Gansu

It is probably apt to describe the road to Gansu provinceapproximately 1,500 km west of Beijingas a road less travelled. A far-flung
province, Gansu is infamously known amongst Indias China hands as Chinas Bihar, a region of backwardness and poverty. The province is
located on the fringes of Chinas north-western frontier, squeezed between lesser known Inner Mongolia (an autonomous region), Qinghai (the
Dalai Lamas birthplace), as well as the equally forlorn Ningxia, ill-reputed as a dumping ground for political prisoners and inglorious riff-raff.
One can easily agree that the famous anthropologist G. William Skinners description of Gansu as periphery of the periphery is quite apropos.
Even in academic articles, the northwestern frontier has solicited precious little attentiondescribed by the historian Jonathan Lipman
as being a region of rough wilderness, sparse population, lawlessness, distance from the affairs of the greater society, or as a Chinese academic
Zou Lan described it, as the lame leg of the giant. Clich or otherwise, Gansu is as Bihar as can be.
Yet such sweeping generalisations completely gloss over the critical historical value of this unique place. The westernmost terminus of
the Great Wall begins here in Gansu, winding its way across the swathe of Chinas northern steppes and its expansive desert all the way north of
the capital, Beijing, and finally ending up at the easternmost frigid borderlands near Manchuria. Historically, Gansu was also a critical stage on
the famed Silk Route; the caravans had to pass through Gansu to reach Central Asia. It was thus a critical passage out of (and into) China: the
famous Buddhist monks whom we are familiar with in India, such as Faxian (c. 337c. 422 AD; A Record of the Buddhist Kingdoms) and
Xuanzang (c. 620c. 645 AD; The Records of the Western Regions Visited During the Great Tang Dynasty) braved the overland routes crossing
Gansu to come to present-day Bihar, though Yijing (635713 AD; The Record of Buddhism As Practiced in India Sent Home from the Southern
Seas) took the maritime route starting from the eastern coast of China through the Malacca Straits to the Bay of Bengal.
Gansu somewhat qualifies as Indias Bihar because both are noted for the prominent footprints of Faxian, Xuanzang and Buddhism.
Historically, Bodhgaya, Rajgir, and Nalanda in Bihar were ancient centres of Buddhism, with Nalanda once a flourishing hub of Buddhist
studies. Gansu, too, has the prominent markings of Buddhism or the Indic world: the province tapers at a small desert town called Dunhuang,
noted for a large cave complex, Caves of the Thousand Buddhas with frescos of heavenly apsaras, Buddhist divinities and stucco sculptures,
an influence which perhaps originated from India. Some say that the frescos are comparable to ones in Ajanta and Ellora caves in western India.
Most Chinese love to tell you about how the cave-complex at Dunhuang lost its treasures in the early twentieth centurya story
somewhat connected with India and the great explorer, Sir Marc Aurel Stein. Stein had felt the call of the East and thus came to Lahore. Soon
he discovered the sheer beauty and poetry of Kashmir, where he found his dream retreat in a beloved mountain camp. Later, he enlisted with
the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in 1904. During his first expedition in 1901, with the sanction of Lord Curzon, he explored the region
around Khotan (resulting in the magnum opus, Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan, 1903). His second expedition (19061908) took him to Dunhuang
on the 16th of March 1907. There he realised the enormous value of the Dunhuang documents, paintings, textiles.some of them dating from
the first centuries of our era. He brought back the important cache (these finds were listed and described in Auriel Steins Serindia, 5 vols.,
1921). Though he was no sinologist, spoke no Chinese and used an interpreter, it is said that he charmed the guardian of the Dunhuang complex
to part with some of the treasures with his admission that Xuanzang (the 7th century Buddhist monk) was his patron saint. Today, a majority of
the manuscripts have survived and are preserved at the British Museum in London, Delhis National Museum and elsewhere, while a very small
collection can still be found at the Dunhuang Museum. As for Aurel Steinthe man who loved Kashmir so and whose explorations opened a
whole new window to China and Central Asiahe lies buried in a marshy cemetery at Kabul, dank and desolate. Clearly, legacies outlive
flesh and blood.

