I-SLATE PAPER

“The soul of the India lives in its villages” stated M.K.Gandhi at the beginning of

the 20th century. According to 2011 census,72.2% of Indians live in villages 638,000

villages.

The village Mohammad Hussain Palli is a dusty village in the chronically drought-

prone and backward Khilla Ghanpur mandal of Mahbubnagar District in Andhra Pradesh.

The census details of 2011 indicates that the total population of the village is 2080.

Literacy rate of the village is 36% against the states literacy rate of 61.11%. The female

literacy rate in the village is only 29.8% which is even more distressing.

The climate of the village is generally hot. Most of the Mahabubnagar district is

drought prone and gets substantially low rain fall compared to many other districts and

Khilla Ghanpur mandal of the district under which the village falls, receives scanty

rainfall and the South-West monsoon is erratic. Normal rainfall of the district is

604mm.Ground water level in the village is alarmingly depleting and the Central Ground

Water Board declared it as critical area.

Agriculture is clearly the mainstay of livelihoods among the local population. The

village is essentially poorly irrigated, semi arid area with red, black cottony soils and

chlka or mixed soils with a low water retention capacity. Irrigation is rainfall dependent,

supported by tube wells irrigating very less cultivated land. The main crops grown in the

village are paddy, maize, groundnut and cotton. Low irrigation in the village limits

commercial agriculture even to those with good soil and water supply. Most of the

villagers practice agriculture in the kharif season and migrate for their livelihood in the

slack season. Depleting rainfall and ground water levels & unfavorable seasonal changes

enforced most of the villagers out of agriculture. Agriculture in this region is typically

characterized by intermittent spells of drought throwing up a peculiar situation. Out of the

total 570 hectares geographical area of the village, net sown area of 154 hectares shows

the evidence of the present agricultural conditions of the village.

The farmers who have water source also can not utilize it due to low voltage and

irregular power supply. Because of this problem, they will have to irrigate their land in

the late nights when the power supply & sufficient voltage is there facing a life

threatening situations everyday.

Most families in the village have marginal holdings on which they grew paddy,

groundnut, & cotton in the hope of quick and high returns. The crops withered owing to a

combination of factors - spurious seeds, poor pesticides and lack of water for irrigation -

leaving the owners deep in debt.

For many farmers, impossibly high debts are another consequence of drought.

Their dependence on costly inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides has grown in recent

years, and farmers often borrow money to pay for them. A drought-stricken crop may

make it impossible for a farmer to repay these loans. The situation is made particularly

difficult for rural poor who do not have access to institutional sources of credit. They are

forced to attain money from private moneylenders who demand high interest rates.

The drying up of water sources, both for drinking and agriculture, has led to crop

losses, loss of jobs, increasing levels of indebtedness, distress sale of cattle and other

assets, increase in out-migration, a sharp drop in purchasing power, which the recent hike

in prices has added to, and a growing population of the undernourished and the hungry.

The breadwinners from amongst these sections are the first to leave in search of food,

water and sustenance elsewhere.

The large numbers of migrants are forced to leave the rural life behind and leave a

vast amount of cultivatable land unutilised. Out of the total 570 hectares geographical

area of the village, the presence of 240 hectares ‘current fallow’ and 203 hectares ‘fallow

lands other than current fallows’ shows the severity of the situation. These lands may

suffer desertification if they are not cultivated for a prolonged period of time.

As a results the agricultural lands are left without cultivation for various reasons,

lands are occupied by Prosopis juliflora, a thorny shrub which is considered a noxious

invader, its aggressive growth leads to a monoculture, denying native plants water and

sunlight, while denying its nutrients with the animals that eat its pods or its leaves. Its

roots were found growing at a depth of 53.3 meters (nearly 175 feet). The government is

looking for ways to commercialize the tree's wood, but pastoralists who call it the "Devil

Tree" insist that P. juliflora be eradicated.

Any year, the poorest and the driest district of Mahabubnagar see the exodus of

some lakhs of laborers, well-known throughout India for their hard work, and the village

Mohammad Hussain Palli is not an exclusive. Very poor households have limited labour

resources, and a low capacity to undertake agricultural and other casual work. Better

known as "Palamur labour”, they have worked in every major project construction in

India and yet they have remained half-fed, half-clothed, forced to live the life of nomads,

going back to their native village not only to return to the old people they had left behind

but to their soil to which they belong; A soil that remains dry most of the year, which

does not provide them sustenance and yet to which they return year after year, season

after agricultural season, with hope.

Migration is a pattern of life for people of Mahabubnagar district as well as the

village, who are popularly known as Palamur labour. Palamur laborers have a reputation

for the most physically arduous work, and are believed to be docile and compliant, an

even greater virtue as far as labour contractors are concerned. The people’s adaptive and

coping strategies have become a way of life. Seasonal migration for alternative livelihood

opportunities has become a tradition for most of the people.

High supply of labour is also causing huge fall in wages in nearby towns and

cities. With little or no skills, there is very little chance that they can diversify their

income from different sources, thus depend on manual labour. The labour contractor has

a grip if there is an outstanding loan.  The debts incurred by migrant family members

restrict their bargaining abilities in seeking either a contract or escape.  Fixing workers

into contract labour overtime restricts their access to information on labour markets

elsewhere, further weakening their bargaining abilities.  There is a difference in the

wages given to a man and a woman. The rate of exploitation, direct and indirect, is high

since intermediaries pay a wage much lower than urban market wages and extract

considerable unpaid overtime and child labour. Migrant laborers are scattered and often

travelling. 

