Saradha bankruptcy and its socio-economic backdrop – time to look at broad spectrum

While several issues of political affiliation in association to the recent bankruptcy of Saradha Chit-fund organization are widely discussed, one of the basic issues, i.e. why people invest in chit funds is not getting the attention it deserves. Rational Choice minded scholars would argue that since these organisations project a lucrative rate of interest, people applying their rational mind choose to invest here instead of nationalized banks. In this process the investors either undermine or are unaware about the risk involved. This is perhaps only one of the reasons applicable especially in urban and semi-urban places where people have options to choose between banks and chit funds. Several places of rural West Bengal represent a considerably different story.

The most evident problem which rural West Bengal, perhaps the entire rural India faces is the lack of people’s access to formal banks. In rural West Bengal most of the nationalised banks are strategically located near block offices and near major road and railway connections; hence, the distribution of banking service is extremely uneven. If a person with little banking knowledge has to do banking s/he will lose a-man-day of employment the cost of which is often too high to bear. Understaffing and poor infrastructure in many rural banks make it a hard task to manage the workload which delays the services, eventually making people disinterested in bank. In 2009 when MGNREGS initiates direct bank transfer of money I do fieldwork in Bardhaman, Murshidabad, Purba Medinipur and Purulia to find out huge crisis that the banking staff and Panchayat people face in opening up the bank accounts. Several Post Offices and Banks simply refuse to open more than a stipulated number of accounts because of staff shortage. Banks and PO employees clearly state their unwillingness to open zero balance accounts for persons who will not be able to save money and will require regular assistance in banking. In consequence people see banks as alien place. In fact, it can be said the rapid expansion of chit funds and people’s lack of interests in banking reflect on the failure of the development of banking behaviour through MGNREGS fund transfer.

A more recent fieldwork in Gorabari Panchayat region Bankura where people were displaced due to the construction of Kangsabati River Dam in late 1950s shows that people could not save the compensation money because of the lack of banks at that time. The Gorabari branch of Allahabad bank is no older than 15 years and villagers still avoid going to banks. The compensation money is spent in different festivals and rituals. Many reported that they kept a significant amount in terracotta jars underground – a popular method of saving cash earlier, which was lost because of monsoon flood. The only asset they could create is livestock. While people from 60 years back have lost cash because of lack of banks, in 2013 people from more than a dozen villages around the acquired land of Jindal Steel Works (JSW) in Salboni invested a considerable amount in chit funds via several known agents. The rest of the money is used to purchase luxury goods like motor cycles, televisions, etc. Similar trend is also noticed in Manipur in 2007, where people earning extra money from a hybrid variety of pigs, have invested in chit funds and purchased luxury items. However, in Manipur with NGO intervention the ill effect is minimised.

While going to bank means loss of a man day, chit fund agents come directly. When banks in the form of chit funds come home, it becomes a phenomenal event in a place where getting assistance in petty tasks like filling up a withdrawal form in a bank is a serious constraint. Reflections such as “I have kept my money to Saradha bank because Mr. X of our locality told it will give return” show people’s trust on person rather than organisation – a feature which has a long history in agriculture based rural society. After Saradha bankruptcy several agents are absconded which reflects that chit fund organisations often take advantage of the social capital (social networks) of their agents based on trust to expand their business. People’s interest in chit funds, hence, is not always the calculation of profit and loss. To understand the actual fact behind the growth of chit funds, it is important to look at the means of information flow in villages, and people’s savings behaviour. Most of the people I have interviewed told that they have invested because somebody else has. The decisions for investment often have a friendship and kinship base. When people from the villages around the JSW project got their compensation package, agents from all over the investment companies came and convinced them to invest. When one villager is convinced others follow.

In sum, it is important to note that although bringing a legal provision for regulating these organisations would certainly make things better, meanwhile in-depth study of rural people’s savings behaviour and making policies accordingly should be given adequate attention. With strict regulatory mechanism, adequate understanding of people’s savings behaviour aided by a spread of banking services in rural places the rise and ill effects of chit funds can be stopped.  

