The glitter is gone, the grind is back

By Kalpana Sharma

NAYLA, (RAJASTHAN), APRIL 10. The freshly-laid tarmac on the road which carried the U.S. President's cavalcade to Nayla village last month remains smooth. The `haveli' of the local Thakur where he met villagers is still clean. But the dust his visit raised has finally settled. Nayla is back to work. The tea shops which were pushed off the main road to prepare for `Quintal' or `Quinton', as most people still call him, are back in business. The pigs and cows are once again on the dusty lanes off the main road where the President walked and shook hands with the villagers.

But the computer that was installed just a couple of days before Mr. Clinton's visit is not quite in business. Mr. Clinton continues to talk about how he saw a village woman download health information from the computer. But `connectivity' has not yet arrived at Nayla. It came, momentarily, for the President's visit, and disappeared just as quickly. ``We have the computer, but we have no phone line,'', says the sarpanch, Mr. Kalu Ram. ``They (the Government) promised us a line.''

Thanks to a television channel report on the absence of an internet connection, overnight the panchayat was asked to send people for computer training. Three persons have been picked, including a woman who has studied up to Class 10. They are given their bus fare for travel to Jaipur where they get free training using the internet. This is part of the Rajasthan Government scheme to provide computers to all 9,184 panchayats.

``The computer works'', confirms Mohini Gupta, one of the oldest `Saathins' of the now virtually defunct Women's Development Programme, who tied a `rakhi' on the U.S. President's wrist. ``But it does not work when there is no current,'' she explains. And how often is that? ``Yesterday, we had no current all day. Today, it has just come (in the afternoon) but will go again by the evening.'' But she says she too learned how to press the right buttons on the computer a few days before Mr. Clinton's visit, how to handle the `chooha' (mouse) and how to recognise what the hand on the screen meant.

So what does she think why the U.S. President chose to visit her village, I ask. ``Oberoi must have arranged for him to come,'' she says. ``Oberoi?,'' I ask, puzzled. ``Yes, yes, Oberoi, who has bought the Nayla Fort,'' she explains. The fort that looms above the village is being developed by the Oberoi Hotels, which also owns the hotel where Mr. Clinton stayed.

What did you gain from his visit, I ask. ``Why should we expect something?'' Mohini says, sagely. ``He was our guest, we honoured him, and now he's gone.'' And life goes on for people like Mohini, who have been assisting the community on a number of issues. Right now she is struggling with a case of a young woman, suffering from TB, who supposedly committed suicide although Mohini believes she was forced to take her life. Since 1984, women like Mohini - and the better known Saathins like Bhanwari Devi - have been taking up such cases. For their labours, they are paid Rs. 350 a month. ``We were told not to talk about our honorarium in front of the President,'' she says. ``But this is not women's development, this is exploitation of women,'' she fumes.

No funds for balwadi

Mohini has been forced to take up another job because the honorarium is just not enough. She now works as a balwadi teacher. But for one year, no money had been allotted to give the children a nutritional supplement, she says. As a result, few children come. On her own initiative, Mohini managed to collect toys from the village for the balwadi.

Behind the glitter of Mr. Clinton's visit lies the daily struggle of women like Mohini. They grew in confidence and stature because of the Women's Development Programme in its early years. But as sources who have followed the fortunes and misfortunes of the programme point out, these women are now left to fend for themselves. Even a strong woman like Mohini is in tears as she recounts the struggle she faces with the case, she is handling today, of the alleged suicide.

``People in the village tease me and say, You now have a brother in America because you tied him a rakhi. So if you have problems, why don't you go there? But I say, why should I go there? This is my village, my home.''

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