Volunteers, who want to or have come to work with us for a year or two, have also been asking similar questions. Why should I work with the Science Movement ? Is the Science Movement committed to working in the field I like ? Can I contribute to it ? Things seem to moving slowly. People are involved in too many things. Maybe I can help better if I work with an NGO focused on one area.
These questions are not special to the Science Movement, but apply to all People's Movements in general. They make sense when one is faced with a choice. But I feel there is really no choice here.
Hypothesis 1: If we want serious social change, we HAVE to work with People' s Movements.
What this implies is that there is no choice. People's Movements may have limitations and problems. But this does not constitute reason enough to look at other avenues. We can work with NGOs and other groups as a short-term strategy, but ultimately we have to come to terms with People's Movements.
Problems that you see in People's Movements should not be cause for questioning the decision to work with them. The problems should be seen as challenges to be addressed. No Photos, no reports, no research or evaluation are challenges to solve. How can you solve it when you are far away ? This we will look at towards the end. The critical mindset change required is that these problems are not excuses to quit or to switch to working with NGOs, but rather reasons and avenues to become useful to the movement.
That you have to work with People's Movements is decided. But in which area and how is something that still has to be decided. In the Context of the Hundred Block Plan. we have to answer two questions:
To work towards structural changes, we must understand:
NGOs often think in terms of getting people to donate 1-2% of their income towards social causes. Or in terms of getting people to spend 1 hour a day volunteering for good causes. This can be seen as "maintenance costs". You live in a house - you have to spend time and money cleaning it, repairing things etc.
The question to ask is what do you with the rest of the 23 hours ? Do you spend 23 hours creating problems and spend 1 hour trying to solve them ?
And what about the role of the State ? The State collects through taxes - direct and indirect - about 25% of everyone's income. If income is a measure of time spent, this means the State takes one fourth of our working time for maintenance services. This is much much more than what NGOs are asking. How is this being spent ? Is it really helping address problems or creating them?
Apart from a large income, the State also has large assets built over time, a monopoly over coercive forces, and the ability to regulate and determine policy.
Social transformation cannot come without questioning the role of the State - without looking at what the State is doing and can do. We can work with it or we can fight with it, but we definitely have to make the State a part of our calculations. It is not just in the question of scale, for social transformation is a question of changing power relations - and the state plays an important role in ensuring status quo.
Most NGOs shy away from these questions. Confrontation with the State is beyond them - the volunteer base and spirit required for this is absent. Linkages with trade unions and employee associations are absent. Fear of negotiating with political parties and losing donor support keeps them away from such "dangerous" activities.
Also social transformation is a matter of building consensus - of opposing a widely held opinion and changing it. Anyone in the business of building consensus has to allow for a wide spectrum of opinions, allow space for a lot of opposing views. NGOs find this difficult to do even within their own organizations. How then can they build consensus outside ? A lot of internal problems that movements face is because of the democratic structure of movements. A good idea takes time for people to accept and internalize. Till such a time it cannot be implemented widely. You can personally implement the idea if you like - but there is no boss to compel others to do so. Everyone does what they believe is right. Things therefore seem to move slowly. But this is the process of consensus building. Having to do it all the time within, movements readily play this role outside as well.
Also being open and uncontrolled, movements allow different people to give it new directions. But this strength also gives it a disorganized appearance. But why is the disorganization a problem ? True, there is no one place or one person or one website from where you can find out what all is going on. But why should you be able to ?
People's Movements reflect the problems of society - within themselves they carry social biases and values. Movement volunteers are only slightly more conscious, slightly more egalitarian than the general populace. They are also organized and ready to work and learn. By their being close to the people and not very different from them, they continuously challenge society to change. Addressing problems within a movement therefore contributes to larger social change.
In the area of Education or Health or Agriculture, there are things the state should do and there are things the community should do. Our role is ensuring both happen. But our role is also in ensuring that the nature of the work is defined such that it empowers the poor and deprived.
Health is often seen as a charity that the state bestows on the poor - throw some medicines at the poor and tell them to shut up. By repeating this again and again, the poor are brainwashed into believing this story - that they are ignorant, irresponsible, dirty, and responsible for their ill-health. The role of people's movements is in exposing this fraud. In changing the perception of health. In making poor people see that their ill-health is due to malnutrition, bad sanitation, pollution, gender and caste inequality and many of these factors are not created by them but by the rich and particularly by state policies. Breaking the accepted notion of health care provision, helps change the demand for more doctors and medicines into a larger demand for conditions for good health. And it is within this understanding is defined the role of the state and the role of the community.
