This issue started with an article by MD of a well known consulting company Boston Consulting Group. Since BCG is a consultant to many government agencies our public plocies are likely to be influenced by this kind of thinking. Therefore it is worth reflecting on this recommendation and taking appropriate steps depending upon what one thinks.

Please take a look at the following reactions amongst some of the activists who are involved in rural development directly and not as armchair thinkers. Many are NRIs. But there are two from Mysore and Bangalore.

High time we reject the rural romance. Let’s dream bigger and create real cities, with schools, hospitals and power—then see India take off

JANMEJAYA K SINHA Posted online: Wednesday, November 08, 2006 at 0000 hours IST Financial Express

There’s a certain romanticism about India’s villages. I believe the roots of this lie with Gandhiji, who was responsible for much of the allure. Even today, every politician talks about the need to go back to the village. The President does not tire of PURA (providing urban facilities in rural areas). Every minister sings paeans to Indian villages.

But I hate Indian villages. To me, villages are about candles and torches, cow dung, flies and mosquitoes. Villages are about caste, gender inequality, and a static social order. To my mind, chances of life in a village are minimal, especially in being able to change one’s lot by individual endeavour. There is very little that is idyllic about Indian villages. Basically, they define Indian poverty. As a nation, we need to stop talking about going back to the village and, instead, celebrate the migration of the rural populace to the city.

There is no developed country in the world which has a large chunk of its population living in villages. If you read the economic statistics of India, the extent of India’s problem becomes evident. From the ’90s, when our GDP composition used to comprise a third each of agriculture, manufacturing and services, today, services account for 60% of our GDP and manufacturing and agriculture account for the rest. However, 62% of our population is supported by agriculture, or about 20% of our GDP. Agriculture is growing slower than our 8% GDP growth rate and therefore, its share in our GDP will continue to decline every year.

Let us recognise openly that our rural populace is unable to participate in India’s growth. Just as importantly, for India’s growth to continue unhindered into the future, we will need our rural labour force to contribute to our manpower needs. It is not just India that will benefit but the entire world economy, as multinational companies will work to take advantage of global labour pools.

Whether we realise it or not, the slums of Mumbai are a virtual Shangri-La compared to a village. A slum-dweller in Mumbai has access to real life opportunities. He or she can obtain healthcare, schooling for children and has a chance, albeit faint, of participating in India’s growth and changing his or her life station. The village is much less forgiving of disadvantage and wants you to live this miserable existence to be better positioned in the next life.



To me, villages are
about candles and torches,
cow dung, flies and mosquitoes. They are about caste, gender inequality and a static social order.



The really disturbing story about India is the lack of urban infrastructure. Where are the livable cities? The top eight cities in India, with about 89 million people, account for much of its wealth and consumption. Our top eight cities predominate in tax collections, mutual funds, retail loans and car sales.

The real problem is that India has currently only eight real cities. These cities have civic amenities. They have schools, hospitals, running water, power for large parts of the day, public transport and a much better police force and security than the rest of India. They are not easy cities to live in—by no means. But they are the best we have. This shows the skew as well as the opportunity for India.

My real point is, why are there only eight real cities in India? I know we have some urban conglomerations that have a million people. But when do we move to 100 real cities and 300 real towns? The operative word here is ‘real’?

Our population needs to move out of the village into real towns and cities. They don’t all need to come to Mumbai or Delhi, as everyone in the US does not move to New York or LA. They need to be able to move to places where they can access real opportunities.

It is impossible to provide every village this opportunity, but surely we could develop 100 cities. Let us identify these cities and build proper urban infrastructure around them.

We talk today with excitement about SEZs which are microscopic in imagination and prospect. Let’s dream a little bigger and create real cities, which have five million people each, with access to schools, hospitals, power, public transport and security—and then see India take off. India cannot wait any more. The world cannot wait anymore. As Martin Luther King said in his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech, “Now is the time!”

—The writer is managing director, Boston Consulting Group, India. These are his personal views.

[b]Email reply to Janmejaya from Bhamy V Shenoy

Dear Dr. Janmejaya,

You have raised a very pertinent question by asking Dr. Jain what implied moral authority he has in questioning you about your article concerning romanticizing the rural life. Mahatma Gandhi could do that with Pandit Nehru since he himself was living in an ashram far away from the urban centers. Dr. Jain lives in a city like Chicago for which I am sure you have great admiration. Many others who are copied to this email also live in large cities of Bangalore, Houston, Minneapolis, Mysore (I do not know if this one meets your requirement of a city) etc. But all these individuals not only are interested in rural development, but also spend considerable amount of time in those villages. I do not know if it qualifies them to question you or express doubts about your recommendation.



