Can Jharkhand be different?

By Muchkund Dubey

THE BIRTH of Jharkhand as the 28th State of the Indian Union marked the realisation of a long-cherished dream of its tribal population. They had waged a historic struggle for about a century to carve out a State of their own. During the last few years, however, the creation of Jharkhand became a popular demand of the entire population cutting across social groups and political parties. The birth of Jharkhand has, therefore, given rise to a great deal of expectation among the common people. It has also come as a welcome relief from the all- pervading corruption and the jungle raj of the old State of Bihar. The people expect Jharkhand to be a State with a difference. There is a clear desire to break from the past - to bid farewell to corruption, to adopt a people-centred development strategy and to have a system of governance which is in keeping with the ethos of the tribal culture - its sense of social justice, its simplicity and naturalness, its emphasis on dignity of labour, its belief in community ownership and management of common resources and its tradition of treating women as equals and empowering them.

The people, by and large, are unequivocally against a development strategy based on industrialisation through exploitation of the abundant mineral resources of the region. They reject this route to development because experience has shown that industrialisation took place in enclaves dominated by outsiders and hardly provided any employment or other benefits to the local population. It also resulted in a massive depradation of the environment, the virtual disappearance of forest cover and a large scale displacement of population.

The people, therefore, would like the State to opt for a development strategy which relies principally on the use of the relatively abundant resources of ``jal, jamin and jungle'' of the region. Since agriculture is the mainstay of the economy and since 80 per cent of the population lives in villages, the preference is for agriculture and village-based development strategy. The traditional infrastructure for rainwater harvesting - ponds, tanks and ahars - must be preserved, renovated and improved upon. This would help in ensuring the viability of the present single crop and diversifying into double or multiple crop cultivation. It would also be necessary to improve the yield and enhance the quality of the region's agro and forest based products such as papita, kathal, sharifa, amla and medicinal herbs. The region's traditional cottage and tiny industries such as tusser, lac and handloom which have been languishing for decades, should be revived and made competitive by applying research, information and sound management.

Above all, they want a participatory and decentralised development in which the people at the grassroot level are actively involved in formulation, evaluation and implementation of development plans and projects and share equitably in the fruits of development. Hence they attach top priority to holding, within the next few months, the Panchayat elections.

There is near-unanimity that education is the key to the progress of the new State. There is a strong belief that pervasive ignorance and lack of quality education are the main reasons for the vulnerability of the local people to exploitation, their inability to take advantage of industrialisation and the migration of tribal girls to work as domestic servants outside the region. A campaign should, therefore, be launched for achieving universalisation of primary education by 2005, with special emphasis on the education of girls. The syllabus at all levels should be restructured to suit the needs of the poorest people and to inculcate secularism, self-reliance, self-respect, and gender equality.

Infrastructure, particularly roads and electricity, is a condition for the success of even an agrarian and rural-based development strategy. Power is an important input for ensuring water supply in a region where irrigation intensity is among the lowest. Roads are needed to ensure the connectivity of villages to the nearest consumption centres. In the medium and long run, infrastructure would be a crucial factor for attracting foreign private investment. For, the State cannot abjure industrialisation altogether and for all time to come. In fact, selective industrialisation can be a major factor for accelerating growth and for giving a fillip to agricultural development. However, industrial projects based on the exploitation of mineral resources, should be undertaken only with the agreement of the gram sabhas and should be so designed as to cause minimum environmental damage and displacement of people. Moreover, relief and rehabilitation packages, based on the most liberal guidelines, should be worked out at the earliest feasible stage in consultation with the people and implemented in collaboration with them.

The welfare and empowerment of the tribal population should be an essential ingredient of the development strategy. This is a pre- requisite for preserving social cohesion and ensuring political stability. The tribals constitute the hard core of the nearly 63 per cent of the population below the poverty line. Their lands have been alienated and their forests depleted and taken away. The planned process of development has bypassed them. They have been exploited for centuries and even now they are the easiest victims of the rapacity of the middlemen and corrupt government officials. Appropriate measures must, therefore, be taken to liberate them from their debts, withdraw cases of petty offences against them and free them from the clutches of the excise, forest and police officials who are their main tormentors.

In people's perception, Jharkhand can be a State with a difference only if it is free from corruption and provides good governance. But this is unlikely to happen so long as the Government is in the hands of political parties which stand discredited in the eyes of the people. In fact, there is already a sense of disillusionment because the people see on display the same familiar culture of unscrupulous and unprincipled behaviour, cronyism, and lust for power. There is, however, some hope from bureaucracy as a number of honest officers of the old Bihar cadre have opted for Jharkhand. But will they be able to stand up to their political masters?

One way in which things can improve is for the Government to move swiftly to hand over power to the people through the Panchayati Raj system. The other measures deserving attention are ensuring the right to information and changing some of the colonial rules and laws in order to make them pro-people. However, some of the laws unique to the region and basically designed to safeguard the interest of the tribal people, like the Chotanagpur and Santhal Parganas Tenancy Acts, should be retained and improved upon. Moreover, the Government should be able to mobilise the services of a large number of experienced, dedicated and skilled people who are outside the Government and who are prepared to offer their services without expecting anything in return. Finally, the salvation for Jharkhand may very well lie in the emergence of a regional political party which is unequivocally committed to the development strategy outlined above and is led by persons of impeccable integrity and untainted by corruption.

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