The joys of fieldwork

I travelled to Gansu several times beginning in 2001 because the remote Dingxi county, apparently the poorest county in China with nine
droughts in ten years, was identified by a senior Indophile in Beijing as my field area for research on poverty (my Beijinger and Shanghainese
friends feign surprise, saying they have never ever heard of the place; today due to administrative reorganisation, Dingxi is a prefecture-level
city and Anding is the district).
Poverty in China and India has been defined in so many different ways (caloric count, literacy, income, entitlements) that comparisons
become problematic. Going by the numbers, Chinas State Statistical Bureau claims that the number of poorover 250 million in 1978, or 31%
of the rural population thenfell to 26.88 million in 2010 using the official Chinese poverty line of US$0.53 a day. Figures from the World
Bank are at variance (using a poverty line of US$1.25 a day), but no less laudatory. China claims to have lifted 620 million people out of poverty
since then; the World Bank claims the number is closer to 500 million. That aside, the singular fact that China accomplished to lift
millions (and millions) out of poverty in a short time has caught world-wide attentionand is of particular relevance for India which has long
battled the so-called Hindu rate of growth (roughly 34%, which just barely keeps pace with population growth). Despite a break with the
dismal rate of growth in the 1980s, 2632% of the Indian population by 2010 still remains under the poverty line.
Gansu is generally considered luanan oft-used Chinese word which narrowly means chaoticread thieves, marauders,
pickpockets and unconfirmed danger. Of course, it does not help that the average Chinese categorises India as luan, toodisordered, chaotic and
not given to easy navigation.
I did not know that the provincial capital of Gansu, Lanzhou, was located at the geographic centre of China and on the banks of the
famed Yellow River, considered Chinas Mother River and cradle of civilisation. My memories of Lanzhou are of giant billboards that lined
the main street from the train station to the city. Back then, in 2001, Party-sponsored billboards depicting Party leaders were not so common in
Shanghai, but it seemed different in faraway Lanzhou. I quickly realised that these billboards were a proclamation of (then President) Jiang
Zemins grand strategy to Open up the West. The Open up the West strategy, launched in 2000, held the promise that things would change in
the Western regions or interior China. Interior China is Chinas proverbial ugly duckling, what with its cursed geography of arid deserts and

barren mountains. The promise was that heavy investment would turn the West into the beautiful swan.
I came to understand the rhetoric. Lanzhou was a sprawling grey mass of a city seemingly choked by a thick cloud of noxious smog. In
the distant skyline, factories billowed smoke and a putrid stench of rotting flesh wafted in the air. Lanzhou seemed to be stuck in a weird
Stalinist time-warp, much more than any other city I had come across in central provinces such as Anhui or Henan, which while poorer than the
eastern provinces had remnants of both the old (such as socialist-style squat housing) and the new (gleaming skyscrapers). And then the eastern
provinces of Jiangsu with its peach orchards and Zhejiang with its rice-paddies had given way to break-neck developmentwhich meant a
soaring skyline. (A few coastal cities such as Shanghai and Hangzhou bore fewer architectural scars of Communism for various reasons.
Shanghais case was always different because the Opium War in the nineteenth century made it an open city, which resulted in foreign
settlements such as the French Concession. Hangzhou was largely left untouched as the Geneva of the East.)
Perhaps Lanzhous distance from Beijing made its case a little different. The humongous brick-red Lanzhou Hotel sat like an old
matron on the University Square. The main Dongfanghong square (which literally means the East is Red Square) could have been transplanted
from the heyday of Communist Russia.
I had to make the trip to the romanticised bank of the Yellow River. It was late evening and the atmospheric old iron bridgethe first
bridge across the Yellow Riverwas beginning to twinkle with gaudy lights. Contrary to my expectations of grandeur and inspiration in the
dappling waves of the Yellow River (I had even envisioned myself wading into its waves), I was met with a snaking brown mass that slithered
off into the distance. I trailed the locals who haggled hard for yellow melons with the fruit vendors squatting by the bank. The plump and sweet
melons (made sweeter by the Yellow River, it is said) were to die for. The generous slices of Lanzhous famous melons sold for a pittance. I
joined the crowd slurping on the juicy flesh, keeping an eye on my wallet, lest I be accosted by the citys other well-known specialty
pickpockets.
Taking a chance, I caught the last cable car. As I swung on the rickety coil above, I could see that the pace of the city had settled into a
languid flow, and fortuitously the city could almost be described as pretty. The evening sky hid the grey grime of the city as lights glimmered,
and moving cars created a sense of warmth in the twilight. There was the unmistakable presence of sprouting skyscrapers and furiously
ambitious roads cut east to west, north to south. With a twinge of regret, I felt even the Lanzhou laggard had left PatnaDelhis unloved poor
provincial cousinfar, far behind.

