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Taking Technology to
the Mud Hut
Rajiv Gupta
rajivg@sdalt.ernet.in
As
we perceive the results of the last half a century of rural
development work by voluntary agencies in India, we find that its
great impact on two generations has led to the formation of several
grassroots NGOs working in a large number of villages. The field of
their activities varies from Khadi and village industries, tribal
welfare, and basic education to the welfare of women and children.
This is no mean achievement for a country like India, where the gulf
between the urban elite and the rural poor is probably the widest.
The Problem
Therefore, all the planning and education
that goes on for the benefit of the last man, though done with the
best of intentions, is not realistic and seldom reaches the weakest.
This is because the communication between
the worlds of the class and the mass is weak and the understanding
of the realities of the villages by the decision-makers is poor. It
is the matrix of these constructive work organizations, which have
established a rapport with the rural poor that can act as a positive
catalyst in providing sustainable livelihoods to the teeming
millions.
Through these institutions, the use of
science and technology could be pursued to bring into reality the
unfulfilled dream of Gandhi. The thrust should be to empower the
vulnerable half of the subcontinent that is subsisting below the
poverty line, by providing them sustainable livelihoods and a life
of dignity and honour.
The Approach
In order to take the benefits of S&T to the
rural mud huts of our 5,70,000 villages, we will have to take the
experience of the past into consideration and lay down the future
plan of action, utilizing all available human and material
resources. The tragedy remains that in spite of half a century of
independence and the great Green Revolution, we are not able to
provide more than 100 days of employment to even our farm labour.
There is no work for the remaining 200 working days. Hence, the need
for innovative non-farm technologies that could be turned into
trades to provide livelihoods to the needy on a sustainable basis.
The
Criteria
The kind of technologies that we pick up for taking
to the villages should be such as will touch the life of the poorer
sections of the people first and could easily be used by them, thus
bringing a ray of hope in their otherwise morbid state. Translating
these technologies into trades would increase the avenues of rural
employment, prevent the erosion of talents from the villages and
enrich the life of the entire community, especially that of the
vulnerable lot.
Positive Catalyst
All those institutions engaged in
social work in the villages should take up the responsibility of
introducing a number of appropriate technologies in the villages
they are working in. In the choice of the technologies, they must be
provided with a large range of such processes from which they may
select some suitable ones that may be converted into professions to
fit in with their normal activities and reduce their drudgery
somewhat.
This new activity of
transference of technology for the benefit of the poor will give
ready results and thus bring greater confidence for the fulfillment
of the noble work that is being done by the grassroots institutions.
And, in the process of introducing new technologies, it is necessary
that some technological institutions and scientists coordinate their
efforts with the voluntary constructive work agencies. Over and
above adding to the efficient functioning of the project, this will
present an opportunity of interaction between the scientists and the
social workers in the process of taking science to the villages.
S&T
Inputs
The quantum of dissipating
unemployment and hungry idle hours is so large that neither the
intensive agriculture nor traditional crafts and industries can wipe
them out. Over and above this, the increasing educational facility
of the current type is throwing out an increasing number of educated
youths at all levels, whose future is frightfully bleak. This
creates situations of an impending explosion.
For applying the knowledge
of science and technology, new productive occupations serving the
cause of the poor, should be evolved in increasing numbers to create
more and more self-employment alternatives. All our laboratories
ought to be mobilized towards this.
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