Two of those weeks were spent on econ field trips in rural India. The first trip was depressing and illustrated everything that can go wrong in a village. Khurja, a town about an hour and a half outside of Delhi, is the main center for a series of dysfunctional villages. Corruption is rampant and the disparities between castes was pretty intense. Public schools are useless and rarely in session because the teachers hardly ever show up. We tried to visit a village to conduct interviews, but once members of the higher caste were alerted of our presence, a tour was arranged. Influential members of the community were asked to accompany us so that no one would say anything negative. After conducting a few interviews, the police were then called to escort us so that no one would talk to us at all. In the last few months, there have been a number of murders in this village, which involved kidnapping people in the middle of the night and tying them to the nearby train tracks. Victims have included members of both the untouchables and the powerful Jat caste. Just being in that village made me uncomfortable.
My econ research focuses on the Rural Unemployment Guarantee Act (RUGA), a piece of legislation where the Indian government provides up to 100 days of paid work to rural citizens, at a minimum wage. If work isn’t available, workers are supposed to get paid half wages for each day they can’t work. None of this was going on in Khurja. When work was provided it was "busy" work that didn't really have a purpose, such as digging moats around farmland or making brick roads that won't be used or completed. But that's when work is available. It appeared that most people never even came close to getting 20 days of work, so the idea of 100 was a distant dream. My trip to Khurja made me extremely disappointed and convinced me that my paper would be a complete critique of RUGA.
That was until we went to the second field trip, in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh. Here everything was different. The public schools were so good that kids walked three hours each way, six days a week, to go there. Everyone in the village wanted to work together. In Khurja, we were told that under the RUGA, paved roads couldn’t be built. In HP, there were lots of paved roads connecting the villages. When we asked about it, we were told that some of the roads were actually built under the provisions of RUGA, which mandates that all work costs be split the following way, 40% for materials and 60% for labor. Most of the roads however, were built by the goodwill of the people. So that everyone could benefit from a paved road, the workers all agreed to surrender wages. They told the contractor to write the expenses off as labor costs, when in actuality, they had instead used the money for materials. In these villages caste lines were less visible and progress for everyone was the main motivation. In contrast to the other village, it was refreshing to see such functionality. Perhaps your surroundings impact your decisions? Khurja was in the middle of nowhere and there was nothing exciting to see. The villages of HP were located among the hills and valleys of beautiful mountains. It felt like being in a nature calendar.
The third trip, which happened in between the two already mentioned, was to Darjeeling. Dargeeling is located in West Bengal, so we flew and for a brief 2 hours I felt like I was back in America. The Delhi domestic terminal made me feel like I was in JFK. Being on the runway and in the air, I felt like I was on one of my many trips home from Rochester. It was a bittersweet. In the air, I felt like I was going home and then when I got off the plane, reality sunk in and I realized I’m still in India, thousands of miles away.
Darjeeling was totally worth temporary delusions of being home. The mountain view was spectacular! The city was a bit of an illusion because it looked like a coastal town and the only thing missing were the ships. When we would drive around, I would look out expecting to see water and instead I only saw the valley. Easter morning we had to get up at 5 am to drive half an hour to Tiger Hill so that we could watch the sunrise. We didn’t leave early enough so we only made it to a summit about half way up but it was still incredible.
After the sunrise we visited a Tibetan Monastery, a tea plantation and the Himalayan Zoo which also has a Mt. Everest museum. We also rode on the Toy Train which is the main method of travel throughout that part of Northeast India.
The Toy train is about 1/2 the size of a regular train.
Darjeeling tea!
The population of Darjeeling consists of Indians and lots of Tibetan refugees. Somehow this equates to amazing southeast Asian food because I went to a Thai restaurant and had the best pad Thai I have ever had in my life. I was already excited about Thailand, but now I am ecstatic.
After three major trips, staying in Delhi this weekend has been a welcome "vacation." Mostly I've just been catching upon my American tv shows but I also started reading The Autograph Man by Zaide Smith. Traveling is nice, but this weekend has been fantastic.
Ok, back to reading, I mean
Continuing to engage in adventures . . .
