Republic of India Livelihoods in intermediate towns
Growing Non-farm Economy, Persisting Rural and Urban Aspirations
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9. Growing Non-farm Economy, Persisting Rural and Urban Aspirations.9.1. Absent Urban: Rural and urban are often viewed as two types of social formations, representing different stages in the process of economic development, or even human “evolution”. According to this popular common sense, while the traditional or pre-modern societies are predominantly ‘rural’, the modern societies are largely ‘urban’, with a very small proportion of population living in rural settlements. Rural, in this perspective, is also viewed as being predominantly agrarian, implying that those living in rural areas work on land or earn their livelihood from other primary sources of income, such as animal husbandry, fishery – activities that require earning livelihood through direct engagement with “nature”.As societies become modern, settlements grow in size. The new technologies that use inanimate sources of power enable human beings to use technology to multiply their productive ability. As it first happened in Western Europe, growth of modern factory system after the industrial revolution resulted in a significant decline in the working population engaged in agriculture. A large number of people migrated from rural areas to urban centres in search of employment in industry and a better life. Migration and urbanization were two sides of the same coin. Similarly, decline of agriculture and move to non-farm occupation implied a process of modernization, either through direct employment in manufacturing, or related occupations such as in commerce or service sector, which tend to expand with urbanization.As mentioned above, our analysis is based on a comparative understanding of non-farm economy in a Census Town and a large rural settlement. Among other things, the study focused on exploring potentials of non-farm economy for generating development dynamics at the local level. Does the growth of non-farm economy indeed produce an impetus for urbanization, even if it is of a “subaltern” variety (see Denis et al 2012)? Does the growth of non-farm economy carry the potential of transforming the region into a modern social and economic formation? Is the social profile of those in non-farm economy in the Census Town any different from those in the “rural” settlement? If we are to begin answering these questions by comparing the two settlements, our evidence from the field does not seem to support the popular assumptions about the development or urbanizing effects of the growing non-farm economy. The nature and quality of infrastructure in the two settlements does not seem to be very different. They both lack modern economy in terms of manufacturing or service sector. As is evident from the data presented in different sections above, non-farm occupations do not use much of modern technology. Neither do they require advance level skills. There is virtually no growth of any kind of modern manufacturing, with almost no manufacturing units found using electric power, in Satghara. The only source of modern/formal employment is in institutions that provide services such as schools, banks or government offices. Much of this employment has grown because of state initiative from above. Interestingly, a large proportion of those employed in such activities come from other settlements, often from the neighboring town of Madhubani. In terms of urban infrastructure too, the markets and streets of Satghara do not appear to be very different from the shopping areas of Bhagwatipur. The only difference appears to be in the intensity and scale of the commercial activity. Satghara has many more shops and other non-farm activities but their quality is not very different from those in Bhagwatipur. Social dynamics of caste, community and gender work almost exactly in the same fashion in the two settlements. Even those employed in activities like the rickshaw pulling or the auto-rickshaw driving come from the neighboring areas in both the settlements. The story of infrastructure is also not very different in the two settlements. Though Satghara has had a railway station (Rajnagar) for a long time, it is more like a junction for the entire region. Its road network began to grow only during the latter part of 1990s when the Central government initiated the process through its Prime Minister’s Rural Roads Construction Project, which was followed by Chief Minister’s Rural Road Construction Project. Use of cell phones, televisions and banking services is also very similar in both the settlements. Even though officially Bhagwatipur has a much larger proportion of its working population formally employed in agriculture, disenchantment with agriculture is also similar in both the settlements. As we have discussed in the section on out-migration, a large proportion of households, including those surveyed have either been themselves migrants or have the adult male members of their family working as migrant labourers elsewhere. Much of this migration is circular in nature. The migrant worker even though employed outside, in urban centres, remains tied to the village and the rural identity. Economic dynamics of the local non-farm economy also do not seem promising. Most of the commercial establishments appear to be working at a mere subsistence level, generating no surpluses or savings, and thus no possibility of capital accumulation. Those who have economic surpluses prefer going out, to Madhubani and other urban centres. The only trade that appears to be flourishing in the two settlements is that of private and informal money lending. This becomes even more evident when we look at their attitude towards their current non-farm occupations, their perceptions on the value of education and their aspirations for their future generations. 9.2 Work and Economic Life: Perhaps, one of the simply communicable ways of judging a respondent’s attitude towards their current livelihood is to ask of them if they would want their children to continue with it or with the same kind of employment. Quite interestingly, a large majority of the respondents (75.3%) responded in the negative i.e. they’d rather not see members of the next generation engaging in the same or a similar occupation as them. Only 17 percent of the respondents reported a clear preference for their children to continue in the same job as them. However, what emerges with great clarity is that non-farm activity is preferable over agriculture to nearly all of the respondents for their children’s futures, which finds favour with only a small 3 percent. Among those who reported a preference for non-farm activity over agriculture, we can further sort their reported preferences between a salaried job (79.7%) followed by business in a town (36.3) (see Table 16) (It does not add up to 100 because respondents had the option of saying more than one ‘yes’).
