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Tell Tale Signs
Interview Transcript
Ranjan Panda
MASS - Journalist and anthropologist in Orissa - runs the
movement for the masses of disenfranchised peoples
"You see ever since India's independence
all these structures have been grossly neglected, there has
been a myth being promoted by the policy makers that irrigation
projects is the panacea for development; but the people have
proved since time immemorial that these modern irrigation
projects are actually not the only solution to different conditions
that the people face like poverty, drought and all but the
traditional water harvesting structures that one of them you
see here, which is in a very dilapidated condition, they have
been very effective in managing drought and giving people
a good livelihood, and support system, but this has not been
really given importance, because today you stand in the district
of Bolangir in Orissa - you see before independence - some
people have made a study that the traditional systems used
to irrigate more then 60% of Bolangir's land but after independence
and ever since these structures were neglected by the successive
governments and the policies and new modern irrigation projects
had been created, which of course involves a lot of money
which benefits a lot of people who are involved with the political
parties and their nexus, so these structures have hardly been
able to irrigate around 2% of the Bolangir's land.
So you can see simply one relationship between
these irrigation projects and the problems that the Bolangir
people today face, they face acute starvation, they face penuary,
and as you can see from many villages people do migrate each
year to various parts of the country in search of employment
- so these are the conditions that have been actually induced
on the people and they have been forced to live in penuary,
so I think that is one of the reasons that we should look
back on these structures and systems because in Bolangir Kalahandi
which are touted to be the most underdeveloped districts in
the country, the rainfall is not below normal - infact it
is sometimes more than normal so harvesting rainwater is one
of the most successful models that people have proved. We
have records of hundreds and hundreds years where these structures
have proved successful in mitigating drought, in giving a
good livelihood support to the people and so we once again
need to look into these structures and funds should be more
allocated for revival of these structures than really creating
new and unsuccessful irrigation projects which ultimately
are made by the government contractors and people do not really
own those projects and that's why after a certain period of
time these projects fail."
"You see now if you really look into the
global order we can get a relationship with all those lobby
which is working throughout the world, to many multinational
companies, even governments outside they want to fund projects
which are based on western technology. So that is one of the
reasons that - in that actually they have their own interests
but the governments like the govt. of India have taken these
projects very blindly."
"So money comes for a technology which
is not suitable for your nation, but you take it because some
of the political leaders some of the contractors some of the
people may get his benefit out of this - you can see from
the Hirakud dam project. And for that matter many dam projects
which the government have built with the plea that it will
irrigate a lot of area and will solve a lot of problems that
the people face, but actually these dams have not solved any
problems rather they have created many. You can see one hectare
of irrigation cost by common, by flow irrigation project has
been estimated to be around 7000 rupees but the people like
if they manage their structures, then it will be much less,
less and less and less. I think few hundred rupees is enough
to maintain one hectare of irrigation by such structures and
these can be really managed by people for long, so you can
simply see why government still insists that big projects
should be done, which ultimately the people don't want and
now in the name of giving water right to the people the government
of Orissa is incorporating a new bill called the Pani ? bill
which will once again make the situation very precarious.
So such things need to be looked at in depth - normally we
see things as they happen - but we should see things with
the horizontal and vertical linkages they have with different
issues - starting from the global level to the local level.
So I think there is a very serious need to think on these
structures to give people's knowledge and impa?? And we should
try to create a blend between the people's technology and
the modern technology so that people can participate in the
projects and they can manage this. And that's where many problems
related to drought, related to water scarcity can be solved."
"Ya the very first thing we should see
the very fact of alienation of the people from their own knowledge
system, so we have not respected the people's knowledge system.
We have always been propagating that high yield varieties
of seed will create food security for the nation but if you
really see the statistics for the last ten years or few years
and right now I don't recall the statistics but India has
been food sufficient but you still see these people, they
migrate, it means food security is not available for them."
"So the fact remains that by producing
high yield variety of seed, we really do not solve the problems
of these poor people. We definitely have produced a lot of
grain but the real people who need that grain they don't get
it and that's why they migrate. Then why it happens, actually
earlier when we have been discussing with the people today
also, earlier definitely paddy like crops used to consume
water but earlier people used to have their own indigenous
varieties of seeds which were much more drought resistant
and they used to consume very less amount of water and they
were infact secure so far as their own food was concerned
but now in the name of the green revolution and other projects
we say that the farmers should secure food for the whole country
but the real farmers who remain in the villages they never
get even the basic minimum requirements so that is how we
have alienated them from their own system, they are alienated
from their own system of managing their resources like these
water bodies and now they also feel that only the major irrigation
projects ? they are the solution to all the water scarcity
problems so we have taken almost 50 years to de-educate, de-learn
the people who were much more better in their learning on
managing their own resources.
