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The Impasse of Village level
Development in Sri Lanka: A point of view.
Dr. Sudath Gunasekara (SLAS)
1.May.2008.
Why balanced and speedy development do not take place
at village level in Sri Lanka and why have the villages become the pathetic
scenes of perpetual all round underdevelopment, poverty, backwardness,
neglect, stagnation and why do they often go down on a reverse gear,
has been worrying my mind for a long time. This irritates my mind particularly
because it is inconceivable to think of any development in Sri Lanka
without first developing the village. Almost all appear to agree on
this point. But no one at the national level or the local level makes
the correct approach. Politicians who promise heaven and earth for the
masses at the elections and gratify their personal wishes by immersing
in power and wealth rise from their deep slumber and think of the village
only during election times
This brief note finds it’s genesis in such desperate speculations,
as I myself happen to come from one such unfortunate villages in this
country.+ This village which I saw for the first time in early 1940
s as a young lad, like many other villages, which you must be familiar
with, remains broadly undeveloped and chronically backward. It is shocking
and dismaying to see the stagnant situation here when compared with
the outside world. It is a tragedy that in certain spheres today the
conditions are even worse than they were in those early days.
Before I venture to spell out my findings on this phenomenon,
I would like to give a brief account of this village so that this information
will help the readers to form their own opinion on this rather tragic
situation in our villages and to think seriously as to why these villages
remain poor for ever. I use this as a case study largely on which I
find my conclusions listed in this note.
By the closing years of 1930s, this village had 65 households, a population
of about, 450 and 170 acres of paddy. It had a secondary school having
classes up to SSC and a village temple with a resident monk. The entire
village functioned as one family, with the village monk, the head master
of the village school and the vedamahattaya forming the apex of the
village intelligentsia and the elite. The main economic activities were
paddy and hena (chena) cultivation. The village was self sufficient
in food and they bought only clothing and few items like salt, boxes
of matches and dried fish from the town. By and large it was a subsistent
economy. Their work in the field and on all other occasions was done
on a communal basis each helping the other. More than land and money
they valued social values as their riches. They had little money but
they led a contented life. But of cause as a village was isolated from
the outside world it had no road and people had to walk 12 miles to
the nearest bus stop, either at Tangappuwa or Loolwatta. Corbett’s
Gap 9 miles south of Meemure was the last point one could come by a
vehicle. Being a village that had nothing attractive to the European
planters, this is quite understandable.
But the tragedy is even today almost after 60 years of independence,
although few years back the government had tried to improve the gravel
road, constructed along the existing footpath by the villagers around
1990 in collaboration with the temporary police post that was stationed
during the peak of insurgency, conditions are not very different. People
still have to walk 12 miles to the bus stops. A private van or a 4WH
vehicle can be taken to this village only during the dry weather. Although
I pointed out the need to re-do the road on the contour and provide
the necessary culverts and a good bridge to Heenganga, if the road need
to survive three rainy days, to Ranil Wickramasingha in 2001 when this
so-called road was opened by him, my request had not born any positive
results as usual. Some shoddy work has been effected to the existing
surface since then. But the road is no better than it was in 1930’s.
The School is neglected and the village temple is also closed down.
Even basic amenities like postal and health facilities are not found
here. People have to carry their sick even now on their back to the
Corbett’s Gap before they take them to Udadumbara rural hospital
(23 miles away from the village). I could still remember, even 70 years
ago things were not very different. But of cause then the road from
Rangala up to the Corbett’s Gap was in a much better condition
and it was motorable. For example in 1950 my ailing mother who was carried
by villagers up to Corbett’s Gap was taken to Kandy hospital by
car from that place. But today the 3 miles stretch on this road beyond
Tangappuwa one cannot even go on foot.
The number of households has increased to about 100 due to natural increase
and the temporary economic boom generated by the cardamom cultivation,
I initiated in late1960 s when I was DRO there. But the paddy acreage
remains at its previous level and the average monthly income of 99.
% of people at present is less than Rs. 1000/- (Dept of Census 1999).
