Dr. Mohinder Kumar
Minjee village is located in Kargil block, 12 km from Kargil city. Total village area is 625 acres, of which 50% is common land (Shamlat). With population of 1200 persons and 200 households scattered in 5 mohallas (wards), houses were constructed mostly on farms. The village with 100% Muslim and ST population speaks local “Balti” language written in Urdu script. People in Kargil city to Jozila, and Zanskar valley -all speak “Balti” language. With literacy rate of 60% they consider education important; hence literacy in new generation is 100%. Villagers, as civilians and ‘citizens particularly in border areas are fed up with sights of intrusion, wars, armies, khakhi uniforms, militaries and militancy, as also with what Alfred Einstein called with human concern “militant mindset” of people. Villagers wanted to focus on education, development, sports, health and humanly progressive activities.
VILLAGE WEEKLY
Wage-based economic relations are making way and penetrating into village economy of Minjee -in construction, agriculture, roads, everywhere- though people keep saying they “do not expect wages”. They quietly accept though do not expect wages. Their affiliation with political parties also works on same principle. They would shift position to accept from others what they wanted if expectations are unfulfilled. No vote without work; no work without wages. It is pure metabolic exchange. This art of survival they are learning.
Minjee people have poor opinion about Gram Panchayat and Sarpanch. Without exaggeration they would say they never saw him in village visiting for villagers’ prblems. Only 10% farmers have got ‘Kisan Credit Card’ (KCC) where Sarpanch should have ideally helped them to get more access for more number of farmers. However, ration card facility is accessed by everyone. Psychic aspects are important and matter the most in human affairs. Villagers are gullible, innocent, novice and act as rustic ruralites. They imagine why Kisan Credit Cards (KCCs) are not like ration cards: Free of cost, substantial subsidy, nothing to repay but nominal charges. Ration card is most popular without doubt, but KCC is not. Either there is confusion or apathy or lack of awareness on this “loan product”, which is not “free product”. Loan product of Kisan Credit Card is desired but loan amount involved in it would make them work on-farm. It is not so with ration card. Ration goods would be directly consumed with no need to work. They need not work due to ration goods as these are food products; but KCCs are loan products. To a simple gullible mind residing in mountains and living amidst war-like conditions and militant mind-sets, it is natural that Ration Card would be preferable to Kisan Credit Card; food would be preferable to loan; simple one-way “take” would be preferable to “give & take”. Villagers do not know banking theory or principle even if they have understood its logic. Practice is something that they decide and determine as they see and face practical conditions at ground level.
MNREGA is not implemented in the village. Villagers do not favor devolution of funds to Gram Panchayat and opine that decision depends on sincerity of Sarpanch. Villagers access natural resources -river Suru water, hill-stone, etc. Like village Thiksay-II of Leh district, people of Minjee consider hills adjoining farmland as private property. However, practically most of the villagers purchase hill stone; minority of them uses it free of cost. Without sufficient skills, a majority of youth are somehow absorbed in wage-labor, farming and Govt. service (including army). However, now they have started giving attention to Industrial Training Institute (ITI) at Kargil, which offers skilled Mechanic course in automobile, tailoring, electricity, plumbing, carpentry, etc. Computer courses are not available in ITI since these are provided at school level in high schools and senior secondary schools at Kargil.
Veterinary center exists and “Compounder” comes daily in village. However, few essential medicines (50%) are not available. Patwari (like Sarpanch) rarely visits; villagers have to trace and catch hold of him to get him to village for girdawari of crops or whatever land record documentation tasks are involved. There are two or three Women SHGs functioning in village, one of which is involved in poly-house cultivation of vegetables in winter season on small patch of land. This land is overlooking the side of hill 100 meter away where mortar shells from Pakistan side landed and exploded during the Kargil war. Head of the household of SHG leader is engaged as ‘Labor Contractor’ in managing supply of wage-laborers for various construction projects of PWD. On one occasion he arranged supply of 60 wage-laborers at a time from Minjee village. Wage-labor market is witnessing boom in the absence of implementation of MNREGA. One can safely guess even without MNREGA initial growth of wage-labor market had been taking place in Minjee. Villagers are facing unemployment situation due to the lack of capacity of agriculture to fully absorb village youth in owner-operatorship and agricultural labor activities. Unemployed laborers existed even before MNREGA arrived. That implies MNREGA did not trigger or cause wage-labor phenomenon initially; MNREGA only accelerated the pace at which wage-laborers were already being created. MNREGA did not initially pull wage-laborers from agriculture or other sectors of village. Wage-laborers existed already and were looking for wage employment opportunities when MNREGA arrived. Since MNREGA and Indira Awas Yojna (IAY) are not implemented in Minjee, it created scope for implementation of PMGSY scheme for road construction and absorption of youth in wage-labor.
