Newspaper articles, dining table conversations and conferences on economics have one statement in common - 'Look at China's growth story! India should have walked that path at least two decades back, and now we have missed the bus.'
I am not a trained economist. Hence I am not involved in graphs, surveys and projections. However, I feel that there are many social aspects associated with a place or a region, and even the country and they should be taken into consideration while talking about the growth story. Popular terms like Vikas often do not account for these factors, and we have to admit that they are purely rhetorical and hence without a strong foundation. A couple of visits to Talasari, a place just about 170 kilometres from Mumbai made me realise this, and also made me relate that to the broader growth story of the country.
Talasari is a taluka that forms a part of Maharashtra's Palghar district. The Gujarat border is close to 50 km from this place, and hence Marathi converges beautifully with Gujarati, and to add to this confluence, a sizeable tribal population contributes with their dialects. For the urban population of Maharashtra which is majorly Mumbai and Pune, this place signifies a popular tourist attraction, and to stretch that further, 'Adivasi tourism.' And as they are tourists, they harbour a universal sentiment which is 'Adivasi culture should remain intact' and 'we should not uproot them from their roots' (after conveniently forgetting that their lifestyle is different from their grandparents!). However, my visit to Talasari was aimed at understanding people, their lifestyle and the concept of change involving them rather than the one imposed and imagined through an outsiders' lens!
Some months back, the Maharashtra government initiated a drive of administrating measles-rubella vaccine, and Talasari was no exception to this development. The drive was over when I visited the place this earlier this year, in February. The most popular feedback I got from the area was, "it is difficult to convince the locals about the importance of this vaccination, and it takes time for many to understand its significance." The government representatives, I was told, had a tough time in reaching to the last man/woman in the line of locals. Now, why was this the case? The government circular is in Marathi - the typical 'government Marathi' ( sarkari bhasha) which is difficult to follow for even an educated Maharashtrian. The pamphlets (or related materials) that are distributed or even the announcements that are made in Marathi (the official language of the state) are challenging to follow for the locals as they speak in dialects which do not have a written script, and hence for many, Marathi remains as good as a 'foreign language.' Therefore, a typical government work related to healthcare (a critical human development indicator) takes a lot of time, and one can imagine what happens to all the other development work associated with the region. Now, extrapolate that to all tribal areas of the country, and ask yourself this question again, "why is India's growth slow?"
But the most severe counter-argument to this problem is, "why don't they learn and get educated?" The answer to this question is, again, the complex linguistic problem mentioned above. The official language of Maharashtra is Marathi, and hence the language of learning in the state government schools is also in the same language. A family whose children are first generation school goers have no back-up of the 'foreign language' they study at school (Marathi) from their parents who speak one of the dialects of the region, a language that has never been reproduced on paper before! On what basis do we expect the people from this region to 'get educated?'
Let us now extrapolate this problem to the lifestyle of the region, and finally to the growth of the place. The primary occupation of this region is agriculture, and because of the problem of languages, a large part of the population prefers to remain static and very few migrate to other places for work. The industries around them attract employment, but it is restricted to menial jobs, as the 'language' of the skilled jobs is either Marathi, Gujarati or English - all of them foreign to this land! As very few people move from one place to another, the frequency of state transport buses to nearby places like Dahanu and Palghar is extremely low!
Now, let us look at the complexity of the problem. Growth of the region would require an expansion of transport facilities. These facilities will, however, work only if a sufficient number of people are willing to move to other places. They will move only if there are enough new opportunities available for these people apart from agriculture. These new opportunities will be available only if the people from this area are skilled to avail them. These people will be skilled only if they are educated, which means they should learn well. And for them to learn well, the educational content should be in their language. But how, if the languages they speak, do not even have a written script and a developed grammar? And if we include all such regions of our country, we come close to answering the question - "why is India's growth slow?"
I am not a trained economist. Hence I am not involved in graphs, surveys and projections. However, I feel that there are many social aspects associated with a place or a region, and even the country and they should be taken into consideration while talking about the growth story. Popular terms like Vikas often do not account for these factors, and we have to admit that they are purely rhetorical and hence without a strong foundation. A couple of visits to Talasari, a place just about 170 kilometres from Mumbai made me realise this, and also made me relate that to the broader growth story of the country.
Talasari is a taluka that forms a part of Maharashtra's Palghar district. The Gujarat border is close to 50 km from this place, and hence Marathi converges beautifully with Gujarati, and to add to this confluence, a sizeable tribal population contributes with their dialects. For the urban population of Maharashtra which is majorly Mumbai and Pune, this place signifies a popular tourist attraction, and to stretch that further, 'Adivasi tourism.' And as they are tourists, they harbour a universal sentiment which is 'Adivasi culture should remain intact' and 'we should not uproot them from their roots' (after conveniently forgetting that their lifestyle is different from their grandparents!). However, my visit to Talasari was aimed at understanding people, their lifestyle and the concept of change involving them rather than the one imposed and imagined through an outsiders' lens!
Some months back, the Maharashtra government initiated a drive of administrating measles-rubella vaccine, and Talasari was no exception to this development. The drive was over when I visited the place this earlier this year, in February. The most popular feedback I got from the area was, "it is difficult to convince the locals about the importance of this vaccination, and it takes time for many to understand its significance." The government representatives, I was told, had a tough time in reaching to the last man/woman in the line of locals. Now, why was this the case? The government circular is in Marathi - the typical 'government Marathi' ( sarkari bhasha) which is difficult to follow for even an educated Maharashtrian. The pamphlets (or related materials) that are distributed or even the announcements that are made in Marathi (the official language of the state) are challenging to follow for the locals as they speak in dialects which do not have a written script, and hence for many, Marathi remains as good as a 'foreign language.' Therefore, a typical government work related to healthcare (a critical human development indicator) takes a lot of time, and one can imagine what happens to all the other development work associated with the region. Now, extrapolate that to all tribal areas of the country, and ask yourself this question again, "why is India's growth slow?"
But the most severe counter-argument to this problem is, "why don't they learn and get educated?" The answer to this question is, again, the complex linguistic problem mentioned above. The official language of Maharashtra is Marathi, and hence the language of learning in the state government schools is also in the same language. A family whose children are first generation school goers have no back-up of the 'foreign language' they study at school (Marathi) from their parents who speak one of the dialects of the region, a language that has never been reproduced on paper before! On what basis do we expect the people from this region to 'get educated?'
Let us now extrapolate this problem to the lifestyle of the region, and finally to the growth of the place. The primary occupation of this region is agriculture, and because of the problem of languages, a large part of the population prefers to remain static and very few migrate to other places for work. The industries around them attract employment, but it is restricted to menial jobs, as the 'language' of the skilled jobs is either Marathi, Gujarati or English - all of them foreign to this land! As very few people move from one place to another, the frequency of state transport buses to nearby places like Dahanu and Palghar is extremely low!
Now, let us look at the complexity of the problem. Growth of the region would require an expansion of transport facilities. These facilities will, however, work only if a sufficient number of people are willing to move to other places. They will move only if there are enough new opportunities available for these people apart from agriculture. These new opportunities will be available only if the people from this area are skilled to avail them. These people will be skilled only if they are educated, which means they should learn well. And for them to learn well, the educational content should be in their language. But how, if the languages they speak, do not even have a written script and a developed grammar? And if we include all such regions of our country, we come close to answering the question - "why is India's growth slow?"
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