'Oral history' (taken from memories) - the tales from village elders - could tell us about the transformation story of rural areas. It could possibly give us no less better a description of the reality on the ground than the ivory tower econometric exercises. With that end in view, we (Dr Mahabub Hossain and I) have so far visited 20 villages differentiated by ecology, socio-demographic-cultural attributes, crop practices and infrastructural access. Hindsight, our perception is that the transformation stories tantamount to a 'drama' where there are 'heroes' and 'villains' as well as episodes of ups and downs, happiness and sorrows, suspense, and action centring round lives and livelihoods of villagers. Unlike a short story, however, this story has no end in itself because, transformation is like a flowing river - it never stops.
Setting foot on the soil of villages, one would invariably be caught by confusion. The villages, about which one had once read in text-books in childhood or had seen them two decades back, are nowhere to be found. The rivers and the ponds that were once full to the brim with rain waters have begun to dry up. No more are incessant sweet murmur of water flowing through rivers and canals or warble of birds. Huts made of straw standing in a row is rare now-a-days. The days of small oil lamps burning dimly are also gone. The weltering in dust of fields, excessively bold jump from the branches of trees, and romping noisily in ponds have become uncommon scenes. Intrusion of modernisation in village life has apparently swept away traditional games like ha-do-do, gollachut, ekka dokka or kut kut. In remote villages, madrasha students, wearing payjama-punjabi and caps on head, or bare- bodied kids are seen playing cricket in fallow lands. Disconcertingly, though, the euphoria of modernisation has cost the open-air drama (Jatra), narrative song (Palagan), and various folk songs. The regrets can perhaps be read from the famous song: age ki shundar din kataitam amra/gramer noujoan hindu muslaman/ milia jarigan ar murshidi gaitam (How nice were the days we used to spend in the past. Hindu and Muslim young people of the village together would together sing folk songs).
Fortunately or unfortunately, the conventional villages of Rabindra or Sharat era and even of two decades back, would fail to fit the poetic perceptions about villages. Take a few examples. In the past, one could drive a car at best up to upazila sadar whereas paved roads now extend to the villages - even to homesteads. One need enter the village not any more with handkerchief covering mouth and nose for protection from bad smell as roughly 50-60 per cent of households use sanitary latrines and almost all have access to pure drinking water.
Apparently, there is an urge to keep homestead clean and uphold the idea: 'health is wealth'. In the meantime, many households have accessed electricity and, along with it, TV sets and foreign channels. Relatively solvent households possess colour television sets and expensive furniture. Where there is no electricity, households are found using solar pans. Access to TV is reported to have robbed children of their evening games in village fields. But that is also to be partly blamed.
The traditional playgrounds in the villages are growingly occupied for homesteads, farming and nursery. 'The only asset of the village is the 100-bigha land' (ekso bighar jomitai ae garmer shombol), as depicted by Sharat Chandra Chatterjee, is hard to find even with a binocular. Although dramas are gradually disappearing from villages, dramatic twists and turns in the lives of the people are surfacing. Let us take a few of twists and turns.
In the past, most villages did not have any shop. If any at all, it was usually located in a corner of the village with merchandise such as rice, lentil, salt or vegetable oil. But in 2014, a visitor would come across, on average, 4-5 shops, and a few of them adorned with TV and fridge. These semi-modern shops trade tea, chips, soap, cosmetics, and soft drinks - even processed spices - in hitherto remote hinterlands. The local markets have shaved off traditional transactions to sell domestic and foreign goods that historically suited the city dwellers.
Dramatic twists have taken place on the lives and livelihoods of the poor people of the villages. The daily labourer, exhausted after hard labour, would have in the past rested on bed in the dusk, but now sits on a bench of a local shop to watch TV and gossip till midnight. Tea, betel leaf and cigarettes follow the fanfare. In some places, shops arrange carrom boards where people of different ages and professions play games in exchange for money. The events of the whole world now reach that small shop within a few minutes - not to speak of the TV serials from the neighbouring country.
By and large, the transformation in the lives and livelihoods of the villagers indicates that a few drops of the city-based development have 'trickled down' to the villages because of good roads, markets and electricity.
Over time, highways and paved roads, piercing through paddy fields, have hooked the villages with towns. Villages are now more open and integrated with outside world via the urban centres. It is true that the rural-urban integration opened up the windows of opportunities through which clean air could sweep villages (positive outcomes) but, sordidly, openness has also invited mosquitoes and flies (negative outcomes).
We intend to pick them up in subsequent instalments with a disclaimer at the outset. It is that, even on the heels of rapid transformation, the villages of Bangladesh might resemble each other but actually they are not the same. Especially from ecological and livelihood points of view, they stand miles apart. In many villages, the slogan of 'two children are sufficient' has made tremendous impact to keep household size low (3-4), the proportion of children to total population being 10-11 per cent. There is increasing working age population and declining fertility rate there. In contrast, where the feelings are that children are gifts of God and He would take care of them, the household size stands higher (6-7), fertility rate frighteningly high, and dependency ratio squeezes household savings. In a few villages, almost half of the household income comes from foreign remittances whereas in a few others, domestic remittances contribute most to the household kitty.
In haor areas, villages remain under water for almost half of the year while in a village like Teghor in Rajshahi, four-fifths of lands are not submerged by water even during the monsoon. In most of the villages, HYVs ensure food security whereas in a few villages hopes on HYVs are dashed due to environmental hazards. In villages adjacent to India- Bangladesh border, Indian varieties (such as Jamaibabu, Shwarna) as well as R&D knowledge come through unofficial channels for wider use but other villages use varieties available from local sources.
These differentiated villages have undifferentiated pathways out of poverty.
The writer is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University. [email protected]
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