And now they are in such a condition that they
are neither able to return to these systems and they face
these sort of severe problems; and once they face such problems
there are many players in this world who are ready to exploit
this situation, starting from the contractors or the agents
that we found today who take these people out of their place
to work in brick lanes, so they are always there they are
waiting like an eagle to see who is there, who is in a precarious
condition so that she or he can be exploited. With less money
he or she can be taken away to work and can be exploited.
So in this thing they have been indebted by the system, they
have been alienated from their own knowledge system, their
own practices and now they stand on a base which is actually
not their own base. Which is you know induced by a system
which is very much un??able - so I think that really creates
all these problems."
"You see in, at least I talk about western
Orissa, then for hundreds of years western Orissa has to build
these structures starting from the ? regions, the big landlords
also earlier, they used to dig such ponds different structures,
and they were providing even the people who used to maintain
these structures properly, so they had built up a system and
in many places tribal communities had built up their own systems
like this.
So these systems actually used to solve lot
of their problems, so what happened after independence, in
the name of PunjatiRaj, when the grampanchayats were created,
actually Mahatma Ghandi's vision of gram panchayat was something
else, that the people should think about their own problems
they should plan their own progress and they should plan it
with the proper management of their own resources, but with
the condition that the right on the resources should be vested
with the people, but in the name of panchati Ra what happened,
the government and t he contractors lobby they started motivating
people to take up sort of fish culture in different ponds.
So I think that is one of the major reasons that many ponds
become the ponds of controversies - the one community was
given the right to fish with some token revenue to the Panchat
and then there was a conflict with the other hamlet, so these
kind of things happen and slowly slowly these ponds only become
ponds of controversy and people once they people started looking
back from this.
So this is one of the ways how the government
actually neglected this, and they did not take care of this.
So slowly slowly, resources have been allocated very less
and less over the decades for revival of this, but more resources
have been pumped in to create new irrigation systems, so that
is how we have created some new structures by neglecting the
old good structures. And this is how I think the policies
of the government have affected this very sustainable and
good systems of water harvesting."
"You see one of the main reasons for this
drought that today you see has been deforestation. You see
in a district like Bolangir, deforestation has been in very
fast rate - as of today I think Bolangir has only less than
16% of forest coverage, which was much more before 50 years,
I think it was more than 50-60%. So this is how rapidly forests
have vanished from these areas. One of the most important
thing of these structures is, they were built very systematically
keeping in mind the topography of the area. So you always
find there is forest above the Mudhar…(structure), so
that forest was one of the key points in recharging the water
also, and also in retaining the soil erosion level. So these
forests have vanished and they have done damage to the watershed
in these areas and that has definitely affected the groundwater
situation and slowly slowly they have also affected negatively
to these structures, many of these structures have got silted
due to deforestation of the uplands so that is one reason,
and the other thing is if we see the whole thing in an integrated
way, deforestation is now believed to be the cause of many
things and one aspect you can see is the microclimatic change,
due to habitat deforestation. So once again going back to
the Hirakud dam project, few hundred sqkm of forest got submerged
so immediately if suddenly such a huge amount of green cover
gets under water then definitely there if going to be changes
in the microclimatic condition. Then that affects the local
climate. So erratic rainfall is then the result of that."
"There is one more very problematic thing
coming up and you find western Orissa has become very vulnerable
is malaria. Malaria is nowadays there is some research going
on and I think worldwide there is a concern that deforestation
is directly related to some mysterious health problems and
one is new forms of malaria earlier we didn't know about different
types of malaria we only had one kind of malaria. So now malaria
has changed its form so that once again makes the people vulnerable
and they become indebted because many people for petty matters
also they depend on the money lenders, because the banking
system is not that informal in our place which can cater to
medical educational needs of the people - so all these problems
do crop up from the mismanagement of the natural resources
because the ? is traditionally a natural resource, richbelt
and people's livelihood has always been dependent a lot on
the natural resources so any disturbance in this natural resource
situation will definitely affect their life and livelihood
very very negatively so whatever problem you see now cropping
up, one of the most important reason is the vast degradation
of all these natural resources and deforestation is one of
those."
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