The Hindu Business Line : A manch to reach out to rural masses

“We believe that it is not possible to achieve a growth rate of 10 per cent through industry and services; simultaneously, more emphasis will have to be given to rural areas.”

Mohan Dharia

G. Srinivasan

New Delhi, Oct. 5 In a country where all political parties promise to ameliorate the lot of the poor and rural masses, the advent of a people-centric networking body at the grassroot level to reach out to them will not make much of a difference. But this is not so in the case of a new movement launched in the capital this week, since the protagonist is a former politician of ethical mould but who now studiously shies away from politics.

Settled in Pune and espousing ecological harmony for sound and sustainable development, the octogenarian Mohan Dharia was here to launch the Jana Seva Manch as the co-chairman of the Confederation of Non-governmental Organisations of India, an apex body with as many as 5,000 NGOs under its umbrella across the country.

Stiff Opposition

Not letting out any iota of lassitude in spirit for his age, the former Union Minister and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman in the 1980s, Dharia contends that though all voluntary organisations and NGOs have been working for the good of the society, only very few are prepared to have a stiff opposition or if necessary struggle against injustice being done by the Government.

“Today the country has progressed but it is also true that we have not been able to give justice – social and economic to millions. It is perhaps that 30 per cent are heaping all the fruits and 70 per cent are the sufferers. Hence the launch of the Manch to see that the suffering people get social and economic justice,” says Dharia with gusto.

Listing out priorities of the movement, Dharia said that one of the key goals is to insist on the Government to take up such programmes which are in the interest of the poor people and which could improve the quality of their life.

“If the Government is not ready and if necessary, we are preparing their minds so that we may be in a position to launch our struggle not at one place but throughout the country. I think the Government will take due note of it,” gushes Dharia.

National Integrity

He said that as a freedom-fighter “I feel that the country is getting disintegrated – various casteist, religious and regional forces are coming up and having a lot of importance in the body politic. If this continues, it will not be possible to maintain the integrity of our country. So we want the national integrity to be maintained.”

The Manch would also see, he said, that the new science and technology and knowledge being developed should reach all areas. A pada yatra would be set off and the President of India, Pratibha Patil, has agreed to launch this programme of awareness of knowledge power on November 15.

Dharia said that with the help of the Indira Gandhi National Open University, awareness programme of quality seeds/quality plants and the appropriate way for development would be initiated to enable the people to be productive. “We believe that it is not possible to achieve a growth rate of 10 per cent through industry and services; simultaneously, more emphasis will have to be given to rural areas.”

Asked whether the movement would succeed in delivering results for the rural poor, Dharia resolutely said that “sometime it may happen that we have to launch our struggle also. Today there is a lot of realisation and the very fact that on October 2 the Prime Minister administered the oath to officers and the country speaking of common man, gives me hope that now I will harp on it to the Prime Minister that this is your oath and what are you doing it?”

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