20 Years of Disha Even as baan workers were being organised as a part of joint strategy of Disha and Vikalp, another organisation active in the area, to struggle for their rights, baan workers in Dandauli Khera village were contemplating of getting organised under a cooperative to solve their immediate livelihood problems by seeking loans and subsidies from the government agencies. Soon there was a standoff between baan workers and the government agencies over the condition of purchase of a rope making machine. The workers maintained that rope produced by the prescribed machine was of inferior quality and not competitive in the market. After prolonged negotiations the government agencies waved off compulsory purchase of machine and the bank released the loan to the cooperative to enable it to purchase nearly 300 quintals of bhabbhar directly from the Uttar Pradesh Forest Corporation. By this time the baan workers’ cooperative was an unregistered body, though it had its own governing body. Although the cooperative was interested in registering itself, its members were afraid of interference of government cooperative officials. Another option available to them was to get registered with the Khadi and Village Industries Commission as their activity was under fibre industry, which fell under the jurisdiction of KVIC. But in this case too they were afraid of official interference. Then there were problems in the market, dominated by big businessmen, whose cartel decided price of rope. The baan workers continued to debate the mode of registration. In 1988, papers for cooperative registration for Dandauli Khera village were processed and submitted to KVIC Saharanpur for the registration of the society. The baan workers cooperative society was to be registered on the same pattern as in other villages of baan workers of Sadholi Qadim block. They felt that registration of cooperative or registration with KVIC would only solve part of their problem as the wider issue was entire policy related to bhabbhar. They concluded that a registered organisation with smaller membership would hardly be in a position to work for policy level changes. And to do so a large body would be desirable, they felt. This led to setting up of a front of baan workers by the name Ghad Kshettra Mazdoor Morcha. GKMM has been in the forefront of a number of struggles to solve problems of the people, who constitute it, many times in collaboration with another front of people, Mahila Mazdoor Evam Laghu Kisan Morcha. While the struggle of baan workers went on, they did not lose sight of what may be called ‘living with the system’. Since the Uttar Pradesh Forest Corporation was selling bhabbhar only in quantities more than 50 quintals at a time, and since storage of bhabbhar in huge quantities was causing problems before the baan workers, a decision was taken to construct godown for them in Dandauli Khera village. This godown was constructed in 1987 over half a bigha of land and measured 46 ft long, 20 ft wide and 15 ft high and was encircled by a boundary wall. The godown had capacity to store as much as 300 quintals of bhabbhar. The godown is operational till date and has proved to be a boon for the baan workers. With the increasing interaction among them, the baan workers realised that education of their children was a sure way of improving lot of their future generation. Since the government primary school in the village was almost defunct, they decided to set up a school of own. This was indeed a major decision. The school became functional in 1986. The next year a pucca room was constructed with the baan workers and Disha bearing half of the cost each. Around five years ago this school was taken over by the government and now a government primary school is being run in place of the school set up by baan workers. Over the years the GKMM has been main bargaining force of baan workers. Their prolonged struggles led to fixation of bhabbhar prices at Rs 170 per quintal. This was revised to Rs 200 a quintal in later years. Finally, three years ago they successfully bargained that baan worker could extract bhabbhar from forest by paying a tax of Rs 13 for a head load of the grass. This really was a great victory for them and solved the problem of raw material at least for the time being. Communication By this time Disha had established a certain level of rapport with the people it chose to work with. A strong feeling was, however, developing within the organisation as to how to reach maximum number of people with minimum of resources. One way to do so was to use folk media communication for conveying development messages to the masses. It engaged Alarippu, a cultural group of Delhi, to impart training to its workers in developing scripts based on local issues in local dialect and staging street plays. At the end of the 15 day training a working communication team was in place. Later training was also organised for staging puppet shows. Ever since the first training, for some years every year training for communication workers were organised. Thereafter, the communication team started holding workshops for developing new scripts and rehearsing plays on its own. Till date the team is conveying development message to the people and providing mobilisation support for various activities throughout the operational area. It has played critical role during people’s struggles. With the passage of time performance of communication team has improved a great deal. The team has won accolades from local people, government agencies and visitors alike. It has bagged awards at the state and national levels.
Vikas Volunteer Vahini The main objective of VVV, a programme of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), was ‘to educate the people for development through credit’. It comprised a body of ordinary men and women, who have successfully put into practice the five principles of development through credit* and have volunteered to disseminate these principles among the rural people. An institution called ‘Friends of Banks’ or Vikas Mangal was established in the villages under the activity. Area or specialist volunteers were chosen form amongst the borrowers themselves. The area volunteers acted as an extension worker for the banking system in the village. The launch of the programme brought top district and bank officials face to face with the villagers.
Tackling Problem of Water-logging Nearly 15 villages close to Disha’s headquarters were affected by water logging and flooding because of their location between two rivers Maskara and Gangro. These two rivers originate in Shiwalik hills and drain into Yamuna river. Because of continued rise of bed, the rivers flooded vast tracts of land during rains making agricultural operations during rains impossible and only winter crops could be raised. Further observation and interaction with the villagers revealed that to overcome problem of water-logging some kutcha drains were dug during the British period. But overtime these drains too became useless because of silting. This provided a clue that if the drains could be restored, the problem could be contained. Disha raised the problem of water-logging at various levels in quest of solution to the problem. It motivated small and marginal farmers to form an action committee to pressurise the relevant government department to solve the problem. Following intense advocacy and lobbying with the state government drains were restored and nearly 16,000 hectares of land reclaimed. As a result life in the villages improved and these are among the most prosperous villages in the area. |
Chairperson’s Message Prologue 1984: The Birth 1985: GKMM Is Born 1986: Mahila Jagriti Samitis 1989: Equal Wages Struggle 1991: Uttarkashi Foray 1992: Training Centre Begins 1993: Anti Liquor Movement 1995: Panchayati Raj 1996: Development Initiatives 1998: JFM 1999: Agriculture Diversification 2000: Women Cell, Nari Adalat 2002: Sustainable Agriculture 2003: Dehradun Foray Epilogue |
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