APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGIES (INDIA), UKHIMATH

AT (India) or ATI works in the upper Himalayan regions of Uttaranchal, promoting and supporting small enterprises that draw upon the vast natural resources of the region. ATI works with self help groups in the villages, through a system of service/input providers and establishes market linkages for the products. ATI has developed a complete package of services to support oak tasar production. Dairy development and apiculture are to two other areas where it has done significant work.

ATI focuses its work on villages in the districts of Chamoli and Rudraprayag, and is based in the town of Ukhimath, which is famous as the winter abode of Lord Kedarnath. Villages are clustered into ‘valleys’, and ATI has established support infrastructure for each valley. Two companies have been registered as producers’ companies – one for tasar, one for honey – to manage their respective businesses. At the valley level or in the villages, however, one did not come across any division between the three entities, and the identity was only that of ATI and its staff.

The tasar enterprise covers the entire gamut from egg production to garment making. ATI or Chamoli Tasar Limited (name of the company registered to manage the activity) has established the infrastructure for spinning, reeling, dyeing and weaving. Cocoon grainage and rearing are done by farmers in the villages. The predominant production is of oak tasar and this requires the farmer to live in the oak forests away from their villages for the three months when the cocoons are left on the trees. With the rapid disappearance of oak trees, ATI is now shifting focus to other forms of silk, eri raised on the castor crop and mulberry cocoons purchased from elsewhere. Bulk of the employment generated is in the post-cocoon category when the yarn is spun, dyed and woven. Chamoli tasar sells well in the market and it is a large supplier of tasar-wool blended materials to outlets like Fab India.

Devbhumi honey is the branded product from Devbhumi Madhu Limited, the company ATI has promoted for its apiculture activity. In this case, ATI has not taken the responsibility of marketing all the honey that is produced through its network of producers. ATI provides training to apiculturists and has established a network of ‘collectors’. These collectors act as the intermediary between the farmers and the company. All honey produced by the farmers is collected by the collectors, who depending on demand from the company supply unprocessed honey to it. The excess production is processed and sold locally by the collectors themselves. The area being close to Kedarnath, there is very high demand for honey during the yatra season every year, and this market is catered to by the collectors.

The yatra market also has very high demand for ghee. The dairy programme developed by ATI has had many takers in the villages due to this. ATI provides a support package involving artificial insemination, improved fodder and tie-up with the government livestock development programme for veterinary care.

Eco-tourism is another of ATI’s interventions. It has helped three entrepreneurs establish lodges that cater to diverse interests as hiking, bird-watching etc. In village Sari that falls on the route to Deoria tal, a lake at an altitude of more than 2000 metres, an eco-tourism group was organised. This group was expected to generate employment and income for themselves by taking advantage of the large number of tourists visiting the lake. One of the group members is also one of the three entrepreneurs who have set up tourist lodges. Gradually, it seems that the individual’s business interests have overtaken that of the group and the self help group is probably functional only on paper.

Some thoughts
It was a study in contrast to see the work of ATI soon after seeing that of Grassroots. Here are two organisations that talk about more or less the same things – sustainability of mountain ecologies and its people. But each has chosen to approach this goal from very different angles. ATI has a taken a market based approach where establishing an enterprise and ensuring its viability have taken precedence. One could even see pointers to the fact that business prudence has taken precedence over the original purpose of the organisation. The tasar enterprise began with a view to providing incentives to the local population to arrest the degradation of oak forests by generating tangible incomes from them. However, over the years, tasar or silk business in itself has become more important than the fact that oak forests continue to disappear. In the process people have gained, undoubtedly, especially new skills like spinning and weaving which have helped women improve their economic status.

Grassroots has let go of its commercial activities to Umang, which again is a Society. ATI despite having put in place business entities like the two producer companies has not been able to ‘let go’. The two companies – Chamoli Tasar and Devbhumi Madhu – together do business worth about a crore of rupees every year. One would think that is a scale sufficient to raise the two as independent entities. Why this has not happened is probably worth exploring further. What does it take for NGOs to build sustainable, community managed businesses? Is it yet another chimera like sustainable development?

While on the topic of NGOs doing business, it was educative to see the number of organisations that are engaged in producing the same kind of products and incurring fixed marketing costs many times over to sell them in the same market. Walking around Dilli Haat during the Dastkar Nature Bazar in late November, one came cross six organisations running that many stalls selling more or less the same products – woollen products, honey, jam-jelly-preserves and, apricot-peach oil.

A quick calculation of what it means to the producers is simple. Selling, marketing and administrative overheads often take up to 50% of the price realised on some of these products, leaving just half the consumer rupee to be shared between the raw material and labour. In many cases, thus, the primary producer gets somewhere around a quarter of what the market pays – not substantially different from what the “corporate devils” return!