Lanzhou University guesthouse

The Lanzhou University guesthouse inside the university campus was another old-timer which lay deserted and quiet as though it were the prime
setting for a classic Ramsay Brothers Indian horror flick. The large communal kitchen and the musty laundry room on the first floor lay
abandoned; so deathly quiet was it that I found a saving grace in the din from the university kindergarten housed next door, which began sharp at
7 am. It was a cacophony that I began to eagerly anticipate.
The university campus itself was fairly run down, but it had a nice, laidback air with plenty of pine trees, a large sundial, gardens and
basketball courts. The area around the back gate was boisterously lined with sundry warehouses, bicycle shops, Sichuan hot-pot, fruits and
vegetables, rat-traps and snacks.
Around the corner from the guesthouse and still very much inside the campus were two dingy little Xerox stores patronised by Chinese
students, who like their counterparts in India had to cram notes closer to examination time. A shabby run-down garage that smelled of engine oil
and an old cafeteria with less than appetising fare made up the small world.
I waited to meet Vice-Chancellor Su Rong, an Indophile known to Indias well-known sinologist Prof. Mohanty, for clearance. Prof.
Mohanty was far away and Su Rong was too busy, which fortunately gave me plenty time to kill.
Lanzhou was a city so unlike Patna, in a good way: broad boulevards, pavements, allotted vending and parking zones. I had imagined
poverty and deprivation in the slums of Lanzhou much like the notorious Tondo slums (in Manila) or Dharavi slums (in Bombay) or perhaps
even Chinese versions of Rio de Janeiros favelas: poor thatched squatters squeezed along railway tracks, along pavements, between skyscrapers
but I found none. Certainly, extreme deprivation of the Indian kind that hit and humbled yoube it in the streets of Bombay or the streets of
Patnawas missing; poverty in China was of a different entitlement kind. It was not about whether China was better than India or vice-versa.
Chinese state philanthropy had come to an end in the late 1970s: survival was about making ends meet by working. Socialism had done some
good; it was a combination of the firm hand and socialist pride in work that had resulted in begging being considered the lowest abomination.
Beggars, it was rumoured, had few human rights as they were carted off to distant corners, including Xinjiang. A few Muslim beggars (distinctly
Muslim because of their caps and beards) discreetly came asking for alms; I dished out my camera to take their pictures, but they ran away.
Among others, the demographer Judith Bannister has famously chronicled the fruits of Maos compulsive campaigns in health care and
literacy: for a developing country, there was little garbage on the streets, no open gutters and certainly very few instances of people defecating or
urinating on the streets (though many Chinese liked to cough up a dollop of spit, among other things). No graffiti on the walls, no movie posters,
no stray animals eitherdogs and cows go straight into Chinese cooking pots, as some of us liked to joke. The city lacked its own personality,
subsumed and unmistakably marked by the signature red Communist touch.
What I found inside the recesses of the city instead were areas that looked like a war zonelarge areas being demolished for
beautification or modernisation. Bulldozed land lay strewn with plastic and garbage, the dirty and tired remains that were making way for
Chinas development frenzy. Development from the top was Lanzhous ultimate destiny.
Gansu was Chinas frontier province thanks to its location on the western periphery. Yet I had forgotten what a huge country China is:
Lanzhou the provincial capital was Chinas geographic centre! As the province abuts Xinjiang and Mongolia, Gansu was a tacit melting point for
different ethnicities, amounting to roughly 8% of the total population. As I navigated the city I learnt by chance to differentiate between ethnic
groups. I met one old gentleman who was blue-eyed and pale-skinned; he said he was a Salar (Turkic) Muslim. Then there were the Dongxiang
Muslims. According to scholars, the ancestors of the Salar Muslims left Samarkand and settled in Gansus Linxia county (a county being

comparable to a district in India), commonly known as Little Mecca.

