Islands of despair
KALPANA SHARMA
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Rural misery and the crumbling infrastructure in smaller towns take the sheen off Maharashtra's success story.
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You cannot wish away alienation if you deliberately allow parts of your state to fester and rot while a few islands flourish.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS
Pathetic state: People in rural areas have no option but to migrate.
IN every State in India, no matter how prosperous, there are islands of deprivation. Maharashtra is no exception. It stands almost at the top of the list in terms of prosperity. It fails miserably when it comes to equity.
Rural misery has been written about and noted, exemplified by the continuing suicides of farmers in Vidarbha and Marathwada. The Bombay High Court has also, once again, warned the Maharashtra Government that it must do something about the high incidence of malnutrition among children between the ages of one and six. In the last three years, over 24,000 children have died of malnutrition.
Economic neglect
What is not so well known is the pathetic state of some of the smaller towns of Maharashtra. This became evident when three bombs exploded in the powerloom centre of Malegaon in North Maharashtra on September 8. Not only did the bombs shatter the uneasy peace in this town of around 8,00,000 people, of whom the majority is Muslim, but they exposed the pathetic absence of civic infrastructure and economic neglect.
Thirty-one people were killed and over 200 injured on that Friday afternoon when the devout were almost through with their prayers. It was a big day, the Shab-e-barat, when prayers would be said at the Bada Kabristan through the night to remember the loved ones who had moved on. Instead, it became a night for multiple burials, as some of the dead were interred in the same graveyard.
Few options
But unlike the July 11 serial bomb blasts on Mumbai's commuter trains, where the injured could be rushed to any one of several public hospitals within easy reach of the railway lines, the injured in the Malegaon blasts had few options. The only public hospital there is poorly equipped and was simply unable to cope.
People had to rush about trying to find help. They found this in a good Samaritan, Dr. Saeed Ahmed Farani, who threw open his private nursing home and treated over 100 of the injured. Others had to travel 55km over bad roads to the nearest decent hospital in Dhule in the neighbouring district. The district headquarters at Nashik does have a referral hospital but it is over 100 km away.
If this is the state of a town that is not remote, that has been an important powerloom centre, and even boasts of a local film industry, one can imagine the state of some of the other towns in Maharashtra.
Fortunately for Malegaon, the bomb blasts have heralded a change in its fortunes. Or at least that is what its residents hope. For the disaster brought to the town's doorstep people like Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi. She saw the state of the town. She also heard its angry residents turn down compensation cheques. They told her to keep the money and instead ensure that the town had medical and civic facilities.
As a result, within 10 days, the State Government cleared an investment of Rs. 22 crores for a 200-bed hospital in Malegaon. Although State Government norms permit a hospital of this size only at district headquarters, an exception has been made. With 274 staff posts, the hospital will have an intensive care unit (ICU), a paediatric ICU, a burn ward, CT scan, trauma care and a psychiatric department. The Malegaon municipal corporation is giving nine acres of land for the hospital.
But a hospital alone, when and if it is finally built, cannot cure Malegaon's malaise. Its roots lie in the absence of commitment to ensure that development is for everyone and not just for those who live in the metropolitan cities. When you drain the countryside, concentrate industry and infrastructure around places that are already well served, and have no plan to bring other parts of your state on par, you end up with what we have in Maharashtra — dead lands that are noticed only when there is a disaster. No one, least of all the Government, understands the permanent disaster that has visited these towns.
Like Malegaon, there are towns scattered across the state, where there has been little new investment. Civic infrastructure is crumbling. There are few jobs. People have no option but to migrate — join the millions looking for work and hope in the "golden triangle" of Mumbai, Thane and Pune where most of Maharashtra's industry and investment are concentrated.
Additional label
If these towns also happen to have a Muslim majority, as Malegaon or Bhiwandi, then they are strapped with the additional misfortune of carrying the "terrorist" label. Hard line groups of all persuasions flourish in urban centres where the young have no opportunities. But in these days of the global "war on terror", it is the Islamic groups who are under constant scrutiny. As a result, towns like Malegaon and Bhiwandi do get special attention but not the kind they need.
You cannot wish away alienation if you deliberately allow parts of your state to fester and rot while a few islands flourish. That should be the real lesson the Maharashtra Government should draw from Malegaon. Unfortunately, it has yet again failed to do so. As in the past, its response is short-term — give people a little something and then hope they will forget.
But they will not forget.
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