If this is the case, how can NGOs take a holier-than-thou attitude vis-à-vis the market and claim large amount of grants from donors for doing livelihood promotion work? It may be time to go back to the old milkman from Anand and learn about decentralised production and centralised processing. And perhaps more importantly, centralised marketing.

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GRASSROOTS, RANIKHET

Grassroots is short for Pan Himalayan Grassroots Development Foundation. Wish there was some way to shorten the 120 steps, along roughly 200 metres drop, that one has to negotiate to reach their office in the outskirts of Ranikhet. Going down is easy, but climbing back, oh! forget it. Grassroots has been around since 1992, ever since the Pauls, Kalyan and Anita, moved to Ranikhet, the cantonment town in Almora district, from Chirag, an organisation in Kumaon they had helped form, together with other like minded people, in 1986.

Grassroots is now an amalgam of organisations. There is Grassroots itself, a small organisation of less than 10 people that acts as a facilitator to a number of development processes. Over the years, it piloted and experimented with a number of activities, and the successful ones have since been transferred to organisations set up by local staff. The Mahila Umang Samiti, Umang for short, is a federation of self-help groups in villages in Almora, Nainital and Bageshwar districts. Umang provides a platform for the women to engage in productive activities like knitting and food processing, by bringing about linkages with the market. Kumaon Artisans’ Guild (KAG) is another organisation which Grassroots has helped establish. An alliance of masons and construction supervisors, the Guild is an outcome of long years of work that Grassroots has put in, in the area of alternative technologies. Biogas is one of them.

Grassroots work priorities are governed by its founding mission of working on the regeneration of the Himalayan mountain ecosystem. It sees its work in diverse sectors as alternate technologies and natural resource management as being elements of this larger strategy. That this approach is working is evident from what one sees in the villages. Traditional sources of drinking water are drying up fast. The infiltration wells that the organisation has helped establish have provided a working alternative to the people. Similarly biogas has helped in reducing the demand for firewood, a very scarce commodity in the region.

Establishing successful pilots and leaving the expansion and scaling-up to local organisations like Umang and KAG is the role Grassroots plays. Moving from the past of technology specific interventions, Grassroots is now planning a fairly large natural resource development programme – regeneration of the Gagas river valley. The Gagas is a stream-fed river into which more than 30 streams, locally called Gadhera, drain. Through an intervention named “Gadhera Bachao Abiyan”, Grassroots plans to facilitate a multi-stakeholder forum to bring about substantial difference in the natural resource base of the area. Interestingly, about 90% of the land in the region belongs to the forest department. Thus unlike similar NGO interventions elsewhere, it is not sufficient to have community participation alone. There is need for a strong, working tripartite deal, between the communities, facilitating NGOs and the Forest Department. In the scheme of things Grassroots has worked out for the programme, local NGOs like KAG will deal with the community interface. About 10 other local NGOs have joined hands with Grassroots to implement the programme. Grassroots will take responsibility for the interface with the State and District administration.

Umang
Umang boasts of a network of women spread over 110 villages in 10 development blocks of the three districts. The governing body of Umang have representatives of the women’s groups. The day-to-day functions are managed by a group of women, headed by the Secretary, all of whom come from the area.

One part of Umang’s work is in community development. This includes areas like alternative energy, savings and credit groups and drinking water and sanitation. The other part of its work falls under the broad label of enterprise development. Knitting of woollen and cotton garments is the biggest activity, covering about 300 women in around 45 villages. Umang produces knitwear worth more than Rs.1.5 million each year, about a third of which accrues to the women as wages.

The other important enterprise activity is food processing. This includes making of pickles from local farm produce like chillies, ginger and garlic and fruit preserves and jams. The apiculture programme is also substantial, producing about 3 tonnes of honey every year. Umang also provides support to women for backyard poultry rearing.

Kumaon Artisans’ Guild
The purpose of the Guild revolves around the application of appropriate technologies for rural development. Thus most of its work is in the areas of biogas promotion and drinking water and sanitation. The infiltration wells technology developed by Tim Rees is the most significant drinking water solution that the Guild offers. Over the years the Guild has helped build more than 80 such wells, in addition to about 400 toilets and 200 biogas plants. The Guild also offers technical assistance to other organisations in Kumaon.

