The Story of Ghambira
The idea of featuring this story is to showcase how small and marginal farmers who were in destitution, pooled their lands and got someone else to cultivate their lands in a well-planned agriculture, and derived immense benefits. There was also no disputes for over 35 years and the process was not only helpful but also pulled them out of misery and destitution. Truly an inspirational story worth emulating. Wonder why this was not emulated so far. The Gambhira Co-Operative Problem History Essay Published: 23, March 2015 The Gambhira Co-operative is located in the Borsad Taluka of Kheda District in Gujarat. Before looking into the structure and nature of the collective action that was undertaken to make the co- operative, it might be a good idea to investigate the reasons why there was a felt need for an intervention by the Govemment. This is the part of the Kheda district where the Mahi River flows through. Consequently, land here used to be fertile. However, the vast river bed where the cultivation takes places used to be a flood-prone area. In fact, there were a series of devastating floods in the area over a span of a couple of decades that had catastrophic impacts on the farming activity in the region and also on the farmers of the region, who were let impoverished. Floods were particularly bad in three years, namely in 1927, 1941 and in 1949. The state of the farmers after 1949 was near destitution. Most affected were four villages, farm lands in which were, as mentioned earlier, in the river bed of the Mahi and therefore directly in the danger zone of the floods. These four villages were as follows - Gambhira, Kathiakhad, Nanisherdi and Bilpad. The repeated flooding activity had caused heavy silt to occur on the farm lands. This means that the top layer of the fertile soil was destroyed and the flooding caused a sand layer to be deposited on the surface of the land. Expectedly, this land was rendered completely unfit for farming activity. Another important point to note here is that until this period, lands were farmed individually. What this meant was that the individual farmer had access to very limited resources owing to the aforementioned impoverishment. Further, access to water was also an issue. Private-plants were providing water to the farmers for cultivation. Terms set by the private players, half-share basis, were steep and thereby added to the woes of the farmers. The Government partly owned the lands in question. A system was followed by the Government at the time where in the land was auctioned. The intention was to encourage utilization of the land for farming activity. However, the issues mentioned earlier had left many farmers landless. Therefore, they weren't really in any condition to participate in the auction, the benefit of which ultimately went to the richer farmers. This was how the situation stood in 1950-51. The Harbinger of Change: Leadership plays a critical role in any collective action as has been observed from the writings of Prof. Tushar Shah. Leadership in this context was provided by a Gandhian social worker by the name of Shri Chhaganbhai M. Patel. It was Shri Chhaganbhai Patel who the case of the farmers before the State Government at the time. The first change that was felt essential was to do away with the system of auctioning land, which as was apparent, didn't do much to aid the cause of the poor and landless farmers. Instead, the Government opted for a suggestion provided by Shri Patel, which was to give the land away to the landless farmers for cultivation. Thus, in 1951 , the Government gave away 246 acres of land to 176 farmers from the four villages of Gambhira, Kathiakhad, Nanisherdi and Bilpad. This was fertile land. The farmers, however, took to cultivating the land on an individual basis. This brought back problems that were experienced earlier, those of scarce resources and the consequent ineffectual cultivation. The Commons: Looking at the problem objectively, one can find an application of the Tragedy of the Commons, as first explained by Garrett Hardin. The theory states that in a scenario where there are several independent individuals, acting primarily towards fulfilling their own self-interest, however rational their decisions may be to this effect, will likely lead to a depletion of the common resources which are limited in nature, without benefiting any one individual or the entire group as a whole, optimally. The Commons or common resource was the land on which cultivation was to take place. An effective way of dealing with the issue, as by Hardin, is to pool together said scarce common resource and work collectively to derive the maximum benefit out of it for the group. In the context of the farmers of Borsad Taluka, one must also take into account their limited individual financial resources and their issues concerning water management. If one were to apply Hardin's suggestions, in this case, it would logically also follow that the farmers stood to gain by also pooling together their financial resources, and trying to deal with the water issues collectively. However, this leads to another big question as to the management of the pooled financial resources. As in the initial stages of any collective action, trust, therefore, became an important issue to address here as well. Therefore, what were needed were leadership that would be acceptable to all and a solution