Sarpanch Diaries
namaskar
we’re all villagers each and every
one of us can trace the journey of our
lives
back to a village our cities are filled
with people
who left villages in search of
opportunities for themselves
and for their children we may stand tall
today in a city but our roots
are in our villages a village still is
the foundation of our country
and i believe if that foundation is
strong our nation will
flourish if we let that foundation
weaken
all the benefits we enjoy here will
slowly but surely
disappear it is with
this belief that i went back to my
village soda
it is why i do what i do as little as it
may be
but it’s why i sleep well knowing that
i’m trying to make a village-sized dent
in the universe 12 years ago
soda had suffered one of its worst
droughts
in memory animal carcasses were
everywhere
dead from starvation and thirst
and with all groundwater declared unsafe
even for the purpose of irrigation
the village and the people who lived
there were only stirring down the battle
when i went back i quickly realized i
had to stay
the small donation the pat on the back
the call me if you need anything i
realized just wasn’t going to be enough
good intentions are good but not enough
so i decided to roll up my sleeves and
got to work
i wasn’t just fighting against the
ravages of a drought i realized i was
fighting
to bring a community together and i
couldn’t do that
as an outsider i couldn’t do that as a
visitor
or even as a well-intentioned resident
i realized i had to lead from the front
and so i fought the punjab elections and
became surprised
in 2010 i served as a panchayat leader
for 10 years
and my experience dropped me a few
things
that i would like to share with you all
today
sustainable development real
transformational growth
that changes lives can only be brought
about by those who
know the reality of life in other
villages
i cannot emphasize enough how important
it is to begin working at the grassroots
irrespective of which sector one chooses
to eventually venture into
we all need to sensitize ourselves about
the grassroots reality
it is only then that we will be able to
bring about the kind of sustainable
development
that is needed to change the face of our
nation
and i do believe it can be fun one of
the many benefits of working at the
grassroots level
is the involvement and engagement from
everyone in the community
beginning with the elections itself the
punjab elections are often
an endearing experience because of the
participation of
every individual i have not seen the
kind of
fervor or excitement and constituents
like i’ve seen during the panchayat
elections
every individual including children
participate with full
enthusiasm enthusiasm in the hope
that the new leader that they are
choosing
will bring them the change they wish to
see and rightfully so
because this is the only level where the
actual execution of development projects
can be personally monitored to ensure it
is carried out
as envisioned the quality maintained
and funds appropriately spent
of course all of that is possible only
when someone with the right intent
chooses to effectively be
part of that process while i did swim
against the tide
pretty much all of the ten years i also
realized
that it really is not that difficult to
fix the challenges
in our villages smallest interventions
can reap
huge benefits which are really
very easily visible in a village
what people need to recognize is pretty
much this and the fact
that luckily even today i feel that most
of our villagers provide us a
fairly clean canvas to paint beautifully
upon
but for that to happen people with
varied expertise
need to come together to help do so
anyone alone even as a village leader
cannot do justice to that painting with
one’s limited expertise
while i personally was aware of the
issues of the village
i actually began my journey by listening
and interacting with people from each
and every household
i wished to understand what their needs
and priorities were
and if it weren’t for that and the
drought i honestly
would not have known where to begin work
from because
every single aspect in the village
needed attention
and with that began my journey as a
serpent that taught me the many
shared challenges of panchayats across
the country
in 2010 soda had a population
of about 7 000 people
and we were allocated funds of rupees 20
lakhs
from the central government and the
state government
for the entire year of this 20 lakh
the central government had already
allocated half of it
to spend on constructing a public
building
so what was i starting with i was
starting with a budget of 10 lakh rupees
for the entire year for everything
i also quickly realized that not only
could the panchat
not use the funds as per its own
discretion
we could only submit a list of projects
but projects to be executed
are actually chosen at the district
headquarters
and approved by the officials there
thereby
leading to an immense mismatch between
what the village wants
and what actually gets approved funding
is actually not as easily
available nor as easily sanctioned as
people may think
it at least definitely wasn’t in our
district
often hindrances were posed by the very
administrative body
that is supposed to support grassroots
development
in addition to those challenges there is
also
a lack of expertise leading to
very poor interventions and development
process carried out in villages
for example i am no civil engineer
but having to design plan
and supervise the infrastructure
development including construction of
roads
often left me wondering if i was
actually adding to the challenge
when a new road and its wrong gradient
could leave their distant houses at a
low level
thereby leading to water logging and
perhaps a bigger mess
during the monsoons in such
challenges is where i really believe
that invention intervention and the
expertise of people
from within our societies needs to come
forth
and as of these challenges weren’t
enough
there is also a very basic skew
in the very structure of the panchayat
in rajasthan the panchayat secretary who
happens to be a government employee
may receive a salary of more than 70 000
rupees a month
while a sarpanch and please pay heed a
serpent gets 4
000 rupees a month and the other elected
panchayat members
receive an honorarium of only rupees 200
a month
which comes to them as a sitting fee
so for the parallel structures to work
together
respectfully would it not be a logical
step to ensure they were brought at
power
caste literacy and gender discrimination
further distorts that structure
let me give you another example we had
to desilt our lifeline
the village reservoir which was our only
source of potable water
but even in the 21st century
unfortunately