Some thoughts
The dominant development paradigm in Uttaranchal – heralded by the State with funds from multilateral donors and supported by a large section of the civil society – talks of the livelihoods approach. One sees very little focus on the quality of the natural resource base, which quite evident to the naked eye, is fast degenerating. Undoubtedly, Uttaranchal has great natural endowments to be exploited, to enable its people to earn good incomes. But concerns about sustainability of interventions get mere lip-service. It is in the context of such approaches that the interventions of Grassroots assume significance. They may be small in terms of coverage, but in terms of demonstrating alternative approaches they bring about a welcome freshness.

Grassroots also offers an interesting case study on the structure of development organisations. Irrespective of the degree of effectiveness of its ‘let-go’ strategy, it is refreshing to see an NGO make such efforts and actually take it beyond rhetoric. Lines dividing functions of Umang or KAG from Grassroots may be thin, but one cannot miss the genuineness of the effort. In fact, efforts are being made to ensure that the three organisations do not share the same work space. Now, all three work out of the Grassroots campus (of the 120-steps notoriety). During November 2005 in fact, KAG moved to its new premises. Umang needs a better organised space to manage its diverse production activities and once a suitable one is found, it also would have a new home.

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AAROHI, SATOLI

Aarohi means ascent. For a plain ‘plains-fellow’ like me, the mere act of climbing up to reach Aarohi is an event in itself. Nestled in the Central Himalayan mountains, in the north-east corner of Nainital district is the village of Satoli. From most parts of the village, one gets a panoramic view of the Uttaranchal Himalayas – snow-capped peaks in the northern horizon, some fifteen peaks stretching from the west to east. Satoli is a remote village by the standards of these parts. Public transport is available only three or four times a day. While there are a few taxis available in emergency, people normally have to resort to walking up and/or down the hills to reach a clinic, market, or facilities like that.

The area is essentially Kumaoni, with a smattering of people who have migrated from the plains, particularly the Gangetic belt around Allahabad. The older inhabitants of the area have been there for three or four centuries – migrants from parts of Gujarat, Rajasthan, etc. The indigenous population of the Uttaranchal hills, Bhutias are now a minority, found mostly closer to the Nepal and Tibet borders. The terrain and climate have helped develop a unique way of life for the people; one would be hard put to find plain-characteristics except in those who have moved in, during the recent past.

Aarohi has been working in this area since 1992 founded by Sushil, a medical doctor, and Oona, a management graduate. Both were among the founding members of Chirag, another NGO, set up in 1986. Chirag, based in the village of Sitla, five kilometres from Satoli, is probably the first ‘professionally’ set up NGO in the region. It is, today, among the largest in Uttaranchal. In the early 90s, differences on the course of Chirag resulted in several of its members leaving to form new organisations.

Health
From its early days Aarohi has focussed on health care delivery and health education. Availability of a doctor, Sushil, made it possible to develop a comprehensive health sector intervention. Most people we met, here and elsewhere in Uttaranchal felt that access to emergency health care remains the most important issue for villagers. Not surprising, given the topography and settlement pattern. Steep slopes with houses spread out along them, as far as the eye can see. The main access road lying somewhere across the slope. Narrow paths, lead from the road to the houses, mostly negotiated on foot; or mules for carrying certain types of loads. Ambulances, when needed have to be improvised – four two-wheelers carrying a cot between them.

The clinic run from Aarohi’s campus in Satoli provides emergency care to patients of all types. The clinic also has an x-ray facility. This is particularly important given that a substantial number of cases that come to the clinic are trauma related – falls, accidents etc. Sushil mentioned that over the years, the nature of cases reported at the clinic has moved substantially from general illnesses to accident-related trauma.

This shift is probably also an indicator of the effect that Aarohi’s health education programme has had. This is carried out in two different fora – women’s groups and schools. The education programme focuses primarily on reproductive health issues with the women and hygiene and environmental sanitation issues with the children. Reduction in pregnancy and delivery related complications and deaths, have also come about as a result of a very intensive process of re-training traditional birth attendants.

Yet another factor that has contributed to the reduction in general illness in the population served by Aarohi, is its intervention in drinking water. The hill villages depend on hill streams and springs for drinking water. The traditional water structures, Naula, taps the capillary flows beneath the stream, capturing the water into a covered tank like structure. With the general ecological degradation – dwindling forests, soil erosion, drying up of streams – a lot of these structures have become dysfunctional. People had to turn to less protected sources like open streams etc. for water, resulting in many health hazards.

Tim Rees, an itinerant Scotsman who made the Uttaranchal (then UP) hills his home, developed the idea of an infiltration well. He developed the Naula idea further by deepening the structure to capture the total sub-soil flow into a well (normally 10-12 metres deep), protect it with a permanent concrete cover and provide a hand-pump for extraction. Several NGOs found in this a workable proposition and have adopted the technology. Aarohi, which had been mobilising communities to repair and restore traditional Naulas, has built several such wells, providing safe drinking water to villages throughout the year.