Interestingly salaried job is the most preferred occupation for the next generation, across all the communities, and no other occupation comes close to it in that order. However, in the case of those who reported agriculture as a preferred occupation over a non-farm activity for their children, there happen to be interesting variations across communities. None of the SC respondents responded with a “yes” for agriculture and only 4 percent reported that they would like their children to continue in their current occupation, which is significantly less than the similar category of responses from among the EBC respondents (22.5%) and from those among the trading castes (19.4%). Those from the “upper castes” also reported having no liking for agriculture (0%). Besides reflecting a desire for a stable economic life, the cross cutting preference for a regular salaried job also tells us of the perceived fragility and dissatisfaction with the current occupation in the local non-farm economy, which to many is simply a survival strategy. Even though the contexts may differ, similarly reported disenchantment with agriculture appears to be the pervasive in the county. When Jodhka revisited his study village near Panipat in Haryana during 2009-10, the responses to a similar set of questions, were strikingly similar (Jodhka 2012): When we asked our respondents about their preferences for agriculture as a means of livelihood for their children or grandchildren (Question: Would you like your children/grandchildren to practice cultivation?), only around 8% of our respondents answered in the affirmative. Surprisingly, the responses to the question were quite similar across caste and occupational categories. Dalits and upper castes (5-6%) were the least interested in their families staying in farming but even cultivating farmers of the dominant castes (9%) did not want their children to practice agriculture. Only among the BCs, there was some desire to continue with agriculture (11%) (Jodhka 2012: 13). Abetted by a generational shift away from land-based work and a policy failure to create more opportunities, young men are “All Dressed Up with Nowhere to Go” (Deuchar 2014). According to Jeffrey et. al. (forthcoming), an increased investment in schooling has led people to come to imagine education as a pathway to economic and social mobility. But since the 1980s economic change has typically failed to generate white-collar jobs within the manufacturing and services sectors, which has created a crisis of educated unemployment. Rodgers et al (2013: 97) also suggest that in the case of Bihar, a college education and beyond ‘drastically increases the chances of long term migration’, a highly educated worker is three times as likely to migrate than a worker with no schooling, which according to the authors indicates that ‘there is a dire lack of appropriate opportunities for educated people in the survey villages’. 9.3 Education: Across social categories, respondents recognize and acknowledge the value of education, which alone, according to them can enable their children to find regular salaried jobs and pull them out of agriculture, with dignity. However, they also realize that the currently available education in the local schools is unlikely to be of help. The story of educational aspirations in the two settlements is indeed one of contradictions. Among the young, imagining the future appears to be a despondent exercise. Given the low level and quality of education, most of them do not allot any premium to education. Those who do and have, cannot see any returns. To be educated and unemployed creates a protracted sense of the future. A man in his early twenties in Satghara, in the second year of studying for his B.A. degree and also managing a mobile repair shop along with his brother said: I want to either be a policeman or go abroad. My brother can manage this business. I want a salaried job. Don’t know if I’ll be able to do that…But one thing I am certain about is that when I have my own children I will do my best to educate as much as possible. I would like them to become scientists or cricket players. Dilip Kumar Ram, a twenty-one year old Dalit boy, who works as an assistant in an electronic repair shop, locally known as a ‘fitter’ studied until class eight. He has done this for four years and now wants to set up his own shop. He regrets having not studied much. He also regrets not having capital (poonji) to start his own business. His parents did not have the wherewithal to educate him after class eight and now he feels there are no avenues from where he can seek financial support. Amarnath Thakur, also a young man, from the Nai sub caste works as a compounder with a doctor in the Satghara market. His father has a makeshift arrangement as a barber on the footpath and earns around 100 rupees in a day. Amarnath studied until high school after which he left for Delhi but could not find any gainful employment and hence returned to Satghara. Now he is back to continue working as a compounder, something he is despondent about. 