that would benefit everyone justly. Shri Chhaganbhai Patel through his foresight was able to provide a solution that would eventually lead to the formation of a farmers' co-operative in the four villages. His leadership was such that was indeed acceptable to all. However the second question of forming a system that would be justly beneficial still To implement this, what was required was for Shri Patel to mobilise the farmers. Co-operatives: Gujarat has a history of successful co-operatives all over the state. However, there wasn't at the time as successful farmers co-operative functioning. Nevertheless, Shri Patel saw this as the best possible solution if the farmers were to break the circle of poverty. His standing among the community as a man worthy of respect helped him gain the trust of the farmers. His suggestion to them was to pool together their land resources, financial resources and conduct farming and cultivation activity on a co-operative basis. After due deliberations, the farmers were convinced of the wisdom in Shri Patel's suggestion. They decided to form a co-operative and a request regarding the same was sent to the State Government of the time. The Group Farming Project was accepted by the State Government and registered by the Registrar, Co-operative Societies, Bombay State, under the Co-operative Societies Act in 1953. Though the formal registration was completed only in October of 1953, the society staned work in June 1953 itself. Functioning: The initial phase involved the pooling together of common land resources that the government had transferred to the farmers. All 176 farmers contributed all of the 246 acres of land that they had received. They surrendered their land ownership titles and the rights of cultivating individually to the society. Once this was done, the farmers were divided into groups. The idea here was to concentrate on collective farming, where the labor resources of the farmers are also pooled. The number of members in each group varied from 6 to 14. Each group had to elect a leader. Once the groups were formed, each group was allocated land from the pool to conduct farming activity on. The average land allocated to each group amounted to approximately 15 acres. Thus group farming activities were initiated in the farming season of 1953. At this point, it may be worthwhile to note the structure of the co-operative society that was formed that looked after the farming activity in the region. The society followed a primarily three - tier structure of management. The first tier was the Management Committee, headed by the Chairman. This Management Committee included one member, the right to appoint who was retained by the Government. As per the brawls that were decided upon, the members of the committee, barring the government nominee, had to be elected by the members in a general meeting and one member would be elected from among the committee as the Chairperson. However, for a considerable number of years after the formation of the cooperative, there were no elections held. The members were decided upon through common consensus. Shri Chhaganbhai M. Patel himself, retained the position of the Chairman of the co-operative for a period of 38 years, till his demise in 1991. It was decided that committee decisions would be through a deliberation and debate. At any meeting, the presence of at least 6 members would be required to perform the activities of the committee. As such, this was the quorum. The issues upon which the managing committee had to decide included those regarding membership applications, loans, purchase of seeds and fertilizers as well as other inputs required for cultivation activities, insurance policies, an appointment of staff members and fixation of wages, inspection of the Co- operative's books of accounts, arrangement of product sale etc. The second tier consisted of the staff of the society, consisted of a manager and his or her staff. The purpose was to conduct the administrative affairs of the society. The last tier comprised of the general farmer members. As mentioned earlier, this was 176 at the time of the inception of the society. However, it rose to 291 by 1961-62. In the same year, the Government allotted more land to the co-operative, taking the total land under the management of the Co-operative to 526 acres. At this point, it was decided to put a halt to induction of more members of the society, in order to battle the problem of decreasing avera* size of land holding. It was decided to continue with this policy till the average size of land holding went up to 3 acres per member. Operations: This structure implemented the collective farming as follows. The crop mix was upon by the group leaders. Since there was still the ever-present danger of floods it was to proceed with intensive cultivation. This was to done through an increase in the area under rabi and summer crops. It was also decided to keep the mix dynamic policy-based decision, with a review being held at the group level each year. Therefore, if adjustments were warranted, they were made. The group decided the crop mix in consultation with the Management Committee. The process was thus democratic. Historically, the operative concentrated on the production of food grains such as paddy, Baja, jowar and wheat. Along with this, the cash crop of tobacco was also grown, in both the sowing seasons in the year. The society