The Tibetan population in the city was sizeable, too. The Tibetan monk at the monastery in Lanzhou knew no Hindi, yet not only did
he give a shy smile but also gently waived the entrance fee. The Chinese hardly let go of a penny, but here was gentle acknowledgement, a
moving token from a Tibetan so far away from India who recognised that India had granted the Tibetan spiritual and temporal leader, the XIV
Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, along with an estimated 100,000 Tibetans-in-exile, a home in Dharamsala (on the foothills of the Himalayas in the
Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, some 500 km away from Indias capital Delhi). The presence of Tibetans drew my attention to the
dismemberment of historic Tibet (U-Tsang, Amdo and Kham). U-Tsang made up most of the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) in 1965. Amdo
became annexed into the neighbouring provinces of Qinghai and Gansu, while Kham was divided between TAR and the neighbouring provinces
of Sichuan and Yunnan.
Not surprisingly, revered monasteries are not just located in TAR but other provinces in China. The Labrang monastery (founded in
1709), one of the most influential centres of the Yellow Hat sect (or the Gelugpa Sect, to which the Dalai Lama belongs), was just four hours
away from Lanzhou in the town of Xiahe.
At the tail end of the week, I met Su Rong. By this time, I had acquired three friends: two budding physicists whom I had met at the
university had lent me their bike, showed me the short-cuts around campus and proved more than amicable companions, introducing me to local
foods such as the exquisite lily bulb (usually stir-fried with chicken or vegetables) and giving me the heads-up on provincial politics. They were
fans of the Indian flying pancakewhatever on earth that was. Bewildered about my ignorance, they carted me to the best place in town to
taste the Indian treat. It turned out to be a cute little place which boasted a Taj Mahal pin-up in the background, manned by a charming Hui
Muslim chef. The young chef swirled the dough in the air a couple of times (much to the delight of the audience) before going on to slather it
with a generous dose of margarine, stuffing with sliced bananas, nuts and honey. This was a hipper, cooler version of my mothers delicious
fluffy roti, only that she never quite twirled it in the air.
The other friend who made a lasting impression was the grungy, chain-smoking owner of one of the two Xerox shops. I made use of
his services sitting around in his tiny shop in the late evenings when the crowd of students had thinned, his shop conveniently located ten
minutes away on foot from the guesthouse. He often offered me a smoke, loved to talk about how nasty the Communists wererazing this and
thatand how life in China or India and elsewhere was often about a similar bottom-linemoney and success. The universality of dreams and
desires unites us, he said. But more on this enigmatic friend later.
Prepping for field work
Su Rongs office bore a quiet dignity. He came across as a quiet, serious man in spectacles who examined the packet of Darjeeling tea that I gave
him with much interest. I explained that unlike the Chinese, Indians liked to drink it with a spot of milk and sugar. He had never been to India,
he said, but was impressed by Indias Silicon Valley, Bangalore. The smog had been particularly bad that day in Lanzhouthe city looked
tired and dull. Lanzhou, he said, was one of the most polluted cities in the world; it was Chinas development taking its toll, he said sadly. He
asked if smog in Delhi and Bombay was as bad; recent reports in 20132014 slam Delhis smog, too.
Su Rong wholeheartedly agreed that Dingxi, to the south-east of the capital, was appropriate as my field. Partly it was geography, he
explained: semi-arid with unpredictable rainfall, the ecologically fragile mountains, and the loess soil made it hostile. Chinas reformer Deng
Xiaoping made poverty a part of the political discourse; acknowledging the problem was a turning point. One of the first institutions was the
Leading Group on Poverty Alleviation and Development (LGPAD, 1993), which later initiated the grandiose 8-7 Poverty Alleviation Plan (the
problem of 80 million poor to be resolved in 7 years) in 1994. Poverty alleviation measures were to be directed at 592 designated counties.
Now, he said, the National Poverty Reduction Plan (20012010) was being discussed.
Su Rong explained that poverty was a rural phenomenon and accrued because of geography (a recurrent Party argument). What he did not
say was that poverty in China resulting from backlash of reforms and urban poverty were lower on the priority list. The Three West programme in
three western districtsHexi, Dingxi (both in Gansu province), and Xihaigu (Ningxia province)had been successful in addressing poverty, he
said. The Party, he added, opened the spigot of public investment, education, vocational education, non-farm employment, micro-credit, village
development and afforestation. These schemes, state-led and state-directed, helped. The Party tries its best, said Su Rong, making the Party sound
a benevolent patriarchwhich it undoubtedly was, but for its occasional malevolent streak.
Su Rong approved of the plan to visit Dingxi, writing a letter for the county head and entrusted me in the care of a young economist,
Professor Yao, a short, spectacled man who spoke English with a Chinese accent and who fit the Partys definition of a seasoned economic
cheerleader. Unlike others in the field, Prof. Yao had many questions for me, too. Among other questions, he asked if I knew N. Ram from The
Hindu (one of the largest and most reputable newspapers in India), whom he described a true friend of China. It lent credence to a belief I
nurseda Chinese propensity in government or Party circles to see official discourse in black and whitefriends or foes, swap deal or nothing
with nothing in between.
I did not know N. Ram, I replied, but had heard the impressive gentleman speak at Miranda House in the late 1980s at the height of the
Bofors Scandal. There was no doubting N. Rams popularity in China, even in far out Lanzhou. (On a subsequent trip in the mid-2000s, I got an
update. N. Rams daughter is in Shenyang, he said in the passing. I did not know how true that was but thought that nothing inconsequential
escaped the Chinese, not even in the periphery of the periphery.)
Dingxi, said Prof. Yao, was once the poorest place in China but now a shining beacon of light. He waxed eloquent about Dengs
contribution, but that was nothing short of the routine reductionist Party approach. He droned that Deng recognised that poverty would benefit
from external aid and partnersUNDP and the Ford Foundation were some of the first external organisations to collaborate with China.
Second, Deng made a policy break, and Dingxi is the proof of its success. Prof. Yao said that Dingxi was living proof that free
handoutsinfusions from above such as subsidies, cash grants, and the like for the poorwere futile. Charity is no good, he insisted with a
passion that would have resurrected Deng. The one-time cash transfers of yore were akin to blood transfusions, a temporary arrest of the
problem because the poor either spent it all in one stroke on food (a Chinese passion, he explained sorrowfully) and mahjong (gambling runs

in our blood, he admitted sheepishly) or just made plain bad choices like large televisions and refrigerators (catching up with neighbours, he
winked).
The new spin endorsed by Dengsubstituting blood transfusion with blood-forming policiesenabled and empowered the poor by
making them a stakeholder in development: micro-credit, cooperatives, rainwater harvesting and grain for green (the latter an inventive way to
address the fragile eco-system). He shot off numbers (a confirmed Chinese hobby), and filled me to the gills on minute details such as of the number
of saplings and quantity of grain earmarked for the grain for green programme. The local government was spearheading an intensive plantation
programme in the dry belt that would return cropland to forest and thereby significantly reduce the impact of the sandstorms that Beijing is infamous
for.
It was still the summer of 2002. A sultry humid heat circled the air. I thought how the Party had its eyes on the Olympics, six years
away! I could not fault the Partys long-term vision, panned out and in the works.
Back in Shanghai, an Indian staffer at the Indian Consulate who had become de facto family often discussed key differences between
India and China over lunch. Over his delightful wife Graces delicious Indian fish curry served with the hospitality of the athithi devo
bhava (literally, the guest is God) variety, I listened to him speak of the lack of long-term planning and visionaries in Indian politics. As he
would say, Delhi needed to put its house in order before throwing stones at Beijinga complicated but valid argument. The Commonwealth
Games in 2012 in Delhi, for instance, showcased the Indian art of possibility, and despite last minute glitches went off without a hitchbut it
certainly did not make for the case of best planning.

