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The question is, volition it assistance amended governance erstwhile the predetermination is over? And the reply is astir apt not. One crushed wherefore governance does not amended is due to the fact that we successful the media seldom sermon it.
There are immoderate stories I archer with a consciousness of shame. This is 1 of them. The crushed wherefore is that I spent a time past week talking to immoderate of the poorest radical I person ever met successful a precise affluent colony successful 1 of our richest states. The colony shall stay unnamed, but suffice it to accidental that it is by the oversea connected the Konkan seashore and truthful adjacent to Mumbai that affluent businessmen, Bollywood stars and sports heroes person built vacation homes and play retreats on the beach. In the past 10 years, middle-class tourism has besides boomed, truthful astir residents of the colony person turned their homes into small homestay hotels that connection ‘a/c and non a/c rooms’.
What has gone unnoticed by astir radical is that successful the bosom of this colony is an Adivasi enclave wherever nary of the benefits of alteration and prosperity person reached. It happens that I was present erstwhile the Maharashtra predetermination dates were announced past week. So, inevitably my questions became little wide and much specific. I asked what had changed successful the past 5 years since the past Vidhan Sabha election.
No sooner did I inquire the question than I realized that it was insensitive. It was evident that thing had changed. The houses successful the quadrate successful which we talked were shacks with ungraded floors and roofs made from discarded material. Most had walls that were besides made of flimsy integrative and thatch. There are Dalit and Adivasi enclaves similar this successful distant villages crossed India, but what shamed maine was that this 1 was successful a authorities that is among the astir ‘developed’ successful India.
When I asked radical what their biggest occupation was, they answered successful 1 voice: water. There utilized to beryllium a municipal proviso that came for a fewer hours each Sunday, but it has not travel for 2 months. In immoderate lawsuit it is not potable water, truthful women locomotion regular to different colony to get drinking h2o for their family. None of those grandiose payment schemes that the Prime Minister likes to boast astir person made a quality here. Toilets cannot beryllium built successful homes that are conscionable shacks. Gas cylinders were distributed escaped but they could not spend the 2nd ones, truthful that was of nary use. And nary funds person travel to physique homes. What has proved utile successful the past 3 months is the authorities government’s Ladli Behna strategy that gives women astatine a definite level of poorness Rs 1500 a month. It is this strategy that Maharashtra’s Chief Minister says volition beryllium a ‘gamechanger’ and helium whitethorn good beryllium right.
The question is, volition it assistance amended governance erstwhile the predetermination is over? And the reply is astir apt not. One crushed wherefore governance does not amended is due to the fact that we successful the media seldom sermon it. In predetermination season, celebrated TV anchors and editors rotation astir agrarian parts to spot however the different fractional lives, but they ore connected gathering section politicians and officials. So, they instrumentality to their offices and TV studios to cipher caste equations and gossip astir governmental squabbles but ne'er inquire wherefore governance is successful specified an abysmal state. Why is governance not much important than politics? Is governance not the eventual nonsubjective of being successful politics?
After talking to the adults successful the Adivasi enclave, I visited the superior school. It was successful a ramshackle, yellow-washed gathering that stood successful a tiny spot of chaotic writer and weeds. Inside, determination were 2 classes successful which small, barefoot children sat astatine grimy desks. A azygous teacher taught them each subject, from maths and past to Marathi and English. When I asked her wherefore the blackboards were successful specified a authorities of disrepair, she said she had enactment successful an exertion for amended ones but usually it took 2 years for these things to happen. Once more, it was governance that was the problem.
While I was successful the Adivasi school, a wellness idiosyncratic came to visit. He makes a sojourn each six months. He asked the children to instrumentality their tongues retired and if they had brushed their teeth. He warned them not to devour sweets oregon portion sugary drinks without noticing that erstwhile their biggest occupation was conscionable getting capable cleanable h2o to drink, determination was small anticipation for thing else. When I asked if a sojourn each six months was enough, helium said that the teacher had his fig and could telephone him if determination was an emergency.
When I asked the teacher and the doc if they were not appalled by the grim conditions successful which these Adivasi children were forced to live, they said calmly that things were overmuch worse before. They told maine they had seen existent improvement. Perhaps. But successful a colony arsenic affluent arsenic this one, determination should person been cipher surviving successful utmost poverty.
If you person work this file much than once, you would cognize that I americium nary socialist and that I blasted socialism for India inactive being a mediocre country. But the opposition betwixt the grinding poorness of the Adivasi colony and the good mansions connected the formation shook maine to the core. What does it substance who forms the authorities successful Maharashtra if those who instrumentality powerfulness garbage to perceive the voices of those whose voices astir request to beryllium heard.
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