was formed to enable easier access to hitherto inaccessible resources and inputs for the farmers. This purpose was fulfilled by the co-operative, by purchasing and subsequently distributing inputs such as all the crop seeds required. Other inputs such as pesticides, fertilisers, irrigation, tractor services etc. The Co-operative also concentrated on providing water for the purpose of cultivation as this was also one of the major problems faced by individual farmers before the formation of the Co- operative. Tube wells were constructed and underground pipelines were laid to provide water connectivity to all corners of the land that belonged to the Co-operative. With every action, there is always a fear of free-riding by some of the members. In the Gambhira Co-operative, this problem was in a preventive fashion. In other words, at the time of formation, rules were laid down as to the division of work among the individual farmer members in each group. under these rules, the responsibility of allocation of work in a just manner was vested with the group leaders. The group leaders decided on the daily allocation of work. To avoid free-riding and to work around differential efficiency among the individual group members, the leaders devised a method by which the more efficient farmer had to work for lesser hours in a day. Thus, there was a balance that was set among the more efficient and less efficient members. This also worked as an incentive to other members to improve their efficiency and also as a deterrent to free-riding. The remuneration policy was unique and effectual in its focus on fair and equitable distribution. There was no daily wage. Of the food-grains produced, the society distributed 50% among the farmer members through the group leaders. The remaining 50% was retained by the co-operative. Of the tobacco produce, the entire quantity was sold in a transparent auction to the highest price available. This was by any standard much higher than what individual farmers could have obtained for themselves. The proceeds from the sale of tobacco were distributed among the farmers and the society, but in this case, the society retained only 40% of the proceeds while distributing the remaining 60% among the farmers. Thus the system was such that led to an equitable distribution of the collected remuneration. Success: The Gambhira Co-operative is a model for farmers' co-operative or undertaking collective action in farming. The world over, there have been studies conducted and imitation models set up. More than half a century after its inception the Co-operative is still functional. unfortunately, many of the other co-operatives based on the Gambhira model have not been as successful over the years. The success of the Gambhira model can be attributed to several things. Firstly, there was the far-sighted leadership provided by Shri Chhaganbhai M. Patel. Formation of the co-operative was his brain-child and the leadership he provided for almost 4 contributed heavily to the sustenance of the co-operative. Aside from this, the Management Committee was professional in its functioning and that contributed a lot. The members co-operated with the society, but the provision for elections and general meetings enabled them to exercise a certain amount of member-control over the co-operative. This augurs well for the management to stay in line and work only for the common good. The support extended by the Government also played a great role in the success of the society. Conclusion and Learnings: One learning I have obtained from the course on Collective Action and Co-operation is that Social Mobilisation is not a one-time event in history. It is a continuous process that does not necessarily have a starting point or a finishing point. The key for any mobilisation activity to be successful, indeed the key to the success of any collective action involving the commons is for the stakeholders to take over the decision-making activities related to the commons. This was in the case of the Gambhira Co-operative, where the stakeholders were the farmers of the four villages of Borsad taluka who had been rendered landless by the repeated and ravaging flooding of the river Mahi. That the social mobilisation work undertaken by Shri Chhaganbhai Patel was successful can be measured through the fact that the farmers felt the need for the setting up of a participatory organisation, in other words a co-operative society that would look after the collective benefit of all of them. Social Mobilisation involves first understanding the needs of the stakeholders and then addressing them in a professional manner. Shri Patel foresaw the benefits of a co-operative system of farming. He realised the potential it had for the alleviation of poverty in the area. Since the individual farmers were not making much headway, and since the proposal forwarded by Shri Patel was for the collective benefit of all the farmers, he was able to convince the stakeholders of its viability. The farmers were able to see the benefit of engaging in collective action. Hence participation was voluntary and complete, with more farmers wanting to join in at later stages. Thus, the mobilisation in the villages of Gambhira, Bilpad, Nanisherdi and Kathiakhad achieved near-perfect results in terms of the setting up of a sustainable institutional structure that would look out for the collective benefit of its members.