The literacy level of the village people is very low and most of the children are

dropped out of the education owing to their poor economic conditions resulting in low

levels of education that can’t be utilized for making their lives. In the focused group

discussions with the villagers, they revealed that education of the children is not useful to

any get jobs and children who are sent to school have lost touch with the labour and other

physical work which is the only mode of livelihood in the present drought conditions, and

they can’t choose that work due to lack of experience from the childhood. Present

education at rural areas is failing to guide youth towards the right direction that leads to

the settlement of the life.

Drop outs rate is even more in the case of girls. Most of the girls do work as child

labour or stay at home to manage the younger children apart from doing the household

work. Villagers poor economic conditions are also a constraint to girls education. Child

marriages are still practiced, may be for two reasons-poor economic conditions and

security of the girl child left in the village.

Most people in the village are agricultural & construction laborers apart from the

observed traditional professions common to a village culture like goat herding, liquor

brewing etc. Most of the population of the village consists of marginalized sections-

backward classes and scheduled castes (2011voter list indicates that there are 747 BC,

311 SC & 128OC Population in the village which is exclusive of children). Major castes

of the village include Mushti,Golla, Kurva, Uppari, Madiga,Mala and Reddy. Social

hierarchy is maintained and marginalized people still undergo discrimination, they live in

the out skirts of the village. Self-regulated submissive behavior is embedded in the caste

system, where workers of lower castes do not eat food in front of an upper caste person

may hesitate to touch them, keep a distance from them, do not enter their home/hut or

their cooking area, and so on.  Caste based norms are carried on and implemented

stringently-for eg. Inter caste marriages are not accepted, people who did it are exiled and

fined.

Access:

Village has a very narrow and kucha road which connects the village to the

neighboring villages and is water logged especially in the rainy season. It causes a lot of

inconvenience to vehicles and pedestrians alike.The village is not connected to any

national highway, state highway, major district road or other districts roads. The picture

of the village roads clearly indicates the lack of political will about the betterment of the

village.

Electricity:

Though the electricity facility is found to be present in the village, the access to its

usage is very limited to a few hours a day which affects the livelihood drastically. It is

also a major reason for the failure of ICT introduction to the schools particularly in the

rural areas. This is the evidence for unutilized resources in the education sector.

Transportation:

There is no public transport system in the village. Private vehicles like autos do

operate, but the frequency is few and far between. This is the only source of public

transportation affecting villagers’ access to their needs directly.

Network:

People in the village are well connected with the mobile phones but only one or

two networks are accessible in the village. There is one PCO (Public Call Office) in the

village for the public use.

Information:

There is a wide spread access to dish T.V, but its usability by the villagers,

especially marginalized sections in the quest of knowledge and awareness is

questionable.

Communication:

There is no post office in the village and the pin code is also not allotted to the

village. Landline telephone and Internet facilities are not provided to the village.

Public Water Sources:

The village has just one hand pump, the only source of water for drinking,

washing and for the cattle. Drinking water to the village is provided by the tube well but

all of them are not functioning during the summer season.

Medical Facilities:

The health and medical facilities are negligible. There is no primary health center

or a qualified physician in the village as a result people in the village have to visit the

neighboring village PHC for their needs. ANM visits the village occasionally. Village

doesn’t have a medical shop for their immediate needs. Health Management & Research

Institute (104) van visits the village once in a month which is the only source of

medicines to the villagers.

Sanitation:

The area is not covered under Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC),which is a

comprehensive programme to ensure sanitation facilities in rural areas with broader goal

to eradicate the practice of open defecation,as a result the village doesn’t have

community toilet complex. Obviously there are no solid & liquid management systems in

the village.

School in the Village:

The school in village has its own building with 5 rooms in the ground floor and 2

rooms in the first floor. The school is wired but the electricity supply to the village itself

is irregular, as a result children in the school can hardly make use of computers. It has a

compound wall but there is no play ground to the children. There are 3 toilets in the

school but without water connection. Children in the school do not have access to them.

There are 7 teachers and around 200 students in the school. Though the government pays

the teacher to develop teaching learning material of each and every lesson to facilitate

active learning, nothing of that sort is visible in this school.

Children in the school are mainly hailing from the families with low socio

economic conditions, yet very energetic, curious and highly motivated. They are very

interactive in nature and awareness of their socio economic conditions make them even

more perceptive to issues and they develop highly sensitive interpersonal skills.

Children are very hard working irrespective of gender, they complete chores in

their homes and then come to schools, go back and complete another set of chores. Most

of the children in the school stay with their grand parents or even alone with siblings as

their parents are migrated in search of livelihood. Often they come with an empty

stomach because old people can not make food so early for them.

Some children go for wage labour during vacations yet retain the child like

innocence. They are entitled to play in the school, the school element is a space for them,

letting them to be children where they can be themselves and they can be of their age.

Even it is a safe zone for a girl child and a place for all children to wonder and wander.

Teachers are concerned about children; there is an intimacy between them, almost

a reminiscent of traditional teaching systems in India. This kind of connection is lost in

the urban areas. The children help their parents who have migrated at their work place

whenever they go there. Many children in the village are approached by adults who can

not read and write to help them calculate when there is a necessity.