An imperfect storm
isseems remote. The downturn is something people here read about in the newspapers, accord
ing to Dhanna Singh, a member of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan(MKSS), a union of acti
vists and farmers. The villages have welcomed back migrant worker from neighbouring states
, where people no longer find work twisting steel in Mumbai or polishing diamonds in Surat
.But, by and large, India's rural poor were protected from the crisis by the samethings th
at make them poor. If you never had secure employment or manyfinancial assets, you cannot
lose them to the crisis. In Rajasthan, this resilience is also the result of government p
olicy. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act(NREGA), extended to every rural distric
tt in April 2008, is supposed to offer 100 days of work a year, at the minimum wage, to ev
ery rural household that need it. Rajasthan, a parchedstate with a long history of drought
-relief works, comes closer to fulfilling thatpromise than anywhere else, providing 68 day
s of work on average in the yearto March 2008, according to a survey published in Frontlin
e, an Indiannewsweekly. Vijay Pura is cross-hatched with hard-packeted roads built by peop
le on the act's payroll. Thank to the roll-out of the NREGA and a hike in the minimum wage
, "People here are feeling a sense of security for the first time," says Shanker Singh of
the MKSS.The strength of rural demand is one reason why India escaped from the crisis so l
ightly. Sales of many "fast-moving" consumer goods, such as shampoo andtoothpaste, are now
growing faster in the villages than in the cities. Rural India'spurchases of chyawanprash
, an ayurvedic paste that eases digestion and bolestersthe immune system, outpaced urban I
ndia's by over six percentage points in the second quarter. And Maruti Suzuki, India's big
gest carmaker, more thandoubled its sales in rural areas in the year to March 2009.