Let me give some example. Dr. Abraham George who divides his time in the US and India has considerable experience of rural life. When he is India he stays in a village and interacts with the villagers. Of course he does not eulogize village life as idyllic. He is critical of caste problem there. He is even more critical of the prevailing grinding poverty in villages just like you. He has built a residential hospital to help the slum children. Only who are poor can get admission into that school. He has built a small hospital in that village to take care of villagers. He has a 150 acres of plantation to provide employment to some of the villagers. Thus he knows about the rural living conditions just like you know the Shangrila kind of life having lived in one of the slums of those eight cities you mentioned in your article. But he does not agree with your article the way Dr. Jain does not. Mr. Ram Krishna, an IIT graduate now spends considerable amount of time in villages all over India and has good exposure to rural life. He is shocked by what you have written about village life and your suggested strategy of urbanization to solve our “GNP” problem.



Mr. Murthy Sudhakar, another NRI has started a novel company called Infrasys to help the villagers to develop small scale industries and improve productivity and get out of the poverty. Though he lives in a large city on the west coast of the US, he spends time in rural settings in India. Please see his comments below. He was not sure if you wanted to be provocative or just funny with your article.



These are some illustrative examples to show that those who disagree with you are fully aware of the rural setting and are exposed to rural exposed life as a result of living there. I am not trying to score a debating point with you. I did not want to write about myself because of that reason. I am from a village and now spending a lot of time there to improve education there.



Before closing I want to tell you about my classmate from IIT Mr. Ananthu. Though he grew up in a big city, graduated from Stamford University, and after being associated with Gandhi Peace Foundation decided to settle down in a remote village (there are no paved roads to go to his village). He is demonstrating what is sustainable living through personal experience and not just talking or writing like I am. I am copying him also on this. I am sure you may like to correspond with him since he meets your criterion of a person who lives in a village and that too a remote village. I have given below the reaction of some of my friends for your perusal. This is not to win the “debate”.



We appreciate your concern for winning the war against poverty and also your right to have your opinion. None of us claim that we have the magic bullet to solve this gigantic problem. It is just that since your company is an advisor to many government agencies, we are concerned with your recommendation though it may be your own personal opinion. Since you are analytically oriented, may we ask you to elaborate through facts and figures how urbanization can solve India’s problems? If it is your intuitive opinion and cannot be collaborated then I am even more concerned.



Regards

Bhamy V Shenoy



Here are some of the reactions:



From Mr. Sharma of Mysore[/color]



Dear Dr. Shenoy,
Thanks. That is exactly what I had in my mind. In the Indian context illconceived and damaging views from people in such important positions should not go without strong rebuttal.
The author's views may be acceptable to some people in highly industrialised world. Even there more and more people are slowly realising the futility of large city based socio/economic life. But for a country like India with huge rural population, limited natural resources and traditional life style the concept of large city based socio/economic life will be ruining.
I am also worried that the policies of the various govts. in India either explicitly or implicitly seem to indicate that they also are inadvertantly moving towards city based economy. A recent economic report that of late the contribution to GDP by urban areas in India is more than 70% makes it much more worrisome.

Regards
Shankar Sharma
# 1120, 6th Main, K - Block
Ramakrishna Nagara, Mysore – 570022



From Prakash Nayak from Mysore/Bangalore (pnayak@qsgsoft.com)

The Urban Sickness

"But I hate Indian villages. To me, villages are about candles and torches, cow dung, flies and mosquitoes. Villages are about caste, gender inequality, and a static social order. To my mind, chances of life in a village are minimal, especially in being able to change one's lot by individual endeavor".

One may wonder if the above statement is from the latest footage of a recorded statement of an underground organization of the kind of Al-Qaeda. It is not so. It is from the Managing Director of a supposedly respectable organization called Boston Consulting Group. Businessmen, notwithstanding their ulterior motives, are known for diplomacy and sophistication. When they make this kind of remarks it suggests that they do not even pretend to care for public opinion and public goodwill.

