The journey of Bundelkhand to
entrepreneurship-led livelihood generation

The erstwhile region of drought-prone land and barren opportunities at the centre of India, Bundelkhand has benefited little from India’s top-down livelihood generation policies. The region itself is not defined by the state boundaries and is often caught up by the divergent schemes of the two state governments of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Concrete boundaries have been used to define livelihood opportunities in the region, until now. There is a growing shift in people's aspirations from being passive recipients and beneficiaries of government relief schemes to emerging as agents of change.

The way people live in Bundelkhand has transformed radically in the past two decades. This change directly manifests itself in the livelihood options the youth and women now pursue. From a primarily agricultural economy, it is shifting towards a region with a diverse range of opportunities, fuelled by a democratisation of platforms and opportunities for microentrepreneurship. In the 1990s, “karobaar daal dena” and “udyam lagana” were rare phrases in the Bundeli lingo restricted to upper caste men with power and capital. But, in the 1990s, the families who struggled in harvesting enough produce due to scarce water supply and lacked awareness on value addition , are now running their own mini start-ups including those enabled with digital technology to generate new value in the local economies.

A diverse, dynamic economy is a hybrid of not just agriculture and service oriented self-employment but one which provides a multitude of opportunities across sectors, especially in manufacturing and the emerging gig economy, to create more resilient socio-economic structures in the village ecosystem. These structures have demonstrated their resilience during a pandemic by helping mitigate risks around sustainability of revenue and jobs, provide alternatives to migration to cities, and meet the evolving aspirations of young men and women. There is a visible change in the streets of Orchha due to new market formation and aggregation, as it becomes a market hub beyond Jhansi. One of the most pivotal enablers of this transformation is the decentralised access to and exchange of information. With migrants returning with improved awareness from cities, greater mobility in and outside of Bundelkhand, and deepening penetration of smartphones and the internet, the youth of the region are visibly transformed as compared to their parents' generation. In them, resides new hope and greater self-confidence, to build on their growing awareness and dreams of a future they wish to create.

The dreams of Bundelkhand’s youth are grounded in the region’s roots in agriculture. The young people here hope to build on the ancestral qualities of patience, and coexistence with nature to create new-age economic models to support local economies. Abhineet Parmar is one such microentrepreneur who started a vermicomposting enterprise in January 2021, overcoming great resistance from his parents. The 19 year old winner of the Kaun Banega Business Leader (KBBL) 2020 competition, organised in 20 villages of the region, aspires to employ 3 young people, and earn over INR 360,000 during the next year 2021-22. Abhineet strives to start a biomass energy generation unit within the next three years, to power all households in his surrounding villages. Social innovation tools such as the KBBL have helped initiate shifts in local narratives towards entrepreneurship.

The potential of an economy with diverse opportunities is immense. The traditional households of Bundelkhand which used to rely on direct benefit transfers, livestock farming, and temporary agricultural labour under the MGNREGA, now hope to rise above socio-economic barriers to leverage the emerging support structures for entrepreneurship to realise their aspirations. Dreams like these define the limitless possibilities and potential that resides in India’s youth, and these dreams collectively will shape India’s future.■

Saubhagya Raizada
ssraizada@devalt.org