First field visit experience

It was an awesome day till evening.... Got to see an brilliant example of social institution.. an absolute desi one. We traveled two hours from Bhilwara to reach Kareda to attend a village federation meeting that was held at Khakadadaa village. We reached there around 3 pm.

The moment we reached there, the scene was awesome. Around 50-60 people were sitting on Hathai in a disciplined order, conducting a meeting from 12 o' clock, still keeping the equal enthusiasm and contribution. The member committee included every male member of the villages that formed a federation. It is constituted from within 7 villages and holds on every Teras. We had a quick short intro session, since they were seeing me for the first time. Our field associate briefed them over my current project and writing of grazing land development manual.

It was a regular monthly meeting conducted by the village level institution that had evolved from within the community a decade ago. They mobilized themselves to protect their rights from the encroaches over forest and are keeping this strength even today. Though they have expanded very well the scope of their functioning area by now. The regularity and credibility of this institution has brought it a judicious stature. The assemblies are almost like a village sunwai The decisions taken in the federation meeting are agreed, abiding and undersigned by all the stakeholders. Failing to meet these decisions could lead to the social boycott or penalty. Unlike the Panch system, these meetings are of round table nature.. members irrespective of their age, occupation, village and caste and class can raise and discuss any issue. Nobody is allowed to dominate or overtake other neither individually nor collectively. The final decision has be to taken by the community as a whole.

Though the membership is free; its compulsory too.. the members failing to attend the meeting are liable to pay a penalty of Rs. 100/- per meet. All the documents viz. decisions taken, attendance register, the committees formed (the assembly may ask a panel to be formulated in case of any issue to be dealt in detail) are mentained in a proper fashion. Amazingly the Sarpanch of this village is very young, about 28yrs old and he is given all the due authorities and responsibilities too. The village community collectively share the burden of the labour who spend his/her working hours in village community service. for instance, a day before the meeting, a villager had volunteered to assist a govt. official who were on inspection. Hence the federation took a decision to compensate for his loss of wage for a day by contributing all sorts of donation (monitory or in kind) from every household.

The most important aspect that I found missing was the women's contribution... They do not participate in the meet as they don't sit on the 'Hathai' in public. Hence their absence brings a significant flow in the decision making process.

With all this picture when we were about to start back, a very senior person almost in 70's rushed to us. He stopped us and started talking to me. I was unable to understand what he was trying to tell.... He suddenly bowed down to me while tears in eyes. I stood confused and shocked. And I went stunned when the field associate explained me the plea of the old man. He was saying, "please send us your work.. cutting vegetation is causing a great loss.. to the community, to mother earth. You are doing a great work for us.. please send us your book"

With an assurance that the book would be sent across all the 9166 Panchayats of Rajasthan we left the place. It was a romantic drive back... fresh, cold breeze from the window of the car, hot sweet bhutta in hand and soft music to ear... but I was sitting stunned as I couldn't wash off the old man's face from my eyes.... The sense of his dependency for their personal development, the dependency for the livelihood.. dependency to retain their environment (which unfortunately human received free of cost)....