An Afternoon with the Hunters

Kaleidoscope was making his yearly trip to the field, often a romantically described native place to interact and gather social experience to be transformed into anthropological knowledge. Kaleidoscope had to leave his comfortable AC, PC, internet to adopt weak mobile network, unfiltered water, stinking bed, mosquito bites and miles of walk. Kaleidoscope also had the camera, a notebook, a GPS, an energetic bunch of students, loads of field reports to be corrected and a freedom to go anywhere and everywhere. Kaleidoscope enjoyed every bit of it. Took photos and after a while left the place anthropologists call field.

Among several experiences which Kaleidoscope had this year's visit is a permission to accompany a bunch of young stars in hunting.

Not an ordinary day:

Kaleidoscope was excited with the permission he had from the village headman - Laya to accompany a bunch of young adults with whom Kaleidoscope already had good deal of interaction. So on the day Kaleidoscope took his camera, and started roaming around the nearby jungle.

National Geographic Scenes:

Kaleidoscope being an admirer of National Geographic, Discovery and Animal Planet channels, and also having little exposure to the villages of the region did not expect anything dramatic. Nothing dramatic happened, therefore, readers must not expect that the story will thrill them in a sense those channels do. 

However, at first Kaleidoscope accompanied them to the near by forest surrounding the hillock popularly known as Baroghutu Pahar. It was difficult for kaleidoscope to make up the speed difference with his weak lung that often requires puffs of Asthalin and Seroflo. However, the village boys did not leave him. 

Portion of the Jungle pathway

Portion of the Baroghutu Pahar

Hunting implements:

They were carrying a long bamboo shaft, Gulti, a couple of clubs and loads of small stones. The clubs were useful to hit and injure rabbits and other smaller animals including rodents were manageable with the bamboo shaft and Gulti.

The missed opportunities and hunts:

While they climbed the baroghutu hills a rabbit was seen... before Kaleidoscope could see the animal had jumped away. The entire group explored the the hills region for three hours without results. Kaleidoscope was exhausted and had already consumed half of the water he had in his small bag. The group, headed by a tall and relatively experienced Moresh, got together for a quick meeting. They made a change in plan and went towards the farmlands. 

Moresh watching his young guns in action 

In the farm land they started to insert the long bamboo in the rodent's holes. With application of water and constant insertion of bamboo a few rodents came out. They quickly took shelter towards the trees. The young members of the group quickly climbed up through the trees and tried to catch them. From the ground the rest of the group constantly kept throwing small stones with gulti. After about an hour, they injured one of the rodents and caught it. They made several other catches in the bamboo bushes. Kaleidoscope was amazed by the skills that these little fellows have in climbing up the bamboo bushes without getting themselves injured by the small bamboo branches that acted like spikes.

In the end they could catch a dozen of rodents... 

Kaleidoscope came back, exhausted knowing that the group will make similar efforts tomorrow... perhaps everyday when Kaleidoscope will be gaining more weight and loosing fitness even more.

The results... 

My Delayed Train and The Others

When the journey started from Varanasi the train was already running late by three hours. Instead of making up time, the train further loses time. Kaleidoscope had a research paper to revise and send it to the journal editor, hence he kept himself busy. Among his co-passengers a young couple from Holland was enjoying the trip. For them, the more the train gets delayed the more they can see India. Kaleidoscope as part of his research on Varanasi asked a few questions and they answered energetically and reflexively. While Kaleidoscope reworked his paper, they keep on watching outside. When the train reaches at Bardhaman on next day it is already five hours late. The couple panics a bit... and now their whole range of discussion is how to get to the airport soon. The train is finally about five and a half hours late and they just have enough time to reach to the airport. They dismiss their short trip to Kolkata and they admit that they will never travel by a train in India. Kaleidoscope however knows that he will have to experience more delayed trains and perhaps with more interesting works than editing and reworking a paper. 