Livelihoods
Aarohi’s livelihood sector interventions are aimed at value addition to local products and creating conditions to generate additional income to families. The temperate climate of the hills allows the growth of a number of species of plants, produce of which enjoy demand in metropolitan cities. Aarohi has taken up two initiatives, processing apricot seeds and growing and processing of exotic culinary herbs.

Apricot orchards are an important source of income for the farmers in the area. However, the fruit which enjoys high demand in the cities is highly perishable and circumspect to vagaries of climate. Storms during the fruiting season cause damage to the crop and the fruits that perish in these storms normally go waste. Aarohi has developed an apricot oil pressing enterprise that uses the damaged fruits to generate income for the farmers. Nuts from the damaged fruits are collected by the farmers and sold to Aarohi. The kernel of the nuts are taken out and pressed in a traditional wooden mill (kolu). The oil is filtered, packed and sold. The oil is believed to have qualities of a skin moisturiser and is also used for massages. The de-oiled cake is crushed to make a scrub that serves the purpose of bathing soap. Both the oil and scrub carry a good premium in the market and Aarohi has been able to take advantage of this.

The apricot oil enterprise is among the early interventions of Aarohi and over the past decade has established itself as a self-supporting activity. Self help groups of farmers now do the nut collection in the villages.

The culinary herbs enterprise is of more recent origin. Herbs like basil, thyme, oregano, rosemary, peppermint etc. are grown by farmers in the villages. Aarohi had initially arranged for inputs and training. Lead farmers in the villages now raise nurseries of the plants and sell these to fellow farmers. Aarohi has organised groups of farmers around this activity. The harvested herbs are collected by Aarohi, dried, cleaned and packed.

Both the oil and herb products are sold through dealers and retailers in Delhi and Mumbai and through exhibitions in different parts of the country. The Aarohi Nature Shop in Satoli sells the products to tourists who pass by and to those visiting Aarohi.

Other activities
The health programme of Aarohi has a strong health education component, taken up in government primary schools in the area. The Aarohi Bal Sansar (ABS) is a primary school set up and run by Aarohi in Satoli, catering to children from neighbouring villages. ABS has been set up as a model education centre, to demonstrate a more child-friendly education process.

Aarohi has also mobilised women’s savings and credit groups in the villages. These groups serve as entry vehicles to the villages for different programmes.

Some thoughts
Aarohi could be a good example of a small, growing NGO. The thirty or so staff members of the organisation know each other very well, helped a great deal by the fact that almost all of them come from the local area. There is great feel of informality in inter-personal interactions. At the same time, fairly strong administrative systems are also in place. Weekly planning meetings on Wednesdays are the time for staff to sit together and plan activities for the week (they work from Wednesday to Monday, with Tuesday being holiday).

An aspect of Aarohi that needs mentioning is the profile of its staff members. Except for Sushil who is a medical doctor, and the person who operates the X-ray machine, nobody has any formal technical training. Village men and women, with varying levels of formal education have been trained on the job to take up different responsibilities. Whether it is delivery of curative health services or running an enterprise of Rs.7 lakhs, the quality of output can be rated as very high. What is more, it helps the organisation to keep its overhead costs low, helping it to deliver more with less external funds.

This said, one also feels a sense of stagnation within the organisation. The health programme is on a high trajectory, with Sushil being able to provide visionary leadership. The same cannot be said of the livelihoods interventions. While the existing staff are capable to running the enterprise at its current scale, they are at a loss when it comes to further scale-up and value addition. The growth so far has been aided by inputs from external consultants, but there is a limit to which such inputs can help. Recently, Aarohi set itself a target of achieving annual turnover of Rs.15 lakhs for its enterprises. It has been able to get consultants to work with it on developing action plans to achieve this target, but one needs to wait and see if without some strong leadership from within these plans can fructify.