Now the cat is out of the bag. Urban India never romanced with rural India. It simply despised it. Sometimes it tolerated it as a necessary evil. There was a temporary truce as long as the rural India allowed itself to be exploited for creating comforts and facilities for the urban India. Till such time it was made to believe that rural self sacrifice was indeed essential for nation building. But urban India's lust for power and its insatiable appetite for things good in life made it go in search of the pristine rural beauty and comfort. The result is acquisition of hundreds of thousands of green farm land for the now infamous SEZs. Having ruined the cities, making it unsuitable for normal human living, urban India now wants piece of rural comforts. The result is SEZ. SEZs are not for creating urban areas amidst rural India. It is simply a colonizing attempt by the urban India in rural areas. Now that the rural India has understood the real intentions of those who speak for development and started protesting the urban India is finding it highly unacceptable. So act 2 of the urban domination drama is to denounce rural India. And make it believe that things are wholly wrong with it.

The end product of proper mixture of power, ignorance and arrogance could be deadly. The author represents such a combination. Howmuchever I try to restrain myself from making personal attacks on the author, my self control gives way to rightful indignation of a person hurt and humiliated. Even then I am not violating the ethics of public debate since the article says the views are the personal views of the author. And these views are so personal that it is impossible to criticize the views without criticizing the person. Though the article must be rightly classified as urban snobbishness and trite we must give due credit to the author for expressing his ignorance on rural India so unabashedly. It is the permissiveness at its best manifestation.

It is true that rural India has castes. It is a rigid social system. It may take several years for it to disappear. But one can also now see that caste barriers are more permeable. What about the equally inhuman class system that we have in urban India? It is only in rural India that the children of the richest man and the poorest man go to the same school. They both go to the same primary health center even though it is defunct most of the times. They both worship the same god. In turn what have we created in Urban India? Education like automobiles is decided based on ones wealth rather than talent or the need. The richest send their children to international schools and the poorest send their children to corporation schools. While hapless patients suffer for hours in waiting rooms of government hospitals, the rich have the five star facilities of the so called high cost hi-tech hospitals. They do not even pay for it fully as the cashless health insurance system distributes the burden of such luxury even on those who never access such medical facilities. It is in urban India that even those women who are rich and famous are shot point blank and still the culprits go scott free.

India's deepest values are embedded in its rural life. Tolerance, respect for nature, sharing with others even the little that they have is a part of daily life. Such practices are not a corporate sponsored welfare scheme aimed at enhancing brand image. Even today one can see in rural busses that on a three seater people making space for the fourth person. In contrast see our urbanites who hate to share even things that are not theirs. Communal harmony is not a political speech in rural India. It is the basic fabric of rural life that different communities are interwoven in their interdependence for life. If one sees the history of communal riots in India most of them have occurred in urban India. Even the deadly virus of 'chicken gunya' and 'dengue' were born in the air-coolers of national capital and not in the stench and squalor of villages. I can go on. But I want to stop it here because describing the character of urban India is like going through the hell twice.

The author represents the impatience and intolerance of modern change agents. The kind of sect that believes that improvement starts with destruction and with erasing the past. These are the people who use facts selectively to create fertile field of favorable public opinion to sow the seeds of their private agenda. I hope people will now understand their true intentions.

- Prakash Nayak





From Abraham George (author of India Untouched)



I wonder whether the concept of planned expansion of major cities is new to some of these people. Every livable city offers good housing, efficient transport, low pollution, and good cultural and social institutions. All these are possible only if the city expands beyond its original boundaries and creates satellite cities around the core one. These satellite cities are linked to the core city efficiently.



What we have today is some sort of creeping expansion. Rural population is moving in, creating new slums where cheap labor is forced to stay. Since there is no planned expansion, there is utter confusion.



Politicians in cities like Bangalore do not wish to make any expansion plan known to the general public much ahead of its implementation. Each politician buys land where a new major facility will be set up. For example, the new airport. Much of the land is "agricultural", but politicians first buy them in a given area, and then announce a major project in that area. Then they "convert" the land -- just a piece of paper -- into residential or industrial. Prices shoot up exponentially, and the first-in makes all the profits from the land deals (the farmer already sold the land to the politician at a low price). This is the officially sanctioned form of corruption. Nothing less. It also gives everyone involved an opportunity to sanitize their black money.



Abraham



From Murthy Sudhakar (NRI from California and founder of Infrasys to help alleviate poverty in rural India )



Dear Friends:

It is difficult to add more substance to what so many of you have stated clearly, analytically, rationally and even passionately on Mr. Sinha's views...

