The directions to the NGO were obtuse as usual. Go to the police station, go down that road to Shalimar restaurant and I’ll meet you there. I met Mr. Chacko and he led me down a lane so narrow that I would easily have missed it. There was no real space to walk. We stepped from plank to plank haphazardly laid over a concrete channel of water. Likely sewage. My first thought was “ew.” My second thought was, “Well, at least there’s running water here.”
When we finally reached PATH, the healthcare NGO I was visited to hopefully build a partnership for my project, Mr. Chacko led me to his office. We sat down and I laid my proposal on the table and gave my spiel:
“My-name-is-Kavya-I’m-here-from-the-US-doing-a-project-on-diabetes-with-TISS-My-basic-questions-are-about-how-people-think-about-and-treat-the-disease-and-their-barriers-to-treatment-I-wanted-to-know-if-could-do-fieldwork-with-your-organization?”
Mr. Chacko stared back with a slight smile and did not say a single word. I asked, “Did you understand? Is it my accent?”
He then proceeded to ask me questions: Who am I? What did I study in school? He wanted to know about my family, about my interests, about my future plans, about my future career, about my religious/spiritual beliefs. I also realized I needed to take things slower and I asked him about the organization, about how he got into social work, about his family, his background.
He later mentioned to me, “You coming in here and laying a paper on the desk, that’s not how we do things here. This isn’t a business transaction, we build relationships here”
I felt a little ashamed. I forgot about the people involved, about how this whole thing wasn’t just about me and my research, but about forging real connections, both with the people who assist me and with my research participants.
Mr. Chacko is in his seventies and has a lot of perspective about this community and about the world. He’s been working in the community for close to thirty years and has seen it evolve from a barren land where refugees once fled into a thriving place. He has worked extensively to provide health projects to meet their needs and has seen many changes over the years.
But he’s well aware that the structure and the nature of NGOs are changing. “Small community based organizations like us are going to be unable to get funding in a few years. Even NGOs are becoming more corporate these days.”
He’s right. I spent my Saturday at a social entrepreneurship conference where the buzzwords were about scaling up, return on investment, impact assessment etc. etc. Understanding local needs, capturing local knowledge and building strong relationships were barely mentioned. As one investment banker turned social entrepreneur said, “There’s no point in investing in the small farmer with an acre farm, you will get no return.” I was upset that even in a conference on creating social change someone would consider a human being nothing more than a business deal. I wondered what Mr. Chacko would think of all of it.
I find myself torn about what it really means to create change in the world. I find it ironic to use the methods of corporate capitalism, the very system that creates inequalities, to try to ameliorate them. Yet given all the NGOs in India that exist only for the tax benefits of the owners, I recognize the need for accountability and real outcome assessments.
We’re also forgetting India’s history; the dream of the khadi pehne wallas (the followers of Gandhi) that lived simple lives and wove their own clothes in effort to build an India based not on profits or material things, but on cultural continuity, self-reliance and compassion for fellow human beings. I can’t help but wonder why their efforts are no longer relevant to conversations on social change.
What do you think? Are the khadiwallas and Mr. Chackos of the world still relevant? What do we lose and what do we gain from transitioning social impact work from social workers to social entrepreneurs?
Svaast Ke Liye 