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ACTION FOR SOCIAL ADVANCEMENT, JHABUA, MADHYA PRADESH

“Its yesterday once more”, the famous song of the Carpenter’s whirled around in my head as we drove from Udaipur to Jhabua. Eleven years ago, IRMA had sent twelve of us, wide eyed and curious students to Jhabua for an ‘induction’ into the world of rural development. We discovered when we returned to IRMA, shorn of all romantic notions of rural India and village life, having survived on what Harish termed biodegradable frisbees aka makki ka rotla, that we had lived for these two weeks in one of the poorest areas of the region, perhaps in the entire country. Much has changed in Jhabua, that’s what the record books claim. Jhabua is in character more a continuum of Southern Rajasthan than western MP where it finds itself. Though it still retains its position among the poorest areas of the country, it is touted to have witnessed unique efforts at regenerating of the land and livelihoods through efforts in watershed development and afforestation under a former “progressive” Congress government. While still widely acclaimed, there has been some criticism that there are dark shades of brown and grey beneath all the superficial greenery, which is the creation of “a dream machine” (Amita Baviskar 2005; The Dream Machine – The model development project and the remaking of the State) We were not able to make much of judging the effort ourselves, but did figure that there are miles to go in terms of conditions of poverty and deprivation in the region. This distinctive position also ensures that the region is a cash cow, like we have witnessed in Kalahandi and Bolangir, attracting vast amounts of resources each year from the government. And we suspect that, like in Bolangir and Kalahandi, a very small percentage actually goes to achieve what it’s meant for. It is under such conditions that one of my first mentors into the arena of rural development, Ashish Mondal and G.Jayanti gave up their secure jobs with a rather bureaucratic NGO programme (which incidentally had hosted our induction) to set up their own NGO – Action for Social Advancement – registered as a Society in 1995. Scope of work ASA has undertaken work on community based natural resources development and management in villages of Jhabua district since 1996. These villages fall in the basins of four seasonal rivers Dohi, Panchi, Mod and Bhansi. In the nine years till 2005, a variety of works have been completed with support from different government and non-government sources. A large portion of the work has been under two schemes of the Government – Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS) and Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP). Three watershed projects have been undertaken with support from Sir Ratan Tata Trust, Mumbai. In addition ASA has channelled funds from agencies such as Aga Khan Foundation, CASA and CIDA for smaller projects. It is also working with the district administration of Jhabua in implementing the National Food for Work programme in its operational area. At ASA’s request, we conducted a short assessment of ASA’s CBNRM work In Jhabua during our visit. We visited five villages where ASA has supported the implementation of watershed development projects. Our interactions with the villagers were primarily centred on getting their opinion and perspectives about the works that had happened. We also had a very useful half-day session with several village volunteers and Secretaries of Watershed Committees. What are the benefits? All the people we met were unanimous in their assessment of benefits in terms of increase in water table, increase in land productivity, conversion of fallows into productive land, reduced soil erosion and reduced migration. From further discussions with field workers we gathered that of the 31 villages where watershed work have been completed (EAS, DPAP I, DPAP II and SRTT), these benefits have accrued to about 16 villages. In the remaining villages, it was said that, the work done was not adequate to generate large-scale benefits as in these sixteen. More than anything, lack of interest on the part of villagers was cited as the cause for not being able to take up work in a substantive manner. The benefits are clearly visible in villages like Badi Sudi, where people demonstrated high acceptance of the programme and built over 80 wells with ASA support (there are currently over 100 wells in the village), where a majority of farmers now grow more than two crops and a few enterprising farmers have diversified into vegetable cultivation. Even so, they were not able to save the current Kharif crop from failing due to absence of rains during crucial periods. Despite wells having sufficient water, it could not be used because of erratic supply of electricity. Building talais in the Pitol area has increased the land area available for cultivation, and this has made it possible for villagers to increase production of paddy, even up to three times. Migrating to urban centres, mostly is Gujarat, continues to be an important source of livelihood for the people. However, the duration of migration has reduced in many villages after the project was implemented. Many people now migrate only after Holi, while they used to leave after Diwali in earlier years. Income earned from migration which earlier used to meet survival needs, now contributes more towards asset building. Due to the increased employment opportunities during the project implementation period, migration had reduced even further. Works taken up by ASA in the