In informal chats Dr Mahabub Hossain and this scribe have had with villagers in 20 villages while walking along the aisle of agricultural land, sitting in tea stalls or courtyards, the insight into their livelihoods obtained through their words and wisdom is worth recounting. It appeared that their oral history presented a film or drama with actors in action and villains with vengeance.
According to the villagers, the 'hero' of the rural development or transformation is the 'Noya Dhan' (new paddy). It has brought in the Green Revolution. The modern varieties (MVs) provide higher yield, better pest control, better grain quality, shorter maturity period, etc. Especially in the dry season (November-May), the Noya Dhan is believed to have transformed rural life, turning acute food deficit to surplus. With ebullience in oral history, they hailed MVs as their hero (Noya Dhan Amader Nayok) as it has helped attain self-sufficiency (Shoyomvor) in food grain production - especially in rice. In sharp contrast, with only 8 to 10 maunds (40 kg is equivalent to one maund) of paddy (unhusked rice) output per bigha in the past, the shadow of starvation often loomed large.
But is the rain commensurate with the thunder? Food security has improved to the extent that rural people don't have any more to eat worthless, non-edible vegetables or look at strained waste water from boiled rice. If not anything else, at least three meals a day are now available. The grain of truth in this feeling of comfort is also supported by contemporary writings on food. The fiery poems of earlier decades - truly reflecting the acute food crisis - are hardly heard of these days. Verses like khudar rajje prithibi goddomoy, chad jeno jholsano ruti (when acute hunger haunts, the moon appears as a flashed bread), and bhaat de haramjada, noyto manchitro khabo (Give me rice bastard, else I shall swallow up the map) have seemingly vanished into thin air possibly because those lines don't reflect today's reality. On the other hand, the most malignant monga (seasonal food insecurity) is no more seen to capture newspaper headlines.
In films or dramas, the hero alone doesn't fight against the odds - be it returning a kidnapped kid to mother's lap or protecting slums from illegal occupiers. There are a few side actors or supporters who help the hero in completing the sequences. The oral history reveals that the strength of the hero called MV was greased by infrastructures such as roads, markets, electricity and irrigation. The reason that rural areas could shave off many of the early features are attributable to the development of infrastructure.
Access to electricity has played another role of side-actor. Two-thirds of the villages are now reported to be covered by electricity. Once fallen in dark after the dusk, most of the lightless households in rural Bangladesh have got lighted. Electricity has brought a radical change in irrigation facilities, entertainment, and expansion of economic activities and education of children. Rural areas witnessed long and dreadful night in the past; now night has become short and fearless.
In the East Laguna village of the Philippines, as revealed by Yujiro Hayami and M. Kikuchi - fertility rate has been reduced following electricity as couples spent more time watching television than enjoying their times in bed. Maybe, the same has been happening in the villages of Bangladesh.
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) continue to play a positive role in the transformation of rural economy and society. Information obtained from oral history suggests that, like other side actors in transformation, NGOs' role can't also be overlooked. Roughly half of the rural households are directly or indirectly associated with NGO activities. It contrasts with only 8 per cent in the 1980s. Starting with micro-credit at the beginning, the products of NGOs have diversified over time to include health, education, agriculture, legal aid, adolescent training etc.
However, the government is reported to be the super hero (Mohanayok) in the rural transformation. In one way or the other, it is also dubbed a director/producer of the 'drama' called rural transformation. In the absence of the government's help in terms of positive policies and productive projects, it's doubtful whether the hero or the side actors could have duly played their respective roles.
Take the case of MVs. The government has invested hugely in research and extension, infrastructural development (roads, electricity, and irrigation), and basic education that paved ways for a better performance of the actors. The input market has grown more competitive over time; so has the output market. By and large, the infrastructural development ushered in by the government has paved ways for expansion of non-farm activities, and mobility of people. This has helped the poor raise income and to be exposed to modern ideas. Again, infrastructural development has enabled households matching their endowments with emerging opportunities. Thus if MVs have contributed to increased food security by augmenting output of crops, the expansion of non-farm activities has contributed by raising entitlements of landless and marginal landowning households. Taking advantage of the two pillars, rural people travelled a long way towards reaching the 'comfort' line.
Besides, subsidy on inputs, provision for credit to sharecroppers, scholarships for girls' education etc. have also expanded the possibility frontiers. Special mention may be made of the school enrolment for boys and girls. Gender or income disparity in school education is now a matter of the past. The role of the government in family planning and hence in fertility reduction has reduced population growth rate from 3 per cent to 1.2 per cent per year and the household size from 6.1 of the 1980s to 4.2 at present. By and large, super-hero the government has been the captain in the cockpit with other crew on board the plane of rural transformation.
So far the roles of the heroes in transforming rural landscape and livelihoods have been discussed but in a film or drama, heroes have to face villains. From the perceptions of the rural people's oral history, we can mention about some of those villains constraining positive transformation. Climate change is viewed as the most notorious villain affecting the growth of agricultural output and yield. There is too much rain when too few is needed and vice versa; rise of temperature, frequent natural calamities, short-lived winter etc. are viewed as barriers. Health-related hazards are creeping up. But rural people try to adapt to these negative consequences through crop diversification, switching over to new crops, changing time of planting and harvesting crops etc. In many areas, water shortage has become woeful as the water table has gone down following excessive lifting of ground water. This has been causing a rise in costs of MV production. However, as suggested in many places, excavation of canals and rivers, stopping of land grabbing with iron hand could stem the rot to some extent. Unfortunately the fence is alleged to have swallowed up the crops - those who make rules also break those. Political commitments are like avalanche but unfortunately, in some areas, law-makers are alleged to be the land grabbers. The villain in positive transformation is also the bad governance with muscle and political power replacing the power of merit in local level institutions. While the prices of inputs have gone up for known reasons, farmers are deprived of fair prices due to alleged formation of syndicates by millers and chatal (rice mills) owners.
Political instability at times leads to huge costs such as hartals or blockades cause distress sales. The cultural invasion is another villain in villages. Indigenous cultural activities and games like jatra, pala gan, cinema etc. are driven out as television programmes from other countries (such asIndia) have become more accessible to confine children in four walls of the house.
The writer is Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University.
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