Similarly in Education, what is taught, why it is taught and how it is taught is important. So is the purpose of evaluation and examination. Are we examining a child to say he/she is unfit and therefore can only do low paying jobs ? Education has been used as an effective tool to control people, to make them obedient, to make them submit to authority and to suppress creativity, to grade them and to tell them what their ambitions can be. Education used this way helps the children of the rich become managers and the children of the poor become coolies. Exam as a means to grade is accepted by all - the poor included. Again our role is breaking this assumption and restructuring education so that it can empower. It is by doing this with ordinary teachers and parents and children that we can create a demand for a new kind of education. Running Non Formal Education Centers or a Thulir School for some children is useful, but it helps our overall purpose only when our experience of running these centers feeds into the larger educational question we are asking. For most NGOs running the centers is the end. For movements, it is the beginning. Developing a critique of the educational system, of textbooks, of exams and developing alternatives and building in people's minds the understanding of this is what makes for a transformation in education.
Groups like the Science Movement have the internal energy to question themselves, to draw new people and new energies, to rise above failures and to rebuild themselves. This is why they are so important. It takes a lot of time to understand the difference between movements and NGOs - but it is not just a self-proclaimed claim. Recently, I went to a meeting of NGOs, Simon from CRY told me that only a People's Movement like TNSF can covert the agenda being discussed into a successful campaign. NGOs alone cannot manage this. On a similar note, the People's Health Assembly brought together several NGOs, but without the movements taking the lead, it couldn't have been organized. Even if we don't understand the difference, the government does! In many cases, they therefore try to avoid and hinder the work of people's movements and in several cases, they steal our ideas, our books and material, our volunteers and give us no credit.
Some things like organizing a demonstration is considered legitimate movement work - only can movements do it and they do it well. But many people feel that movements are not suited to doing NGO-type activities like organizing self help groups, schools, water management, non-formal education centers, etc. But it is important to develop the ability of movements to work effectively in these areas as well. It takes some effort to organize such systematic activity within the movement (because of its voluntary nature) - but once this is done, there is a lot more scope to expand, to improve the quality of work much beyond the ability of NGOs and to use the experience to fight for larger changes.
For a new volunteer or an organization like AID or Asha, working with an NGO is easier. They have an office, they have staff, they have funds and they have a clear work area. You want to fund and they will give you a well-defined proposal, accounts etc. You want to volunteer and they will give you a clear-cut task. With movements on the other hand, you meet a lot of people. Suddenly everyone seems to be busy and you are left alone. You are often expected to find your own work, arrange your own funds, etc. You can get in touch with field workers - but they have a mind of their own. Who benefits out of all the work is very unclear - do the people benefit or only the organization and what is the difference. You organize meetings and sometimes no one turns up. And just when you are about to give up, suddenly lots of people turn up. Who are you helping and how is very unclear - you seem to be visiting one place after another. People seem to be managing fine without you. Sometimes you point things out and the volunteers listen. Sometimes the idea is tried out, sometimes not. How useful are you and in what way?
But given all this, it still makes sense to work with People's Movements - because ultimately only they can address the problems effectively. The freedom they offer to choose your work is an opportunity not a problem. It will take time to understand the people's movement, how it functions, the limits and limitations, and what you can contribute. You volunteer for a few months and that is useful. But what is more useful is your long-term commitment and association. For this physical presence is not a necessity. It may take several months or even a couple of years to fully understand the organization, to meet the people and to find a space for yourself. But what you can contribute after this by your continued association is worth the effort and time.
Now that you agree that it important for volunteers and organizations like AID and Asha to work with People's Movement, let's see how best this can be done.
The PSMs have worked at district level (in 2000 Villages/District) during the literacy campaigns. The scale of what is being proposed is small - but the areas of intervention are more varied and difficult. Switching to a focused programmes is a must. If they can do it in a district, great! If not, at least in a block it must be attempted.
Having said this, let's look at why the Block Programme is important for AID and Asha.
AID and Asha volunteers are very ambitious. They want to do programmes all over India. They are not happy with working in one state, let alone one district! But the resources they have access to are limited - a couple of crores at most! Groups like Oxfam and UNICEF have much larger budgets for much smaller areas. For the Literacy Campaigns (the smallest budget programme in the district), the government spent about 5 Crores/district! Given this limitation, the amount of resources per village or block is very small.
If we had a lot of resources put into one area, we can try to do costly model programmes. They are useful. But ultimately the model can be replicated only if it is low cost. Also, for the purpose of social transformation it is not enough to have one grand model, but rather lots of small imperfect models that people can see and work on, improve upon and understand. This fits in very well with AID and Asha's desire to work everywhere with the little pool of resources at hand.
When money is limited and the demand is high, one needs to economize. Large infrastructure is out - so is large scale provision of food, medicines, loans etc. In a sense this is good - we will be forced to get these from the government and banks. Our contribution can only be in catalyzing social action and in training. With little resources we can only work with local people (this is anyway what we believe we should be doing) and with constraints of little money and a lot of unglamorous work, we only get good hearted, unskilled, under-confident volunteers. To train them takes a lot of time and effort. But ultimately this is what we want to do - only this is sustainable. So we do it. But this needs a lot of patience.
