REACHING OUT TO THE POOR

Also published by Macmillan

By Geeta Somjee

NARROWING THE GENDER GAP

By A. H. Somjee

DEMOCRATIC PROCESS IN A DEVELOPING SOCIETY

PARALLELS AND ACTUALS OF POLITICALDEVELOPMENT

POLITICAL CAPACITY IN DEVELOPING SOCIETIES

POLITICAL SOCIETY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Reaching out to the Poor

The Unfinished Rural Revolution

Geeta Somjee

and

A. H. Somjee

MMACMILLAN

© Geeta Somjee & A. H. Somjee 1989

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmissionof this publication may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copiedor transm itted save with written permission or in accordancewith the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended) ,or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copyingissued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33-4 Alfred Place ,London WCIE 7DP .

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation tothis publication may be liable to criminal prosecution andcivil claims for damages.

First published 1989

Published byTHE MACMILLAN PRESS LTDHoundmills, Basingstoke , Hampshire RG21 2XSand LondonCompanies and representativesthroughout the world

Typeset by TecSet Ltd , Wallington, Surrey

British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataSomjee , Geeta, 1930-Reaching out to the poor .1. (Republic) India . (Republic) WesternIndia . Dairy cooperatives. Social aspectsI. Title II. Somjee , A. H., 1925­306'344

ISBN 978-0-333-46794-7DOl 10.1007/978-1-349-20266-9

ISBN 978-1-349-20266-9 (eBook)

To the farmers, veterinarians, dairy techno­logists and socially concerned individuals ofGujarat who, together, made an effort to zeroin on rural poverty

Contents

Preface ix

1 Amul Dairy : the foundation 1

The Beginnings 1

The Changing Composition of Amul's Milk Producers 6

Some Rural Communities 14

Interdependence of Technocrats and Politicians 28

Some General Observations 35

2 Dudhsagar Dairy : a cooperative miracle 40

The Growth of Dudhsagar Dairy 41

Range of Dairy Activities 45

Involvement of Women 50

Some Rural Communities 55

Some Concluding Observations 67

3 Sumul Dairy : a milk cooperative of the deprived 72

Background and Orientation of Sumul 74

Variety of Mobilisation Efforts 78

Some Rural Communities 90

Some General Observations 100

4 Sabar Dairy : a promising milk cooperative 105

Background 107

Some Special Problems 112

Technocrats and Politicians 117

Some Rural Communities 119

vii

VllI Contents

Some General Observations

5 The Unreached Poor

Notes and References

Index

133

136

148

151

Preface

This book is about the poor and the constraints of social andeconomic relationships within which they are trapped. It is also abouttheir inability, given such constraints, to escape from poverty all bythemselves. In their case neither the provisions of public policy norspecific development stimulus are enough to help them . They needsocially concerned individuals, who can mobilize them , and economicorganizations which can specifically target them for development.The extent of the effectiveness of such individuals and organizationswould depend on their realistic understanding of the complexity ofcultural , economic, political and human factors which condemn thepoor not only to economic deprivation but also to a many-sidedincapacity to be able to fight back on their own. As such this bookconcentrates on the poor, and the complex nature of their limitations ,rather than on abstract notions of poverty .

In different societies the poor are poor for different reasons . Notall those reasons are purely economic . Explanations of the conditionsof the poor only in terms of their economic deprivation often fail totake into account the wider cultural, political and human problemswhich go hand in hand with poverty. Such a broad approach becomesall the more necessary for countries where poverty is sought to bejustified by means of references to social organization, culture and adeeply internalized belief that the poor are poor not because somehave more than their fair share but because the makers of us all soordained. Village after village in rural India disowns responsibility forthe less fortunate among them and echoes the deadly conviction that'there always will be poor ' . And if there is someone who can dosomething for them, they maintain , it is either the sarkar (govern­ment) or some development agency from outside.

