annenberg media ♪ captioning sponsored by annenberg/cpb the region of south asia stretches

omoaimalan peaksoscatinanceslan a naon experiencing exosive populationwth. mid-centas the world'sl st populated country. wei, is eaway from e hardships thhiof the rural countryside. here we see the effects of rural-to-urban migrion and the development of informal settlents. india's capital, delhi, has a population of between 13 and 14 million. commuters, camels, rickshas, buses, motorcycles-- delhi is a smorgasbord of sights and sounds. people of many different ethnic, religious and linguistic groups

make the capital the city that it is today. but amid this cultural mosaic, this swelling city faces some serious challenges. delhi sits on the banks of two large rivers, catal city for aongsuccess, the ganges aheamuna. delhi s fomamanyea its lonvarious peoplesfnks have left their mark on delhi. for instance, remnants of the islamic domination that started in the 12th century can be seen in old delhi. new delhi was built in the british colonial period at the end of the 19th century. its tidy grid-line streets and office buildings offer a sharp contrast to the narrow, bustling streets of old delhi.

today the power that is shaping delhi is economics. beginning in the early 1900s, india made a strong push toward liberalizing its economy. with its strong international ties, s be quick keeping pace with the changing environment. products a coming in frombroad, and on their srttails comeele. with the changing environment. delhi's life-sty is cngg a. ( bus horn blaring ) drawn by the appeal of the city and the liberalized economy, more and more people are moving to delhi from the countryside. however, moving to the city does not necessarily mean that you can find work there.

woman: they come to delhi expecting to earn money and find employment because they've heard that there's more opportunities there and it's a growing, booming metropolitan area. and when, in fact, they get there, there'massive unemoyin theity. and unless they're very lucky, or extremely well connected in terms of the social networks they've set up, they're out of luck, at least for a number of... an extended period of time until they can find something. if people can no longer really earn a livelihood in agriculture-- because you go into a form of agriculture that's export-oriented, that's big farms, that's mechanized just like the rest of the world-- and they come to the city as their next option but there's no employment for them in the city, what is going to happen tom? is how to house and employ all the people who come there. narrator: ten days ago this plasterer traveled 200 kilometers in search of work.

( speaking hindi ) translator: it's hard. i had hoped to work at least eight days. even two days' work would have been okay. but no work. narrator: from early morning to late evening, people wait here and hope for work. some of the people who come to delhi have nowhere but the streets to live; many live in squatters' towns. most of the people who live in delhi's squatters' camps; have come from agricultural villages in search of a cash income. if they are lucky, they hold down many types of jobs and send money home to their relatives in the village. the problem is the sheer volume of immigration, which is overpowering the city's ability to cope. more than one-third of the population of delhi live in squatters' camps or slums. the land area covered by informal settlements in delhi has exploded in the last 20 years,

and there's nobody that i've spoken with or anyone who's done research on it who has made the case that this is slowing down in any way and that people are being moved to more stable or legal areas. so, it's at least a third of the population at this point and it may very well be slightly more. municipal governments are never thrilled, in general, with increases in informal settlements because they're always problematic from a governing point of view. when a third of your city of 13 million people are living in informal settlements, it really doesn't make any sense to believe that you're going to somehow discourage them or move them by simply denying them services. people in squatter settlements in india as in other places are extremely resourceful and are often able to "borrow"-- if i can use that word to describe how they get their services;

but get access to water, get access to... arrange access to, uh... garbage collection or collect the garbage themselves and put it at a dump site where they know it will be collected eventually or get illegal connections to electrical wires... that over time ameliorate the kinds of conditions that they're in and actually give them hope and allow them to stay in their localities for long periods of time. like in many places, the squatters in delhi, many of them have been there for a decade or more. narrator: continual population pressures have also led to an explosion in the number of cars on the road, degrading air quality and bringing traffic to a virtual standstill. at the same time, factories are spewing tons of pollutants into the air. i think nothing has frightened me more than the change in air quality that you experience nowadays

when you travel to delhi. when you land in the city, the first thing that you are aware of as you exit your airplane is the thickness of the air that surrounds you. it almost has a physical presence in terms of its quality because there's so much dust and particulate matter-- fumes from cars, industrial emissions and manufacturing emissions-- that the quality of the air is... is and feels very dangerous. it's not uncommon to go for a walk in delhi for half an hour and to come back with black coating around the outside of your nostrils or on your clothes. and it's really been assessed by the world health organization as one of the ten most polluted cities-- in terms of its air quality-- in the world, and that is a very recent phenomenon.

i would say in the last 15 years air quality has become devastating in terms of what it's doing to people's health. man: ...delhi and the delhi metropolitan area are down... narrator: the national capital region plan board is attempting to solve some of these problems. it has formulated a comprehensive plan for the entire capital region. in order to provide a congenial living environment, delhi cannot be planned in isolation, individually. it has to be planned in the context of a much larger area, which is the national capital region. narrator: the plan will work to extend the capital region to 20 times the current size of metropolitan delhi. within the new capital region, it is hoped that newly created satellite cities might help delhi's overburdened infrastructure. new arrivals could settle in these cities rather than add to the squatter camps on delhi's outskirts.

