Reaching out to the Poor: The Unfinished Rural Revolution PDF
Preview Reaching out to the Poor: The Unfinished Rural Revolution
REACHING OUT TO THE POOR Also published by Macmillan By Geeta Somjee NARROWING THE GENDER GAP By A. H. Somjee DEMOCRATIC PROCESS INA DEVELOPING SOCIETY PARALLELS AND ACTUALS OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT POLITICAL CAPACITY IN DEVELOPING SOCIETIES POLITICAL SOCIETY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES Reaching out to the Poor The Unfinished Rural Revolution Geeta Somjee and A. H. Somjee M MACMILLAN ©GeetaSomjee & A. H.Somjee 1989 All rights reserved. No reproduction,copyor transmission ofthis publication maybe made without written permission. No paragraphof thispublication maybe reproduced, copied or transmitted savewithwritten permission or in accordance with the provisionsofthe Copyright Act 1956(as amended), or underthe terms ofany licencepermittinglimited copying issued bythe Copyright LicensingAgency, 33-4 Alfred Place, London WCIE7DP. Any person whodoes any unauthorised act inrelation to this publication maybe liable to criminal prosecution and civilclaimsfor damages. First published 1989 Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke,Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companiesand representatives throughout the world Typeset byTecSet Ltd,Wallington, Surrey British Library Cataloguing inPublication Data Somjee,Geeta, 1930- Reaching out to the poor. 1. (Republic) India. (Republic) Western India.Dairy cooperatives.Socialaspects I. Title II. Somjee,A. H., 1925 306'344 ISBN978-0-333-46794-7 ISBN978-1-349-20266-9(eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-20266-9 To the farmers, veterinarians, dairy techno logists and socially concerned individuals of Gujarat who, together, made an effort to zero in on rural poverty Contents Preface ix 1 Amul Dairy: the foundation 1 The Beginnings 1 The Changing Composition of Amul's Milk Producers 6 Some Rural Communities 14 Interdependence of Technocrats and Politicians 28 Some General Observations 35 2 Dudhsagar Dairy: a cooperative miracle 40 The Growth of Dudhsagar Dairy 41 Range of Dairy Activities 45 Involvement of Women 50 Some Rural Communities 55 Some Concluding Observations 67 3 Sumul Dairy: a milk cooperative of the deprived 72 Background and Orientation of Sumul 74 Variety of Mobilisation Efforts 78 Some Rural Communities 90 Some General Observations 100 4 Sabar Dairy: a promising milk cooperative 105 Background 107 Some Special Problems 112 Technocrats and Politicians 117 Some Rural Communities 119 vii Contents VllI Some General Observations 133 5 The Unreached Poor 136 Notes and References 148 Index 151 Preface This book is about the poor and the constraints of social and economicrelationshipswithin whichthey are trapped. Itisalsoabout their inability, given such constraints, to escape from poverty all by themselves. In their case neither the provisions of public policy nor specific development stimulus are enough to help them. They need sociallyconcernedindividuals,whocanmobilizethem,and economic organizations which can specifically target them for development. The extent of the effectiveness of such individuals and organizations would depend on their realistic understanding of the complexity of cultural, economic, political and human factors which condemn the poor not only to economic deprivation but also to a many-sided incapacity to be able to fight back on their own. As such this book concentrateson the poor, and the complex natureoftheirlimitations, rather than on abstract notions of poverty. In different societies the poor are poor for different reasons. Not allthose reasons are purely economic.Explanationsofthe conditions of the poor only in terms of their economic deprivation often fail to take into account the wider cultural, political and human problems whichgo hand inhand withpoverty. Suchabroad approach becomes all the more necessary for countries where poverty is sought to be justified by means of references to social organization, culture and a deeply internalized belief that the poor are poor not because some have more than their fair share but because the makers of us all so ordained.Villageaftervillageinrural India disownsresponsibilityfor the lessfortunate among them and echoes the deadly conviction that 'there always will be poor'. And if there is someone who can do something for them, they maintain, it is either the sarkar (govern ment) or some development agency from outside. Neither the sarkar nor the bulk of development agencies have had any appreciable measure of success in fighting poverty. However, among the economic organizations functioning in rural areas, those which sprang up by means of grass-roots efforts, and were sustained by such efforts, have had some measure of success. The milk cooperatives of western India, with a grass-roots base and with one weapon at their disposal, namely, dairying, came faceto facewiththe resourceless poor of their respective districts. And despite the fact that officially those organizations were supposed to be concerned IX x Preface with 'milk producers' only, a number of their veterinary personnel and technocrats, without specifically formulated policies, got in volved, often on their own, in efforts to induct the non-producers from the poorer strata of rural communities into milk cooperatives. Much of theireffort was the product of what they felt needed doing. Some of them succeeded in convincing their superiors of the need to broaden the scope of their organizations, others did not. Wherever such socially concernedpersonnel succeededingettingthe supportof theirsuperiors,the resultswere impressive.In othersthere wasmuch to bedesired. In this bookweshall examinethe uneven performance, in that respect, of the four milk cooperatives of western India, namely Amul, Dudhsagar, Sumul and Sabar. As we shall see in detail in the following pages, Dudhsagar, in Mehsana district, probably by now one of the greatest milk coopera tives in the country, has over 14 per cent of its membership from among the landless farmers. And although some of those landless have access to others' farms, either as relatives or as sharecroppers, a large proportion in this category also consists of the landless labourers. Given the extraordinary dedication of its veterinary per sonnel and senior executives to the cause of the poor, chances are that within the foreseeable future the membership proportion of its landless may go still higher. Similarly, Sumul dairy, in Surat district, succeeded in turning its Adivasis (tribals) - who had neither the culture of drinking milk nor ofmaintainingmilchanimalsworththe name - into milkproducersto produce milk. More than seventyper cent of its milk isnowcollected from its Adivasi villages. Such a double revolution, human and economic, was brought about by its dedicated veterinary personnel. A similar move was afoot in Sabar dairy, in Sabarkantha district, where this youngestof the four dairieswasgettingdeeply involved in the district's poor, again through its veterinary personnel. And since its top executive himself was deeply involved in what his junior colleagueswere doing, Sabarwasable to penetrate nearlyone-fourth of its tribal villages in the shortest possible time. Finally, Amul, India's premier milk cooperative. Although it had generated an enormous liquidity through the sale of milk (Rs161Om in 1989), and thereby helped the district to improve its agriculture, stimulated its industrial development of medium-scale industries, of very high quality, in various small towns including Anand, and helped build major markets for the sale of grains, vegetables, agricultural implements, auto parts, etc., its concentration on the
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