Neoliberal Trickle Downs: FDI, Coalition Politics, and beyond

While the country is making sense of the Delhi rape case, Tendulkar's retirement, Christmas and approaching year, Kaleidoscope is finding more liberalisation in the name of reform. Interestingly, while the country makers are repeatedly assuring about the care for the women and weaker sections, a mass movement is getting even more momentum. Within this chaotic situation we are slowly entering to the era of even more aggressive neoliberal pursuits.

What is trickling down?

While neoliberalism is commonly perceived as a form of economy, viz. cross-border movement of capital, it ought to have political predisposition. Kaleidoscope finds two primary issues associated with political predisposition of neoliberalism, first, state's helplessness in striking the balance between corporation's welfare and people's welfare and second, and related to it is state's compulsion of retaining faith of the corporations to ensure continuation of capital investments. Quite often this results in overruling the interest of the people to which a state ought to be more accountable. In consequence, instead protesting the neoliberalism wholeheartedly, states tend to make institutional environment feasible for the neoliberal economy to flow. The promises are catchy, "more jobs", "more money", "more capital", "more development(trickle down effect)", "more advancement", "stronger democracy", "healthier and happier lives."

Kaleidoscope, like many others is looking forward to these promises. However his Indian experience is quite different from these promises.

Identity politics:

While there are promises of "more", why should there be more fragmentations? The identity based politics advocated by even so called secular political parties reflect on the everlasting struggle over ever shrinking means of livelihoods to the people and ever increasing demands. The generation of enormous inequality in income and increasing equality in markets is one of the primary indicator of much more fragmentation in near future. A situation is further deteriorated with multiple fragments of identities based on the regionalism. Some one might not get the job because s/he is a Bengali who prefers not to leave West Bengal, or may be a Bengali businessman is not allotted a project just because there are Marwaris working as a team. The use of such sentiments in election is also very common. There are multiple identities, being a women, being a dalit person, being a muslim person, being some body from Bihar or West Bengal and not from Gujrat, on which there is even more complex game of politics.

Corruptions:

With neoliberal pursuits, key players are important in a democracy, therefore Walmart releases the amount they have spent for lobbying and in every few months Kaleidoscope witnesses new revealing of scams. 

Coalition compulsions:

Politics of convenience is at its best. Regional as well mainstream parties are safeguarding their own issues often at the expense of public interest. All could be seen is a shadow boxing, BSP walking out in protest, SP boycotts the voting procedure to help the Government out. BSP's vote in favour of FDI in Rajya Sabha transcends all records.

Fascism and cash transfer: furthering neoliberals 

Recent review of patterns of state's actions are quite alarming. There are examples of University professors being arrested because of circulating a cartoon, a man being arrested for asking a question at a public meeting, two innocent girls being arrested for making comments in facebook, entire city gets shut down in fear of unrest centring around the death of a local politician and so on. The lack of sensitivity (some say sense of humor) from the states also reflect the restlessness and mounting pressure on the states and regional powers because of the consequences of neoliberalism. To further such endeavour which might lead to further downsizing the state's role development is Direct Cash Transfer (DCT). Although Kaleidoscope like many knows the black marketing of government subsidy for poor, Kaleidoscope also knows the effect of cash and how it gets spend in real situation... more about that in some other day!!

 

  

Developments, Displacements and "fevicol se"

Kaleidoscope is not willing to comment development discourse here. He will not discuss or debate development induced displacement. He wishes to reflect on his displacement because of much awaited development in his workplace.

The case:

Today morning a group of workers (Kaleidoscope knows the college building is getting repaired moments before fatal accidents) came and asked Kaleidoscope if he could give them kind permission to start repairing work in the department. Kaleidoscope gave it a thought, although there were hardly anything to think about, and agreed.

They started the operation and by afternoon transformed two out of three classrooms into archaeological sites. Kaleidoscope could not do anything but to take classes in the small and cozy teachers' room. His entire day had been spent on shouting to the students, who are quite reluctant to listen to what teachers speak, in a small room just to go beyond the sound of development process.