these satellite cities are supposed to be connected by an expanded rail and highway system, but so far there's been little progress. daniere: most places in the world have been extremely unsuccessful at diverting growth from the main urban centers because they don't accompany or are not able to accompany those attempts with the same kinds of opportunities-- both economically but also politically and culturally, and education, in terms of education opportunities-- that these primary centers have. so while there was a plan to try to diffuse growth out of delhi to a variety of smaller cities around delhi, as far as i know, that has not been particularly successful. and what's happening is the delhi boundary is moving out and out and out into the surrounding provinces. narrator: some 20 miles south of delhi is the city of gurgaon. its development was a crucial part of the plan

and holds hope for the future. today, gurgaon city has many factories and housing complexes. one of these factories manufactures automobiles and is a japanese-indian joint venture. automobile production became an important of india's economy, particularly in the 1990s. multinational manufacturers such as general motors, hyunda vol, mitsis volkswagen all have assembly plants in india. lack of a stable power supply has been one impediment to india's development. this plant generates its own power. machery hummg) one advantage of urban life, and an important reason for rural-to-urban migration, is that caste discrimination much less in the cities. danier once people leave their rural villages, it's much more difficult to enforce the caste system

upon their arrival in a big city. it becomes a much less potentially exploitive barrier because peoplearen't s, and many of the people who employ lower-caste employees are already educated to a certain extent themselves about the kind of cruelty and exploitation and negative aspects of castes and don't necessarily enforce it themselves in their lives, even if they're sure about the relative castes of people. narrator: chauhan was born in an agricultural village and came to the company as an apprentice 11 years ago. he currently works as the assistant line manager on the assembly line. there are two shifts a day at the factory. chauhan worked the morning shift

and is just now getting home at 4:30. chauhan graduated from a technical school near his village and migrated to delhi, where he married and started a family. he purchased his home with a loan from his employer. as a new member of india's growing middle class, chauhan's migration to the city had a positive outcome. ( speaking hindi ) translator: you couldn't get a lot of things back home. today, some people in the villages have televisions and radios, but when i left, no one in my village had any of those things. you can buy all sorts of things here in delhi. you can buy everything you need. narrator: however, people sharing chauhan's dream continue to pour into the city daily, adding to the already burgeoning urban population.

japanese geographer minamino takeshi puts the dilemma this way. ( takeshi speaking japanese ) translator: as to what is causing the problems of india's cities? basically, it's easier to live in the city than it is to live in the countrysi. so what needs to be done is to make it easier to live in the countryside. if it's easier to live in the countryside, then i believe that india will develop and prosper, and it can achieve some sort of harmony and balance between its urban and rural development. narrator: but for now, informal settlements continue to sprout on delhi's fringes. unless it can slow its population growth and curb rural-to-urban migration, delhi faces ever greater difficulty maintaining a stable infrastructure. as for the rest of the country, india's population is already one billion--

the second largest in the world, not far behind china. people-- they fuel both the hopes and fears of delhi's future. inion ofousia,arina's puon mas and low-income agricultu here, the es he mononmate stdermine harvest outcomes. inecent cades,en s ced derngrultural techni tfortrogenarrator:tpura, st. e icwit is october.

the monsoons that have brought welcome rain to the madhya pradesh state in central india, have finished. after four months of rain, the long dry season will begin; little rain will fall between now and next june. life in india's farming villages has always revold around the southwest monsoons. since rain is so scarce during the dry season, the villagers must depend on well water and the rain that falls each summer. some yearsone-third ofome, the total land mass of india is frequently subject to serious droughts. always worryin abouthe xtht, the in governmengan a major irgation project in 1947.

e of the first to benefit was the madhya prash state. under it, the chambal river development plan-- the kota barrage-- was completed in 1960. two main canals branch off here to bring their blessings to the agricultural villages downstream. the village of dikhatpura lies about 200 miles to the northeast of the barrage. water first flowed into the village in 1971. minamino takeshi, a japanese geographer, visits dikhatpura. he is researching how irrigation and water management have affected life-styles in india's farming villages. this yea water began coursing down therrigation canals arly october. the farmers quickly move io high gear as they prepare their nd for nter crops.

one of the farmers in the village is heeralal. he is preparing to grow mustard. translator: we useto grow crops only during the summer. now, with the irrigation canals, we can plant two crops a year. narrator: water means that farmers can plant winter crops, which has led to more cultivation of wheat and mustard. early-harvest mustard can be seen all around the village. the seeds are harvested and sold to a factory where the oil is extracted. in 1966, the government promoted an agricultural plan called the "green revolution." it emphasized the introduction of high-yielding grains. many farmers moved away from subsistence agriculture and into cash crops such as wheat or mustard.