To the poorest county

Dingxi was a little over a hundred kilometres away from Lanzhou, a journey made trying by the zig-zag curves of the rugged mountainous road.
The journey was defined by the colour of the landscape: brown and bare mountains with sparse reeds and gangly trees, and the brown parched
earth that thirsted for water. Sometimes, a lone Muslim cemetery with a green crescent-moon flag broke the monotony of the practically bare
hillside. At other times, a shabby Chinese-style motel was the relief. A patch of land being worked on by a lone farmer, wearing a large straw
hat, and trudging with his donkey in the field under the scorching sun, impressed that this place was not entirely shorn of human existence. If
anything, this was indeed a far cry from Chinas glittering eastern coast.
When the car entered Dingxi, it seemed strangely familiar, giving the impression of a small inconspicuous Indian district. Dingxi was a
nondescript little place that one could happily navigate by foot. Unlike India then, it was built primarily in concrete with streets lined by squat
shops, double-storied supermarkets, and well-paved pavements.
Large billboards at the golchakkars (circular intersection of roads) drew my attention. They read: DingxiPotato County of China.
The only thing that grew in poverty is potato, joked my middle-aged companion by the name of Yang. Potato was, by the way, the only thing that
the Chinese did not like to eat much of and yet Westerners loved it, she said with a laugh. Yang was surprised to learn that potato curry with
tomatoes, or fried potatoes with turmeric, or mashed potatoes with mustard and rice, were staples of the poor in India.
The first stop was the county office. The county office was a very modest but busy place, teeming with villagers who wanted an
audience with the county head. Clerks and county officials sat with piles of dusty files; the place reeked of strong Chinese tea.
Most of the staff looked at me with wide-eyed wonder. I was the first Indian they had ever seen in flesh and blood! They fawned, so
much so that I felt like an important visiting dignitary. They knew India from old Bollywood movies and there I wasperhaps putting a face to
their idea of India. They asked why I did not have a red dot on my forehead (a matter of personal choice, I explained). They showed me to the
washroom apologising that their poor county had terrible facilities and that surely India would be leaps ahead? One of them got me a cup of
Chinese tea, apologetic that there was no Coke to offer.
I did not wait long. A clerk ushered me into an acid blue room with a portly figure sitting in a cloud of smoke, a retinue of villagers at
hand.
The county head looked every bit a greasy Communistsort of a spys nightmare. He shot off routine questions: where I was from and
what was the purpose of my visit, and how nice it was to have a visitor from a faraway land. This is the right place, he enthused, signing a
letter for me to pass down the chain. My eyes travelled around in the room and rested on a bronze plaque on the wall. It said that Dingxi was a
model county in 2000 visited by none other than the (now former) President Jiang Zemin. The thought of fieldwork in a model county in
China was an immediate dampener. It is an open secret that model counties are made for showin this case, showcasing the best foot forward
of poverty. And I was in the middle of it.
Afterwards, I was treated to a starch-heavy meal in a Dingxi restaurant, a blur of potato fritters, chicken with potatoes and potato
pancake. The finely shredded potatoes and green pepper seasoned with vinegar was appetisingin Chinas poorest place, the delicious treat was
one fit for a king.

Showcasing development, Chinese-style

If Dingxi was proud of something, it was the spanking new experimental developmental zone located on the outskirts of the town. Yang
explained that it had been built to disseminate technical expertise to the locals and attract industry. The idea was to have people tap into
opportunities right here in Chinas Western regions, without having to move to the coast.
The experimental development zone had been timed for the then-President Jiang Zemins visit. A small group of fidgety farmers stood
in single file listening to enthusiastic personnel: what to plant in the fields and what seeds to choose; how to protect the crop and how to market.
As we walked around, I gathered that the zone had few strange ventures: a fledgling pigeon farm (for meat, Yang explained), a dog

farm (always buyers in dreadful winters, said Yang with a laugh), a mushroom farm (which I understood could be grown indoors in controlled
environs) and a scorpion farm (for Chinese medicine). Here were some of the rural non-farm opportunities: it was up to the farmers of the
district to embrace them.

