THE DISLODGED ROOTS

Yet another day, me and my friend from the Garhwal hills were engaged in a friendly discussion on culture and traditions over a cup of tea in my office. The issue of youth’s disenchantment of agriculture cropped up. With raised eyebrows he revealed that young girls looking for prospectful grooms in his village put forth a few pre-conditions for marriage – the groom shouldn’t be a farmer and he shouldn’t have livestock in his house! Appalled again, I queried, but why? “Ah! Its simple….” he exclaimed, “the girls are no more interested in the primitive kind of living with crop fields and animals! They are advanced.” It seems they are more inclined towards spending much of their time and money on smart phones and a variety of apps that come with it. He continued, “the generation has changed man, girls and boys are educated now! Where are you?” I hope the generation has changed for good. I also hope education does some good to the changed generation.

“You can’t expect me to graze cattle after getting a Post Graduate degree……” asserted my friend during a casual discussion. Her thought is not only her own but a reflection of similar thoughts of the young, educated and modern Indian breed. Well, I had other thoughts…..what’s wrong in a post graduate person grazing, or to put it right, raising cattle and practicing agriculture? It was worth an argument and I wouldn’t give up. She once again clarified her locus standi “There’s nothing wrong in doing agriculture, but if I had to do agriculture (like my parents and grandparents) why the hell should I have been educated!” Does it make any sense now? No, not for me at least! 

Some time ago, while on a field inspection in the hills of Sirmour in Himachal Pradesh, I came across a boy in his twenties who requested me to get him a job somewhere in the town. “Do you have land?” I shot back at him immediately. “Yes Sir” came the reply. I continued “So, why don’t you cultivate it? There is water, the soil is good and your area grows good cauliflower, radish, and the costly garlic!” To my surprise and dismay, the boy exclaimed “Sir, cultivation is not lucrative anymore and there are no facilities here…..” Upon further inquiry I learnt that he has a long list of desirable facilities that included super markets, cars and bikes, LCD TV with 250 odd channels, friends, ‘good life’ etc (end of thinking capacity, as some people say). I urged him to stay back and help his parents improve the agriculture and at least in marketing whatever they were producing on their piece of land. The sarcastic grin he gave was enough for me to grasp that there is no point in convincing him as he too belonged to a young and modern Indian breed sans higher education. I moved on.

Then there was a lady forest officer with whom I was walking across a village during yet another field visit. “Eeeeksss…..!!” on hearing the teeth grinding exclamation I turned back to see a totally jerked madam standing still with that ‘eeekss’ expression pasted on her broad face. “What

Unchakot village near Satpuli, Uttarakhand

 happened?” I asked. And with that eeks expression still on, she replied “there’s cow dung here.” For a moment I thought to myself that the cows were not trained to use toilet and I humbly asked the lady to just cross over without digging her heeled footwear into the dung. I kept on guessing what was the “eeeks” factor there. Madam, the same cow gives us milk and milk makes our bones strong!! She said, “You know, I hate getting close to animals.” We walked away and after a while had a cup of tea each. The lady was seen enjoying the ginger cardamom fusion in full cream milk tea. Well, she would have believed it came from some factory manufacturing tea through a process of hi-tech artificial chemical synthesis. May be, for her the cow just produces more dung than milk!  

It was in August 2016 when I was accompanying some trainee forest officers on an integrated watershed development field exercise near Satpuli in Pauri Garhwal District of Uttarakhand. During village visits we were shocked to find ‘ghost villages’ around the small and sleepy Satpuli hill town. Nobody lived in those villages and all the houses are vacant and abandoned. The agricultural fields, terraced across the slopes, were abandoned too and left to nature for the process of ecological succession. The local Watershed Development officials on seeing the shock on my face explained that all the families of these villages have migrated to the urban plains like Kotdwar, Haridwar and Dehradun looking for better socio-economic prospects. Eager to know more, I asked “So Sir, what do they do in Kotdwar?” Quick came the reply “Most of them work as labourers at construction sites or as  security men, peons, while some work as waiters and cleaners in dhabas and restaurants, some are still seeking jobs while a very few are educated who either run business there or are in some secure government or private jobs……..” replied the Officer. But why did they abandon their villages and agricultural lands? Is such an exodus justified? I was told that out-migration from the hills is mainly due to lower agricultural productivity, poor alternate income sources, lack of basic facilities, slow pace of development, hardships in the hills and a charm for ‘advanced’ life of the plains. Perplexed as usual, I decided to dig into some more vital statistics regarding this exodus from the hills of Uttarakhand. As per Census 2011 about 1053 villages of Uttarakhand are completely abandoned while about 405 villages have a population of less than 10 persons! Thus almost 8 to 9 per cent of the 16573 villages of Uttarakhand have turned into ghost villages! Back home, I googled out a report crafted by National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Hyderabad which gave some insight into the issue of migration in hills. The report highlights the fact that about 88 per cent of the sample rural households in Pauri Garhwal and Almora districts have at least one person who has migrated to the urban plains looking for employment. Not very surprising, about 86 per cent of the migrants are males leaving behind the women to manage all the household chores and social obligations back in the hill villages. A predominant 51.4 per cent of the migrants belong to the age group of 30 to 49 years while another 35.5. per cent are in the age group of 15 to 29 years. Now this report really blows the lid off the vicious cycle of exodus from the hills to the urban plains which has an impairing effect on agricultural productivity and social structure. The reasons seem to be very complex – unequal development wherein the hills have not received much attention, poor healthcare facilities, ever increasing water scarcity with natural spring steadily disappearing, low income, education facilities not being at par with urban schools, man-wild animal conflicts in the form of crop raiding, lack of proper market channels for agricultural and rural produce and ecosystem degradation. Much more complexities would be involved in finding a solution to the problem. Opportunities in villages have to be generated at any cost! Apart from providing a better socio-economic environment in the rural areas, the young Indian breed needs to be educated that India lives in its villages and that its time to kick out their disenchantment for an agrarian way of life. I hope the most modern schools and colleges equipped with smart class rooms and holistic syllabus will teach our children some values and love for soil and Nature. The roots have already been dislodged. I must stop here!