Sanitation and street lane conditions are good even as majority of the houses are located in isolated locations, since constructed on farm land. Power supply to households is extraordinarily maintained for 20 hours per day, with four hours cut. Drinking water is supplied from chashma and hand pumps (100 to 500 feet deep water table). Condition of dispensary is reported as good even as two nurses and one doctor visited daily; all medicines were freely available. However, village does not have private doctor shop and medical shop, for which they have to visit Kargil city. Private doctor would charge Rs.200 to 300. There are five grocery shops and one fair price shop (ration store). Supply of ration per month, is as under: Rice = 6 kg per person; Atta = 4 kg per person; Sugar = 400 gm per person; Kerosene oil = 10 liters per family. This system of public distribution of ration goods in Minjee is different from other villages and districts where 17 kg rice and 18 kg wheat per family (irrespective of size) per month is provided from ration store.
Minjee is connected with SRTC bus service operating whole day, as village is located on main road. Village has three government schools and one private school. There is one post-office that is useful for villagers for parcel service, electricity/ phone bill, etc. Economic assets of the village (particularly agriculture) indicate that Minjee is not typical J&K village -either poor or prosperous. It is prosperous with pockets of poverty: 50% of village area is common land; most of the houses are constructed on farm land away from cluster/ mohallas; people are more inclined to wage-labor, government jobs, army service, etc.; only one tractor, one thresher; no power tiller; farmers hire tractor from other villages for cultivation; one or two cows in each household, etc. Villagers rent-out rooms on monthly rent basis to migrated labor from outside, which indicates there is shortage of local labor. BPL households are 10% (prosperity due to service sector jobs); 10% households lacked access to adequate food, clothing in winter, fuel wood, etc. (no reason for which could be ascertained). With 20 KCC holder farm-households and 10 other borrowing households, total 30 households out of 200 households in the village borrowed money from the bank branch. Remaining 170 households (85%) borrowed from one another: up to Rs.10000-20000 for a year or so. Village is caught between opposing trends of owner-operator farming and tendency towards service sector jobs (non-agricultural wage-laborers, agricultural wage-laborers, servicemen, army-men, etc.). Farmers want to do land development but lack finance; farmers want to install more number of private Lift Irrigation Systems (LIS) for irrigation of land, but lacked finance (Rs.2-3 lakh per pump-set investment). It is as if they want to improve agriculture (owner-operatorship) but are impelled to join, what Marx called, “reserved army of unemployed” laborers by demonstration effect of “free” migrant laborers arriving from Bihar and Nepal to Kargil as also this village.
No problem other than hassles experienced in district/ block offices is expressed by villagers when they visit these offices for certain official tasks, e.g. getting a certificate, or copy of document, or papers, or ration card, or other such tasks of daily routine nature and requiring fulfillment of formalities. They also express problem of corruption faced by them. Villagers appear clueless on tackling these problems. Except making repeated rounds of offices to get their work done, they do not have any other coping mechanism. A signboard fixed outside DDC office premises indicates maximum time limit within which specified tasks of public services are to be completed by different departments. We need to be efficient and transparent in public service to win faith of public, particularly the villagers. Villagers find it impossible to cope with disservice.
There is potential demand for fruit and vegetable processing units to be set up for apple, apricot and all vegetables in the village on small scale, for which bank-financing of growers would be required on individual and SHG basis. Later on these group-based units could be metamorphosed into Producers’ Companies. Farm lands situated on upper portion of hills require water for irrigation on urgent basis from river Suru by Lift Irrigation Scheme (LIS) -on private basis (for which bank financing is required) or community basis (requiring part financing by banks) or public/ government basis (requiring users’ charges). In any case, water for irrigation is their primary need. At the same time, farmers on lower portion of hills require pucca “kool” (canals/ drains) for irrigation. Farmers desire to make investment in land development (land leveling and drains), for which they do not have owned funds or access to bank-financing. Three government schools in village are facing shortage of teachers. In absence of teachers, students suffer without classes even as private tuitions and coaching are also not available though village is close to Kargil city. In that situation, posting of good teachers in government schools of Minjee to fill vacancies is urgently required. Otherwise wage-labor market is waiting for them for their recruitment as the “reserved army of unemployed”. Minjee already has excess of unemployed youth who compete with migrant laborers. Can this problem be solved simply by infusion of capital, or without capital, or having ‘labor-augmenting’ capital investment strategy in villages like Minjee? Can one be able to “tame” capital though Mao Tse Tung tried his best in China during 1960s and 1970s? Can MNREGA be an answer to the unemployment problem of Minjee even as MNREGA is hitherto not implemented there? Can capital, which is defined by Marx as “dead labor” ever “augment” living labor? Minjee has meanwhile more questions than answers.
(Author works for NABARD. Views expressed are personal)
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