[Reader-list] Other concerns

[Rakesh Iyer]

Dear all

I felt that having said that we should actually discuss other issues as
well, I must take the initiative to put up articles on issues which are
important for us to discuss. So to begin with, I am putting up this article
on GEZ which I found in Tehelka, which I thought I must share on this forum.
Please do go through it. I am particularly happy that it's an article set in
Gujarat, as the only thing we keep on hearing about Gujarat in the media is
about Modi, and lately or some few months back before Modi,. the Nano. May
be it's time for a change.

Hope you like the article. And please, I would be very happy if the
Kshamendras, the Duranis, the Adityas, the Rajens, the Parvaizs, the
Shuddhas and others can also share their views on such issues. After all,
diversity on our forum must be displayed, celebrated and felt proud about,
not something to be kept at home within our own minds.

Regards

Rakesh

Link :
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main42.asp?filename=cr270609the_green.asp

Article:

*The Green World Order*

*The Green Economic Zone proposed by the adivasis in Gujarat is a
revolutionary alternative to the Special Economic Zone, says **HARMONY
SIGANPORIA*

THE ADIVASI communities of Gujarat are advocating for a novel counterpoint
to the brutality inherent to the Special Economic Zone. An idea they call
the ‘Green Economic Zone’ (GEZ) addresses the wants in the SEZ model that
the adivasis have long demanded. “Any form of development which does not
have for its foundation the concepts of sustainability, ecological
sensitivity and an ingrained understanding of the cultural roots of a
people, is genocidal by definition,” says Dr Ganesh Devy, founder of Bhasha,
an NGO working towards the development of adivasis and founder-director of
the seminal Adivasi Academy at Tejgarh, Gujarat. The GEZ is Devy’s
brainchild, something that he conceptualised two years ago, unlike any model
of its kind in the world.

Although much yet needs to be fixed in terms of the exact parameters and
definitions that qualify a space to become a GEZ, it is a move towards
chalking a proposal for a pro-people, self-sufficient way of life and gain a
legal stamp of approval on it, so that the set of villages never face the
threat of having to be taken over by a corporate SEZ. Almost utopian, the
idea is to ramp up agricultural activity to the fullest, use organic
fertilizers, promote local industries and form market linkages — all without
destroying the biodiversity and local livelihoods.  The GEZ will be created
out of local resource and investment with no foreign capital

It has been almost a decade now since adivasis in 1,200 villages across the
south and southeastern belt of Gujarat started working to create a massive
network of micro-credit federations. “Similarly, they have been setting up
their own foodgrain banks, water harvesting cooperatives, organic
agriculture practices, and have set up and run informal centres of learning.
The work began when a group of young adivasis met at Tejgarh in 2000 and
resolved to make their villages free of hunger, indebtedness, exploitation
arising out of illiteracy, and migration arising out of helplessness,” he
explains.

This team of dedicated* karyakartas* has now decided to create several GEZs,
eventually covering some 2,200 villages, which fall between the Tapti River
in the south and the Mahi in the north, with the Narmada flowing in between.
What is striking about the GEZs is that unlike their namesakes, they do not
seek to court either foreign investment or exploit natural resources. On the
contrary, they are to be created strictly out of local resource and
investment. “We have, over the years, collected the seed capital we need to
launch this initiative. The idea is to respect and integrate local custom
and resource at every step of the way and create 100 percent employment for
the people who live and work in these GEZs,” says Dr Devy.

This massive initiative was launched on 5 June 2009 at the Adivasi Academy
in Tejgarh, the first of its kind for tribal studies. The assembled group of
community workers, students and faculty of the academy, joined in their
efforts by human rights activists, villagers, educationists, writers,
theatre artists and other ‘green-development’ sympathisers from all walks of
life, started on a week long march. Over the course of the march, the group
visited scores of villages spanning the region between Tejgarh and Vedchi,
Rajpipla and Vankoda, Naroda and Rangpur. This march, lasting from June 5 to
12, was named* Vivekshil Vikas Mate No Pravas* (A march for wise and sound
development). Including all those who joined the march at various stages,
the group numbered 1,800 persons.

AT EACH stop along the route, the workers engaged with the villagers,
sarpanches and local panchayats about the ideas behind the GEZ philosophy
and how it would translate into employment and uplift their communities. The
movement urged panchayats to sign resolutions to show their solidarity to
the cause. So far, panchayats of 130 villages have signed the resolution to
help build a strong proof of acceptance. “What Verghese Kurien and his
‘White’ Amul cooperative revolution achieved is what we hope to emulate. The
time has come for a ‘Green’ revolution, which needs necessarily to adopt the
adivasi model of development. In its gentleness, this is the only form
without an automatically inbuilt genocidal import,” stresses Dr Devy. “We
refuse to take our message to the people aggressively. We will approach them
with respect, with *samvedna* — qualities which get sidelined easily in our
overwhelming haste to become what is widely understood as being developed.”

Seventy percent of the 2,100 acres of area proposed for the GEZ is fertile
land with crops of primarily corn, bajra and wheat. An average farmer owns
1.5 acres of cultivable land and earns Rs 25,000 per annum to feed his
family of six today. The GEZ hopes that it will result in an income of at
least Rs 40,000 per annum simply by boosting agriculture, irrigation and
local industries such as* papad* making, vermicompost fertilizers and other
small-scale enterprises.

But will the GEZ be based on a legal standing? Vipul Kapadia, a core member
of Bhasha says, “That is what we are hoping for. We are readying ourselves
with all the requirements so that the government will take us seriously.”
One thousand acres of land is the minimum land required for the approval of
an SEZ. The 130 villages that have signed the resolution comprise a total
area of 1,000 acres. The minimum funds required for an SEZ is Rs 10 crore,
which they have through the SHGs (selfhelp groups). “With these documents
and a detailed plan for the GEZ, we will approach various government
organisations. The planning commission and the ministry of tribal affairs
will be the first bodies we will approach. Right now, we are still in the
process of penning it all down. But the solidarity we have for this cause is
unanimous,” he says confidently.

In a speech she gave just before the march, venerable author and social
activist Mahasweta Devi said, “All my life I have searched for the
‘genuine’; that sentiment of selfless service which manifests itself in only
a handful of us. In Ganesh [Devy] and the people at the Adivasi Academy, I
stand vindicated. We are at a crossroads in space and time — there is
anticipation in the air; it is as if we know that something big is either
about to happen or give way disastrously.” If the GEZ gains a legal
identity, it would pave a path like no other, arousing hope in millions,
that there can just be a new world order, the reigns of which will lie,
finally, in the hands of the common man.

*(Siganporia is a freelance journalist based in Ahmedabad)*

*WRITER’S EMAIL*
siganporia.harmony at gmail.com