Empowering The Grassroots For A Brighter Rural India
By Moin Qazi
30 December, 2015
Countercurrents.org
Most development programmes for the poor have been designed on the premise that the poor need charities and they cannot afford to pay for the services .This is an erroneous assumption and dollops of free money have stifled people’s initiatives .Several studies have revealed that the poor are keen to have access to proper health facilities, education, sanitation and housing .They are willing to pay for the services if they are genuinely useful and are available through hassle free systems. Today the poor are investing their precious savings in private hospitals and private schools. They are also borrowing at heavy rates of interest from private microfinancers because bank loans, despite being cheaper, are mired in redtapism. The poor are fed up with the bureaucratic procedures that consume their mandays and may not yield any benefits in the end. In fact the loss of several days’ wages in chasing government departments for largesse under official schemes neutralizes the net benefits.
There are critics who believe the poor are so poor, why you would make them pay for things. My experience is that dignity is more important than anything else and that the poor already pay for things so let’s find a way to provide them things they can afford and want. What the poor insist is that the government schemes should be tailored to meet their actual needs. This ethos underpins the new development paradigm. The mantra is: “Tell us what the poor want, don’t tell us what you think is good for them.”There’s arrogance to the attitude that we’re going to come in and fix something for you, and you should appreciate it. The only way to really build trust is by starting from how people really are.
The reality as experienced by the poor living on the margin of existence is often different from the assumptions made by the administrator. It is difficult for us to understand the fears, the hesitancy, the pain and the labour with which the poor live and which therefore, separates the project from its implementation, from what is possible and impossible, or what is easy or difficult for the rural poor.
Rural poverty is unperceived or misperceived because of the ‘distance’ of the administrator and the professional from the rural poor. As Robert Chambers ,the great anthropologist and development expert ,has pointed out, the rich, the powerful and the urban based professionals are at the core, the poor, the weak and the rural people are at the peripheries leading to a systematic bias in terms of rural poverty un¬perceived or misperceived. There is the phenomenon of rural development tourism, i.e. the phenomenon of brief visits more as a rural tourist, the roadsides and tarmac visits, the meeting with the more influential people in rural areas, asking the predetermined questions etc. car convoys with hundreds of hangers-on. The aid structure often involves top-down decisions, incredible bureaucracy and paperwork, and the dispatch of expensive American expatriates who have to drive around in SUV’s. Where possible I think it’s much better to support local groups rather than those expats. The locals cost much less than foreigners and they usually have a much better idea of what people need. Unless the poor and disadvantaged are deliberately and persistently sought, they tend to remain in the background, effectively screened from outside inquiries.
The international poverty industry is worth tens of billions of dollars a year. It’s bursting with experts and consultants. There are surfeit of studies, reports, books, PhDs grants, loans, consultancies etc. Rural development is now becoming an old fashioned cause .The camera crews and the development journalists have now moved to fresh woods and newer pastures. To bring a new novelty to their appellation writers and journalists have added the new professional label of ‘activist’. This double barreled appellation is a highly lethal combination with the country’s judicial system also moving in as an important stakeholder. The political leaders too have their share of acrobatics in the development ‘circus’ with their minions projecting themselves as missionaries leading the crusade for redeeming the wretched. These are the keepers of the flame.
The “bottom up” approach is about living and working with the poor, listening to them with humility to gain their confidence and trust. It cannot be bought and manipulated with money, or by grafting urban assumptions of development which in fact may destroy existing workable low cost structures. It is about respecting and implementing the ideas of the poor, encouraging them to use their skills and knowledge for their own development. It is about taking a back seat and providing the space for them to develop themselves. In short, we need to nurture and nourish financial democracy. There may be an ideological debate over whether popular participation is a good in itself (representing the goal of empowerment of the poor and, in the larger political sense, the goal of democracy) or a means to an end – project sustainability. The poor are often inconspicuous, inarticulate and unorganized. Their voices may not be heard at public meetings in communities where it is customary for only the big men to put their views. It is rare to find a body or institution that adequately represents the poor in a certain community or area. Outsiders and government officials invariably find it more profitable and congenial to converse with local influentials than with the uncommunicative poor. When a minister visits a village there is such a heavy cordon of police around the minister that the villagers can hardly see the dignitary, let alone speak to him.
In a small project everyone can participate in decision-making. That's the only real way to improve a community. The community gets employment and has a feeling of ownership and control. But the practical advantages of participation for project effectiveness and sustainability weigh heavily in favor: participation can refuse waste of project resources and lead to recurrent cost recovery; most important, it gives people a stake in the project resources and thus makes them willing to support it. There are also the negatives of participation: it is difficult, time-consuming, and tricky; it can permit elites or free riders to get more than their share; it can stir up conflicts that traditionally society and culture have been able to keep under wraps; it can alienate governments; and so on. We can always have a basket of recipes to suit every group from which to choose an appropriate one. The success will finally depend on the charisma and the personal commitment of the project leader who inspires the team and lets the creative aquifers charge back to life.
Empowerment means different things to different people. There is, of course, one tide that will lift all boats. That is the tide of economic growth. Poverty is the biggest hurdle to empowerment. It is poverty that denies access to education; fails to create adequate number of job opportunities; drives families to a demeaning life shorn of the barest dignity; forces a mother to give away her girl child in marriage. It is a matter of common knowledge that higher family income results in greater spending on education for the children; better food and clothing; search for better housing; more forceful assertion of rights and the willingness to seek legal remedies; and the capacity to influence, individually or collectively, decisions that affect large sections of the people.
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]