summer of 2005 under the National Food for Work programme prompted people to stay back in their villages. Another benefit that was pointed out, particularly by the field workers, was the increased sense of unity and organisation among villagers. It was also clarified that good results have been achieved in those villages where the WDC and their leaders were active, accepted by all and accountable to the villagers, and where the villagers displayed a greater sense of unity. What were the difficulties and challenges in carrying out the programme? The following issues were identified as difficulties and challenges faced by the villages during implementation of watershed development works. Managing work at sites – WDC office bearers often found it difficult to manage work at the sites, as more people than what was required would turn up to do the work. Turning some people back was always a contentious issue. Lack of awareness/understanding among people – In village Dedarwasa, we were told that, land bunding works could not be done because people thought that their land would be damaged with all the digging. In the same village, there was an earlier instance of the patwari providing support for land bunding and later asking people to pay back the money. They understood the watershed project also to be a similar scheme and if they did any work, they would be asked later to pay back the cost. We were told that this issue was common across many villages and despite efforts put by ASA staff and WDC leaders many people remained unconvinced. Cases of farmers unwilling to let go of parts of their landholding, for works like building of talavs, were cited. Villagers in Dedarwasa narrated how a farmer who initially agreed to give some land later refused to do so, as a result of which a talav could not be built. It is worthwhile to note that at least two cases of successful negotiation of such disputes had taken place. In Badi Sudi, a woman whose land was to be submerged by a talav was given compensation raised by the villagers. For each labour day, Re.1 was set aside and a total of about Rs.7000 was paid to her. In Ratmalia, the WDC president himself collected compensation for land he had lost, in a similar way. Interference by dominant groups – People with no direct interest in the works happening would often ask the WDC to pay them a share. We were also told the cases of Kolyabeda and Dekakund villages, where successful efforts had been made to vacate encroachments on village common land for growing fodder grass. These were destroyed by fires set on standing grass in Dekakund and at the storage place in Kolyabeda. Efforts in preserving commons were not revived in these or other villages. Participation of women – Field workers said that, often at sites, it was the women who would turn up in more numbers than men to do the work. Meetings to decide on the works however, would largely be a men’s affair. Those managing the works would occasionally face problems on the site as the women would question the work being undertaken. Lack of consensus in the WDC – WDC members representing their respective hamlets sometimes had differences about how work should done, where etc. These differences affected effective functioning of the WDC and led to delays, non-completion etc. Conflict with Gram Panchayat – The Sarpanch and Secretary of the Gram Panchayat played a negative role in several villages by instigating villagers against the project. In villages where the Gram Kosh and Vikas Khata had been handed over by ASA, the role of Sarpanch (a signatory to the bank accounts) was not found to be encouraging. Several villages could not withdraw money from the Gram Kosh to carry out repair of structures. What are the perspectives on the future? In all the villages we visited people were clear that more needed to be done in terms of physical work. In Badi Sudi, work done with resources available in DPAP-II was supplemented with resources from AKF. Even so, two hamlets have still not benefited from the works completed so far. It is interesting that there are no representatives in the WDC from these hamlets. The WDC members and villagers we met in Badi Sudi were unanimous in their opinion that new projects are needed to take care of these two hamlets, as well as digging more wells in the village. In Betwasa, people were looking forward to a check-dam being built across the stream. In Kalapan too, people were interested in undertaking more works in two hamlets, where not much had been done. However, they were unsure as to how they would be able to do all this, if ASA did not come forward with the necessary support. As far as maintaining existing structures, people said they would use Gram Kosh funds to take up repairs etc. on community structures. Farmers themselves would do it for private structures. In Kalapan where the Gram Kosh had been exhausted, people said they would ask for support from the government to take up repair of common assets. People were unanimous in the view that the ASA way to doing things with WDC in control is much better than the Sarpanch’s way of implementing projects. There was also the feeling that WDCs would not be able function effectively without support from ASA. It was pointed out that as long as projects ware underway, WDCs were very active. After completion projects WDCs do not meet regularly and have ceased to be working entities. The field workers pointed out that leadership development of WDCs is a crucial issue to be taken care of in future. They also highlighted the need for representation from all hamlets in a village, in the WDC.

