrastructure planning by the governments Cities are over crowded and villages have brain drains . No educated person wants to stay in village due to poor infrastructure, less income, less facilities and less freedom of choice and petty politics groping the every village due to frequent elections.
To develop INDIA, Prime Minister wants to develop villages and make them smart ,before making cities SMART . He knows that he has to make the villages smarter and cultured. He has provided various developmental schemes but because of lack of awareness by the village people and lethargic government machinery things are not moving as expected. However there are incidences where local educated youths have taken the lead and they are successful in turning around villages in 3 years by merely an investment of 20 cr. through various government schemes .
I have my own apprehensions about some one who is not in touch with village psychology can bring similar results. The Smart village model through NRI by Jagat Shah has many such challenges.It would be interesting to follow NRI model and see it evolving .I humbly submit here that without the inclusion of NRV( Non Resident Villager ), NRI model backed by Non profit institutes based only on CSR fund will not be efficient and effective due to reasons well known to all. 1) politics 2) corruption by individuals 3)Malpractice by corporate and non profits using loopholes of law 4) Non profit's unwilling for public scrutiny 5) lack of perceptions of tradition,cultures, evolution and root causes of the problems( Pain points). Four blind men and elephant sort of perception will create many dark spot and uncomfortable zone while dealing with people.
And every village is different and hence any proto type will not work. In understanding the people NRI will spend full time ! If the whole night goes in arranging mattresses then when will one sleep? I mean to say that to transform villages by NRI model , 1000 days will be too less! Naturally, no NRI is going to spend 1000 days in a village. Constant physical touch through a village youth as a manager can be tried out ,but there are possibilities that system may not work well due to various reasons like low salary, non cooperation by villagers to the manager and lack of quick decision making and lack of trust between employee and employer.
Means if we want to design the Smart village suited to INDIA we must learn from ancient models to various present day models.A care has to be taken while designing the best model for India o keep Balance between tradition and technology. Balance between agriculture , industry and services. Balance between selfishness and selflessness. Balance between science and spirituality ,balance between greed and fear , balance between growth index and happiness index .
With this outlines, i would like to proceed to
1) Learn about past and present culture,agriculture ,living Standard and happiness index
2) Learn about different Modules of successful Smart villages
3) Design and create a blue print of a pilot project for a Saurashtra village in synchronization with above study
We cannot have the same blue print for all the 6 lakh villages of India for making them smart . Our study should not be limited to a prototype diagnostic matrix.Village life is beyond any technological matrix. The concept of Smart village is holistic and hence it needs holy touch..without traditional spiritual knowledge applied there could not be any successful Smart Village in india . In my study I have come across Goverdhan eco friendly village of ISCON. I had been the part of Swadhyay Parivar and its socio spiritual experiments to revive villages on the wisdom of Bhagvad Geeta. We must visit such villages and derive the best suited model t. There is government model of smart village called sansad aadarsh gram yojna . We must study all the government schemes and how to take benefit of it with the help of the political leaders .we must also study how only a young persons with qualification have changed the development patterns of the village by living in village and leading the village.
we must also learn about how corrupt practices topple the best concepts. To bring about the change in human mind is the scope of spirituality only.No Chinese models or European models of rural industrialization will work in India. India is traditionally believing in HAPPINESS index Rather then growth index. Economical development is providing easy life but a most unhappy life .Communist have failed in villages of India . Capitalist have succeeded but have spoiled the happiness and just have given growth without happiness. Now villages are after currency notes . They produce milk, get notes from dairy and they are malnourished..Today villages are depressed and they are embracing addictions. India needs to work on deaddiction in villaghes to make them smart.
Who will come forward to de-addict them?
Look at the work done by Swadhyay parivar of Pandurang Shastri and BAPS Swaminarayan sanstha for its deaddiction work.they treated roots to get the best fruits.
I reiterate that SMart villages without socio spiritual base will be a failure and it will a fodder ground for few NGOs who are worst than the stray Bulls . The government has to see that in zeal of making villages SMART they should not bring SMART NGOs but just bring simple social and spiritual leaders .
People of india still trust saintly persons rather then professionals who under the Smart Village wants to take over the agriculture as an industry and wants to make the Farmer their employee. This will in future lead to labour unrest and a big blow to the system that indian farmer is neiher an employee or an emplyor but a caretaker of the land his forefathers have saved for him .
To summerise , Smart village concept has to be turned into sansakri villages and Modi Government has to appoint young MBA as village CEO and implement government schemes to turn around villages and that is the way to the vikas..Rest all experiments with lots many loopholes.
Comments
Post a Comment