What Mr. Sinha proposes (and he is entitled to his indifference to cowdung and prefernce to open urination and defecation in the Shang-rilas of urban slum India) is cross between a grand scale Tughlaqian plan and the naivette of "field of dreams" which suggests that if you build them (schools freeways, hospitals, apartments etc) they (the villagers) will come.

Jusdging from the tone of his piece I feel that Mr Sinha wants to be either provocative or funny. If the former he has achieved his purpose. If the latter, let us laugh with him.

nanbudan

sudhakar

infraSys

www.infrasys.biz



Mr. Ratnam Chitturi (Founder of North South Foundation giving scholarships in India)



Dear friends,

There are two phrases come to my mind: rear view mirror and hockey stick. The first one says that what was good yesterday is good for tomorrow. The second one says, the trend we have observed over the recent period can be extrapolated into perpetuity. “Recent period” can be few minutes to few days in stock market or the last three years in the real estate market.



Mr. Sinha seems to be infected with the above phenomenon.

Mr. Sinha is missing several things:

1) Impact of technolgy (Internet, Cell phones, etc.) on where the workers can live. Need for masses of workers to support manufacturing is a thing of the past with automation and robots.



2) Impact of increasing service sector on where workers need to work. Banking and Credit Card companeis in the US have been pushing operations to “boon docks” for years since technology permits. Serivce jobs can go where people are unlike manufacturing where people have to flock to the plants.



3) Impact of increasing urbanization. More traffic jams, more polltuion, more water problems, so on and so on.



4) Infrastrcture impact. Suppose you want to move 200 million people into 100 cities as Mr. Sinha wants to do. How many billions of dollars does it take?



In the US, number of homes built in the last 60 years is probably in the 50 mil range and may be another 50 million in apartments. How much money does it cost to build them in today dollars? It will be in trillions of dollars.



Even in India, the infrastrucute costs for moving 200 mil will be in trillions of dollars.



5) Impact on physical resources. How much concrete, cement, steel, wood, coal, electricity, oil, water, etc. do we need? Mr. Lester Brown has already covered this topic in his book on Plan B. The world doesn’t have resources to put billions of people in cities.



6) >>>> Whether we realise it or not, the slums of Mumbai are a virtual Shangri-La compared to a village.>>>>



This is the most atrocious comment I have ever heard. May be he hasn’t seen the real slums in Mumbai. I come from a village. If you do a survey today, vast majority of the villagers will say that they want to stay where they are if they have a livelihood. Mr. Sinha should read articles by P. Sainath. He has written articles about the plight of the villagers who flocked to cities like Mumbai. Mr. Sinha should have a chat with Sainath.



I am afraid that Mr. Sinha has a key and is trying to see which room it fits in. This is an OR (Operations Research) syndrome, which some of us, like Bhamy and I, have been familiar with.



I will stop here, as it is getting long.



With regards,



Ratnam Chitturi

630-455-9010

From Ram Krishnan (IIT graduate learning and contributing to Indian villages to fight poverty)

Dear all,

I had to learn more about Sinha, his background etc.

I am afraid that Sinha is not alone. I believe many of our population that resides in the large '8 cities of India' may share similar views. The urban rich and well-to-do people live inside a bubble of comfort. They have enough number of servants and help that takes care of their daily life.

I was visiting one of my relatives in Bombay who worked for Philips India. His family lived in a secure compound area in the middle of the slums of Parel (near Dadar).

I visited another NRI real estate development in Kolkatta near the Dum Dum airport. The place was called 'Salt Lake'. There were almost 50 different high rise buildings, a shopping bazar, medical clinic, a school all inside.

Such colonies must remind you of the 'green zone' in Baghdad.

We must respond to Mr Sinha. The one good journalist that can inform people like Sinha is P.Sainath.

"But I hate Indian villages. To me, villages are about candles and torches, cow dung, flies and mosquitoes. ..... As a nation, we need to stop talking about going back to the village and, instead, celebrate the migration of the rural populace to the city"

Sinha wants to 'celebrate the migration of the rural populace to the city'.

Does he ever travel to the slums of Mumbai? Does he fly over them in a helicopter. Mumbai's slums today account between 50-65% of Mumbai. Where will Sinha go, once this number reaches 90%.

Ram Krishnan



Feedback to sent to Financial Express by Bhamy Shenoy



My Rejoinder sent on Nov 9th, 2006



I was shocked that MD of a leading consulting company is unaware of the move from the urban centers to suburbs in the US to enjoy rural amenities. This has been going on for the last several years. Still he is recommending that India should commit the same mistake of the so called developed countries based on the outmoded criterion of GNP. Traffic is a nightmare in these big cities and during busy times, freeways are parking lots. Violence is rampant. One thing what the author has written about the caste discrimination about rural area is disturbingly true.