An assessment Based on these discussions and our observations during the field visits and interactions with staff, we identified certain factors as positive aspects of ASA’s work and some issues it must resolve as it grows. Positive aspects of ASA’s work Demonstration of high quality natural resource development work The quality of work speaks for itself, and is effective demonstration of wise use of available resources. It is commendable that ASA has been able to achieve such quality standards in all physical works, within the constraints of a government-funded programme, overcoming scepticism and disinterest among villagers and bringing professionally trained technical people to work in remote villages. General improvement in quality of life A very significant aspect of ASA’s work in the region has been the general improvement in the food and income security situation of families in the villages, with increased productivity and intensification and diversification of cropping practices. Families are now able to focus on building assets of a longer term nature as their struggle for day-to-day survival has be eased, to a great extent, by the improvements in the natural resource base. Goodwill of the villagers The quality of work, as well as the way ASA staff have dealt with people, have created a great amount of goodwill among the villagers. They look up to ASA as a friend and guide, and vest a great deal of affection and trust in them. Enhanced capacities in the villages ASA’s work has resulted in significant enhancement of capabilities among the villagers. Ø Skills and knowledge related to natural resource development works, management of institutions, maintaining accounts and records, conducting meetings etc. form one set of such capabilities Ø Positive changes in attitudes as well as motivation towards a different path of progress, based on collective decision making and effort, accountability, etc forms a second set of capabilities ASA has also been able to develop a cadre of local youth with NRM specific technical and management skills as well as an orientation towards community mobilisation and collective accountability. Creation of collective decision making processes The WDCs facilitated by ASA as well as its insistence on common understanding of issues before arriving at decisions have helped in creating a new culture of decision making in the villages. Issues to be resolved Project specificity ASA’s work seems to be project-specific. This has created a sense of discontinuity, particularly in terms of retaining lessons learnt, in an institutional way. New generations of staff have very few avenues to understand past activities and experiences and this affects the way they relate to the work and people. The same can also be said of village level institutions. The WDCs were created with the specific purpose of managing the watershed project works. On completion of these works WDCs have no active role and in several villages have become defunct. In order to fully achieve ASA’s goal of sustainable livelihood security and institutional development, it is necessary that these forms of collective action be part of a longer-term vision and mandate, which sustain beyond project frameworks and deadlines. Dependence of ‘professionals’ It is to ASA’s credit that it has been able to bring a wide base of ‘professional’ technical and managerial talent, to such challenging environs as Bori and Jobat. There is however a flip side to this. Very seldom have these ‘professionals’ been able to identify fully with the cultural and idiomatic specificities of the people they worked with. Even when they were sensitive to these issues, they did not stay long enough to make a substantial difference. For such work to move beyond the immediate gains from technical interventions to areas of developing institutional sustainability, it is necessary for those involved to have a good understanding of the local cultural and lifestyle idioms. It is in this context that the local cadre of WDC secretaries and volunteers become important. Here again, ASA’s absorption of three such people as regular staff is commendable. However, beyond this one step, engagement with the local cadre has been rather project/ target-specific. It would be useful for ASA in the long run, in the region, if the local cadre is engaged in more pro-active ways. Steps like regular meetings of these people, discussions on their successes and difficulties and small pecuniary benefits would contribute substantially towards developing positive and long-standing commitment among these people. Institutions and leadership in villages As said earlier in this report, effective results from NRM works have been achieved in villages where strong leadership existed. Our understanding is that ASA has relied on traditional leaders in the villages while forming WDCs and selecting its Presidents. The post of Secretary has by default gone to an educated youth, who in many ways reflect the new generation of leaders. We did not, however, get a sense of any pro-active efforts aimed at developing qualities of existing leaders or widening the base of leadership in villages. The issue of project-specificity and role of WDCs has already been raised. It is important to view certain new developments in the villages in this context. In Betwasa and several other villages, ASA has started the process of forming several new committees to fulfil requirements of a new project supported by CCF. How different would these committees be from the WDCs in terms of membership? What purpose is served in organising more than one committee in a village without investing either in developing new leaders or preparing the ground to manage leadership conflicts that will arise? Would it not be more relevant for ASA to helped mobilise and organise one Village Committee – call it WDC or VDC (or whatever name the donor wants to hear) – and develop the capacities of its members? What is the message being sent to people when ASA makes a demand for multiple fora for engagement? It is our contention that strong institutions are built when the community is viewed as an organic whole, rather than through sectoral lenses. This issue of a “Village Institution” is also relevant in the context of new schemes and new facilitating organisations entering these villages. Badi Sudi has been selected for implementation of the MPRLP project, facilitated by the Janpad Panchayat at Udaigarh. The villagers or the WDC leaders are not sure whether the new project and the ASA-initiated WDC will relate to each other at all. Participation of women One could not get a clear sense of how women were involved in the project, other than their representation in the WDCs and as labourers. Experiences of SHGs in the watershed villages have also not been encouraging except where they are now involved in the ASA micro-finance programme. The latter, however is a stand alone intervention, dissociated from the NRM activities. Our experiences suggest that clear spaces need to be provided for women to enable to engage effectively in development processes. While saying so, one is also aware of the contextual peculiarities – dispersed settlements, inconveniences in meeting together often – that makes such work difficult.

