In the tribal heartland of southern Rajasthan, stories of development rarely begin with a gleaming new building. More often, they begin with the green bed of a nutrition garden, a stamp on a government document, or a handful of indigenous seeds. Here, the rural development organization Vaagdhara rests its faith on a simple, powerful idea: change is never imposed from outside; it grows from within the community. Village-level groups are the pivot of this transformation, serving as spaces where women and farmers identify their own questions and set out to find their own answers.
Among the stories that have flourished in the shade of these community groups is that of Saju Devi and her husband, Dhanji Meena. Their home is in Dhanela gram panchayat, just five kilometres from the block headquarters of Aspur in Dungarpur district. This family of two sons and two daughters once struggled to balance a month’s basic needs. Dhanji farmed and travelled from village to village selling seasonal vegetables—tomatoes, okra, bottle gourd, chillies, aubergines, ridge gourd, and sponge gourd—but the income barely covered the household’s requirements.
The family owns five bighas of land: four level plots and one uneven tract. The uneven plot could be cultivated only in the kharif season, yielding little more than fodder for their animals and grain for the household. The level fields produced a kharif crop, but by the time rabi arrived, the water had run out, leaving wheat and gram to be sown on only a small patch. Their livestock—two bullocks, two buffaloes, and eight goats—simply did not generate enough income to change their circumstances.
In 2020, Saju Devi joined the ‘Saksham Samuh’ formed by Vaagdhara. As she attended its meetings regularly, she began to see how far dependence on the market could be reduced by relying on local, limited resources. She did not keep this understanding to herself; her own conduct awakened other women in the village. She established a nutrition garden on a small plot near her home, where beds of tomatoes, okra, bottle gourd, spinach, and fenugreek began to flourish. The family’s meals became richer in nutrients, their health improved, and by selling the surplus, she began earning between ₹100 and ₹200 a day in season. She no longer had to look to anyone else for small necessities. Her garden proved, without saying a word, that self-rule is possible even with limited means.
The real turning point came in 2024. Shailendra Giri Goswami, a Vaagdhara facilitator, told Saju Devi about the Pradhan Mantri KUSUM solar energy scheme, under which central and state governments provide farmers with solar-powered irrigation pumps. With her husband’s support and the help of agriculture officer Rekha Meena, she applied online. By November 2024, a solar pump stood beside her field.
When the water came, the rabi fields came alive. Wheat, gram, mustard, peas, and green vegetables began to grow, and the improvement in income was plain to see. The horticulture department also provided forty mango saplings, which will bear fruit in the years ahead and open a path to steady earnings.
The light that reached Saju Devi’s home did not stop there; she shared it with the village. She told Sunil (Valji), Kaluram (Gokalia), and Bhemji (Hakariya) Meena about the scheme and helped them apply. In this way, one family’s success began to turn into shared awareness across the whole village.
However, government schemes often look as straightforward on paper as they are tangled on the ground, and a small technical slip can sometimes outweigh years of entitlement. Alku Ben, an elderly woman from Chhoti Padal village, is a living example. She spent her whole life shouldering family responsibilities, farming, and working as an agricultural labourer. When age began to wear her body down, the old-age pension was her only hope. Until 2022, it kept arriving in her account; then, suddenly, it stopped.
When she applied again, the answer was always the same: her age did not meet the eligibility criteria, even though her identity card stated she was 66 in 2024. An inquiry eventually revealed the mystery: her Aadhaar card wrongly recorded her age as 49. Because of that single digit, she was deprived of her pension for almost two years. She could neither understand the cause of the mistake nor see a way to correct it. The endless rounds of government offices and the maze of procedure felt like an insurmountable mountain. And this was not her pain alone; it was the shared plight of countless elderly villagers entangled in documentary errors.
In November 2024, Prakash, a Vaagdhara community facilitator, was holding a meeting of the Gram Swaraj group. Member Manji Bhai mentioned that his neighbour, Alku Ben, had received no pension since 2022, despite the money having reached her account regularly until then. The matter did not stay within the meeting room. Prakash and the group’s members went to Alku Ben’s home, spoke with her at length, and identified the real cause: the discrepancy between the ages on her Aadhaar card and her identity card.
