Samant Kala declares war1

Samant Kala, then 42, was amongst the first few people that the field staff of the Gurjar Rural
Support Organisation (GRSO), a rural development NGO, came in to contact within the village
of Ambapur when they first began work there in 1984. Five years later, Arun Dalal, the
Programme Co-ordinator of GRSO for the district of Madhupur, told Sah, his colleague from the
head office, "All of us have known him to be a headstrong and an outspoken man; some like him
for it and some don’t. But we could never imagine that he would create a crisis such as this."

When the GRSO was established in 1984, Madhupur was chosen as one of the three districts in
which the organisation would carry out rural development work. The main objective of the
organisation was to provide technical support and limited funding for income generating
activities in villages with special stress on women and the resource poor. GRSO developed a
flexible, pro-poor style of operation with accent on professionalism. Dalal, like many of his
colleagues, was trained as an engineer and as a rural manager. GRSO began work in any new
village by establishing first a Gram Vikas Mandali (GVM) and then, through the GVM, initiating
land and water development programmes. Within Madhupur district, Ambapur was the first
village where GRSO had established a Gram Vikas Mandali.

Ambapur was a multi-caste village; the main communities were Ismailies, Karadias, Sagars and
lower caste communities such as Harijans, Rabaris, Bharvads, Mumna and Khat Darbars. Dalal
found that different communities in the village did not get along well. The Panchayat and other
elections were generally fought on caste lines. However, the communities had in the past been
willing to forget their differences to come together for programmes which promised major
benefit for all. Irrigated farming was the main source of income in Ambapur; and Ismailies, who
constituted 25% of the village population owned over half of the irrigated land in the village.
Karadias too were a strong and well-knit farming community; Arun Dalal saw them as traditional
in their outlook, but also very shrewd farmers. There were also some Lohana families who
controlled a booming trade in agricultural inputs and outputs with 17 neighbouring villages. The
80 Harijan families, though among the poorest in the village, were united and powerful; as a
result untouchability was long since a matter of the past.

Most Harijans and other lower caste families were landless; but 30 were Sathani farmers. In
1969, the Gurjar Pradesh Government gave each of these a 2.5 acre piece of waste land to

1
Prepared by Professor Tushaar Shah, Institute of Rural Management, Anand.
Case material of the Institute of Rural Management, Anand, is prepared as a basis for class discussion.
Cases are not designed to present illustrations of either correct or incorrect handling of administrative
situations.
© Institute of Rural Management, Anand 388001, India, 1990.

1
cultivate under an agreement called Sathani. Under its terms, the Sathani farmer had ownership
rights on the land but was not allowed to sell it.

Samant Kala, then 22 years old, was one of these 30 Sathani farmers. Over the years, through
hard work and determination, which Dalal and his colleagues in the GRSO much admired,
Samant Kala had improved the lot of his family. He set up a small cycle shop in which the eldest
of his three sons helped; the other two sons went to school. In 1989, with the support from
GRSO, Samant purchased a crossbred cow which his wife tended with much love and care in a
specially built shed better looking than the hut in which Samant and his family lived.

Dalal discovered that Samant had good organising capabilities and might make a good leader but
for his brusqueness. He also thought Samant had a following of at least 15-20 Harijan families.
He was quite knowledgeable about the various government schemes meant to provide special
support to Harijans and had himself used bank finance for buying seeds and fertiliser, for his
crossbred cow and for acquiring a biogas plant (in addition to his crossbred, Samant also had a
non-descript local cow and a buffalo). The local branch of the Bank of Baroda had given him a
special certificate for credit worthiness because he paid his dues on time.

One of Samant’s major ambitions was to sink a well on his 2.5 acre farm. At present, he could
take only one kharif crop every year; with a productive well, he could also grow rabi, wheat and
some fodder in summer. The cost of digging to a depth of 50 feet would be about Rs 20,000. The
major problem was the high risk of digging to 40'-50' depth and not striking water at all. Several
farmers in Ambapur had dug as many as 5 or 6 open wells before they found water; successful
wells were highly prized assets. There already were over 300 wells in the village; almost all of
these were owned by Ismailies and Karadias. The market value of farm land increased sharply
with the establishment of a successful well, and much more so if the well had water in summer to
permit a third crop. An informal survey suggested the value of land to be Rs 4-6,000 per bigha
without well, Rs 12-15,000 with a productive well and up to Rs 20,000 with a perennial well.

In May 1989, Samant found out from the taluka panchayat office at Malya about Jeevan Dhara, a
special government scheme, under which he would be eligible for a Rs 15,000 grant from the
government provided he dug a successful well on his farm. If the well failed to yield water, he
would be paid only Rs 1,000/-. Samant was willing to take the risk involved; what he needed
now was a loan to meet the actual cost of digging the well. So he approached the local branch of
Bank of Baroda for a loan; but the manager saw too much risk in Samant’s request and turned it
down.

So Samant approached Dalal of GRSO for assistance. Dalal explained to him; "You know that
the GRSO does not provide direct assistance to individual farmers; we assist individuals through
the Gram Vikas Mandali (GVM) of your village. You are a member of the executive committee

2
of the GVM; the GVM also has over Rs 26,000 in their savings funds. So it would be proper for
you to present your request to your GVM".

