Corruption

Corruption" may have been the most repeated word of 2010-11 as political and corporate scams sprawled across the Indian landscape. But something seems to be changing now. The chorus against corruption is amplifying. And the movement has found a face in Anna Hazare, the man who had earlier led the movement for the Right to Information Act (RTI).

But there is another important yet lesser known story about this Gandhian reformer that we believe has critical solutions to the Indian economy and the world at large. The story dates backs to the 1980s in a barren village called Ralegan Siddhi, located in the Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. The drought-prone village was plagued by a perennial water scarcity. Almost 80% of the villagers were dependent on other villages for food grains. Many folks had abandoned the village in search of work elsewhere, while others opened liquor dens to sustain themselves. The social life too, as a result, was very turbulent.

Then a native of this village returned after serving the Indian Army. He decided to transform his village and to make it self-sufficient. All he had was will and wisdom. He started various programmes to conserve water and prevent soil erosion. The principle of his ridge-to-valley model was to hold the rain where it fell and to use that water to build the economic base of the village.

It worked! By the 1990s, the village turned around 180 degrees- from barren to green, from dependent to self-sufficient. Income levels had risen substantially. Over 25% of the village earned more than Rs 5 lakh annually. That was a time when the super-rich in India were defined as those who earned more than Rs 10 lakh annually. Even more important, the income disparities were low.

The success of Anna's self-sufficient eco-village model shows that ecological and natural wealth can create well-being and economic growth. At a time when the global economy is gripped with economic and environmental disasters, Anna's solution is what the world must be looking at.
By J Mulraj