He is also seem to be unaware or has deliberately ignored the technological breakthrough achieved in communication to bridge the gap between villages and urban centers as far work being performed to create employment opportunity. That is one of the reasons India has become a haven for business outsourcing. Similarly in India, soon business will move from the urban hell of Bangalore to surrounding villages as far as H. D. Kote which has outstanding school and good medical facilities.



What credibility is there in author's article who calls Dharavi slum of Mumbai as Shangrila!



Just take a look at a village called Manipal near Udupi which does not lack any of the "ultra urban" facilities the author is talking about. Any day Manipal is better than many of the cities suggested as ideals by the author. It is not necessary to have the educational advantages of Manipal. An Indian village with PURA facilities suggested by the President can indeed be million times better than the hell of Dharavi any day.

When I first read the article I thought that Mr. Sinha was joking. Later I realized that he was indeed serious. His whole logic is based on the outmoded concept of maximizing GNP. Unfortunately our obsolete text books also reflect the same theory. It is high time we revise our text books so that our future graduates do not make these mistakes of equating urban living with greater prosperity. Obsolete

From: Sinha Janmejaya

To: Mohan Jain

Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2006 10:33 PM

Subject: RE: Your Not so Thoughtful Article in the Financial Express



It would have been more interesting to me if this mail had come from someone living in a village in India

Janmejaya Sinha




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Mohan Jain [mailto:mohanjain@comcast.net]

Subject: Your Not so Thoughtful Article in the Financial Express

Dear Dr. Sinha,



I was shocked and appalled to read your article in the Financial Express, describing your prescription to solve India's poverty problems by promoting urban life and neglecting/ discarding the villages. The proposed model of development is not sustainable as it is not in harmony with nature and culture. How come you have so soon forgotten the great Tsunami, the Mumbai floods and US Katrina of 2005 .. In a major study by 1300 scientists sponsored by the UN, completed in 2005 have concluded that mankind's actions have already degraded the 65% natural resources of the planet earth. We need a new paradigm of development. Read Plan B 2.0 by Dr. Lester r. Brown of the Earth Institute, Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken, and Rethinking Progress by Dr. Hari Lamba. The present model of development is in contradiction of our age old philosophy of life. The city life does not promote it in any way.



I think Gandhi is very much relevant in these times of Global Warming, conspicuous consummations, inequality, violence, pollution, crimes, corruption, slums, and injustices going on in India and around the world. I do not think you have better understanding of Indian villages and life than the Great Mahatma did. He said, "if you really want to understand villages you need to spend at least 6 months in a remote village".



Your statement to imply that the village life is horrible and it must be discarded. It really shows your lack of understanding about life and the villages and their purpose in our lives. Our lives have been sustained by the villages. I do not understand how you can ignore this fact, despite of your many degrees and high official positions in the business world. The fact that you could become what you are today could not have been possible if some villager did not produce the food, fruits, vegetables, and milk for your very existence. I think you need to read Gandhi more thoroughly to understand the spirit of India and Mission of India. What of any long-term value we are able to produce in the mega cities? I suggest you should read "Hind Swaraj" by Gandhiji on www.swaraj.org . Other book I recommend for you is: "Gandhi's Seven Steps to Global Change." by professor Guy de Mallack. I am also forwarding an article by Gandhiji and exchange of letters between Nehru and Gandhi 60 years ago on this question, for you to better understand why he so strongly recommended making life better in the villages for an ideal living to fulfill the purpose of life. I am also sending a dialogue between a farmer and educator who is visiting the village to teach the poor farmer. Please click: http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/resources_soni3.html . I am also forwarding HH Dalai Lama's observation about the modern life, "Paradox of our Times" for your further enlightenment.

I hope these will help you understand yourself and Indian villages better.

I will end this with a quote from a Native American leader about the City life in America.

"In our cities we have lost much of our grace and naturalness in the name of civilization. We have created noisy, dirty, crowded places to gather and live in and in this process we have retarded our spirituality. For me there is nothing so rejuvenating as being out in nature and experiencing this sacred hoop of life directly."

More later.
Mohan Jain President IDCA

Longwinded gaseous stuff. Antithesis of blogging. Central message buried in a heap of debris!!