heeralal used the money earned from thescrops to purchase a water buffalo. it will soon be giving birth, and he hopes that the baby will be a cow, so that he will have more milk to sell. actually, most of heeralal's neighbors also raise water bfalo. their number in this village has tripled in the last 30 years. they have plenty of milk, which is a ready source of income. the government and agricultural ministry have been aggressively promoting water buffalo husbandry as a means of conquering poverty. milk collected by the villagers is sold to a milk broker. it is then taken to the nearest city, morena,

which is ten miles away. produce comes to morena from all of the villages in the area. ( whistle blowing ) ( calling out ) narrator: residents are always eager to see the milkman. consumption of milk in the city has increased. this, of course, has spurred even greater emphasis on water buffalo in the farming villages. the scene is being repeated all over india and is sometimes called the "white revolution." narrator: irrigation water is the lifeline of the village. the main canal here is the main artery of that lifeline. management of the canals is mainly the responsibility of the irrigation bureau.

however, the smaller distributaries are managed by the village itself. water is regulated by inserting or removing weirs. ( conversing heatedly ) narrator: disputes frequently erupt over the use of the water. this young boy needs water in his field downstream. but the elderly farmer, whose farm is upstream, has put up a weir so that he can water his ownield. a major contributor to disputes over water rights is a lack of set rules over, and controls on, water use. unfortunately, the canals are often not properly managed. water should be flowing through this canal.

another major problem is the amount of war lost to leaks in the system. in one village near dikhatpura, the water table has risen due to seeping water out of the canals. this village, formerly subjecto droughts, now has problems with boggy soil. a third problem which has accompanied the rise of the water table is salinization. on salt posits build up, fields become all but useless for farming. this kind of damage can be seen in villages all over india. geographer takeshi stresses how critical water management is to india's future. ( takeshi speaking japanese ) translator: while the development of a stable supply of water is critical for the development of agriculture, it also plays a crucial role in the development of any region and the lives of the people who live there. i believe that how dikhatpura

and its neighboring villages develop will depend largely on how they manage their water. i think that the importance of water management will eventually outstrip even india's problems with population pressure and its food supply. rrator:sustainablvelopment-- development that does not for thfutu-- is a cllenging prosion for any nation. although irrigation has certainly improved many indian lives, poor management makes it a mixed blessing. and, despite initial gains from the green and white revolutions, the benefits of these reforms have not been evenly distributed. ars already enjoying roads and electricity did well. areas lacking irrigation saw little if any improvement. small farmers face the expense

of high-yielding "miracleseeds, herbicides, and other inputs. many went into debt orost their nd. geographer jayati ghosh. ghosh: for a small-scale farmer, if they cannot afford to buy that water or to have oil in order to pump those irrigation pumps, then it puts them at a disadvantage. if they don't have the money to buy fertilizers or pesticides and herbicides, they cannot use those technology, because for green revolution technology to succeed, you need all the inputs. you cannot just have, maybe, adequate amount of water, and without the fertilizer, it is not going to be successful. narrator: women, too, have not always shared the benefitsof the gr. ghosh: the men have benefited through the mechanization process. however, women are still doing the backbreaking jobs of t wng and the transplanting stages. and so, there's a certain gender bias with this technology.

narrator: another critique of the green revolution is its emphasis on monoculture-- the reliance on a single commercial crop. farmers sell, rather than eat, what they raise. the diversity of local diets is reduced and can lead to malnutrition for those too poor to purchase food from outside the village. dependence on high-yielding "miracle seeds" means farmers do not engage in their own crossbreeding. the loss of genetic variety leaves crops more vulnerable to disease and pests. even the gains of the white revolution are not without long-term consequences. there are concerns that more productive land will be used to cultivate cattle feed thoreeding india's growing human population. and rural population growth continues to be a barrier to sustainable development in india. migrants from rural areas put increasing stress on india's already overcrowded cities.

those left behind often remain impoverished. one crucial key to sustainable development is gender equity for women. better education for women is directly correlated withecreased birth rates and increased economic development. in the 1980s and 1990s, grear efctiveness of family planning was built on rising levels of literacy and improvements in the status of women. one success story is the southern state of kerala. ere e rth rasw comparabletoany. educa80% to 90% of the womenlke; have some level of education. and education, of course, is the best coraceptive, or main toolto contro. gender and development is so closely ed-- women and developmen if we want to contro pulation growth

and promote developmen rural literacy rate is something that has to be addressed. narrator: r true sustainable development to take place, rural population growth must be controlled, an rres increased geerquity for me rural population growth rough tter water management and agricultural reforms like the green and white revolutions, some of india's rural populatioe to increase their livi sndards. however, balancing development with sustainable agricultural practices will test india far into the 21st century.

caioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org