Author:
Publication: Good News India
Date:
URL: http://www.goodnewsindia.com/Pages/content/transitions/elango.html
Elango's development strategy is
to bring invisible people over the line and make them participants.
In a nation where collective finger
pointing at politicians, grieving at the slowness of democracy and deriding
India itself is fashionable, Rangaswamy Elango is an object lesson. He
is an engineer for whom the outer world lay open. He chose to return to
his village. He was born a Dalit, a people who have many justified grievances
with Indian society. He chose to harmonise passions. He had choices enough
to stay away from the rough and tumble of politics, as most educated Indians
are wont to. He chose it as the means to lead his village, Kuthambakkam
to prosperity. He can spend his life basking in the successes he has wrought
so far in Kuthambakkam. But he has chosen to evangelise village centred
development. He is a family man with longings for his loved ones. But he
lives a solitary life for his cause, Gram Swaraj [--the Autonomous Village].
Most of all, at a time when it is the vogue to belittle Gandhi, he adores
the great man as the one who truly understood India. The career path of
Rangaswamy Elango needs to be widely known. Just fifty more Panchayat leaders
like him across India are enough as nodes from where sensible village development
can radiate in all directions.
Well to do but ill at ease:
Elango was born on Nov 12,1960 in
Kuthambakkam where his family has lived for close to a thousand years at
least. They cherish the association an ancestor of theirs had with the
great reformer philosopher Sri Ramanujar, who was born in Sriperumbudur,
nearby. Despite being Dalit they have not felt alienated from mainstream
Indian thought. Village realities of ghettoised living however, had seemed
inevitable. Elango's family owned some lands and his father was a Government
employee. So they were reasonably well to do, but young Elango grew up
amidst squalor and hopelessness in the Harijan 'colony'. Drunken brawls,
wife beating and wails of women and children were nightly fares in houses
around his. An academically inclined Elango could not quite shut these
out nor ignore the filth and the bogs as he picked his way to his school.
His mind however filed these away.
"At lunch I saw my mates had nothing
to eat," he recalls. "They would gulp glasses of water and pretend they
were alright. I always shared my lunch box. But, there was never enough
not did it seem a solution." His mind filed that away too. Walking back
from school on hot days, through upper caste streets he found people were
willing give him water but not to his mates. Was it because they knew he
came from a sober family, was well washed and studious? His mind did some
sums with this and the filed information and came to a rough conclusion
at an early age. Later as he grew up, he redid those sums and realised
what it added up to: there can be no individual happiness if there is misery
all around.
Elango was a good student and so
entered the A C College of Technology, Chennai to study Chemical Engineering.
He tried staying in the hostel for a few months. But was disturbed by thoughts
of running away from his reality. He began to commute the 40 km from his
village by changing many buses each way. In the village he teamed up with
his old mates to try and put some hope and dignity in their lives. They
formed youth clubs, stuck wall posters with reformist messages, organised
study groups, gave special tuitions and tried a number of other heart-achingly
inadequate activities. Elango seems to have intuitively understood the
importance of human development but was lost for a platform.
Flying on reluctant wings:
The first technical graduate from
Kuthambakkam was grabbed from the campus in 1982 by Oil India and posted
in an exploration site in Orissa. For most young men in India to be on
such a promising career belt is dream come true but Elango found himself
tethered to his village. A brief holiday revealed his youth club members
were drifting away. He quit his job and joined the Council of Scientific
and Industrial Research [CSIR] in Chennai. Commutes to his village began
again. His youth club revived.
In a while Elango was married to
a young lady who was a chemistry graduate. Two baby girls arrived in quick
succession. By then Elango had visualised a long term road map. He and
Sumathy had many conversations and agreed on a plan. They would make a
home in Chennai, he would take care of the children and she would do her
Masters in chemistry. Then she would find a job and provide for the family
and he would return full time to the village. He speaks feelingly of her:
"I can't quite estimate her contribution in whatever I have done. Until
I began getting some money from an Ashoka Fellowship in 2002, she has been
the bread winner. She has supported the family for over a decade without
a murmur and raised our two girls."
In 1994, Sumathy got a job in the
Oil and Natural Gas Commission [ONGC] and Elango promptly quit his job.
Two years earlier there had been caste riots in the village. Kuthambakkam
is a Dalit majority village. There had been upper caste taunts and mob
fury in response. Vanniars fled the village. After about a week when they
did not return, Elango began to make many trips seeking the scattered Vanniars
and persuading them to return. He was but a young man in his early thirties.
Village Republics :
Not many Indians are sufficiently
aware of the impact of the 73rd Constitutional Amendment spear-headed by
Rajiv Gandhi in 1993. It sought to create totally self governing villages
with far reaching powers. A plenary of village people [Gram Sabha] was
mandated to meet every quarter and elections to the office of Panchayat
President [Sarpanch] was mandated for every five years. The intention was
to create village level Republics. Tamil Nadu ratified it in 1994 and elections
were announced soon after.
Elango threw his hat in and won.
But despite his long term commitment to the village and work with harmonising
it, he found the margin of victory disappointing. But he understood the
powers at his disposal. He rolled up his sleeves. His objectives were two:
create jobs and bring in hope.