Just outside of the college building within the campus, annual sports are organised, which is more of a miking ceremony than sports per se. Therefore, when Kaleidoscope kept talking about narrative analysis, pupil kept attending "Fevicol se"

What we could and what we have:

The college authority could complete the repair work in the 40-day-long Puja vacation but they did not as PWD could not arrange it on time

The college could suspend classes for the annual sports for two to three days and could pressurise students union to complete the major events by then. It is impossible to complete such a mega event in three days time.

Hence,

Kaleidoscope is a refugee, students are refugees as well who listen to "Mere photo ko... mere photo ko seene se yaar... Chipka le saiyan Fevicol se...."

My Play Time, Our Play Time and Vanishing Spaces

A still from Ideocracy... are heading towards this?

Kaleidoscope doesn't have competitive biceps, triceps or quadriceps, yet Kaleidoscope played throughout his childhood to his early adulthood. Frequency of attending the playground had fallen sharply with age and with changes in his career status. He completely stopped playing when he finished first two years in graduation. This was quite early retirement for many of his playmates and invitation to the ground continued till his playmates got their jobs mostly in IT companies. Kaleidoscope till date often meets his playmates and discuss good old days in the playground, fights, subscription collection for purchase of play items and never ending matches.

Playtime at Urban alleyways:

While making frequent visits at the queen's native place, Kaleidoscope finds children produce the roads and alleyways as their playgrounds.

Gully cricket tournament

Cricket, badminton and even football matches are organised in the alleyways.  Kaleidoscope smiles and his hypocritical self gets a peculiar satisfaction in making judgmental comments "this is urban hangover... children have no space to play." Kaleidoscope is completely unaware about what is happening in a large part of the rural frontiers.

Playtime at not-so-rural places:

Recently, Kaleidoscope makes visits at some of the not-so-rural places in West Bengal, mostly in Bardhaman district. In the afternoon he takes his camera and makes plan to take some shots of the children at play. While he keeps searching for such moments and local heroes, he finds empty lands and only a few places cricket matches are going on. The players are not children, they are about the age of Kaleidoscope himself. Curious enough Kaleidoscope asks a few of his known villagers to get reply "children are at private (tuition) classes." Local school teachers arrange for a couple of batches in the evening session where children of the first batch has to miss the play time. The children of the second batch has to study in the play time as after the coaching class gets over they hardly have energy to continue reading for the next day.

A photograph taken in Bandoan, Purulia. What should be the road-map for these children? Western Education? or should we recommend a coupling of western education and games - their mode of understanding of nature and livelihoods?

Rahul - Kaleidoscope's maternal cousin studying in class - IX like many others of his school has lost any attraction at afternoon play sessions. Rahul and his peers say that a) television cartoons are more attractive than outdoor games, b) computer centers offer attractive video games at cheaper rate, and c) coaching classes make it difficult to play regularly, hence, there is no network among players, and they do not turn up in the afternoon.

The larger picture:

While Kaleidoscope misses the opportunity of taking photos of the playgrounds and players, he is cynical about a few more issues, first, children at not-so-rural places are becoming more alienated from the nature and natural surroundings, second, they are lacking vital lessons like their urban counterparts, like team work, leadership, co-operation, cognitive understanding of speed and distance, etc., third, they are increasingly lacking physical fitness (pardon my generalisation). While the urban jungle makes play space vanish, educational burden is making more play spaces disappear even in places where plenty of open ground awaits.    

Why the mobile phone is not dead?

Or perhaps it's more pertinent to ask "why there are plenty of sets available in the market?"
Even more precisely
"why can't I leave my phone?"

There may be a long list of reasons for why should not I leave my mobile phone but even more powerful reasons are coming up in favour of leaving this machine, throwing it to the stinking municipal vats.
Somehow, a small thread is preventing me from doing this, and it is hard to define the thread.

It is not
a. that I am fond of the set.
b. that I have developed some sort of humane attachment with the phone
c. that I have brilliant memories with the instrument, or the person at the other end of the instrument
d. that I want to get connected with everyone.

While I know some of the "it is not" but yet to find the dimension of "it is"