CONFLICT-FREE VILLAGES: ENGINES OF GROWTH

 via: Deendayal Research Institute <dridelhi@chitrakoot.org>

Fourth Nanaji Memorial Lecture

NEW DELHI, APRIL 13, 2014

CONFLICT-FREE VILLAGES: ENGINES OF GROWTH

विवाद-मुक्त गांव: विकास के सोपान

Rampant litigation has been the bane of rural India. Every other household is engaged in some kind of legal battle. There are conflicts within the families, in the neighbourhood, in the community. Of late, the nature of litigation has changed from land disputes to other fields too.

Local and district courts are overcrowded by poor and illiterate villagers. Long queues of gullible villagers before lawyers, munshis, stamp vendors, as also dalaals, is a common sight outside tehsil and district courts.  They walk miles to seek ‘justice’. Pay hefty fees to lawyers. Often, fall prey to middlemen. They sell their land to regain pieces of land ‘forcefully or fraudulently’ acquired by others. There are so many social issues too, culminating in litigation. These poor people have to forego their daily work, their earnings, and above all, their peace of mind.

Millions of man-days are lost in this unproductive activity. Hundreds of crores of rupees get drained out in ‘resolving’ these disputes. These poor, innocent villagers continue to suffer for years and decades. And most of them end up losing even their smallholdings and savings in the course of this endless legal saga. Many of them leave the burden of debts on their children to repay.

Realising that this large-scale litigation was eating up meager resources of the villagers and more than that creating social discord in the villages, great men like Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay and Nanaji Deshmukh laid special emphasis on resolving these man-made disputes at the village level itself, through panchayats, through mediation by elders in the society or the community.

Nanaji successfully implemented this thought in 500 villages in the Chitrakoot area, on the borders of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. He achieved this lofty target though the institution of social architect couples. These (appropriately) educated and motivated couples stay among the villagers and work with them, share their joy and pain both, and in the process, earn their confidence and trust. Consequently, mediation and counseling by them are taken in their right earnest by the villagers. They would listen to the advice of these agents of change and resolve their disputes outside the court. They are thus spared of the agony that they would otherwise suffer at the hands of the system.

This has resulted in over-all prosperity in the area and a sense of complementarity among the villagers. The social structure in the area too has emerged stronger than ever. And the land of vanvasi Ram is all set to regain its lost glory. 

Regards,

Abhay Majajan

Org. Secretary

17^th March, 2014