City Life:

August 03/2011: Everyone loves a good life.  Hard days’ work. Come back to a delightfully comfortable home. Go out to a glittering night ablaze with neon lights and blaring music. Bar hopping or dining out. Movies. Theatre. Concerts. Or just a quiet, wooded and yet safe park. All these and more are the basic ingredients that make up a good city. Here we are not talking about New York, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Paris or Barcelona. These are awesome cities. What we are talking about are cities as we know them in India. No drinking water. Most trees cut down. Public transportation in virtual disarray. Non-existent sewerage and garbage disposal. In brief, squalid urban lifestyle.

The recently released Census 2011 provisional population totals of rural-urban distribution shows that, nationwide, there is a migratory trend from villages to urban concentrates. Initially, it may look as if this is a healthy trend. The world knows that the immigrant always puts in that extra amount of effort to realize her or his dream of success and affluence. Look at the US of A. Closer home, check out the uprooted West Punjabis when Pakistan was created. These are extraordinary stories that tell us of how nations are created or societies demolished and rebuilt. This may be true in the past. However, present trends clearly tell a different tale. The Census 2011 informs that migration at the country level averages 3.35% while Orissa averages 1.69%. This shows that either the educated or the physical laborer is leaving the rural for an urban life. The issue is not to be taken lightly. No matter how much we may claim that urbanization is an effective yardstick to measure upward economic mobility, the truth is that our ‘cities’ are attracting only those who have limited skills. Those skills may not be wholly utilizable in urban settings. Resultantly, the migrant may imagine being in a glitzy city with everything moving fast all around yet she/he may not ever be a party to that speed and growth. Just a mere spectator and that is it. Sad but true.

Indian cities have never had planned growth. A person deprived of basic civic amenities cannot be counted as someone having simple human rights. Seen on a larger canvas, human rights are not missing only in conditions of war or other duress. One could be living sans them in a perfectly peaceful atmosphere if your municipality simply refuses to act. This is such a common scenario in most towns and cities of this country. A very pertinent check would be the next restaurant or sweetmeat shop you visit. Does it have the food adulteration check certificate or the health department’s license?  Most probably, the reply would be in the negative. Small yet important indicators like this show that migration to Indian cities creates slums.

Slums and deprived living conditions never project growth and prosperity. Those are wrong signs that display that the nation building activities are going haywire. Seen in this background, the rural to urban migration percentage observed at an all India level is not something wholesome or healthy. On the other hand, the lower rate of this similar migration in the State of Orissa shows a clean path. Instead of letting this positive trend happen on its own, by default, the State Government should wake up to this reality and take advantage. In place of creating slipshod concrete roads, no teachers in schools, electricity once in a while and not much of modern life goodies, our villages must be made attractive enough so that educated technocrats return to rural settings for a wealthier life style. This will not only reverse the migratory trend towards squalor and filth where everyone hopes to become a Slumdog Millionaire, rural Orissa could be created in such an environment that millionaires are created everywhere. Let us not forget that money is money. One could do anything if one is rich. And probably get away with it too. So, living in open spaces and having a healthy life would be possible if wealth is distributed evenly throughout the nation. Geographical concentration of affluence will benefit a few and deprive most. Orissa, being a naturally well endowed State, could easily achieve prosperity for most by spreading out the facilities and attracting talent to live all over. Your next Sarpunch may not necessarily be an under educated crook. She could be an IIM or IIT pass out.