The group’s president, Manji Bhai, along with members Chetan Lal and Hakar Ben, and Prakash, first went to the local e-Mitra centre, where they were bluntly told that the age could no longer be corrected. It was a moment of deep disappointment for Alku Ben and her family. But the group did not give up. They went to the tehsil office and laid the whole matter before the officials, who advised that if proof of birth were produced, the age on the Aadhaar could be corrected.
A list of required documents was drawn up, and the Aadhaar card and identity card of Alku Ben’s brother, Gotiya, were gathered as proof. These were submitted at Bhogoro ka Kheda panchayat, where, with the cooperation of the sarpanch and the secretary, the formalities were completed in time and Alku Ben’s birth certificate was prepared. On that basis, her correct age was entered into her Aadhaar card. The journey was not easy; it demanded constant follow-up, patience, and administrative understanding.
As soon as the Aadhaar was corrected, the pension file was prepared afresh, and in May 2025, the pension was sanctioned. The arrears of the past two years reached her account in instalments: the first of ₹15,000, followed by two of ₹8,000 each. The pension now arrives regularly. Her family is content and happy today. Alku Ben believes that if the right guidance and support come in time, government schemes can truly reach those in need. The episode stands as a testament to the fact that active community organizations can achieve on the ground what no elderly person could manage alone.
Trust Restored by the Farming of the Ancestors
In Bhun ki Ghati, a small village in the Ghatol development block, thirty-two kilometres from the Banswara district headquarters, Hakru Bhai supports his family on four bighas of land. In both kharif and rabi seasons, he grew wheat, gram, and maize, but his yield never rose beyond four or five quintals. After 2014, he began using chemical fertilizers because organic produce fetched no fair price in the nearby market. Often, out of compulsion, he had to sell his crop at a low price to the local moneylender. When farming could no longer keep the household afloat, he had to travel to the neighbouring state of Gujarat in search of a livelihood, leaving his family scattered and struggling.
The people of Bhun ki Ghati have known Vaagdhara for the past three decades. The organization works to promote traditional farming, the all-round development of children, and the advance of village organizations toward self-rule. In 2018, the village’s first Saksham group was formed, and Hakru Bhai’s wife, Itri Ben, joined it. There, she grasped the importance of traditional farming and shared that understanding with her husband. Hakru Bhai agreed wholeheartedly and began attending the organization’s events regularly. In 2021, he became a member of the Krishi evam Adivasi Swaraj Sangathan and became an active force within the organization.
During the meetings, it struck Hakru Bhai that farming done in the traditional way, with crop diversity, brings manifold benefits. Experts trained the village’s farmers in seed production, seed conservation, management, and market knowledge. As a result, both the quality and the quantity of the produce improved. The produce gained recognition, and selling in the market became easier.
With this learning came a new resolve: if he could stop his own migration, he could stop that of other farmers in the village, too. He realized that the more farmers take up traditional farming, the more the yield will rise, and every farmer will get a fair price for their crop. With this in mind, he began explaining the model to the villagers himself, and in the process, his own confidence grew exponentially.
The change showed inside the home as well. As income rose, migration stopped. Family members could finally give one another their time, and savings began to provide basic facilities. His daughter is now in class twelve and his son in class six. Hakru Bhai says he is now able to support both in their higher education, and it is his dream that his children will go on to serve in a government department. Meeting other farmers at various forums, he also began growing flowers on his land, which earns him an additional ₹1,000 to ₹1,500 a day during social occasions. On the strength of this financial assurance, he has begun building a new house for his family.
Reflecting on his journey, Hakru Bhai says he never thought he would reach this point, but he did not give up and kept learning something new all the time. His message to the people of his village and the surrounding area is clear: for good quality and a fair price for your crop, come together, adopt traditional farming, and save water, forests, land, animals, and seeds.
In the tribal heartland of Rajasthan, the picture of the village is changing—not through grand, top-down mandates, but through the quiet, relentless power of organization, collective effort, and self-reliance.
---
*Contact: vikasmeshram04@gmail.com
Comments