New Delhi : An overwhelming majority of rural Indians are satisfied with the steps taken by the Narendra Modi government as well as state governments to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, despite facing hardships that forced some to sell land, phones and watches, and take loans from neighbours to get by, according to a nationwide survey unveiled on Monday.
Seventy four per cent of rural Indians are satisfied with the steps taken by the Modi government to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the “nationwide” survey of rural India by media platform Gaon Connection.
About 78 per cent respondents said they were also satisfied with the steps taken by their own state government, according to the findings of the survey.
A total of 25,371 respondents were interviewed between May 30 and July 16, 2020 during the exercise and all of them were main earners of their households, and thus primarily men, the Gaon Connection said.
The survey was designed and data analysed by the Lokniti-CSDS team at the New Delhi-based Centre for Study of Developing Societies CSDS).
It was carried out through face-to-face interviews following social distancing in 179 districts across 23 states and union territories by Gaon Connection Insights, the data and insights arm of the media platform.
On the margin of error in the survey, Sanjay Kumar, professor at CSDS, said: “If the entire sample had been selected using the probability sampling methods, the overall margin of error for a sample as large as this (25,300 respondents) would have been +/- 1 per cent at a 95 per cent confidence level.”
“However, given that the sampled locations were not spread out evenly in most states/UTs and were selected by non-probability sampling methods owing to logistical and Covid-related issues, we are not in a position to provide reliable estimates of sampling error,” he said.
The nationwide lockdown was first imposed by the Centre from March 25 for 21 days to check the spread of coronavirus and was subsequently extended.
Of those who supported the Modi government’s steps, 37 per cent said they were “very satisfied” and 37 per cent said they were “somewhat satisfied” with the central government, according to the survey.
More than 14 per cent respondents said they were “somewhat dissatisfied” with the Modi government, and seven per cent said they were “very dissatisfied”.
According to the survey, the lockdown doesn’t seem to have adversely impacted the perception of rural citizens about the Modi government at the Centre, or the governments in the states on the whole.
“For instance, on being asked whether the Modi government’s attitude towards migrant workers during the lockdown had been good or bad, 73 per cent or over seven out of ten respondents interviewed in rural areas of the country said it had been good (29 per cent said very good and 44 per cent rated it as good),” the Gaon Connection said.
Only 23 per cent or around one of every four were of the opinion that the lockdown had been bad (9 per cent very bad and 14 per cent bad), it said.
While 40 per cent respondents said the lockdown was “too harsh”, 38 per cent said it was “adequately harsh”, 11 per cent said the lockdown should have been harsher. Only 4 per cent respondents said the lockdown should not have happened at all, according to the survey findings.
The state governments on the whole were rated equally positively, in fact slightly more than the Centre, with 76 per cent describing their attitude towards migrants as good and only 20 per cent rating it as bad.
“Interestingly, respondents in BJP-ruled states were less impressed with the Modi government’s and their state government’s handling of the COVID-19 epidemic than those in many other states,” the Gaon Connection said.
Rural India has not been part of the national media narrative in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. This survey offers powerful insights into how rural India dealt with this crisis, and what it plans to do ahead including questions like, will they return to cities? Will they change spending patterns? said Neelesh Misra, founder of Gaon Connection.
According to the survey, about 23 per cent rural Indians borrowed money during the lockdown, eight per cent sold a valuable possession (phone, watch etc.), seven per cent mortgaged jewellery, and five per cent sold or mortgaged land.
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