Neither the sarkar nor the bulk of development agencies have hadany appreciable measure of success in fighting poverty . However ,among the economic organizations functioning in rural areas, thosewhich sprang up by means of grass-roots efforts , and were sustainedby such efforts, have had some measure of success. The milkcooperatives of western India, with a grass-roots base and with oneweapon at their disposal, namely, dairying, came face to face with theresourceless poor of their respective districts . And despite the factthat officially those organizations were supposed to be concerned

IX

x Preface

with 'milk producers' only, a number of their veterinary personneland technocrats , without specifically formulated policies, got in­volved, often on their own , in efforts to induct the non-producersfrom the poorer strata of rural communities into milk cooperatives.Much of their effort was the product of what they felt needed doing.Some of them succeeded in convincing their superiors of the need tobroaden the scope of their organizations, others did not. Whereversuch socially concerned personnel succeeded in getting the support oftheir superiors, the results were impressive . In others there was muchto be desired. In this book we shall examine the uneven performance ,in that respect, of the four milk cooperatives of western India ,namely Amul, Dudhsagar, Sumul and Sabar.

As we shall see in detail in the following pages, Dudhsagar, inMehsana district, probably by now one of the greatest milk coopera­tives in the country, has over 14 per cent of its membership fromamong the landless farmers . And although some of those landlesshave access to others' farms, either as relatives or as sharecroppers ,a large proportion in this category also consists of the landlesslabourers. Given the extraordinary dedication of its veterinary per­sonnel and senior executives to the cause of the poor, chances arethat within the foreseeable future the membership proportion of itslandless may go still higher.

Similarly, Sumul dairy , in Surat district , succeeded in turning itsAdivasis (tribals) - who had neither the culture of drinking milk norof maintaining milch animals worth the name - into milk producers toproduce milk. More than seventy per cent of its milk is now collectedfrom its Adivasi villages . Such a double revolution , human andeconomic, was brought about by its dedicated veterinary per sonnel.

A similar move was afoot in Sabar dairy, in Sabarkantha district ,where this youngest of the four dairies was getting deeply involved inthe district's poor, again through its veterinary personnel. And sinceits top executive himself was deeply involved in what his juniorcolleagues were doing, Sabar was able to penetrate nearly one-fourthof its tribal villages in the shortest possible time .

Finally, Amul, India's premier milk cooperative. Although it hadgenerated an enormous liquidity through the sale of milk (Rs161Omin 1989), and thereby helped the district to improve its agriculture ,stimulated its industrial development of medium-scale industries , ofvery high quality, in various small towns including Anand, andhelped build major markets for the sale of grain s, vegetables,agricultural implements, auto parts, etc ., its concentration on the

Prefa ce Xl

poor of the district, in relative terms, has been less impressive. Whatit has done in recent years , however, is to reach out to its poor bymeans of its specially designed health service . .

Despite such impressive performance from the four milk coopera­tives, the ir ability to reach out to their poor was very limited indeed.The unreached poor in those districts far outnumbered those that hadbeen reached. And no one was more aware of that than the vets,technocrats and extension workers who had come face to face withthe rural poor. At the same time, however, as we shall see in thefollowing pages, these cooperatives were also , in relative terms , themost efficient agencies working in rural India. And that was due , in alarge measure , to the nature of their economic organizations and thesocial concern of their personnel .

But what is of greater significance to us here is the baffling natureof their problem. As those organizations and individuals shifted theirattention from abstract notions of poverty to the actual poor, theybegan to realize that the problem that they were faced with had manysides to it. Of these the economic needs received the maximumattention and the others went unnoticed. The four case studies here,based on our longitudinal field research , give us a glimpse into thecomplex world of the constraints of the poor. Those constraints, aswe shall see in this volume , stunted the social and political capacity ofthe poor to such an extent that they were unable to deriv e benefitsfrom the new economic opportunities created for them. In a situationof antecedent social inequality there was bound to be a differentiatedresponse to development stimulus. However, within the same situa­tion even those development measure s which were specially meantfor the poor either did not reach them or could evoke , at best ,minimal response . Their respon se , nevertheless, remarkably im­proved when socially concerned individuals , who believed in theirdevelopment through their own self-involvement , lent an initialhelping hand. The respon se of the same group to developmentopportunity did not go very far when social workers practiseddevelopment paternalism of one form or another. We hope to be ableto examine a variety of such development stimulus-response cases ina number of rural communities in the four districts to be able toidentify the extent of their effectiveness.

