What’s the record for how many people can fit on a moto rick shaw?‘ was the opening question today as we motored along Chennai’s congested streets, narrowly avoiding collision with an assortment of vehicles… ‘5 isn’t it?’…. no…… ‘9!.... look behind you …..’ Lance exclaimed with a bemused expression, and nobody even flinched or considered this abnormal. It was only day 2 and we were all becoming accustomed to the colourful chaos that constitutes India’s roads.
A 90 minute journey took us out of Chennai to the rural district of Thiruvallur, a pleasant change from the humidity of the city… the air was becoming drier but the heat was no lense intense. The landscapes opened up to paddy fields and cows became more evident in the fields and streets. The gigantic 10 ft billboards were still a prominent feature, advertising anything and everything from shaving foam to window cleaner. Rajni Kant’s ridiculously cheesy grin adorns every street corner - a famous indian film star (by all accounts) who brings the city to a standstill whenever he’s in town to pay hommage to his adoring fans….( the attraction to us was far from evident, as he bore a close resemblence to Julio Iglesias, and that’s being generous J….)
We were nearly there…passing a few more photo opportunities en route – a ‘speak EEZY’ english teaching centre and a woman passed out in front of a ‘wine shop’ …(!) A large Coca Cola factory loomed in the distance…but less said about that the better in a country with scarce water resources….
We knew we were near our destination when we started seeing the picturesque red terracotta tiles on the roofs of the houses - a defining element of Kuthambakkam – a village in the Thiruvallur District of Tamil Nadu. What makes this village remarkable is that it is entirely self governed by a local management group known as a ‘Panchayat’ made up of local villagers and its visionary ex-President Rangaswamy ‘Elango’, the mastermind of this pioneering form of democratic self governance . Motivated by the lack of community cohesion and endemic alcoholism among men in the surrounding rural areas and its disasterous effect on the social and economic situation in the area, he overcame the odds by educating himself and getting a University degree in engineering, despite having been born into the lowest Indian caste (‘Dalit’). As a child he had grown up witnessing the women in his family repeatedly beaten by drunken husbands, and had felt compelled to do something about it. After completing his degree he then returned to the village to address the plethora of problems affecting it. But where on earth to start?
In 1996 Elango was elected President of the panchayat of Kuthambakan despite 70% of the upper castes voting against him (believing him to be anti-upper caste). A substantial achievement of Kuthambakkam has been to establish equal opportunities among all castes in the village. From a situation in the past where all castes were segregated – from housing to schools, where even teachers would refuse to touch the children from the Dalit ‘untouchable’ caste, to a situation where everyone lived side by side and in relative harmony and equality. In 2001, 100 ‘twin’ houses were designed and constructed for Dalits to live next door to Brahmans to promote tolerance and understanding whilst still respecting individual customs and indentity. With the help of government funding and grants from the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation, new roads were built, new schools erected, and new houses constructed using sturdier building materials like brick instead of mud that was prone to being washed away in a heavy rainstorms or floods.
Elango was not happy just to sit back and receive handouts from the government though, he wanted to find a solution to achieving sustainable employment opportunities for the villagers. The answer was relatively simple – keep as much of the trade and production processes of the local village enterprises in-house. Spend what you earn where you earn – in the village. ‘We use the Ghandi model of economics’ Elango kept re-iterating, clearly the role model that had spurred him on to create a model village of sutainability.
Elango is now well on the way to forming a network of panchayats in the neighbouring district all exchanging best practice and trading goods and services. His vision is to see 200 panchayat ‘academies’ set up and running, to share good practices with local village leaders and offer skills sharing and learning centres to facilitate the replication of the panchayat village model.
We walked around the village and into some of the workshops where villagers were making spare parts for kerosene lamps. We couldn’t help noticing that they were using machinery that had been used in the UK once upon a time before industrialisation and mass machine mechanisation. In another room women were weaving hammocks, not seeming to mind having their privacy invaded by a hord of foreigners all pointing cameras in their faces… we received smiles and friendly waves wherever we went… not least from the children at the local village school which was the highlight of the day. We were the centre of attention, and felt like visiting celebrities, with children jumping around excitedly asking to be photographed and laughing in delight to see their images shown back to them on the screen of our digital cameras.
We ate lunch in the village hall, itself designed to inspire visitors, with open walls and visible sky all around creating a feeling of openness to reflect the ethos of panchayat village culture.
As local custom dictated we all ate with our hands, some mastering the technique better than others, ‘remember don’t use your left hand’ could be heard whispered around the room…. Left hand in many cultures in the developing world is used to clean certain parts of the anatomy after bodily evacuation…..so an important detail to adhere to!
Even in a panchayat we still observed incredulous scenes of women carrying heavy bricks on their heads in the burning hot sun… but what probably impressed us the most was the transparency of how money is spent when we were shown the entire cash income and expenditure figures written up for all to see on the wall in the panchayat office. If only many Western insitutions could be so open.
Before going home we had a chance to meet the newly elected President, a young girl only around 26 yrs old, somewhat overshadowed by Elango but with a look of silent determination of the challenges ahead.
We took away a multitude of impressions from the day, each able to take something different ……
But hang on…… who’s that in the group that’s keeping us waiting again ……? J
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