CS: Backwaters shining

Next to dazzling Gurgaon, the backward district of Mewat is all that 'India Shining' is not Khalid Akhter Delhi 

As soon as one sets foot in Mewat, the backwardness of the region hits starkly in the face. Only about 30km from India's IT and MNC hub of Gurgaon and hour- and-a-half's drive from the prime minister's residence in Delhi, here is a region that is extremely underdeveloped and conservative. Paved roads are virtually non-existent, and the barren landscape is dotted with girls carrying earthen pots on their heads to fetch water. You can see them washing clothes in dirty ponds, naked children playing in the dust with flies all around and women doing their household chores in crumbling houses fenced with shrubs, trying to find a little domestic privacy. Here, the only mode of transport are archaic, decrepit Mahindra jeeps, their crowded roofs overflowing with 'passengers'.

   Mewat district in Haryana has the highest percentage of Muslims in north India. This is a relatively new district, created in 2005, with the sleepy town of Nuh as its headquarters. The contrast between two neighbouring districts could not be sharper. If the magnificence of malls and MNCs with their young, sophisticated urban professionals in Gurgaon symbolise the globalised India, the abject backwardness of Mewat brings to the fore economic disparity in its truest sense.

Going by any index of human development, Mewat would rank among countries that are at the bottom of the Human Development Index. The literacy rate in the district is 44.9 per cent, compared to 75.34 per cent in Gurgaon and 67.91 per cent in Haryana state. The female literacy rate in Mewat ranges between a shameful 1.76 per cent to 2.13 per cent, the lowest in India. This district with a population of about 10 lakh has only one government degree college, which was established during the British period.

The health scenario in the region is pathetic. Malaria, tuberculosis, anaemia and other epidemics have become part of every household and neighbourhood, with AIDS spreading its deadly tentacles. Institutional delivery for healthcare in Mewat reaches less than five per cent of the population. The Al-aafiya Hospital, constructed with aid from the Sultan of Oman, is the only medical service- provider in the region, and even this hospital has a scarcity of doctors. Besides, child marriage is widely prevalent in the region. In almost all villages, girls are married off between the ages of 13 and 16 to grooms who are 17 plus.

Agriculture is the main source of livelihood. Agriculture is mostly rain-fed and groundwater is scarce, and only one crop — mainly wheat — gets cultivated through the year. Different political parties have come to power promising canals to bring in more water. Currently, there is only one canal —the Gurgaon Canal — which is nothing more then sewage drain that carries all the waste and filth of Faridabad. Even this dries up into a dirty nullah before the onset of summer.

In 1980, the Mewat Development Board was constituted with the state governor as its head. Its officials claim that between 1981 and 2006, Rs 160 crore have been spent on various development schemes. Not only are such funds insufficient, the board has reportedly become a den of corruption and nepotism. The Kuala Lumpur-based United Nations Organisation for Projects Supervision (UNOPS) has strongly indicted the Mewat Development Agency (MDA), which is part of the board, for not properly monitoring the utilisation of the financial assistance it has received from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

Most people in India may not be aware that Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the towering Congress leader during the freedom movement and education minister in Jawaharlal Nehru's cabinet, won his second parliamentary election from Mewat in 1957. At that time, the people of this abysmally backward area were full of expectations and optimism; their dreams were buried with the death of Azad in 1958.

 All political parties woo Mewat's people as vote banks. However, so far they have been left to fend for themselves by successive governments. Be it the Lok Dal, the Congress or the Haryana Vikas Party, they all claim to have initiated progressive steps for development. However, the social indicators tell a tragic tale of top-heavy failure and all-round neglect and the vicious trap of poverty, illiteracy and sub-human health and working conditions. Mewat, is still not 'Azad', as the dark joke goes.