Rajasthan

Namaste!

Sorry for the delay in blog posts. I had to post them at once because I have been traveling with lack of access to internet. (Thanks to my friend Prashant who I have been calling daily to get my internet card to work.) I have one post which actually goes before this one, but I can’t post it until I get back to Delhi because I have it saved in a different location.

Emily and I have been really busy traveling in Rajasthan. It’s been a combination of work and pleasure for me, but all of it has been a lot of fun and much different from my previous travels in India. We started the trip in Alwar, Rajasthan, where we met my Fulbright advisor for a conference on Decentralization and Rural Governance. The conference itself was held at the Dadhikar Fort (although we stayed at a local hotel). Besides eating all types of delicious food (including Rajasthani food), people from all over India and the world were brought together to discuss the impact of Panchayati Raj. Panchayati Raj is an Indian law which was passed in 1999 to reserve 33% of the seats on local village councils for women. The law acts as an empowerment mechanism for women because they are granted access to service on the local governing body.

The studies presented in this conference provide empirical evidence that the presence of women on Panchayats has a positive impact on the provision of public services. One of those public services includes the provision of clean drinking water. In addition, they were able to show that health services and other infrastructure (electricity, roads, etc.) have improved after women had been allotted seats on the Panchayats. Because women are primarily responsible for providing water to their households, granting them this access to decision-making authority is shown to have positive outcomes.

Interestingly, this pro-women conference was led by a large group of men. There were a number of women present, but none of them presented any papers. This is interesting considering the fact that the papers recognized that appointing women as the head of household makes the entire household less vulnerable to shocks caused by natural disasters (flood, drought, etc.) and family problems (loss of job, illness, etc.).

One of the especially interesting papers was presented by a professor of economics at Brown University. His unique approach led to the conclusion that bribes are an effective way of obtaining your desired result. After being probed for clarification by the crowd, he clarified that it was an effective mechanism when working with an imperfect governance structure. In particular, he found that the poor were able to influence their elected leaders into obtaining their desired outcome. In village Panchayats, individuals are confronted with the question of voting for the most competent and effective leader or the leader with whom they agree in terms of policy. Individuals tend to vote for the competent leader rather the one that agrees with their views. Then, they bribe the official to act in the manner which benefits them.

Enough on the research presented at the conference. I have to say that the setting was absolutely incredible. The opening took place beneath the stars in this beautiful fort in Rajasthan. We enjoyed so much good food every day. The Rajasthani thali was probably the most interesting. We had a little taste of many typical Rajasthani dishes. Rajasthani food is considered by most Indians to be rather dry. Because Rajasthan is situated in the desert, it was difficult to obtain fruits and vegetables for food preparation. Therefore, many of the foods are made of lentils and different types of flours. For example, they make corn flour rotis and mixed grain rotis which are quite delicious. To my surprise, Indian sweets are growing on me. My favorite thing at the conference was the kulfi (a pistachio/almond ice cream), but I also liked the gulab jamun and halwa. Most sweets are full of lots of sugar, ghee, and milk which taste pretty good after finishing a very spicy meal.

At the conclusion of the conference, we visited the Sariska Tiger Reserve, and I am pleased to announce that I saw my first tiger, twice! It was pretty exciting. I was sitting next to my advisor who planned the entire conference, so he was thrilled to say the least! At this park, 22 tigers were poached in 2004, and they have since introduced other tigers. There are currently 7 in the park, which they track. Therefore, it feels a little like cheating that we saw the tiger because they had been tracking it. However, we were still very lucky. The tiger had apparently been resting since 8:00am and decided to wake up for a yawn when we arrived around 4:30pm. Emily even managed to snap some pictures!

From Alwar, Emily and I went on to Jaipur and are on our way to Jodhpur. She has written up a very nice description of what we have been doing. You can check it out on her blog with some pictures at Emily-solongstatusquo.blogspot.com.

Stay in touch and I hope to talk with you soon.

Margaret

P.S. My Hindi skills have been quite effective in keeping our expenses down traveling. Sure, I attract a lot of attention as a white, female Hindi speaker, but I can usually get much closer to the Indian prices by speaking Hindi. It also came in handy at the train station when our train to Jodhpur left four hours late!

This picture was taken on the bus between Alwar and Delhi.

This is taken from inside the fort in Alwar.

The fort itself. It's a great place for a conference.

On the way to Sariska Tiger Reserve.

Emily caught the lion mid-yawn!

Amber Fort - Jaipur, Rajasthan

All pictures copyright Emily TeKolste.