PM Shri Narendra Modi adopts Village Jayapur in Varanasi

India lives in villages and our Prime Minister has initiated the vibrancy. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on Saturday launched the ‘Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana’, an ambitious village development project under which each MP will take the responsibility of developing physical and institutional infrastructure in three villages by 2019. Speaking at the launch, Modi said under the scheme it is envisaged that under the leadership and through the efforts of Members of Parliament, one village would be developed by each MP by 2016.  He said, “We have nearly 800 MPs. If before 2019 we develop three villages each, we reach nearly 2,500 villages”. The vision is to instil certain values in the villages and their people so that they get transformed into models for others.

Much is happening today as Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached Varanasi; - to  adopt a village under his "Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana"   It is village, Jayapur, located in Raja Talaab tehsil nearly 25 km from Varanasi with a population of 4,000. Of them, 2,700 are voters. 

Newsreports are agog with what Modiji conveyed : some of them are :

·         Plant five trees when a girl is born. At the time of her marriage 20 years later, you can sell five trees and use money to prepare for the event:

·         PM rakes up female foeticide issue, says Jayapur village should celebrate the birth of a baby girl. Some families get worried when a girl is born.

·         Let us decide that no child will eat without washing hands in our village. Do we need any government to do this? asks PM

·         Those who have left the village for studies or jobs, must come back to celebrate the birthday of their village: PM Modi

·         We can go anywhere but the knowledge we can gain from our villages is unparalleled, says the PM.

The humble PM asked the village to adopt him and said it is not that I have adopted Jayapur. I have come here with a request to you to adopt me and teach me a lot.  Express and other agencies report that the village was already adopted by the Rashtriya SwayamSevak Sangh (RSS) under its ideal village scheme in 2002. Sangh has formed three categories for villages and focused on planting trees, promoting animal husbandry. Under the SAGY project, each MP is supposed to adopt a village and develop it as a model village.

Interestingly Times of India reports that it is the second victory after a gap of nearly 450 years for the 3,500-odd villagers when it was announced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would adopt and develop their Jayapura village in his constituency Varanasi.  The first victory dates back to the Mughal era and finds mention in History books, the second one is hitting the headlines a day Modi lands here and formally adopts the village.  According to BHU's political science department's HoD, Prof KK Mishra, in 17th century, when Mughal emperor Aurangzeb was said to be on temple-demolition spree, his soldiers caught attention of an old temple of Lord Hanuman in the village. It was a unique as the main deity Lord Hanuman was black in colour. It is for this reason that the temple is still known as "Kale Hanuman ka temple".  The villagers not only put up a brave fight before the Mughal soldiers, they even forced them to beat the retreat, Prof Misra says. In 2003, an army personnel Ajay Kumar Singh from the village attained martyrdom while fighting terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir.

Observers believe that since Jayapura is surrounded by four big villages, all Patel-dominated, the cascading effect of the development in Modi's adopted village will certainly be visible in those villages. Villagers work as masons in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka while sugarcane crop known  as Jayapuria sugarcane is produced all round the year unlike in other areas where it is a seasonal crop. The village supplies sugarcane to juice sellers of not only Varanasi but also districts of east Bihar.

Abul Muzaffar Muhi-ud-Din Mohammad bin Aurangzeb, (1618 – 1707) commonly known as Aurangzeb was the sixth Mughal Emperor whose reign lasted for 49 years from 1658 until his death in 1707. Aurangzeb was a notable expansionist  who raided many territories.  Though he expanded the mughal kingdom in a big way, his wars led to the exhaustion of the imperial Mughal treasury and death of approximately 4.6 million people, mostly civilians.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

7^th Nov. 2014.