He did not know his Gandhi formally,
but seemed in accord. He would build drains in the poorer ghettos and show
them the difference. At the outskirts of the village was a factory that
polished granite slabs. It had a huge disposal problem with its random
off cuts. It was willing to pay for it to be carried away. Engineer,President
Elango was delighted. He employed local labour, and built a drain which
had smooth granite mosaic walls. The 'colony' drained fast down the slick
2 km long works. Of the budgeted Rs.15 Lakhs for this project Elango had
spent just Rs. 4L, half of which went in wages for local folks. But, the
specification was to build the drain with rubble stones from a nearby hill.
He had violated 'prescribed norms'. In other words, he had deprived transporters
their ferrying opportunity and contractors their civil works one. Vested
interests worked overtime. Elango was suspended from office under Section
205 of the Tamil Nadu Panchayat Act [TNPA].
He was devastated. He thought he
had made a novel environmental, economic and development statement -- and
he had been thrown out and humiliated for his pains. Why had he not heeded
those that had said politics was a cess-pool? Why had he abandoned a promising
career? What had he to show for Sumathy's support? He went into a deep
depression. He thought of quitting.
The Gandhi moment:
Sumathy left him alone for a few
days and then made one of her rare visits to Kuthambakkam. She held him
and asked him if that was the end of his passions? 'Are you going to give
up because of this one set back?'. She had brought a book for him, 'Satthia
Sodhanai', a Tamil version of Gandhi's 'My Experiments with Truth'. She
left him alone again.
Elango says though he had heard
of the book he had not read it. His predicament gave it an immediacy as
he read it now. It seemed written for him. He understood the mind of a
dogged man who had faced greater odds. The book taught him grit. Within
a few days he was in Chennai calmly telling the Secretary to the Government:
"No, I will not sue you but sit in protest until you convene a plenary
session of my village. Let your charges be read out, my defence heard and
the villagers decide my fate." He contacted the press. On Jan 10, 1999,
1300 people gathered and Elango defended himself. Before the sun set on
the day long trial, the Government sent in an order revoking the suspension.
The entire village had rallied behind him. "I understood Gandhi that day,"
he says. "First be truthful, then be fearless."
There has been no looking back since
then. Elango was re-elected with a huge majority at the end of five years.
The graft mafia ran away. Officials backed his approach of cutting out
contractors and employing locals instead. As he created jobs, liquor menace
receded. He had always paid above the market average, currently Rs.70 per
day; and most revolutionarily, precisely the same for women.
He mastered the TNPA and availed
of every scheme for the village. "There are enough well meaning schemes
announced by the Government. It is up to the local leadership to go and
get them," he says. He has been an efficient conduit between his people
and available opportunities.
One of the housing concepts that
the Tamil Nadu Government promoted was Samathuvapurams [Harmony Estates].
The idea was to make different castes and religions to live together in
a campus of about 50 dwellings each. Over 150 came up all over the State.
Most were shoddily built mockeries left to fast buck contractors in cahoots
with local leadership. Elango demanded --and got-- a say in the design
and execution. He got HUDCO to design a soulful campus. Local soil was
pressed by people into mud blocks to build the houses. The community hall
was designed to be an activity centre where now vocational courses and
village businesses are run. The money set aside for that darling of the
Government --a commemorative arch-- was used to build a meeting place.
Of the Rs.88 Lakhs that the project cost, over a fourth was spent on wages
for villagers. More was saved by using local materials. Villagers assimilated
many cost effective building technologies. Houses in this Samathuvapuram
are about 40% larger and are better designed.
So it is with all activities in
Kuthambakkam. Extensive water management works, processing of agricultural
produce, collective businesses run by women, all emphasise local involvement.
Economics for village clusters:
This approach recurs in Elango's
economic thinking which is deeply influenced by J C Kumarappa. "If you
bring in the contractors you are exporting jobs," he says. He got a door-
to-door survey done in the village and found the village consumes Rs.60
Lakhs worth of goods and services per month. Elango discovered to his astonishment,
that nearly Rs 50 L of that can be produced at the village level. Since
then, he has been evolving an economic theory of village clusters. In simple
terms about seven or eight villages form a free trade zone. They identify
and produce goods and services without overlap. They consume each other's
produce. And the money stays back and gets invested in human development.
Ever the Gandhian and a Kumarappa acolyte, he challenges the theory of
competition as being good at all levels. For villages it is co-operation
that holds the key. Extreme Competition Theorists are heartless. 'People
have to be able to begin again," says Elango. "especially if they are able
to see where things went wrong the first time."
So he is building these village
federations now. He has an appropriate technology development centre in
the village. Over 21 schemes are ready. A few weeks ago, he made a presentation
to 40 Panchayat leaders who are likely to form 3 federations. The District
Collector attended. They are talking of budgets of Rs. 5 and 6 crores per
cluster.
Elango is optimistic for India.
What does he think of the recent attempts to nibble away Panchayat's powers?
"Look, the system will come up with the necessary resistance," he says.
"In Tamil Nadu alone I have personally identified 1000 honest, successful
Presidents. We have begun to network and stay connected. This number will
only increase. I am sure similar is the case in other States. I am starting
a Panchayat Academy to teach the Presidents their powers and villages'
entitlement. All these will rouse people's expectations. There is an emerging
force not visible to the media and most people. It is at work changing
India from below. This force cannot be stemmed."
It is 8 am. People are astir all
over Kuthambakkam. They are all at some task. The streets are clean, the
fields green and strangely in these times of drought, ducks are cavorting
in its several ponds. Young men on swift motorbikes are racing out of the
village on errands, with goods, to jobs. Signs of prosperity in village
India? You are counting the bikes as they zing past, one, two... ten.
Keep counting --and wish: "Won't
a few have Elango on their minds?"
