District to Delhi

The district is an administrative legacy of the British Empire. It is so far removed from the capital Delhi in consciousness, priorities and approaches that it practically occupies a different cultural space. A series of articles written on the districts by JASWANT SINGH, present External Affairs and Defence Minister, is being released as a book today. Exclusive extracts.

FROM the district to Delhi, the journey is long - not on account of the geographical space that intervenes, or the time that it takes to travel the distance - it is a long journey primarily because it amounts to moving between two different cultures. The district, in a sense, is obviously an administrative legacy of the British Raj, a by-product of their land settlements, a reflection of the need to administer a vast and diverse country. In what was termed "native India" - somewhat pejoratively - administrative units were organised differently.

That is why it is not in an administrative sense that I speak of the district. I refer essentially to that cultural entity of our vast land which stands for and exemplifies what we, nowadays, loosely I think, also somewhat condescendingly, call "rural India". Our country has always had, through the many epochs of history, its own administrative units: States, Subas, Parganas. Through centuries, there has been that which could be compared to a district.

The British, when they came, with a Victorian sense of classification carved out administrative units, which they termed districts. And that is the system that we adopted, without any change, uniformly for the entire country. The ragtag baggage of posts, positions, nomenclatures and methods, passed to us as an inheritance.

The "Collector", for instance, during the Raj was the mai-baap of the district and the principal revenue-collecting authority. The position is still termed so, and if in a name lies an identity, why blame the hapless young officers if their office gives them a false sense of their true function? The British only anglicised the nomenclature (Collector) of the function of revenue collection, which in reality is of a much older, pre-Mughal vintage - Hakims, Subedars, and Tehsildars were all meant to collect Delhi's share in revenue.

I marvel at the sheer unchangeability of India when I reflect upon how land is measured and land records maintained in our villages: the system and method introduced by Raja Todarmal, a minister in Akbar's court, has remained largely unaltered. In an India that strives for leadership in information technology, Todarmal's system of using iron chains of a designated length to measure land continues to be in use. Any wonder, therefore, how distant the districts are from Delhi?

These districts (zilas) are so far removed from Delhi in consciousness, in priorities, and in approaches that they, in reality, inhabit a different cultural space. That is why moving from the district to Delhi amounts to entering an altogether different realm. Is it not strange that, though, as a country, we are marked by the sheer incomparable variety and mutiplicity of social and cultural norms, yet we have adopted a system of administering districts on a uniform pattern, largely defined by Delhi?

And now, what of this Delhi that is so doorast (far)? So many interpretations are possible: it is the dehleej, the stepping stone, the entrance, the doorway; but to where and to what? Delhi has never belonged to anybody. Through time, many have come here, conquerors, emperors and shahenshahs, who from the remoteness of their forts and palaces assumed that they ruled and administered India. It is a very strange assumption, this, about ruling and administering, for India administers itself; and it is at the level of the district that it does so. The core, as it were, of our nationhood, is our society, and our society is spread all across the vast expanse of India, from the Himalayas to the ocean; dotted all across it, as ancient as time, are our villages. These villages have seen many come and go, past them, through them - at times over them - all headed for Delhi. That is why Delhi is in every citizen's consciousness, yet it is so distant.

What Delhi does, of course, touches the lives of those who live in the remote districts, making it easier or more difficult for them, but the district takes everything in its stride, with the wisdom and patience of the old. Despite the proliferation of bureaucratic mechanisms that encroach on the daily lives of my kith and kin in the villages, the peaceful certitude of their lives, determined by the demands of the seasons and cropping patterns, continues. We continue in the district to celebrate the seasons, the sunrise and the sunset, the full moon and the new moon - even amavasya is for observance. We have festivals and fairs, and the rhythm of our lives is a slow, unchanging one.

Life in rural India moves at its own pace, determined, as I said, by the dictates of seasons, and in that sense our vast hinterland remains largely constat - in beliefs, attitudes, habits, norms, and of course, in celebrations too. It is this constant India which is governed, administered, or ruled - whatever term you choose - by Delhi, the quintessential mayanagari (the town of illusions). No one can ever permanently claim Delhi. In a fitful delusion, we might think that Delhi is ours, as the sloka from the Gita aptly expresses it:

He who is deluded by arrogance thinks, I am the doer.

Like an unfaithful mistress, Delhi favours or scorns as it pleases, whimsically. The quiet constancy of the district seems so different from the frequent vicissitudes of political fortunes in Delhi. My own journey to Delhi, like that of many others, has its own peculiarities. It began from one of those districts that was not a part of British India. My home is in the westernmost district of the country, far removed from Delhi, in space and in time too, for it is a very different world that we inhabit. To my folks in the district, the goings-on in Delhi, even though they directly affect their lives, appear so distant, so strange, almost alien.

We reflect often, when we sit together, that Delhi's preoccupations appear near incestuous. It engages in activities more for its own sake than for the declared intention. We take note of all those high sounding, patronising, often platitudinous comments that reaffirm commitments to "the people", and it never ceases to astonish us how those hands which have never ever touched a yoke speak with feigned conviction and force about the plight, the difficulties, the concerns of the districts. There is an explanation for all this, I suppose. But let that rest. One cannot help thinking that Delhi only does what is in its swabhav.

District Diary, Jaswant Singh, Macmillan India, 2001, p. 121, price not mentioned.

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