In respon se to the establishment of various milk cooperatives, akind of social queue was formed in various rural communitieswhereby the individuals who were already better off were the first toderive benefit from such a new economic opportunity. But such a

xii Preface

segment of rural society gradually reduced its interest in dairyingbecause of a more attractive economic alternative in various kinds ofcash crops which the increasing availability of water, fertilizer andimproved seeds had made possible .

As the interest of such a segment of the dairy community began todecline, its place was taken up by agriculturist castes, traditionallyclose to it. Such a shift led to competition for political power amongthe agriculturist castes, around the milk cooperatives of various ruralcommunities, and also to an ethnic reshuffle for social status. Thenew economic institution of dairying also provided an opportunity tothe lower castes, tribals , and Harijans (ex-untouchables) providedthey had milch animals.

But such a penetration of the milk coops in various rural communi­ties, from top-down on the traditional social scale, could not get past,at least in the initial years, those who could not be classified as 'milkproducers' . Such a group constituted, roughly, more than one-thirdof the rural community and a much larger percentage of the poor.

Over the years, through the improvement in water facilities foragriculture, making farm cuttings available to the landless labourersas a part of their nominal wages, six to nine months in a year,government subsidies and loans for buying milch animals, and insome cases the establishment of cooperative fodder farms, a segmentof the poor, who were also landless, were brought within thecooperative dairies. Behind that there were the tireless efforts of thevets, procurement officers, extension personnel and technocrats.Such efforts also began changing, gradually, the nature of coopera­tive dairies from their earlier emphasis on productivity to reachingout to those who were left out of its economic and social enterprise .

An analysis of the economic background of the membership of thefour milk cooperatives suggests that they have increasingly becomethe organizations of the small, marginal and landless farmers. What ismore, the landless farmers within their membership, some withaccess to land, have also become one of the largest groups. Thefigures in Table 1 give us an indication of such a shift.

The figures suggest that 67.96 per cent of Dudhsagar, 76.90 percent of Amul, 76.02 percent of Sumul, and 69.09 per cent of SabarDairy membership now consists of landless, marginal and smallfarmers. The milk cooperatives of Gujarat have thus come a long wayfrom their earlier membership when medium and large farmers,generally from higher castes, predominated in them. What is more , intwo out of four of those dairies, the landless farmers, with some

13.54%26.28%28.14%32.04%

36.38%21.79%17.85%23.98%

Preface

TABLE 1 Landownership status of the four dairies'

Amul Dairy: Landownership Background of Members (1984)Landless Farmers 27%Marginal Farmers 16.4%Small Farmers 33.5%Others 23.1%

Dhudhsagar Dairy: Landownership Background ofMembers (1986)Landless FarmersMarginal FarmersSmall FarmersOthers

Sumul Dairy: Landownership Background of Members(1987)Landless FarmersMarginal FarmersSmall FarmersOthers

Sabar Dairy: Landownership Background ofMembers (1986)Landless Farmers 15.86%Marginal Farmers 26.14%Small Farmers 27.10%The Rest 30.90%

xiii

among them having access to land, constitute more than a quarter tomore than one-third of their total membership . That indeed was aremarkable achievement for those organizations which have beencontinually trying to penetrate the poorer segments of rural comm­unities .i

Our longitudinal field research in those four districts was spreadover two decades. In December 1960, when we were faculty at theM.S. University of Baroda, Tribhuvandas Patel , one of the foundingfathers of Amul Dairy, invited us to have a look at the village calledAsodar, in Kaira District, with a view to finding out the changes thatwere taking place in it as a result of its newly started milk coopera­tive. Since then we have visited the same and several other villages in

xiv Preface

the four districts several times, updating our findings and making sureof the validity of our inferences drawn from our observations. Thegreatest difficulty we faced in this kind of research was when to drawa line. Tentatively we drew such a line a couple of times only to findin our following visits that the rural communities we were looking athad registered additional changes with marked significance for ourwork on social change generally. While the economic performance ofthose communities was registering a slower pace of change, sociallyand politically they were stirring up all the time . But such stirrings,we subsequently realized, had still a long way to go before they couldbegin altering, significantly, the nature of economic relationshipsthemselves.

