Books V2

Social Studies

Everybody loves a good drought

Written by P. Sainath, a freelance journalist, this book tells the real life stories of India’s poor. He made tours of India’s poorest districts during his fellowship from Times of India during 1993-95 and this book is a result of his research.

In the author’s opinion, poverty in India is very different from that in countries like Somalia. “Here, you can have the mandatory 2400 or 2100 calories a day and yet be very poor. Many who don’t starve, get very inadequate nutrition.”

For example, he tells a story of Naupada, Orissa, where in the name of experiment of upgrading the local bulls with higher breed of bulls, they (govt agencies and an NGO) extinct the local Khariar bulls. And out of the artificially inseminated cows, “eight calves were born, very small, useless ones”.

He tells stories of the quacks who hold degrees in Ayurvedic medicine from some forgotten universities and then distribute allopathic medicines and have two quick fixes: to infuse water and give tetracycline injections. He paints the picture of rotten public health system in the rural India. 20% of hospital beds are in rural India, where 80% of Indians live. So still (1995) TB claimed 4.5 million lives a year, diarrhoea about 1.5 million.

About education, read this: 60% of primary schools in India have only one teacher. 50% don’t have drinking water facilities, and 85% don’t have any toilets. 40% of children who drop out of education system, do so because of economical conditions. 60% of ‘general quota’, 70% of dalits and 80% of tribal students drop out after class 5, and still the governments are so adamant at pushing reservations in IIMs. No one thinks about primary education it seems.

The book also tells how the government schemes don’t reach those whom it is intended to. It talks about water problem, crime, lenders and crooks, displacement and emigration, and whole lot of issues that poor Indians face in their daily life. I got the first edition, published in 1996; I hope new edition has updated statistics. It can go without saying that the state of the poor is still the same in India. The best part of the book is that it is more of a ‘real account’ and less of statistics. A good one for those interested in the social studies or social work.

Book:        Everybody loves a good draught

Author:     P. Sainath

Publisher: Penguin Books

Price:        Rs 295

Amazon Link with reviews and details: [Link]