9.4 Private Education: During our visit to both Bhagwatipur and Satghara, the growth of private tuition centers was evident. In the main market establishments of the village and the town, and on the outward fringes too, a variety of private education providers have emerged. Day tuition centers, evening tuition centers, private English medium schools, residential coaching centers and schools – their presence reveals a clamour for education among those in the village and towns, distant from urban centers of education, to be able to procure and provide compatible educational services for their children. There is an acute disenchantment with government run schools. If it were not for tuition centers, how would there be any education? The government schools are no good. These coaching and tuition centers are seen as a respectable source of employment for the educated but unemployed young men in the settlements. Given the value of a permanent sarkari naukri (government job), many young men obtain degrees and prepare for competitive examinations that can help them obtain one. However given the combination of the large number of applicants and few numbers of seats, a lot of them are unable to make it. For instance, in the small market establishment of Bhagwatipur, there are two private English medium schools – Parvati Progressive School and Mithila World School. Mithilesh Kumar, a twenty six year old man of the Teli caste among the Baniyas, expressed his preference for a coaching center over agricultural work. He runs the ‘Brilliant Coaching Center’ in Satghara and is also preparing for the Railways SSC examination. Having studied for a B.Com degree from Madhubani, Mithilesh is enthusiastic about his coaching center. During our visit, he reported teaching 7 students whom he charged up to Rs. 200 per student. His father helped him set up the business and according to Mithilesh: I want to make it bigger. Agriculture is troublesome, I find running a coaching center better. The income from agriculture is very low, and it is difficult work, coaching is an easier job. However due to the low returns on education, given the poor quality of education and lack of availability of jobs, there is no particular premium on education for a large number of people. A graduate earns a maximum of Rs 4000 per month in the market, as a shop assistant or petty salesman. A daily-wage labour, on the other hand, can make up to Rs 250 per day. What is then, the real value of education, if it can’t provide a decent opportunity for labour and decent wage? Educational attainment has certainly increased with time. Among many respondents, padhai-likhai (reading-writing) was the only way out of the economic despondency in the village while also being aware of the lack of return on education. Even so, if we were to look at the educational attainment of the respondents by age, as listed below, it becomes clear to us that it has risen with time. For example, whereas 41 percent of those who were sixty years old or more reported having received no formal education as compared to only 12 percent of those between 21 and 30 years old, and 5.6 percent among those between 15 to 20 years old. Similarly, higher education appears to also have increased among the younger – nearly 30 percent of those between 20 to 30 years old and 22 percent of those between 15 and 20 years old reported having received a minimum of graduate education, compared to only 1 respondent in those above 60 years old. The government’s schemes of mid-day meals and right to education for all too did not seems to garner positive support, for the prevalence of corruption and of neglect seems to override the aims of providing good quality education. The teachers can’t hit the children, nor fail them… it is only on pen and paper … give them food, give them the money and uniform etc… or a cycle… they have ruined education. Even these shiksha mitras, they don’t even know how to sign their own names. The government only wants records of nobody having failed. The teachers have to go and do a census count or look at poultry. What will they do? All the food that comes in for the students, the contractors and teachers eat it up anyway. Teachers have motorcycles, that is how well they get paid. Box 3 Parvati Progressive is a residential school on the edge of the Bhagwatipur market settlement. During the evenings, as the display board on the façade of the school entrance proclaimed, it also ran a ‘remedial centre; i.e. tuition for English speaking and for ‘building self confidence’ targetted at school children and young college graduates. Upon entrance, we were greeted by a twenty year old woman, Alka, who eventually told us that she had come to the school to be appointed as an administrator and care taker (for the children in residence) and that she used to live with her family in Darjeeling prior to coming to Bhagwatipur. ‘Parents do not like local teachers, especially when it comes to English speaking’, she said. ‘In Darjeeling, a widespread culture of missionary led education means a good knowledge of English and of speaking in English, which is valued in Bihar’. Alka had studied till class 12 in Darjeeling and like her, many of her friends have also been recruited by school owners in Bihar to work in schools in Bihar through a system of networks between school owners, book dealers and teachers. We were soon joined by Mr. Roshan Kumar Jha, who is the school manager. Mr. Jha recently finished a bachelors degree in marketing from Madhubani and is also preparing to write exams for a Chartered Accountant, while he appears for other advertised public service exams. The admission fee for the school is Rs. 1000 per student along with Rs 300 as the tuition fee between nursery and class two, Rs. 500 between three and five and Rs 800 until class 8. They also provide transport services to students with a monthly fee between Rs. 350 and Rs. 400 depending upon the distance. Yüklə 2,26 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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