He Zui Le!
It had been hot and dry in the morning, but as the evening descended, the cemented corridors of the hotel in Dingxi began to radiate a bonechilling cold typical of the semi-arid loess plateau. The housekeeping staff looked suitably country as they shuffled along the grey length of
the corridor dispensing hot-water flasks.
Joining in for dinner were three county officials. There were three others, too, from a reputable Beijing university who had come for
fieldwork. As we sat, I discovered that the three county officials were of disparate dispositions and so were the researchers.
The first official was a sincere, predictable functionary who gave a glowing account of the successful greening of the hillsides. Once
dry as bone, he explained, they now boasted sturdy trees suited to local geographical conditions and the villagers had enthusiastically
participated in large numbers.
The second was more interested in knowing and learning about India. Had micro-credit been successful in India, he asked. Apparently,
the provincial head had discovered Mohammad Yunus, and the Grameen Bank (1976), a model being feted in Dingxi. The extension of
Agricultural Bank of China was partly resolving the issue of institutional credit, since informal banking with high interest rates was common in
poorer China. At the local level, the Poor Area Development Office (PADO) was identifying target groups and encouraging group-based lending
to create a social collateral that worked against loan default. But this was an experiment; whether it would work as well in Dingxi as in
Bangladesh was still unknown then.
Official Number Three sat drinking quietly, warming his bones. He was generous with himself, drinking in big gulps neat portions of
the baijiu, a firewater-like liquor from China that is usually distilled from sorghum. I avoided the baijiu toasts not because I was averse to
alcohol but inevitably one toast led to the othera deadly trap that one could not wriggle out of. I looked amused as the young economist from
Beijing excused herself to throw up. The other two young field-workers suffered with flaming red faces.
The dinner itself: blood-red jelly-like pudding (coagulated duck blood), inch-long thin chewy pieces of blubber (duck tongue), a dish
of cartilage (pig ears), among others. A merry dinner and drink that encourages singing makes for a successful host. On that metric, it was a
runaway success: the young economist slurred jokes, the students entertained, and the two stoic county officials struggled to keep face as their
third colleague got progressively more drunk. It reminded me of a joke, one that a Chinese academic Zou Lan cracked, Fupin Office (Poverty
Alleviation Office) should be nicknamed Fuping Office (Bottle-Grasping Office). It certainly fit the picture.
It was then when Number Three slurred a silky threat, You know the Chinese are very good with their friends. When I had not even
recovered, he asked embarrassingly aloud: Are all Indians as black (dark skinned) as you? It took quite an effort to stop his racist remarks but
then there was no stopping his running tongue as he slid into a nasty diatribe on India as a place of filth and poverty. This marked an
uncomfortable end to Chinas legendary hospitality.
At breakfast over watery rice porridge and mustard pickle, Number Three showed up, reeking of the orgy, his eyes blood-shot, sporting
a sheepish grin: He zui le (I was drunk), he said.

From county to town

Chinas administrative apparatus runs from the central government to province to prefecture to county to town to village. Lujiagou was the
largest town of the district, approximately 35 km north of Dingxi. Yang filled up on statistics, which was interesting but hardly illuminating:
The town received an annual rainfall of 280 mm/year with a high annual rate of evaporation; The town head was attempting to engage the
community in infrastructure works besides working on branding the potatoes grown; and so on.
En route, Yang talked about the UNDP programme which generously backed a rainwater harvesting programme 121 that facilitated
the construction of two water wells every 100 km capable of irrigating 1 mu (1/15th of a hectare).
Lujiagou was not a very big town nor was it pretty. It was neither a quaint kampong of Southeast Asia, say, in Thailand or Malaysia
with atmospheric wooden-thatched houses, nor was it the elegance of stone-walled houses of poorer parts of Europe such as Albania. There
was something undeniably shabby about Lujiagou: an old trinket seller by the street, locals who lugged sacks of agricultural produce, a
smattering of noodle shops and provisionsit was the smooth road and the row of shops that made the town look a notch better than a
comparably poor and dusty Indian town.
The town headquarters was a simple quadrangle, rooms spread around an open central courtyard mimicking the plan of a grand
courtyard house, with the profile of dry hills as the backdrop. The town head was a man with an honest weather-beaten face.
Chairs were quickly pulled onto the open courtyard as I pulled out the tape recorder. The taped conversation covered mundane
details such as Lujiagous administrative jurisdiction over seven villagesNanchuan, Jiangtai, Xiaochakou, Taiping (in the plains), and
Dongfeng, Ziyun and Huacha (poorer villages in the mountains)the population, the male to female sex ratio, along with the annual
rainfall. The conversation tapered to Lujiagous 65 groups, 2385 families, and 10345 people. The town head was proud of two major
achievements: Liujiahe and Xijiajian bridges. Moreover, he pointed out that the leading cadre had set in motion a micro-credit system modeled on
Grameen Bank that helped potato farmers. The cadre had created a potato trading company which enabled the harvest of potatoes. Moreover the
infrastructure connectivity ensured that the potatoes reached all the way to the distant southern cities of Changsha, Wuhan and Guangzhou for
processing.

He explained that of the forty cadres, the average age of the cadres was 36.8 years and the average age of a member of the leading
group was 33 years. Since 1998, the county had a stipulation that the cadre should have a diploma. Entry into the Party is not easy, he
explained. Yes, membership was literally Chinas crme de la crme.

