Events & Issues
New Delhi, 28 January 2016
Bogie Of Empowerment
POOR REMAIN POOR
By Moin Qazi
The Modi Government has launched many new schemes for the
poor and marginalized with ambitious goals .However, as past experience shows,
most of these suffer from the same flaws: Absence of active involvement of
primary stakeholders in their designing and implementation. Consequently, this
is one of the main reason why they are not yielding results.
Remember, over the last 70 years of planning, most
development programmes for the poor have been designed on the premise that the needy
need charities as they cannot afford to pay for services. But this is an
erroneous assumption wherein dollops of free money have stifled people’s initiatives.
Indeed, several studies have revealed that the poor are keen
to have access to proper health facilities, education, sanitation and housing. Moreover,
they are willing to pay for the services if they are genuinely useful and are
available through hassle free systems.
Today the marginalized are investing their precious savings
in private hospitals and private schools. They are also borrowing at heavy interest
rates from private lenders because bank loans, despite being cheaper, are mired
in red tape. Besides, they are fed up with the bureaucratic procedures that
consume their time and do not yield any benefits. In fact the loss of several
days’ wages in chasing Government
departments for largesse under official
schemes neutralizes the net benefits.
True, there are critics who believe the poor are so poor that
they should not be made to pay for things. But experience shows that dignity is
more important than anything else. Also, as they already pay for basic things, we
need to find a way to provide them things they cannot afford but need.
Further, the poor insist that the Government schemes should
be tailored to meet their actual needs. This ethos underpins the new
development paradigm. The mantra: “Tell us what the poor want, don’t tell us
what you think is good for them.” This is arrogant attitude spelling ‘we are going
to come and fix something for you and one should appreciate it. Forgetting, the
only way to really build trust is by starting from how the people really are.
Undeniably, the reality of
those living on the margin of existence is often different from the assumptions
made by the Government. Thus, it is difficult for the planners to understand
their fears, hesitancy, pain and duress they live in which separates the
project from its implementation. Of what is possible and impossible and easy or
difficult for the rural poor.
Notably, rural poverty is
misperceived because of the ‘distance’ of the Administrator and the
professional from the poor. As the great anthropologist and development expert
Robert Chambers’s points, the rich, powerful and urban professionals form the
core and the poor and weak are at the peripheries leading to a systematic bias
in terms of rural poverty.
Importantly, a new phenomenon
has debt: rural tourism, of visits to roadsides and tarmac visits but only meeting
influential people and asking them predetermined questions etc. They come in
car convoys with hundreds of hangers-on.
Resulting in the aid
structure only involving top-down decisions, incredible bureaucratic attitude and
paperwork. Add to this expensive American expatriates who drive around in
SUV’s. Clearly, it is much better to support local groups rather than the
expats, who not only cost less but have a better idea of what people need.
Unless the poor and disadvantaged are deliberately and persistently sought,
they will remain in the background, effectively screened from outside
inquiries.
Te international poverty
industry is worth tens of billions dollars every a year and is bursting with
experts and consultants. There is a surfeit of studies, reports, books, PhDs
grants, loans, consultancies etc. Wherein rural development has now becoming an
old-fashioned cause, whereby the camera crews and development journalists have
moved to newer pastures. To bring a new novelty to their appellation they append
a new professional label of ‘activist’.
This double barreled
appellation is a lethal combination alongside our judicial system which too is an
important stakeholder. As also our leaders who indulge in acrobatics in the
development ‘circus’ with their minions projecting themselves as missionaries.
These are the keepers of the flame. Forget, redemption of the poor.
The “bottom up” approach is about living and working with
the poor, listening to them to gain their confidence and trust. It cannot be
bought and manipulated with money or by grafting urban assumptions of
development which might destroy the existing workable low cost
structures. Additionally, it is about respecting and implementing the
ideas of the poor, encouraging them to use their skills and knowledge for their
own development.
Significantly, 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 might
be an ideological
debate over whether popular participation is good in itself (representing the empowerment
goal of the poor and, in the larger sense, the goal of democracy) or a means to
an end – project sustainability.
The poor are often inconspicuous, inarticulate and
unorganized. Their voices might not be heard at public meetings where it is
customary for only the powerful people to put forth their views. It is rare to
find an institution which adequately represents the poor. As outsiders and Government
officials invariably find it more profitable and congenial to converse with
local influentials rather than with the uncommunicative poor. An example, a
Minister visits a village there is a heavy police cordon around him wherein the
villagers can barely see him forget what he is saying!
In sum, empowerment means different things to
different people. There is, of course, one tide which will lift all boats. This
is the tide of economic growth and poverty is the biggest hurdle to empowerment as it 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. We need to correct this. -----
INFA
(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)
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