Coming back to the economy, definitely these villagers were much better
off in relative terms then than now. Those days they had enough paddy
and kurakkan and other food stuff harvested from the Hen. In addition
to a variety of yams like sweet potato and manioc they also grew fruits
like banana and papaw and vegetable on their home gardens. They never
ate imported rice or wheat flour then. In fact these villagers then
considered it below their dignity even to bring a girl in marriage from
another village whose household consumed wheat flour or imported rice.
Most paddy fields today remain uncultivated for lack of irrigation water.
This is attributed to natural shortage of water and neglect of irrigation
works. Few years ago the government has banned hena cultivation that
was even more important than the paddy field in their economy as it
provided not only the second staple diet, kurakkan, but also provided
all the Indian corn, other cereals like green gram, yellow gram, black
gram, sorghum, chilies, pulses and vegetables. The ban on hen cultivation
has crippled their traditional economy and reduced their food supply
almost by 50 % if not more.
Secondly since all their fire arms were taken over by the government
at the peak of 1989 insurgency they also cannot cultivate anything on
their home gardens either, due to damage from wild animals, freely roaming
about even during day time. As a result not only their rice requirements
but they also have to now get practically all other food items from
the outside market. Repeated requests made to return at least few fire
arms that were taken over, to protect their crops and requests made
seeking permission to open up their traditional hena lands for highland
cultivation by the people as well as by me, to authorities, both in
Kandy and Colombo, have been turned down by them taking cover under
the so-called environmental protection and public security. These people
have been engaged in hena cultivation as a major economic activity from
the inception of history without any damage to the natural environment,
contrary to the views of armchair environmental experts on hen cultivation
working from Colombo. I do not think those who refuse to return the
fire arms of this village are aware of the fact that 98.5% of this village
is still under forest.
The Heenganga-Maha Oya irrigation scheme, which I started in 1966, also
has been neglected. The weaving school that provided employment to village
girls was closed down in 1977 as the MP of the area got the demonstrator
transferred on political grounds. Again the cardamom cultivation which
I opened up when I was DRO Udadumbara also has been banned few years
ago by the forest department alleging that it harms the watersheds of
Victoria and Randenigala when this area has nothing to do with those
reservoirs as it is located far down stream. The forest department has
marked the reservation boundary on the back yards of the village houses
almost at 1000 foot contour pretending that hey are marking the 3500
contour. Above this line villagers are not allowed to step in even to
collect their agricultural tools and implements they used to get for
ages.
Since I left as DRO of the area in 1971 three Ministers including two
Attanayakas both of whom were natives of the same electorate have been
in Parliament up to 2004. Thanks to the proportional representation
system there has been no MP for the area since then up to now. Some
environmental experts in certain quarters have even suggested that the
people of this village should be relocated in another area where as
there is enormous potential for further development within the region.
Thus today a historic Kandyan village that has been there from times
before the Christ is virtually threatened by mass evacuation along with
its unique culture, due to neglect, indifference and ignorance of politicians,
technocrats and bureaucrats. This in brief is the pathetic plight to
which the people of this village have been pushed in to, although at
every election they have voted these politicians and their parties in
to power, that had opened the doors only for their own .betterment.
Politicians come here during the election time, promise the road, and
sun and moon but after that no one is seen until the next election comes.
The poor villagers partly due to their good heartedness and mainly due
to blind party affiliations do not revolt. Instead once again they stand
in queues and cast their vote for the politicians to go to Parliament
or the Provincial Council.
In more recent times too I have handed over a comprehensive development
plan for this village to two Governors and more recently to the Chief
Minister of the Central Province. I also have sent a copy of this plan
to H E the President about a year ago. To all these people, I have offered
my services free, in case they need it or consider it useful to develop
this village. But up to now I have had no response from any party, not
even an acknowledgement for the letters I sent. I have the know-how
and I also have the crying urge to develop this village as I come from
this village. But I have no power to develop my own village. No one
in authority seems to be interested in taping the experience I have,
to develop this village. Had I been given the power either by a government
or by the people I should have made this place a heaven on earth by
now. I am sure many more persons born and bred in villages, in this
country like me must be undergoing the same predicament.