For the record, and off the record

Once the tape-recorder was switched off, he became a different man. He spoke of internal churning within the Partyhow the Party had been
changing recruitment policy by focusing on merit and downsizing the number of cadre at the local level. Only fresh young blood and merit
knows priorities, he said, but there was entrenched hierarchy that was difficult to dislodge. Systemic problems, he said, which is also the bane
of Indian political parties.
It was getting to noon. The town head gently asked a young staffer to rustle up something simple on the stove in the office. The
gathering broke into a happy intermission. A young staffer took me to the bathrooman old-style hole in the ground. I walked around the
courtyard until the fare on the table beckoned: steaming hot rice with some stir-fried greens. I listened as everybody talked. One said that the
greens were delicious, not doused in chemicals as in other parts of China. Everybody cackled with laughter. I watched cadres ribbing each other,
offering each other a smoke. It was obvious that the official face of the Party was different from the countenances of these individuals.
I thought about this as I watched scruffy bedraggled children playing hopscotch by the entranceperhaps a brush with Chinas simple
life.

From model village to Huacha village

Model villages are not very real and believable. I stood at Taiping village, which had been lauded by none other than Chinas top cadre,
wondering how they failed to see through all this. Taiping village was an ode to concrete: a row of concrete-tiled houses on either side of a main
street with barren hills in the distance could only be an odd transplant. Taiping came across as a posh microcosm of Lujiagou, itself a microcosm
of Dingxi. If this was the poorest village, I was an astronaut.
This wont do because I dont feel convinced enough about its poverty, I said sitting in the car. Saying something directly instead of
convoluted intellectual, theoretical arguments helpedthe Chinese did not care much for the argumentative Indian prone to the logically
profane, but just saying it simply and directly.
The car turned to another appropriate village, Huacha, running clouds of dust. The landscape was indeed wretched: rounded bare
mountains sported dry terrace farms. Crops had been harvested. Fields lay fallow sapped by the ruthless sun. Soon a small settlement appeared
ensconced in the lap of a valley.
As the car drove in, children ran down the mountain path chasing the car, ducking the clouds of dust, clamouring around it as it came
to a stop, panting with excitement. The commotion settled. The village Party head emerged from nowhere, introductions quickly made.
Yang and I walked accompanied by a Village Committee member to the first house. This was China; there was no time to kill.
The village looked poor and brown all right but it was surprisingly clean. I had expected garbage, huts, clogged drains and droves of
pigs.
The first house visit was memorable. The house of Wang Li looked deceptively bleak from outside and yet I could not help but gasp
when I stepped in. The large airy rectangular hall sported a certain level of affluence. The hall separated into two living quarters; on the right was
a patent leather sofa with a central table and a television; on the left was a Chinese kang (bed with coal heating) piled high with blankets and
rugs. A pallid odourof sweat, unwashed clothes and soya saucehung in the air, the odour of long hard winters and water shortages.
The householder was a young man with a mischievous face. He was a farmer, he said, who grew sorghum and millets. The Party
improved the lot of the villagers, he said; the proof was the television and the plush sofa (of course). His life had improved through participating
in the initiative grain for green. Operational since 1999, it promised that if a family returned 0.07 hectares of farmland, they would get 100 kg
of grain. The family planted trees on the hills to prevent soil erosion and windstorms and in return they were subsidised for seedlings. The
Village Committee member proudly gleamed.
Then there was the fact of equal distribution of land, which had been a fundamental leveler. As if on cue, the Village Committee
member pulled out a sheaf of paper which said in Chinese (and English): Villagers make decisions, Villagers exercise management, Villagers
conduct supervision, Villagers receive benefits. Democracy (of the Chinese type) had taken root at the village level and that the Organic Law
of the Villagers Committees that the Party had mooted was bringing a fundamental revolution to the countryside.
When it was time to go, the young man spoke up. By the way, I did not get my grains on time because leakages are common. Fubai,
fubai (corruption, corruption), he said loudly. I pretended not to understand.
Another householder was an old man, more than sixty years old. He wore circular Gandhi (or John Lennon) glasses and carried a
crooked walking stick. I asked him why he had decided to stay on in the village instead of migrating out to the coastal region, like so many
others. He had a deep connection with the land, he replied. He was born in the village, got married, raised his children and was now old. He had
cataract, so it was too late to move, he said. He had become accustomed to life in the place. Several attempts had been made to move his family
through the voluntary resettlement initiated by the Party, but he proved a reluctant candidate. Poverty Reduction through Voluntary Resettlement
(PRTVR)a Party sponsored initiative to resettle peoplewas not for him.
Did he tend the fields? I asked. He answered that he did, with the help of his wife and his two sons. But his two sons were away in
Xinjiang working as seasonal migrantsswallows, as the Chinese call them. Their remittances kept them going.
Migration from poorer areas has become a more marked phenomenon. Lately, villages are becoming hollowed out as the young
depart from rural areas, leaving their childrennicknamed leftover childrenwith aging grandparents tending to childcare and the fields.

