What Rural India Taught Me
By Moin Qazi
09 January, 2016
Countercurrents.org
I have spent a greater part of my career in rural India, a path I took because it was the one less travelled and that made the difference to my life and worldview. I must admit that I was considered a maverick, a heretic, a radical, an avant-garde and an anachronist in the realm of rural banking. I never toned down my ideas to ingratiate myself to the bosses, most of whom were parlour socialists and many of my suggestions would spark dismissive snorts from them, who found my uncompromising rebelliousness not in keeping with the ethos of the organisation. Honestly, I had grown jaded with the traditional approach but was blissfully unaware of the power dynamics at our headquarters. I was convinced that the staid arena of rural banking could be transformed into a stage for desperate improvisation and innovation. In the process, I treaded on some pretty powerful toes. There were regular missives of stinging criticism and sharp-edged admonitions from my superiors. I remember every time a programme got grounded, I had to seek their patronage to nudge the processes down below. Then there were the several hard-line strands within the management that were not willing to see beyond the mould of traditional banking. The most inspiring mantra that sustained me through such trying phases was ultimately the one given by Mahatma Gandhi—“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
The excruciating hardliners remained stuck in a time warp. Many of them had an innate dislike for rural banking. My peers and my senior colleagues would label me a “freak”, “leftist”, “deranged” and “populist”. The critics in my organization would often scoff at my notion of getting much traction for an initiative but I persevered. But my close friends knew that deep within me I harboured a sensitive heart guided by the poignant words of Che Guevara: “Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love” I am a professional banker trained in the hard and coarse grammar of banking. But at heart, I’m a developmental worker, always keen to do my bit for the underprivileged.
I would get chafed at the restrictions my managers would impose on me. Banking certainly claimed me but could not hold me a hostage to its rules, as I craved relentlessly for innovative ways. I rarely worked within the realm of conventional possibilities and was never impressed by the rarefied starched-shirt world of banking officialdom. I was not a rebel but I felt it was important to lead life one knows best. It was a no holds barred, bottom up approach that refused to accept ‘no’, that defied stuffy Anglicized sticklers for rules that put human relationships above everything: commerce as it was played on the streets, not as a parlour game.
I kept on pushing the idea of including the poor in the dialogue, and not doing what we (privileged outsiders) think is best, but asking them what is best for them. Ask a non-swimmer what he needs before he gets in the pool. He might tell you that he wants to know how to keep his head above water. Maybe you decide to give him arm-floats, but what he really wants is for you to tell him how to keep himself afloat without props.
I have always been inspired by the rousing words of Theodore Roosevelt:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.( “The Man in the Arena” Speech delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910 )
That inability to put oneself in the shoes of the poor and to keep on living the same way thinking “thank god I don’t have to live THAT way” just doesn’t work. Berating or patronizing rural folks is both culturally and professionally the most undesirable extension of any rural development executive’s personal trait. Unfortunately most aid personnel have cultivated this mind-set and approach. Since they never had extended homestays in the villages they would always carry the stereotyped notion of the poor as helpless people who need to be handheld through every stage.
My days in rural India were a colourful adventure. Puttering down dirt roads by motorbike to villages in the most remote of areas, with a cotton cloth wrapped around my head, tied below the chin, to protect me from the searing heat, interacting with people of cultures that seemed to exist on a different plane, long hours spent waiting at desolate, mice-infested bus stops in the middle of nowhere, greasy late suppers among the coloured neon lights and throbbing speakers of all-night “dhobis”, the heat, the dust, the anxiety, the fatigue and the cold bucket-bath in a dismal flophouse at the end.
I was viscerally moved but this rich, rough life helped seed wonderful ideas. I met some of the poorest of my villagers, for whom life is a never-ending struggle and yet they have somehow survived. Some whom I knew as malnourished children have, against the odds, grown into adulthood, married and had children of their own. I marvel at their endurance and resilience. At the same time, I feel overwhelmed by the immense loss of all the latent talent, skill and accomplishment of so many millions of people, these inhabitants of another world who are denied the possibility of reaching their full potential. One glimpsed it in their innate skill, grace, artistry and physical stamina, but how much they might have been able to contribute to human knowledge and well-being will never be known.
I had the privilege of watching the women acquire a sense of dignity once they were given tools for self-sufficiency. I discovered the power of creating a business with real accountability. And I learned, maybe most importantly, to listen with my heart. At every hospital, school or village where I would stop, people put their time on hold to provide me insights into how they lived. Even when recounting embarrassing truths (like not being able to pay a child’s school tuition) or telling painful 34 Village Diary of a Heretic Banker stories (like losing a baby in childbirth), it was done with grace and dignity. I think that was the moment when humility in its truest form—rather than an easy but false humbleness—began to creep in for me. For the first time in my life, being right had nothing to do with being successful or effective.
As I travelled through rural and urban landscapes, too often devastated by the demands of development, I met people who have risked their homes, families and even their lives to effect real change in the world. The stories they shared so openly and warmly were not merely of economic or political success but stories of empowerment and hope that dramatically portray the potency of collective action.
Tiny villages huddled beside the road, and when an automobile approached, naked children would cower in fright, and then invariably, as panicky chickens do, dart into the car’s path. Though kindness was quick, acceptance came slowly. One long-time native summed it up: “You’re only a stranger for five minutes, but you’re a newcomer for 50 years.”
I was nevertheless heartened to discover that I was admitted with an instant affection that had as far as I could see no qualifications at all from the first day that we walked about the little compound together and shared our first food in the little house. I made it a point to address every village elder as ‘uncle’; the all-purpose Indian honorific for men even marginally older than yourself.
Moin Qazi is a well known banker, author and Islamic researcher .He holds doctorates in Economics and English. He was Visiting Fellow at the University of Manchester. He has authored several books on religion, rural finance, culture and handicrafts. He is author of the bestselling book Village Diary of a Development Banker. He is also a recipient of UNESCO World Politics Essay Gold Medal and Rotary International’s Vocational Excellence Award. He is based in Nagpur and can be reached at [email protected]