I have conceived this development plan way back in late 1960s when I
was working as the Divisional Revenue Officer of Udadumbara (2nd.June.1966
to 1st.April. 1971). This plan which I have carefully prepared putting
my heart and soul into it, using my personal knowledge of the village
and its people and also my 40 years of experience as a senior public
servant, covers the whole of former Meemure Wasama north of the Corbett’s
Gap going up to the Matale district boundary. It treats the entire Mahaoya-Heen
ganga basin covering about 40 sq miles, as one development unit. It
includes among other things, a proposal to construct 6 village tanks
(irrigation and hydro-electricity generation), 5 new irrigation canals
including a trans-basin canal starting from Naranatta Oya in the Kalupahana
region (that I conceived in 1959 when I climbed Kalupahana as an undergraduate)
that would transform the whole geography of Meemure, with a reservoir
at Dalukgolla, a road network that covers the whole region linking up
the west with the east, an urban complex and finally a kalakendra on
the line of Santiniketan to enable development of aesthetic aspects
of rural life.
At the completion of this proposal it is expected to increase the extent
cultivated by about five fold and bring about an all round radical change
in its landscape as well as the economy and the social environment.
But unfortunately it also has only been another attempt to pour water
on a duck’s back. As a Buddhist I seek consolation in the belief
that this situation must be due to the past Karma of the people of this
village. When you compare the living conditions and the quality of social
life of these villagers with the privileges enjoyed by the people living
in towns, one begins to ponder whether these villages are still passing
through the Stone Age.
Why poor villages remain poor
The rest of this article is an attempt to examine as to why things happen
this way in this country even at a time when village level development
is so highlighted through programmes like gamaneguma and weekly apegama
TV programme with so much fan fare about it. I have identified the following
external and local reasons as the major factors responsible for this
sad situation.
They are political, bureaucratic, administrative, technocratic (external),
socio-economic, natural, and other (local).Today, even at the village
level everything is decided by political patronage. Everything revolves
round local politicians who get their legitimacy from the district and
national level politicians. They are mutually inter-dependent for political
power. Since the national level leaders depend on local politicians
for their power base they always go by what the local representatives
tell them. In this context, since politics is organized on a party basis
decisions making approach is highly party centred. In this vicious process
while the party hierarchy goes by what the local man says the local
man always takes precaution to protect his power base and he will do
anything and everything to achieve his personal goals. Personal jealousies,
inter party rivalry and their own incompetence at play badly affect
their ability and capacity to conceive, formulate and implement development
proposals. Even if a plan gets through again its implementation is affected
by inefficiency and corruption. Both inefficiency and corruption are
politically insulated. Money is often pilfered by those who, are in
authority and every body involved in such activities go scotch free
at the end.
Arising from the inherent characteristics of the present District MP
system, Members of Parliament unlike in the olden days do not represent
the people of any particular electorate now. In fact available evidence
clearly have demonstrated that all MPP under this system have a tendency
to concentrate more on electorates which have a large number of votes,
thereby neglecting the small ones. The fact that the Akurana electorate
in the Kandy district which has the highest number of votes has returned
8 of those who have not won a single electorate at the 2004 general
elections proves this point. Under this situation, the district MP’s
indifference to local needs and alienation from the smaller electorate
as well as the voters makes things even worse.
Another tragedy is once a man or woman gets in to politics, he or she
pretends to know everything and also does not want to listen to any
one else. In the first place they see the proponent as a political threat.
Secondly it is rejected simply because it is not his or her idea. So
finally any idea coming from another party, how ever good it may be,
is not accepted for implementation. So one can see how excessive politicization
can be fatally cancerous in the affairs of a village.
Bureaucratic indifference, their negative attitude and lack of empathy
towards the public, ranks as the second major constrain of development.
Majority of so-called present day public servants don’t consider
people as their masters instead they venerate the politician as their
masters on whose goodwill their fortunes and survival depend. They do
not come out with new ideas but just comply with the ad hock ideas of
politicians which have no congruence with overall development. Their
role in development as professional public servants is therefore sidetracked.
Lack of public spiritedness and concern for the poor and evasive public
accountability also contribute to this sad situation in development.