the government prohibits spending money
on machinery
for the purpose of rural development
because of which we could not use earth
movers to excavate the reservoir
so it could harvest rain water nor did
we have any money
to hire any machinery directly
so i began by inspiring the village
residents
to come together to voluntarily desalt
the reservoir i ran pillar to post from
february through may 2010
when even private companies deny support
and our district
has no industries thereby leaving me
with no option
but to turn my turn to my own courtesy
my father
and three of his friends in a span of
flat
four days i raised 20 lakhs
which was less than what we actually
needed but
helped us to get started with the entire
village joining in
removing about 20 feet of the deposited
soil
we successfully desalted 10 acres
of the 100 acres of the reservoir it
helped conserve water
for the entire year and not just that
it even helped raise agricultural
productivity by almost
70 percent eventually i did find donors
through my speaking engagements and
funding started trickling
in frankly speaking if it weren’t for
that
i doubt i would have managed to perform
as it did by delivering upon
every single demand the constituents
made
within the first term of five years
itself
as a result the village residents
campaigned for me yet again
and made me rolled into my second term
with uh with the thumping majority
we often made to believe that it’s very
challenging to work in villages because
of the village politics
the constant opposition and so many
nitty-gritties
involved that come in the way of doing
real work
but my experiences of working as a
serpent has made me believe a little
differently
a village resident who takes pride in
being
my opposition had for example
at the end of my first term told me that
while he continued to remain in the
opposition
within our own village he would
therefore never speak anything nice
about me
but he also did say that while visiting
other villages
outside of our panchayats he would
proudly state
that the work i had done in a span of
five years
no minister had ever done even in a span
of 50 years
so how did i manage to deliver despite
all that
through dialogues through creativity
inclusiveness a lot of humor
perseverance a deep convention
conviction
in myself and my ideas and
also of course by beginning to reach out
outside of the government to seek
support
and help i personally did not
wish to reinvent the wheel but be the
one
bringing together experts from different
sectors and be seen as an
agent in the village that connects the
dots and bridges the gap between the
government as well as the non-government
sectors
and the village residents the idea has
been to create a model village
in the true sense and local champions
who could help skill up the development
work
even if it meant a beginning with just
one village at a time
and build a momentum that could inspire
more people like you and i
to help villagers and speed up that
process of development that we all wish
to see
across our country
it is often easier to start something
new towards bringing the change as
compared to working towards finishing it
in our country what often seems to
happen within the development sector
is that various plans are made schemes
are launched
but we don’t see the end result like we
would wish to
or not in the shape that
it was initially planned i’ve also
observed that more often than not
projects are abandoned
and people move on to trying something
new rather than
finishing what they started many
unfortunately
are also left completely disheartened
we as citizens of the nation need to
participate
and even question and bring to the
forefront the grassroots realities
so we do not start asking those
pertinent questions
and demand the development it is not
likely to be visible
so let’s come together as a collective
force to make that change happen
there are a lot of possibilities for us
to begin this journey
for example we can
all volunteer in in various capacities
we can contribute by setting up groups
and reaching out
in the villages we can make it mandatory
for our students
starting at the very school level
itself to incorporate a field visit with
say a project in mind as a high school
geography or
as a bunch of high school geography
students from jaipur did
by conducting a joint survey of a hamlet
with a village youth and learned a thing
or two from
the local patwari who is the one who
maintains the land records in the
panchayat as well
college students i believe too should
do a part of the internship in villages
because i feel this is the only way that
we can blur the divide that exists
between the urban and rural
and hopefully bridge that divide
permanently
steps like these will not only help us
in bringing development
but will also help in preparing our
future citizens
such that they are aware of the current
situations
and equipped with the required skills to
continue this journey
of a holistic sustainable development
of our nation in my journey of these
last 10 years
i have had people support me in so many
different ways
my villages when they finally understood
what i was trying to do
and thereby helped me in executing all
that we planned
i had various donors and volunteers from
across the country join me
and after having experienced it myself i
can say
that support like this definitely goes a
long way
than any other scheme we may otherwise
come up with
for me my journey reflects what i
see as the future of grassroots politics
we need to shift from the top-down
approach to incorporating voices of the
grassroots
and attaining a balanced perspective
in developing the urban as well as the
rural scape alike
while also incorporating certain
traditional
or indigenous practices to keep that
beauty of a village alive rather than
looking at a
blanket approach to urbanization
as the only form of development
i firmly believe that if we involve the
people from the communities who are
who we are working for their
participation and support will be much
more be it at the micro level or even at
the macro
one does not need to necessarily become
a serpent as i did
or work in a punjab to create that
impact which is needed
we can all get involved by contributing
whichever way we possibly can
be it with our time our skills our
expertise
we can involve students who will find
immense opportunities to learn and of
course
as most of you would know even get
credits especially
good for those wishing to study abroad
social entrepreneurs and startups can
create social impact and pay it forward
to our society
creating a win-win for everybody
with that invite you all to take a trip
back to our villages
and find ways to build a stronger nation
together thank you