Our selection of various rural communities in the four districts wasguided by consideration of the various dimensions involved inunderstanding the complexity of any effort at reaching out to thepoor. Towards such an understanding we had taken into accounteconomic, cultural, ethnic , political and developmental dimensionsand then sought to identify and explain what in fact had helped orhindered the advancement of the poor, all that with reference to thenew economic opportunity provided by the milk cooperatives.

In trying to do that we had adopted a contextual approach. Webelieve that it is pointless to talk about the poor out of the economic,cultural, political and human contexts which have contributed to theirbeing poor in the first place .

As stated earlier, we had focused our attention on the poor and noton abstract notions of poverty. Such notions, we believe, oftenremain indifferent to the many-sided reasons of poverty. On theother hand , if we concentrate on who the poor in specific communi­ties actually are, and what, in actual practice, frustrates their effort toimprove their economic condition, we are more likely to get arealistic answer. Such a search would then take us to a lot of relatedareas which encompass the world of the poor, but also beyond thenarrow confines of academic specializations.

In our field research, spread over a long period, far more indi­viduals were helpful to us than we can possibly mention or evenremember. Among others we want to thank the founding fathers andchief executives of the four milk cooperatives, vets, procurement andextension officers, chairmen and secretaries of various village coope­ratives, all of whom were willing to answer our searching questions,patiently, year after year. We owe a special debt of gratitude toTribhuvandas Patel, Dr V. Kurien, Natwarlal Dave, Bhagwandas

Preface xv

Bandukwala, H. M. Dalaya, V. H. Shah, Dr A. Chothani, Dr UrnaVyas,Prafullabhai Bhatt, Narendrabahi Patel, Dr S. N. Patel and DrKodagali , all of these were at one time or another connected withAmul. We also wish to express our gratitude for help in understan­ding the social and economic life of the district made possible bymeans of discussions with the late Bhailalbahi Patel, H. M. Patel ,Manibhai Ashabhai Patel, Vitthalbhai Patel, Shivabhai Patel, SammyMistry, Kanubhai Patel , Ramanbhai Prajapati , and RanchhodbhaiSolanki. We also wish to thank Motibhai Chaudhury, B. C. Bhatt,and Dr A. S. Dave of Dhudhsagar. Our understanding of the districtof Mehsana and its peculiar problems was made possible by means ofdiscussions with Karsanbhai Chaudhury of Boratwada, the lateRambhai Chaudhury of Pamol and the late Shambhubhai Naik ofDudhsagar. We also owe a debt of gratitude to Daskaka, DrThakorebhai Patel, Dr H. A. Ghasia and Dr Gupta of Sumul. Ourthanks are also due to Bhurabhai Patel, Babubhai Rabari, DrHaribhai Patel, Dr P. S. Soni, and Mr Ishwarbhai Patel of Sabar.

Our repeated field visits to the villages of Gujarat were madepossible by research grants from the Social Sciences and HumanitiesResearch Council of Canada. The years when we could not find suchgrants , we went on our own.

We also wish to express our thanks to the editors of EconomicDevelopment and Cultural Change, the Journal ofAsian and AfricanStudies and the Journal of Developing Studies for their kind permis­sion to include some parts of our papers which we published in thosejournals earlier.

In a work of this nature there are bound to be many shortcomings.For whatever are there in this volume, we alone are responsible .

West Vancouver Geeta SomjeeA. H. Somjee