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Until recently, a drive through Assam’s rural
areas would present the sight of village youth languidly sitting around with
a
 transistor or whiling their time away with a game of carrom, looking
interestedly as the odd vehicle passed them by. If the sight was unpalatable to
say the least, it was also indicative of an alarming fact – the state economy
remained almost stagnant due to slow development of the agricultural sector,
despite the immense potential.Take these statistics, for instance: in absolute terms, the number of poor people in Assam has increased from 7.8 million in 1983 to 9.5 million in 1999-2000. Besides, a high 36.09 per cent of Assam’s total population of 26 million continue to live below the poverty line, a figure higher than the national average of 26.10 per cent (Assam Human Development Report, 2003). The same 2003 report, prepared by the Assam Government with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), states that the unemployment rate in the State in 1983 was 2.2 per cent, compared to 2 per cent for the country as a whole. By 1999-2000, the country’s unemployment rate had risen marginally to 2.3 per cent, while Assam’s unemployment rate has risen substantially to 4.6 per cent. Insurgency and unrest in the State were, of course, among the key factors for this situation. Poverty and unemployment, the two natural corollaries, took its toll, fanning the fire of rebellion. It succeeded in pushing youngsters to join insurgent groups like the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), and become a menace to society, carrying out killings, extortions and kidnappings. Later, unable to stand the rigours of life as a guerrilla, constantly pursued by security forces, these insurgents would give up. This led to the rise of groups of surrendered rebels, many of whom would simply throw their weight around, gun in hand, landing lucrative government contracts for themselves, or lure the jobless into criminal and undesirable activities. There are exceptions, but a sizeable chunk of surrendered militants have once again taken the wrong path. This isn’t very surprising, for out of Assam’s total population of 26 million as much as 87.28 per cent live in the rural areas. An estimated 21.64 lakh families live below the poverty line, out of the total rural population of 23.24 million. This being the scenario, insurgency became a lucrative option for the jobless boys in the Assam countryside, dotted with lush green vegetation. “If I can earn Rs. 2000 a month as a fresh recruit, without having to take on family responsibilities, it’s not bad”, said an ULFA sympathizer. “Yes,” agrees Tarini Deka, 33, from Bezera village in Kamrup district, who was an ULFA militant for ten years before returning to the mainstream. “There are boys in my village who cannot even manage to raise Rs 50 as capital to start something of their own.” Sounds true, because the Assamese boys do not like to do all kinds of jobs, leaving the field open to outsiders, mostly the Bangladeshi migrant settlers. Tarini, who gave up arms on August 14, 2000, initially saw no reason why the ‘boys’ in the ‘organization’ (read ULFA), especially those belonging to backward families, should come back home to an uncertain future. But mercifully, such an uncertain situation is now passe. The groups of idle youngsters on the roadside have diminished, if not disappeared altogether. Instead, one sees small boards written SHG (Self Help Groups) all along the highways crisscrossing the length and breadth of the state. In the villages, unemployed educated boys in groups of tens and twenties are busy at work. Today, we find Zahidul Ali, 24, a graduate along with his nine-member team, busy tilling their 120 bighas of land with power tillers, completing around 10 to 12 bighas per day. This is the scene in Bhumolahati village in Darrang district, about 70 kms from Guwahati, for a little ahead, I find Zulfikar and his band of boys of the Nova Milon Self Help Group, rearing milch cows in a scientific manner, and engaged in production of milk. With five milch cows which yield 40 litres of milk a day, the boys keep themselves busy. They work from 5.30 in the morning to 7 in the evening taking turns (two of them a day) and earn Rs. 19,200 a month. Their project, worth Rs 2 lakh, was set up with help from the State Institute of Rural Development (SIRD) which also gave them Rs 1 lakh as subsidy, besides helping them with auto-vans to market their produce. The rest of the amount of Rs one lakh was taken as loan from the bank. They pay Rs 3,200 as monthly instalment to the bank against their loan amount and look forward to the day when they would finish the repayment of their loan. All the boys look immensely happy with their own SIRD-backed SHGs and shudder to think what would have happened otherwise. “We would have simply loitered around passing time unproductively or joined militancy for lack of anything better to do,” they said. After a hard life in the jungles, Tarini, who had joined the ULFA in 1989, soon after his High School Leaving Certificate Examination, is also now a part of the SHG movement. The seeds of this movement was sown in rural Assam by the State Institute of Rural Development (SIRD), beginning April 1999. Recalling his past life, Tarini said, “I joined the ULFA at an age in which I was not in a position to analyze anything much. There was a strong tide in favour of an armed revolution to rid Assam of its political and economic exploitation, and I was simply swept away.” Ten years later, he was arrested by the police and had to spend seven months in the Nalbari jail. On returning home, Tarini led an absolutely hopeless life. “I was not doing anything and the risk to my life was also very high as that was a period of ‘secret killings’ in the State,” he said. “Seeing my plight, some well-wishers suggested that I should make up my mind – either surrender to the government and lead a normal life or go back to the jungles.” Tarini then made up his mind to surrender, also hurt by the fact that during his arrest and imprisonment, he did not get any support from the rebel group, not even legal help. “It was only my family which had stood by me and helped me come out of the situation I was in,” he lamented. After surrendering to the authorities, the