The Ambapur Gram Vikas Mandali had over 200 members belonging to all the communities.
Ismailies constituted the largest group within the GVM membership with around 80 members;
Karadias and Sagars were about 35 each and the minority lower castes accounted for the rest.
The executive committee of 10 members including a Chairman and Hon.Secretary were
nominated by the members in such a way that all communities were represented. The present
Executive had four Ismailies, two Sagars, two Karadias, one Harijan and one Rabari. The
chairman and secretary were Ismailies. The GVM had so far executed two checkdams and a
watershed project. In these projects, the GRSO assisted the GVM to secure some funding from
the government through the District Rural Development Agency; it also made financial
contribution from its own funds. Wage labour was contributed mostly by the members of the
minority communities who were enrolled as GVM members. Wage payments were sizeable; in
the first check dam, for instance, of the total cost of Rs 2.58 lakh, Rs 96,000 was labour cost.

Each dam was expected to improve the yields of 25-40 wells within their command; some
farmers located close to the river also benefitted directly as they could pump from the water
stored by the dam. The actual effect of the dam on recharge of wells after the 1988 monsoon was
different from expected. Some wells within and beyond the planned command gave improved
yields; but many within the command were not affected. The groundwater conditions of the
village appeared to be so complex that even William Barber, a noted world bank expert on
groundwater, was not able to establish clearly the linkages among wells and between the wells
and the dams.

The GVM also procured seeds, fertiliser and pesticides for the members. In all these activities,
major stress was placed on savings by members. Each member was required to deposit Rs.0.50
every month towards the GVM savings fund; one of the conditions in employing members to
work on construction sites was that they save Rs 0.50 per day from their wages and deposit it
with the GVM. GRSO had also encouraged voluntary saving by members of the GVM by
undertaking to deposit three times the GVM’s savings so that the GVM could borrow against this
deposit with the Bank. The GVM had recently been mobilising voluntary savings at a rate of Rs
4-5,000 per month by pursuading willing members to contribute Rs 50 each per month.

In mid-May, 1989, Samant Kala made a formal request to his GVM to provide him a temporary
loan of Rs 15,000 which he undertook to repay in one instalment within six months. The
President and the Hon.Secretary gently hinted to Samant not to press his request since, in the
view of the Executive, the GVM could not accede to it. But Samant pressed his request and
demanded that it be discussed in the meeting of the Executive Council. This took place on June
4, 1989. It was attended by five members including the President, Secretary and Samant himself.
A hot discussion ensued and the meeting ended with Samant walking out.

3
Next morning, Samant received a formal reply to his loan application from the President and
Hon.Secretary. This stated that the GVM would not be able to sanction Samant a loan of Rs
15,000 because of following reasons:

(a) The GVM had a very small fund of Rs 26,500 from which it found it difficult to make
a single loan of Rs 15,000. Doing so would affect the operation of other schemes of the
GVM of providing fertiliser, seeds and pesticides to members.

(b)The Executive perceived high risk in recovering the loan since (i) Samant’s 2.5
acre Sathani land was of poor quality and capable of yielding low income; ii) under the
terms of Sathani, the land given by the government could not be attached and sold to
recover dues from the owner. There was nothing else Samant could offer as a security;
and (iii) the Executive was in doubt as to how it would recover the loan should the well
that Samant wanted to dig turn out dry or saline.

Following this, on June 5th, 1989, Arun Dalal received a memo from Samant Kala and ten other
Harijan members which explained that the GVM was systematically discriminating against the
Harijans, Rabaris, Khant Darbars and other minority communities. The memo also requested
Dalal’s permission to withdraw their savings from the present GVM so that these minority
communities could start a separate GVM of their own.

On the evening of June 6th, in an informal meeting in which, besides Samant and Dalal, Sah
from GRSO head office, Samant’s wife and a few other Harijans were present, Dalal set out to
explain to Samant that if Samant insisted on a separate GVM, the work of village development
would suffer. He also explained that while he and his friends could withdraw their personal
savings, the present GVM would not allow them to withdraw their contribution of Rs.3000
(consisting of the membership fees and the compulsory monthly savings) to the GVM’s
communal savings since, according to the byelaws, these contributions were non-refundable.

At this point Samant got angry and expressed his agitation before Dalal thus: "How can they (the
Executive Committee) refuse us (Harijans) loans from our own savings? You know that more
than half of the GVM fund is what we contributed from the wages we earned while working on
the checkdams. If those savings cannot be of use to us, what is the purpose of continuing with the
GVM ? There are 45-50 of us from Harijans, Rabaris and Mumnas who have decided to split and
form our own GVM. We must get our savings back. And if we are not allowed to form a separate
GVM, I will see to it that the GVM Executive Committee is not allowed to sanction any loan to
anyone even if its funds increase to Rs 10 lakh." Having made his intentions clear, Samant Kala
walked out of the meeting.

4
Later, Sah argued with Dalal that everything should be done to make sure that the GVM was not
split and weakened. Dalal readily agreed but did not quite know how to prevent Samant Kala
from pursuing the course of action he had just indicated.