Remembering the forgotten

When I came to Gujarat in 1968, in a good agricultural year, groundnut production could be 44 lakh tonnes and in a bad year it would be 16 lakh tonnes. It is almost a half century away and the figures are the same. Some things don’t change. We have done well, but only the charlatan would say thatwe have had all-round development. In 1972, the state’s minister for civil supplies, a socialist and a great trade unionist, asked me to look into making the civil supplies system of Gujarat more efficient in grain and groundnut oil. Being young, I had grandiose dreams of solving all problems.

I was to learn. A ruling party MLA, who was also a good trader, disabused me of any pretensions of grandeur. He told me that even his agents never knew whether on the net he was selling or buying, since only he knew how he was playing the market, but ministers announce their intention well in advance to the press and the exchequer is fleeced by good traders. Respect for the market remained with me since.

Kutch is one of our larger cotton growing districts and also produces groundnut. When the rains fail, they do badly — as they have this year. In the irrigated areas they save whatever they can. But the Kutchi is a hardy lot. Even last year after the earthquake, he didn’t give up.

Whatever remained of the crop was sold in makeshift markets and in markets outside the district. This year the rains haven’t come again. Everything we know is tried in the district, but not to the maximum extent possible. They have check dams, newer seeds, percolation tanks, saline resistant seeds.

Yet, the big picture has not changed. The dams still have to be repaired after the earthquake as the design people and the finance men sort out the details. Therefore, in the irrigated areas, water is generally available below 300 feet. Fortunately, the electricity has been restored, and they are happy with the GEB and Powergrid for this, even though supplies are erratic.

Kutch is breathtakingly beautiful. There is a stark, enchanting landscape here that many ‘difficult’ areas have. It is the same in the cold desert in Mongolia or in the northern part of Finland. It seems as if it is another world and the dream may just disappear. Kutchi is Gujarati, liberally interspersed with other dialects.

The words ‘chaddh’ (leave it) and ‘ghin’ (take), mean the same thing here as they do in the Salt Range in western Punjab, where I was born. A quarter of the population is Mussalman and the district will not tolerate violence. The farmer here is a cowherd. He is the descendant of Krishna, a strict vegetarian, and the Bharwad women put an image of the eternal young hero and dance around it.

When it doesn’t rain in spite of the great Saurashtra breeds, the Gir and the Kankrej, he is in trouble. Then the great migrations start. In the years with water they live off the commons — the gaucher land. It is well known that the Bharwads will not live on settled lands. In the good years, they sell pedhas and ghee. Their women store up on silver.

In the bad years they go to ‘Gujarat’, in other words they cross the Bhal and go to Ahmedabad, Bharuch or more south for water, fodder. This year they started doing this towards the end of August. We don’t have any models to help them. We must learn to deal with the forest dweller, the cattle rearer, the fisherfolk and the migrant. Some day we will walk with them. Until then it doesn’t change.

The Narmada waters are going to come and it will make a difference. Drinking water will be available and I hope we will spread it the way it was originally planned. Maybe we will entice the Bharwad into growing fodder? But a lot of water is not going to be available for long. MP has lost its hydel power to Chattisgarh and is pushing Indira Sagar and the Narmada Project for it gets almost two thirds of the power. Then only limited water will be available. We should not make promises we cannot keep but we must also keep the promises originally made.

The main canal should be complete and the Kutch Branch, for it has been demonstrated that those who said that water would not flow on it for miles, were wrong. The powers-that-be have graciously invited me to Kevadia and the dam site and in good time I will go. But the greatest debt the region has is to its engineers, who in spite of difficulties, kept their tryst with destiny. The greatest tribute to I.C. Patel who lost his life in building the canals and D.T. Buch who in spite of terminal cancer went on planning them, is to send the water to Kutch and Rajasthan. Maybe then things will really change.