An important exercise in rural development management is the periodical visit of top bosses to project sites. Convoys of SUVs form part of the entourage that zooms through a crowd of villagers awed by the grand peacockery.
No wonder the older and more intelligent villagers distrust all these urbanised gentries who jeep themselves into the village, complete with their pageantry, exhorting the local population to produce fewer babies and more food for the benefit of their urban brethren. There is no mention of the exploitative prices for their product that has been the key cause of their impoverishment. They deliver these messages to the villages, and hastily jeep their way back to their urban environment. Targets, commands, strategies, missives, exhortations and threats come from above. From the periphery and bottom comes a weaker flow of filtered information which sends confusing signals and often misleads. Some- times it is honeyed: achievement numbers are made juicy through inflation to make them sound musical. In meetings, subordinates are upbraided, cajoled and then are bombarded by brickbats from bosses at headquarters.
The bosses are interested only in selective, and that too positive feedback. Critical feedback is abhorred and can be highly irritating for them. In most cases a few prominent villagers are cultivated; they have already been trained to speak parroted sentences that are highly palatable to visitors. Every visit of a senior boss to a development site is a well-rehearsed affair.
The visitor, usually a top honcho, sets out late, delayed by last-minute business, by subordinates or superiors anxious for decisions, by breakfast delayed at the wife’s eagerness to pack some sandwiches for the husband lest he has to take a nibble of the unhygienic outside food. There could be a last-minute cable or call from an upcountry colleague. Delays might come from mechanical or administrative problems with vehicles, or urban traffic jams. Even if the way is not lost, there is enough fuel and there are no breakdowns, the programme usually still slips behind schedule. The visitor is ensconced in the luxury of the SUV, seeking a temporary escape from the rigours of an imposed rural visit through music on headphones.
As the entourage arrives, accompanied with a haversack of sandwiches and soda water bottles, there is a gala welcome, a tribal dance by girls, women in traditional attire daubing vermillion on the foreheads of the temporary gods, local notables (headmen, chairmen of village committees, village accountants, progressive farmers) waiting obsequiously for a darshan (view) of the dignitaries.
The poor, whatever may be their private feelings, have been told that they should give their children an early bath and dress them in their best clothes. The school teachers have been helping the girls rehearse the welcome dance for the dignitary. All are mouthing slogans eulogizing the visitor as a great saviour.
Buntings have been hung; the villagers are kept awake overnight, cleaning the entire village. Girls get up early to deck their front yards with colourful rangoli (ornate patterns drawn with coloured chalk powder).
Public relations units are set up in the villages on such public occasions. When visitors come, a fluent guide follows a rehearsed route and a rehearsed routine. There is a repeated sequence of events during every visitor’s inspection; the participants are also repeating characters and only the visiting official is different. They have already parroted the tutor’s responses to the dignitary’s questions. Since it is a first-time affair for every visitor it leaves him spell-bound. The villagers don’t gain anything, but the event provides a windfall for the local officials.
A day before the visit, the local hosts have been provided with an assortment of high-end branded accessories: Fancy bed sheets, towels, toiletries and more. A complete set of Italian crockery in the car of the hostess precedes the visitor’s arrival. They will manage the high tea. The entire consignment of assorted biscuits and choicest dry fruits has been carted overnight. There are a wide variety of welcome drinks such as coconut milk, aerated drinks, coffee, tea or milk; at least one should exactly fit the visitor’s tastes. As the dignitary’s car zooms in, the local block officials or the corporate PR men chase the car with impeccable etiquette to usher the visitor into a new world. The traditional turban is strung around the dignitary’s head along with garlands. Speeches are made. School children sing or clap. Photographs are taken. Buildings, machines, construction works, new crops, exotic animals, the clinic, the school, the new road – all are inspected and commended with gleeful smiles. Some special groups such as the progressive farmers or the women’s collectives ~ members dressed in their best clothes ~ are paraded and spoken to. There’s a display of cottage cheese manufacturing by a girl entrepreneur, and a knitting salon run by local girls. Additionally, traditional crafts of local tribal artisans are put on display. The guest tastes a few sweets. An elderly woman gets a whole pack nicely wrapped and passes it on to the driver to be delivered to the dignitary on reaching his home base.
As the day wears on, the visitor becomes less inquisitive, asks fewer questions and is finally glad, exhausted and bemused, to retire to the rest house, the host official’s residence, or back to an urban home or hotel. Before returning, he asks his deputy to write remarks in the Visitors’ Book using the most fulsome adjectives and mechanically signs it off. Most of the time, the officers are engrossed in monitoring their department at headquarters through their mobile phones. They have hardly any time or attention span for local villagers.
Villagers suggest they have prepared a special meal for the dignitary, putting their culinary skills to the best use. They are politely told that the dignitary has a restricted diet and is meticulous about it. A few enterprising and enthusiastic villagers offer packs of custard apples and exotic varieties of vegetables which are mechanically directed to the driver for safekeeping.
After the dignitary’s departure, the village swiftly returns to normal, no longer wearing its special face. These people have no time for piffling sentimentality when there is living to be done. When the dignitaries leave, the usual comments are: “They come, and they sign the book, and they go.” “They only talk to the buildings.” “We have to crane our necks in the caustic heat just to see them, forget about talking with them.” They slouch in grimy plastic chairs under a nearby tree or else they plonk themselves down where they can and start beavering away.”
While tourism and branding may be one part of the learning agenda, it is not objectionable if it is a win-win strategy for both the rural population and the development industry. Poverty is now a trillion-dollar industry. The poor wait with blank stares as entourages come and go leaving them in wonder what this whole circus is all about. This is a painful reality whose prognosis lies elsewhere.
(To Be Concluded)
(The writer is an author, researcher and development professional. He can be reached at moinqazi123@gmail.com)