M.S.Swaminathan believes that Indian agriculture will
receive a big boost if the country takes advantage of its young population and
woos them into the farm sector by making it lucrative. My own desire will make
him happy as I am a passed out of Anna university who hated to sit in the
campus interview waiting to be picked up by any random IT company. Though my
grades might have not impressed the interviewers greatly, I still rejected that
chance of even trying and let the way for my gut feeling to try what
M.S.Swaminathan always loved – Farming. Being a chennaite from my childhood, I
bid adieu to the city life and moved to my mother’s native village ready to
till the soil. My younger sibling who passed away few years back was buried
there. So emotionally my mother’s village was clearly the choice for me. This village had a tinge of town outlook with
few developments like railway station, bus stand and good roads but still it
retained the typical Indian village sceneries- paddy fields, banyan and mango trees,
bullock carts etc and adding to its beauty – mountains, forest and the monkeys
for which it is famous for.
During the last few days before the end of April, Draupadi
Amman Temple festival started in our village. Puzzled with its inauguration
date as I remembered coming to the village during my childhood days to see the
temple festival only during the summer holidays of May, I enquired my grandma.
She said that the festival I am referring will also happen in May this year but
the one happening right now is different. Confused again, I questioned her the
rationale behind two festivals on consecutive months for the same village. Her
reply depicted the classic explanation of the stratification in our Indian
villages. It seems that the festival that is happening in April is for the
so-called ‘upper’ castes and their gods and the one that comes in May is for
the so-called ‘lower’ castes and their gods. More to the agony, the chariot
that carried the gods of ‘upper’ cast failed to come to our street though it
went through many nook and corners of the village. The reason- our street is in
the ‘colony’ away from the main village and in the ‘colony’ only ‘lower’ castes
live. Gods might have wanted to come but sadly the men who carried their
chariot dissented with the gods.
Keeping the festival issue aside, few weeks back, my uncle’s
close friend who also lived in the same village died. His death made me to
remember my younger sibling who is sleeping forever inside the cemetery at the
southern side of the village. I said to him though he will never hear me and I
will never see him that “here comes another mortal being to give you company
from today”. But my uncle’s friend was carried to the northern side of the
village. It seems that there is another cemetery there meant only for the ‘upper’
castes. That night, in my hallucination, my brother was upset with me asking
where is his companion who was to come that day.
Coming back to the festival issue, on its closing day, the
village panchayat head has to honour those who lavishly donated money for
celebrating the gods of ‘upper’ caste. What happened on the stage was the
gestural attack on the panchayat raj system of the Indian democracy. As my
village panchayat is reserved for women to contest and only women contested in
the election held to it last year and for sure only a woman won the election to
become the panchayat head but surprisingly who came on the stage claiming the
place of the panchayat head was a man. I asked the villager standing next to me
who the man was. “The village panchayat head” was the reply. "Then what
happened to the lady who won the panchayat election last year?” I enquired. “Well, that’s his wife” said the
villager pointing towards the same man on the stage who is in place of the
village head, her wife. Cunningly smart! A brilliant way to bypass the reservation
of seats for women in the panchayat elections. Allowing the wife to contest and
win in the election for rule sake and her husband becoming the “real” head of
the village in every sense.
“What is the village
but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism”.The haranguer
was B.R.Ambedkar. I vent out my thoughts not to justify the conviction of him.
But after being in my village, I can see the truth in his words.
May be the Architect of the Indian constitution is not there
to reform my village. But the MP, MLA and the Collector under whose
jurisdiction my village comes definitely could help. Route for them- Banavaram,
Arakonam taluk, Vellore district. That’s
where my village is socially rottening.
Is your native a village? Is that place has separate temples
and festivals for humans labelled as ‘lower’ and ‘upper’ castes? Does really a
woman heads its panchayat if it is reserved for women constitutionally? Now,
with the answers in your mind if you think your village is rotten too, do
inform to your constituency’s MP, MLA or the Collector. Believe me, there are
some good politicians and bureaucrats who could bring the changes needed and
truly I am not cracking a joke.
As the name board shows, this village in karur district is still unprepared to accept its women leader, Mrs.Sivakami.
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