RURAL MIGRATION
Ashfaque!!!! Shift to Mumbai from your Village.
Change your lifestyle to a modern lifestyle.
Educate your children in good schools and help your society.
I am really thankful to my uncle for his concern.
My concept of helping the society is not similar to his. Shifting from a village to a city is similar to leaving a small ever loosing political party and joining another who is already in Power. One should work hard for his small group and make it big and change the tag from looser to winner!
Toastmaster of the day, fellow toastmasters & distinguished guest, a very good evening to all of you.
Viewing from a distance - the Village, a peaceful small population, situated in a scenic environment, appears deceptively simple. A cluster of mud-plastered walls shaded by a few trees, set among a stretch of green or dun-colored fields, with a few people slowly coming or going, oxcarts creaking, cattle lowing, and birds singing--all present an image of harmonious simplicity.
It is often said that India is a nation of villages. There are approximately 500,000 villages in India according to the 1991 census
Writers & poets are always drawing beautiful images of village life using exotic words.
But is the beautiful painted image a reality?
Looking at my village and the surrounding villages aroused questions in my mind.
“Who is spoiling the beauty of the village?
What is the reason that villages are turned into forest & ruins” The answer I got is “MIGRATION” people are migrating very fast from villages to cities.
The question is why people want to migrate?
Villagers do not have enough resources to feed their children. They do not have facilities to educate their children. They do not get easy employment and also they want to avail good opportunities and improve their lifestyles.
What is the reason that people suddenly started thinking of grabbing opportunities and to change their lifestyles?
I feel the reason is Literacy and the Electronic Media
In the old days the electronic media was not very much popular and so people were unaware of the opportunities and facilities which were available in the city. Nowadays most of the villagers own TV sets & dish connections. Yes, the electronic media has reached jet fast to the smallest streets of Indian villages.
Let’s have a look at the impact of this migration. The first and biggest impact is on the people who are unable to migrate because of less capital. They are not able to bear the heavy expenses of the city life. They are forced to stay back in their village. Since majority of the people leave the village most of the already existing infrastructure is crumbling & is no loner self sustaining due to lack of population. E.g. Schools which required at least 50 students to function cannot be continued with 5 students.
The best example is my Village school which is to be discontinued next year because there is only 1 student left. How can the Govt. continue a school with Rs.5000 as a rent of the School building and pay 6000 to a teacher for only one student? Another impact is on the old people who are emotionally attached with villages & do not want to move to cities leaving behind their ancestral place. They suffer their old days without the support and love of their children and grand children. Since it is another issue, I don’t want to comment whether people should stay back with their old parents in the village or they should think for their future and of the future of their children.
Impact of rural migration to the cities is easily observed by everyone.
The problems of traffic, unavailability of residences, pollution, unavailability of employment and various uncountable & uncontrollable problems are just because of the huge population in the cities.
It’s really good that villagers are getting educated and I am also happy with the electronic media who are doing their work wonderfully.
However, we should take urgent remedial measures to stop the process of MIGRATION and mitigate the sufferings of these helpless villagers.
I suggest & request villagers who are planning to migrate to city.
· “Please be united and try to bring the maximum facilities in your village or in a nearby town to which you are going to migrate”.
· I request city residents to help the villagers to do so as their migration harmfully affects the beautiful Indian cities.
· Those migrated Villagers, please pump in money into your Village to sustain it.
Doing so, we all are helping the society as well as humanity.
Let us not forget what Tahar Ben Jelloun, the Moroccan poet and writer said, “The wounds of migration hit me in the face: men were psychologically destroyed.”
Over to the Toastmaster of the day!