Yet another householder was the beneficiary of the bilateral help programme, where the richer provinces help the poorer provinces.
Shandong province was Gansus partnerand had provided the livestock to targeted families in Dingxi county to help generate income.
The farmer took me to his backyard, where two fat sheep bleated. Sheep mortality is a vexing problem, he said. Only if they
survived would he make a neat profit. The farmers backyard had a deep, round well covered by a heavy cement lid, an example of rainwater
harvesting.
Vast areas of hillsides had indeed been greened. The earnest hand of the Party playing the lead in developmentblood-forming
policieswas evident. As we walked back to the car, a lone wall lay splattered with a fading slogan that made me smile: Dengs Development
is the fundamental principle.

With a little help from a friend

I returned to Lanzhou with a hefty hoard of primary documents. One late evening, I walked to the Xerox shop. The owner, Xerox man, was in
a complaining mood; the day had been tiring. He took a long look at the documents and said that I could sit outside as he ran the photocopier.
As I waited we began chatting. How did the Dingxi visit go, he asked. I told him that I had visited Huacha because the first of the
villages, Taiping village, hardly looked like a villagemore or less a concrete bunkerand seriously speaking, nothing short of publicity
disaster. Xerox man laughed as he heard this; nobody was nave but the Party desperately wished it so.
Suddenly, he stopped to look carefully at all the documents slithering out of the photocopier. Some of these numbers are
manufactured for researchers like you, he said. You saw what you were meant to see. Come for only a day with me. I will drive you outside
Lanzhou and show you. All good, but what if something happened? What if he slit my throat?
I returned to make two phone calls: one to the family and one to Prof. Mohanty. Both egged me to go.

Back to see the real thing

I met the Xerox man outside the Lanzhou University. He wore bell-bottomed pants and a scarf around his neck (which suddenly made him
suspect) and stood by a navy blue sedan, a car he said he had borrowed from the garage. I had somebody in tow, and so did he: a burly man who
would be driving for the day.
The road out of Lanzhou towards Dingxi was recognisable. We crossed the familiar landmarks, signposts and hillsides. Instead of
stopping at Dingxi, the car sailed right past. The journey had been fairly quiet: Xerox man had been in a meditative mood, which made me
uneasy.
The first village, Jingxiguan village, bore an uncanny geographical similarity to Huachadry and desolate, brown and dusty. Xerox
man called out to a lone farmer on the road, who told us that the villagers had gone to the field and would return by sunset; only the primary
school was bustling with two handfuls of students. So off we went in the direction of the school, led by the farmer who had stayed behind
(because one of his pigs was about to give birth at any time).
The primary school, Quanwan Xiaoxue, was a small thatched building. The teacher was a bearded gentleman, an ethnic Hui Muslim.
He had a diploma, he said, and was forty years old. He took it upon himself to take us around the two-roomed school of basic benches and
chairs, a blackboard on the wall, a modest bare playgroundnot very different from what you would find in an Indian village.
He explained that universal enrollment was a failure: nothing was free any more, including education, as books cost money. The
school had a string of under-skilled teachers who had disappeared as they seldom received salary on time. The middle school was far away and
negotiated by the students on foot. Children stayed back at home during winters. Chinas free, nine-year compulsory education in the postreform period was akin to Indias free mid-day meal schemes where in many cases watered down meals provided little or no nutrition. Literacy
was an important goal, but under a market economy, the commitment to education seemed
to be slackening.
Xerox man turned to the farmer, asking him if we could visit his house. He complained about the water shortage: rainwater harvesting
techniques and rainwater cellars (such as in Huacha village) had yet to reach them. The farmers house had no TV nor plush sofa, only a
squirming pig in the front yard. Does this village fall under one of the 592 designated counties for poverty relief? I asked. The farmer did not
know.
The next stop was Xiang Quan, an ethnic Hui town which looked better than the village Jingxiguan. The main street boasted a mosque
and a hospital. Unlike Jingxiguan village, with its strong agrarian bearings (and missing farmers), the village wore the markings of occupational
diversity. The villagers, most of them bearded and fez-capped, crowded the car and crowed in the local dialect, literally mobbing me until
somebody offered to call the towns most respected person: a Doctor who was well-versed in Mandarin and could give correct information.
The Doctor arrived and soon volunteered to write a one-page note of information. There were several glitches at the grassroots, he said
gravely, especially when it came to implementationat the mercy of the local government that stood squeezed by resources. The foundation of
equality had been laid by socialism, he said, but the market is changing that,
The Doctors scribbles stayed with me. I took several photographs of all these villagers clambering up the car, extending a hug
basically delighted to welcome an Indian. And yet, the trip had been so priceless: it was Chinas common man who encouraged me to have a
deeper insight into China, literally by leading my hand. And it was not for profit that he did it. I never understood what the motivation of the
Xerox man was.
I lost the camera soon after. A friend suggested that I had been tailed, which was amusing. I returned several times after to Lanzhou. I
found that in making the campus pretty, the Xerox shop had been asked to go. The garage had been razed. The man at the convenience shop
overlooking the dormitories shrugged and said that the Xerox man had set up shop somewhere else in the city.