Why Sonwai is not growing

no one to blame. This is possible only in my great country. Will the great crusader of panchayats, Mani Shankar Aiyar, please note?

Soya came to Sonwai more than two decades ago. In the early days it was the “black” variety, which gave a low price. Yield was low, less than five quintals from a hectare. Later, the “white” variety came. This saga and the thousands of crores of wealth it created on land formerly fallow or used for low yielding cereals is described by R.S. Paroda, who followed B. Sivaraman in pushing the soya revolution in kharif in MP and elsewhere. Those who have irrigation could grow ten quintals plus; those without had to be satisfied with less yield. There has been hardly any change in that. When the soya price given by the trader is above Rs 1000 a quintal, they are happy. In recent years it went down to around Rs 800-900, although this year again prices had revived.

The other problem is water. Water levels are going down, even though the village and its 700 acres plus of farm land are in the valley and not on an elevation. Water is now available below 600 feet. The discharge from the tube wells is going down. What will we do with free electricity when there is no water, they ask.

In the years of drought, even drinking water is a problem. It comes from the Narmada many kilometers away. Pilgrims to Onkareshwar and Maheshwar go from these areas. A proposal for a small dam on the Gambhir, which flows nearby has been lying with the authorities. They are skeptical if it will see the light of day.

Most families have cattle and milk as a source of income. The poorer ones have one or two, many four to five, and some as many as eight to ten. Milk is an increasing source of income. A trader takes it to Indore. In the years of drought and low prices they increasingly rely on their animals. But all that happened years ago. What now?

The difficulty in a large swathe of rural India is that no one is covering the last mile to give them a concrete road map for growth. Rural India is still so poor that it can’t survive without growth. The smooth talk of globalisation, diversification and more income doesn’t cut much ice because they don’t see a real option. Falling profitability, resource constraints, lack of public investment are a real issue here and not just buzzwords of the economist.

Now that the mistakes of the ’90s are being openly accepted at home and abroad, one wishes the authorities godspeed in developing a practical design of the long haul back. Digvijay Singh had once briefed me on villages linked up with an export house. I think of all the possibilities of making money from tree crops in this land and water regime. The Sonwais are waiting to be led into the promised land.

Before I end, here was the flip side. I hesitantly ask Ajmal Patel on the communal divide. He is forthright. That is not Sonwai. He points to a farm house. That neighbour belongs to another religion. He was seriously ill. We all contributed thousands of rupees to take him to the hospital in Indore and he is now recovered. Sonwai is a community and it will overcome.