Elango and the people of Kuthampakkam have demonstrated that it is we the people who have to be instruments of change.

It was not long back it was called Kutrampakkam (a place of crime). Located at a mere 40 km from the centre of the city of Chennai, Kuthampakkam,  like any other Indian village,  was only dependent on its two (paddy) crops every year for its income. That meant insufficient and unsustainable income. Naturally, people there had to resort to unlawful social activities to augment their income. 

But that was not all. On all social and development indices the village was a laggard even by Indian standards. Further, governments came and went. In the bargain grand promises were made and were broken. The net effect: despite sixty years of independence,  locals there did not even know what was primary infrastructure - roads, primary health care or proper schools - leave alone demanding it.

What accentuated the problem of Kuthampakkam were the caste clashes between the Harijans and others. In short a place on the outskirts of Chennai of which we are all so proud  and believe to be the harbinger of change for the entire country, it resembled sub-Saharan Africa with its repeated group clashes, abject poverty and abysmal infrastructure.

A 7 km walk to school…

And all this was as recent as mid-1990s when Elango became the president of the village panchayat. As a son of the soil, Elango, had to walk for 7 km for his high school education. But that was a walk in the park considering the challenges he had to face later in his life.  Socially conscious,  Elango even as a teenager started working on home-grown solutions for the problems confronting his village. 

Instantly, he was able to witness the transformation that he sought to achieve. It was these initial experiences that Elango would put to great effect years later in his life. After a stint at employment till the mid-1990s, Elango returned to his village. Kuthampakkam has not looked back since then. Neither has Elango. 

In the process he experienced opposition from the local politicians, corrupt officials, illicit arrack brewers, land grabbers and from other vested interests. Yet all these did not deter him in his march to liberate Kuthampakkam.

Luckily for him, in 1994 the Tamil Nadu government passed the Tamil Nadu Panchayat Act. It was at this point in time that he started working with the groups at various parts of Tamil Nadu in creating awareness about the new Panchayat Raj system.

In 1996, he contested in the local elections and became the President of the Kuthampakkam village Panchayat with a goal to make Kuthampakkam a role model for village panchayats. Interestingly, with the participation of the Grama Shaba, Kuthampakkam Panchayat prepared the five-year plan for the term 1996 to 2001 - a first perhaps in the  country!
       

Instantly, people started realizing the growth potential associated with this movement. Naturally, this increased their participation further. Leveraging this participation of their own people, KuthampakkamPanchayat successfully mobilized huge support from the state government.

Using these schemes all the inner roads were upgraded to concrete roads. Likewise drains were constructed with proper slope at the required places. A samathuvapuram was constructed where fifty twin houses were constructed to accommodate 100 families. In every twin house, a Harijan family was  housed on one side and the other side was allocated for a caste Hindu family. 

Of course, this did involve delicate handling of sensitive issues - and Elango tells us that this was achieved not by "debunking castes but by accepting various castes and persuading each caste to respect the other while not wishing it away." What a refreshing contrast to the manner in which our polity pits one caste against the other for narrow electoral gains!  Kuthampakkam has become a role model for the whole of Tamil Nadu, a remarkable achievement indeed in a state known for being highly sensitive to castes and related issues.

Sustainable employment opportunities…  

In 2001 October Elango was re-elected president of the panchayat. This term, Elango concentrated on providing sustainable employment opportunities within the village. He has designed a process called 'Network Growth Economy Model.' The idea of this scheme is to ensure that virtually all value additions of every village product takes place within the network so that the income of the village is well augmented. And for this Elango identifies and uses appropriate local technology, materials and of course imparting valuable skills to his people. The village became hunger-free last year.

Further, Elango seeks to network with 'good Panchayats' across the states. For this purpose he had identified more than 500 good panchayat leaders. He is now running a panchayat academy in order to create a common platform to share the good practices amongst them.  Elango is targeting to make 200 role model villages before 2011and 2000 role model villages by 2016 after which he believes that the momentum created by the democratic process will automatically take care of the rest.