former rebel has mingled with the local youths and is now engaged in socio-economic developmental activities in his area. Tarini started life anew by starting a SHG in his native village of Titkuchi in the form of a diary farm. In 2001, he formed Ashadeep SHG with 15 members and started sugarcane cultivation. More commendably, one and a half years back, Tarini and his friends started a banking society of their own. Mayur Thrift and Credit Cooperative Society, a financing agency, now has 600 members with a capital deposit of Rs 12 lakh. Out of its present capital, Rs 10 lakh is now in the market as loan, while Rs 2 lakh is in the bank. Started with an initial capital of Rs 30,000, this micro credit initiative got off with six members, each contributing a sum of Rs 5000. Tarini is offended with the fact that ex-militants like him have no place in society. Apart from being hounded by the security agencies, those who have deserted the ULFA are more often than not viewed as untouchables by a section of the people and the treatment becomes even harsh to those who are poor and unable to earn their livelihood due to lack of capital. “Now through the SHG movement, we plan to organize and develop our society in a new way, and bring back peace to our troubled state,” Tarini said with hope writ large on his face. Complimenting the efforts of these young boys, village elders like Rabi Ram Das said : “Success stories as these must be focused by the media so that they can be replicated and emulated elsewhere, in places where violence is rampant due to various factors.” Acknowledging the role of SHGs in the state, Bhuban Baruah, Professor of Economics at the University of Dibrugarh, commented in an article in The Assam Tribune : “In recent years, there has been a perceptible change in the rural areas with youths engaging themselves in various agricultural activities and creating self-employment avenues. With the formation of SHGs in various parts of the state, a silver lining is clearly discernible.” The State Institute for Rural Development (SIRD), which is now the facilitating agency for several schemes under the Special Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY), has been training up people in rural areas of the State for capacity building with self-employment orientation and also providing credit links with 50 per cent subsidy to the SHGs. The State, at present, has more than 70,000 SHGs which are at a developing stage. According to Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, 90 per cent of these are run exclusively by women. Realizing the potential of the SHGs in changing Assam’s economy, hit by acute unemployment, Chief Minister Gogoi reiterated his government’s determination to create employment opportunities through this movement and shift his government’s focus to medium, small and tiny industries. He revealed that though his Government was keen on providing the unemployed government jobs, it could employ around 15,000 youths only, which was like a drop in the vast sea as the total number of educated youths without jobs stands at 18 lakh in 2004. SIRD director, K Kalita, is happy that his institute has been able to help hundreds of misguided youths from across the State lead productive lives. “Yes, we have been successful in changing the mindset of the youths and bringing them on the right path,” Kalita said when asked if the SHG movement has indirectly been playing the role of a peace-maker in an insurgency-wrecked State like Assam. He also revealed that in Nalbari, the hotbed of ULFA militancy, SIRD has helped establish a thousand SHGs, thereby engaging 10,000 boys, most of them in their twenties in dairy farming. The boys are happy with their lives. As one of them commented, “this is much better than roaming in the jungles.” SIRD official Rajjyoti Deka, who is on duty even on most Sundays, said that his phone keeps ringing incessantly as the boys feel free to call him with their problems anytime they like. However, it is the mechanism to do away with the lengthy paper work and ensuring quick returns that has scripted the success story of the SHG movement in militant-infested Assam. “The youth do not have the patience to go through complicated paper work. For them, the result should be immediate or else frustration sets in, upsetting the whole purpose,” Kalita said, commenting on the mindset of the youth here. As the SHG movement gathers momentum, the production per bigha of land has tripled, and along with it, the income of those involved in it. The SIRD has now attracted the younger generation to undertake farm mechanization for improved agricultural practices, rotation and multiple cropping for increasing productivity and production. The financial institutions have been fully involved in the process of development of the SHGs. Most of the Nationalized Banks and Regional Rural Banks have taken active part in providing credit to SHGs sponsored by the SIRD. While the institute provides support services like capacity building, monitoring, repayment, etc. to the SHGs or individual entrepreneurs, the concerned banks have agreed to provide minimum service charges to the institute to meet the recurring expenditure. Socio economic data from all the 2487 Gaon Panchayats have been collected and processed to create a Rural Data bank at the institute. A conscious effort is on to motivate more and more surrendered militants in undertaking group activities. A group of 52 former rebels from the eastern Assam townships of Tinsukia and Duliajan, after undergoing seven days’ training at the SIRD in Guwahati, are now into mechanized farming on leased land, practicising multiple, sequential and inter-cropping farming with great success. Until recently, Assam’s highways and rural roads were dotted by Army pill boxes or soldiers in olive green battle fatigues, engaged in what the troops call ‘area domination’ exercises. Today, the soldiers are seen less regularly. Instead, the sight of boys like Zahidul working with their power tillers, and breaking the stillness around, have become common. Things are certainly changing. (This feature is part of a series on ‘Peace makers in the North-East. The writer is a scholar of Peace Fellow with WISCOMP, Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace). Seema Hussain |
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