Ideas of local people are often not incorporated in planning in their
own development. As such people are not made partners of development.
All planning for village development today is top-down. When I say top-down
planning I do not mean it to be centralized planning either like in
socialist countries. But it is the powerful but mediocre politicians
who finally decide as to what to be done and where it should be done.
All such decisions are usually related to political mileage. Both the
bureaucrat and the technocrat just agree and oblige with the political
masters by planting the stick to suit the direction of the creeper.
Therefore today there is no systematic and scientific planning. As a
result they end up as isolated shoddy jobs, that empties government
coffers and fatten few individuals only.
The third problem is administrative. Absence of an administrative machinery
to deal with every village and the ineffectiveness of the existing one
has left the villager high and dry in all matters pertaining to the
services of the government. Even the grama sevaka who is supposed to
be the most important representative of the government at the village
level is never resident in the village. Since they are transferable
within a district, today the word Grama Sevaka has become a misnomer.
As a result not only their service is not available when it is wanted
to the villagers but these officers also have no command over the villagers
whom they are expected to organize for village development.
The fourth external factor that hinders village level development, I
would like to name as technocratic. Technocrats like engineers and environmental
scientists often make decisions from Colombo without knowing the real
ground situation in a given locality. For example two instances could
be cited from the above case study. Engineers made a wrong decision
to improve the road from Maha Oya to Meemure village proper along the
existing foot path, instead of doing it on a proper contour. They did
not pay sufficient attention to the correct vertical alignment of the
road and its structures required to suit the peculiarities of the local
terrain and the torrential rains that pours down during the north east
Monsoon. Colombo based central planning and lack of knowledge, on the
ground situation on their part were mainly responsible for this mistake.
It also could be said that they too may have yielded to simple political
expediency. When I was coordinating the road construction programme
of the Victoria Project in early 1990s I have come across even much
worse such technocratic blunders which I was able to put right with
my knowledge on ground situation.
Local factors
Coming on to local factors, socio-economic conditions such as illiteracy,
poverty, absence of organized powerful local lobbying circles at village
level, political divisions and rivalries, petty village level jealousies,
rivalries and feuds, politicization of the village temple and disappearance
of traditional village leadership, and community approach to village
work like shramadana due to changing priorities and value systems and
emerging political trends like class consciousness arising from Marxian
ideology that has infiltrated the young mind are some of the alarming
factors that have badly affected village level development. Besides
the above, factors such as one’s own indifference to his village
and absence of a bondage to his place of birth arising from lack of
understanding of his own moral and spiritual obligations to that sacred
land and the operation of the adage “a prophet is not worshiped
in his own land” that keep the educated villagers away from their
villages are also important in this regard.
Among the natural factors that hinder development, things like deforestation,
changing weather patterns, inadequate irrigation facilities, drinking
water and damage from wild animals such as elephants, wild boar and
monkeys rank high.
Talking about other factors we may note things like the divided village,
inadequate infra structure facilities like roads and good schools, migration
of the educated to the cities (factors that deprive the village of its
human capital), absence of some one to coordinate development work at
the village level, lack of marketing outlets and agricultural extension
services, rural indebtedness and lack of avenues for credit facilities.
Replacement of local values with imported social values that comes via
the media, specially, the TV has led to the complete disintegration
of the traditional village. The tragedy is that none of the so-called
national leaders who boast about village development seems to have understood
the stark reality behind this imminent national disaster.
It is the cumulative effect of all these factors that has created the
present impasse in development at village level in Sri Lanka. The maladies
are known. Unless we find the remedies to these maladies in time, village
level development in Sri Lanka, that forms the very foundation of national
development, will remain a day dream for ever. Bottom up village level
development, planned and implemented within a framework of a rediscovered
traditional village, based on our own social norms and value systems
such as communal participation divorced from party politics, thereby
making the people active and effective partners of their own development,
may be the way out of this intractable crisis. If we fail to develop
the village from this perspective development in this country will only
be a day dream.
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+ The name of that village is Meemure and it is located in Uda Dumbara
within the Mahanuwara District. With its beginning in the pre-historic
times this village constituted a separate Rata during the Kandyan period.
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