What programmes can AID or Asha support ? Demonstrations and Campaigns cannot and should not be funded. Systematic programmes on the other hand need regular support mechanisms. The 100 Block programme fits the bill well - it will cover a wide area, will need little resources and will implement a systematic programme. It is not the best programme possible in terms of visibility or in terms of building a grand model or even in terms of effectiveness. It just seems to be the only solution possible within the given constraints. As the constraints change the solution will also change.
In this sense, it is important for AID and Asha to work with the Block Programmes - because it will be a useful contribution and a useful way to spend the funds.
But there is yet another reason - a much more important one - why AID and Asha should get involved with the Block Programmes - because it will be useful to AID and Asha.
When in the early 90s these organizations started, there was a defeatist tendency in the NRI community - particularly in the student community. People couldn't see what they could do from where they were perched. Even raising funds and supporting projects seemed impractical. AID and Asha both broke this mindset. They managed to not only prove it was possible, but also managed to mobilize a reasonably large volunteer group spread across the US. A volunteer group that is growing, getting increasing more committed and developing itself ideologically as well. Visiting projects, raising funds and supporting NGOs, generating awareness in the local community, and to some extent organizing and participating in anti-nuclear and anti-globalization programmes have been very useful contributions. Volunteers getting inspired and coming to work for a few years on development issues has also been another contribution.
But today there is hesitation in moving forward. The volunteers who were once problem-solvers have today become defeatists. Getting projects from NGOs and supporting them has become the norm. Complacency has set in - slightly more sophisticated than the early 90s. Under the garb of participation, volunteers let NGOs take all the initiative. The NGO or field group will think of what to do, how to do, where to do, write a proposal and send a budget. AID or Asha will ask questions, and after some answers send money to support the project and wait for feedback, maybe make a visit and write a report. And these most "educated" and rich Indians are content to let the entire initiative come from the poor NGO that is struggling to maintain itself. Is this a broad-minded participative approach or just sheer laziness?
The feeling that nothing more than fund-raising can be really done in the US has to be broken. As long as proposals come only one way, as long as it is someone else's idea that is being tested on the ground, as long as AID and Asha volunteers do not run the risk of their ideas failing, this feeling cannot be broken. Participation does not mean you keep your mouth shut - Participation means you keep your ears open. It is time AID and Asha volunteers develop ideas, write it up, send it here for review, receive and think about questions, plan out its implementation, try to field test the idea, measure its impact, follow through till its completion and see if it deserves to be expanded or developed further.
As long as you remain a funding group, you will only feel happy about what you fund. And the real success of the project is when you stop the funding - which means you can never be very happy. On the other hand, when you develop ideas, you will be happy wherever the idea is used - even if you are not funding (particularly if you are not funding!)
To be able to do this effectively, you need to develop respect for the work that movements have already done. You have to understand the context and what limitations these movements are facing. Helping them overcome their limitations is the problem you have to crack. Funding agencies there are many - and most are richer than AID or Asha. But support groups of this kind there are hardly any. That is the gap you can really fill. This support to people's movements will be very useful.
Can you do it from the US alone ? A large part of the reading, thinking & writing can be done from the US - several visits and conference calls may be needed, which can be organized. Ultimately it requires you to stick on long enough and to keep at it with patience - the rest will follow. Writing a proposal is not easy - start with simple things, but make sure you follow it up till the end. Helping develop a resource center for education in Chennai, helping collect a set of books that every block or district needs to possess, helping prepare a set of slides and supporting one volunteer per district to go and take classes in one or two schools every day. Or Sundar' s idea of shipping computers to start computer centers that he has organized well in spite of my bunglings. There are many ideas that you can take up and lead. But it requires your initiative - and therefore you will own its successes and failures.
The 100 Block Plan will happen - we will ultimately start working in 100 Blocks sooner or later. There will be project proposals and money flow. All that which seems to bother many volunteers are short-term issues and not so crucial. What is really important is the quality of the work. And to ensure this, we need people who can visit, spend time studying the programme, see what is not being done and help do it, who can evaluate and monitor, who can train or organize trainings and arrange support, who can collect data and write reports, meet government and bank officials and facilitate cooperation. We need people who can develop proposals, who can volunteer for a couple of years. To the extent such support is available the 100 blocks will be actually successful.
That is why the HBP is not a bunch of projects, which you can relax and feel happy about supporting. It is an opportunity for AID and Asha to get involved at the field level directly, contacts in villages whom they can work with to actually develop new programmes. It is time AID and Asha shift to the next gear and the HBP demands you do.
Will you take the bait ?