HOW VIBRANT
“WHEN we heard of COVID first, we immediately swung into action,” Suresh Chhanga told me with a hint of pride. “Entry to the village was restricted to residents coming back, traders of essential goods and officials, house-to-house surveys and awareness programmes were carried out, masks were made for everyone, and families or elders who could not move out were provided supplies at home. Not a single COVID case has been reported from here in the last 10 months.”
“So you avoided COVID,” I said, “but what about the economic lockdown, since that has affected people across India more than the virus itself?”
Chhanga responded: “We ensured that employment work carried on as usual, ensuring, of course, safety; we also managed to get our produce to markets though this
did suffer a bit. We had no food shortage at all. Overall, our people were affected much less than those in many other parts of the State. Now, several months into the COVID period, village activity is nearly back to normal, though of course we continue to maintain safety precautions, and are also discussing ways to counter any such future crisis.”
Chhanga is the sarpanch (village head) of Kunariya panchayat, a cluster of three settlements in Kachchh district, Gujarat. With a population of about 3,500, the village is largely dependent on agriculture (farming and animal husbandry), crafts, and labour. I had heard that over the last few years Kunariya had undergone a remarkable transformation towards full employment security,
where officials of all line departments are present and can be questioned by anyone in the village.
democratic participation, ecological regeneration, and high-quality education. So, in January 2021, finally shaking off the shackles of COVID fear, I visited it to explore the dimensions and causes of this transformation.
Kunariya is a sprawling village. As a panchayat, it has three settlements, and large areas of agriculture and commons. It is set amidst a dry landscape of scrub, grassland, and desert-like features characteristic of the Kachchh district, with the seasons alternating between a torrid summer, scanty but welcome monsoon rains, and a
cold dry winter. Its people have traditionally depended on animal husbandry and farming, and a variety of crafts. In more recent times, these have been supplemented by labour in nearby areas, including the town of Bhuj, and on the commons as part of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
Over the last few years, the village has worked hard to shake off the mainstream image of rural India as backward, dirty, ignorant and illiterate. When I visited the girls’ and boys’ schools, the impact of this resolve was noticeable. Cleanliness was only one visible aspect; everywhere there were colourfully painted walls (and even steps!) depicting flora and fauna, ethics and values. The classrooms had all basic facilities and more, an activity centre in each was full of play and experiment objects as also computers. The physical presence of students had still not been allowed, so I found several teachers on their mobile phones taking online classes.
Bharatiben Gharava, a young woman handling education for the panchayat, told me that during the initial period of the lockdown, they realised that bored kids and worried parents do not make a great combination, so the schools innovated. They encouraged elders with traditional or new skills, such as pottery, music, singing, gardening, tree-planting and cooking, to teach these at home, and devised various online sessions that would be both fun and educative. Over the last few years of transformation, the dropout rate of students has come down to nearly zero; and remarkably, several have left private schools to come back to government schools.
GENDER EQUITY
At the anganwadi (childcare centre), a similarly proactive approach has been adopted in the past two to three years. Earlier, children would have to be dragged to the anganwadi; they now clamour to come because they find lots of fun and meaningful activities to do, as also get nutritious meals (millets, not only wheat and rice). Geetaben Ahir, one of those who handle the anganwadi, said that a number of programmes had been launched to empower girls in line with the panchayat’s resolve to reduce gender inequities.
Chhanga told me proudly that the sex ratio in Kunariya was 1,144 women to 1,000 men, in stark contrast to the ratio of Gujarat State (854:1,000) and the country (900:1,000). He believed that this achievement was owing to the explicit awareness programmes on girl and women’s rights (taking place for well over a decade), better health facilities for all, and economic empowerment, all of which may have led to reduction in the desire to have more than one male child. Not entirely convinced, I asked if this needed more study, and Sureshbhai readily agreed.
Access to adequate nutrition was a challenge for several families in Kunariya. During the initial period of the lockdown, 87 families that did not have adequate access were provided relief packages entirely by the village, with the the more well-to-do families pitiching in through donations. Since then, they have also been specially targeted to provide employment under the MGNREGA or work in other programmes. A sum of Rs.3 crore has been
Kunariya panchayat has worked hard to shake off the image of rural India as backward, dirty, ignorant and illiterate.