Problems have begun cropping up in the Gujarat government’s recent decision to “review” the rejected claims of the tribals’ land title applications under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), which is under implementation in the 12 predominantly scheduled tribe (ST) districts of Gujarat. According to official sources, about 182,869 claims were filed by the ST and other forest dwelling families for the recognition of their right over forest lands that are in their occupation for habitation/ self-cultivation from before December, 2005. Out of these, the government officials “checked” 1,54,657 claims, but of these only 55,025 or just 30 per cent of the claims were found to be valid, according to the latest figures have come in.

A landless woman in the Little Rann A recent document, sponsored by the Union ministry of rural development’s department of land resources, on land rights of socially and economically marginalized communities of Gujarat, based on consultation with several voluntary organizations, has said that Gujarat is well-established as economically developed state, but regrets unabashed use of land “as one of the major resources” towards achieving this aim. Employing central laws for large-scale land acquisition, the document, prepared by senior activist Pankti Jog for Janpath, regrets, “Wherever the land was not available in one geographic area in large chunk, the government has acquired land through enacting executive orders during  2000s and a policy by the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) in 2010.”The document says, “One of the major threats is large scale-land acquisition for industries to augment industrialization. The series of Vibrant Gujarat summits have started proce...

In Rann of Kutch In an alarming revelation, a September 2012 report, prepared by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), has suggested huge gaps in the female education levels of Gujarat, especially among those belonging to the three socially-deprived groups, scheduled tribes (STs), schedules castes (SCs) and other backward classes (OBCs). Findings have been reported the NSS report, “Employment and unemployment situation among social groups in India”. The survey (rural plus urban) results show that in the age-group 5-14, 75.1 per cent ST females attended any educational institution; this dropped to 22.4 per cent in the age-group 15-19, and further to 1.8 per cent in the age-group 20-24. If the survey results are to be believed, there isn’t much of a difference for SCs and OBCs, either. Worse, in each of these social groups, Gujarat ranks among rock-bottom Indian states as far as females attending educational institutions are concerned.

A few days back, I was glancing through the latest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2012, brought out in January by a high-profile NGO, Pratham. For the last few years, it had been making news, at least in Gujarat – each year, the survey results suggested poor quality of education dogging the state's primary schools. The new survey, interestingly, revealed that, instead of improving, Gujarat's educational standards have actually deteriorated over the last one year.  As compared to 2011, when 79.7 per cent children in classes 1 and 2 could read letters, words and more, in 2012 this percentage went down to 73.The percentage of children of classes 1 and 2 who could recognize numbers 1-9 or more went down from 79 in 2011 to 71.7 in 2012. Things were found to be not very different for children in standards 3 to 5 or 6 to 8. Only a handful of Bimaru states scored better, that too in some sectors – Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. When I f...

This should be an eye-opener for those who have been architects of the Modi government’s much-publicised kanya kelavni show, meant to enroll higher percentage of children, especially girls, in schools, by sending the entire babudom to the rural areas of Gujarat. If details of the latest Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER), put out this January, are any indication, last year, whopping 30.1 per cent girls, in the age-group 15-16, failed to turn up in Gujarat’s rural schools, which was the highest in the country. The report qualifies 30.1 per cent girls as “out of school”, a term used to combine “dropped out” with “never enrolled” children. What is most disconcerting is that none of the 20 states surveyed show such poor performance. Even the so-called Bimaru states are better performers than Gujarat.

  A recent research paper, "An Analysis of Education in Gujarat" by Sourindra Ghosh, has reached the drastic conclusion that though traditionally Muslim literacy rate in Gujarat has been better than the all-India average, in recent years it is showing a very slow increase. In fact, if the researcher is to be believed, "Gujarat's Muslim literacy rate relative to overall literacy" has lately experienced a decline. Ghosh, who works with Sewa Bharat in New Delhi, and has extensively been involved in several education related research works, says, "According to Census, in 2001 Muslim literacy rate was 73.5 per cent", which was higher than the overall liveracy rate of 69.1 per cent.

I have in my hand a fresh study on Gujarat, “Poverty Amidst Prosperity: Essays on the Trajectory of Development in Gujarat.” What struck me while scanning through this book – which has been edited by Prof Atul Sood of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and contains well-researched papers by 11 others – is Sood’s following statement in the introduction: “Whatever impact and consequences of growth and development that Gujarat has experienced are in a way a precursor for things to come in other parts of India, unless something drastically changes in the policy orientation at the Centre.”  In Sood’s view, the current Gujarat “model”, which other states now want to replicate, is “characterized in terms of deregulation of the domestic economy and greater integration with the global markets.” While some observers may consider this statement as something Gujarat’s ruling elite should be proud of, nearly all scholars who have contributed to the book, without exception, seem to thin...

University campus A recent survey conducted by a group of students from the faculty of law of the prestigious MS University, Vadodara, Gujarat, 63 per cent of girl students and 69 of male students believe that girls are “not secure” on the campus. Carried out against the backdrop of up-swell of public rage against crimes of rape and sexual violence on women in India, the survey suggests that women and sensitive men across the country and Vadodara are demanding a better and human society for women and girls. It also finds out that that 24 per cent of girls and 19 per cent of boys said they have “witnessed sexual harassment on the campus.” However, they regret, “none of them have complained about it.”