In conclusion ASA is probably a lonely warrior in the politically and bureaucratically convoluted development environment in Jhabua. It has managed to establish a credible way of functioning, earning good will among the people and grudging respect from the ruling class. It has also demonstrated wherewithal in standing up to challenges to its integrity or commitment. Scaling up of the work, as ASA proposes, presents its own set of challenges, not in the least in consolidating gains already made.

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SOCIAL WORK AND RESEARCH CENTRE, TILONIA

When Sankar Datta told us about the genesis of voluntary organisations in India in his course at IRMA, he would reel off names of people and institutions, pioneers who had influenced the course of development action in the country. We learnt of Bunker Roy and SWRC then. In the years since we left IRMA, we continued hearing about SWRC and the Barefoot College, about Bunker and his disdain for ‘professionals’. We would have liked to engage in a debate with him over this, but unfortunately he was not around when we visited. We had interesting discussions though with Vasu – a contemporary of Bunker, who helped us understand to some extent SWRC and its motivations.

Demystifying technologies
We met ‘Professors’ of the Barefoot College, both men and women from the local area, training a team of 32 men and women from Ethiopia, in all that there is to know about solar home-lighting systems. What struck us in this was that the trainers and the trainees had no common language between them. In fact the Ethiopians spoke four different languages and many among them did not understand each other. Only two among the team from Ethiopia and three of the eight trainers had a functional knowledge of English. Four charts in the room listed translations of all the essential terms required for survival (water, food, bread, dal, etc), and for the technology (green, black, red, white, circuit, plug, etc). Yet there were situations in the beginning, we were told, where unable to understand what was being said, the Ethiopians construed laughter and conversations among the trainers as ‘being made fun of’. Five months into the training and with a month to go, the trainees greeted everyone with cheery smiles, and spoke snatches of Hindi – ‘namaste, kaise ho?’ was a common greeting we heard when we passed them.

The trainees will take back with them lanterns and home lighting systems, which they fabricate as they learn. They will also take back with them skills which will help them set up their own solar systems workshops and become trainers, back home in Ethiopia. Two trainers from Tilonia will accompany them to help them set up their workshops. One trainer is in Afghanistan currently, following up on a previous training programme for people from there, we were informed. If Barefoot College considers itself a ‘national organisation’, it could well be on its way to becoming an ‘international organisation’.

A lot of SWRC’s work is visible in its campus itself. The ‘old campus’ houses most departments of the Barefoot College, while the ‘new campus’ has offices and residences. The new campus is provided continuous power supply by a 40-KW solar photovoltaic power system. Five battery banks, of varying capacity, connected to panels installed on top of the buildings and controlled by invertors, constitute the system. While there are no recurring costs, battery replacement once in five or six years costs close to Rs.25 lakhs. The systems run efficiently, operated and managed by the barefoot engineers.

Crafting livelihoods
The handicrafts, weaving and tailoring units which create garments, furnishings and crafts sold under the ‘Tilonia’ brand are among the major income generating activities promoted by SWRC. More than 600 women are involved in activities like appliqué, stitching of garments and household items out of cotton cloth. The weaving section provides most of the input for this (natural dyed cotton fabric). Masterji, who coordinates the weaving section, is a traditional handloom weaver from a village near Tilonia. With obvious pride he showed us the range of hues that the weaving section produced using vegetable dyes. The market unfortunately was not well developed, rendering the activity unviable. Kailashkuwar who coordinates the stitching section and the lady coordinating appliqué work also come from villages in the vicinity of Tilonia. What we found remarkable was their articulation of and understanding about the crafts market. In a trade where even management and design graduates find it difficult to run a viable business, these women are managing a fairly successful brand. We found that the products on sale at the craft shop on campus were quite reasonably priced. We were told that the craft activity was a self-supporting one, with no subsidy provided from other sources. It is then, a real business management case that IIM’s or IRMA could draw upon, if SWRC will allow them.

We also saw a number of activities like carving wooden toys and educational materials, screen printing, book binding and what SWRC calls kabad-jugad, making small craft materials from wastes. 5-10 people are trained in each of these activities every year and further support provided to them to set up their own production units. Some of these activities like kabad-jugad are of recent origin.

Services for health
SWRC’s work in the area of health includes a 10-bed hospital on its ‘new campus’. Originally a TB Sanatorium, it now provides herbal, homeopathic and allopathic care to villagers in the area. The hospital also organises regular camps in mental health, family planning, homeopathy treatment and ante and post natal care. Other health related activities are training of village health workers and traditional birth attendants. A pathological laboratory attached to the hospital also provides services to the villagers. There are ‘barefoot nurses in the hospital, fortunately no ‘barefoot’ doctors. The 80-year old doctor who runs the hospital is probably the only person in SWRC who is not ‘barefoot’.

Igniting minds through education
As part of the education programme, SWRC runs night-schools for child labourers in over 100 village hamlets. Shivram, struck by polio waist downwards, has been with the education unit for over eight years. The curriculum, he explained, was developed by the facilitators, drawn from the villages where they worked. The schools were intended to prepare children to standard five, at which stage they are assisted to join the mainstream, by enrolling in government schools.

While almost two-thirds of those enrolled (a total of over 3,000) in the night-schools are girls, Shivram shared that continuing education for girl children was difficult, because of access conditions and social taboos. An innovative aspect of the education programme is the ‘Bal Sansad’ or children’s parliament, which has won prestigious international awards. The Prime Minister’s post is reserved for girls, which apparently drove a young boy to tears, protesting that he would make a better candidate. He was made Speaker of the Parliament. The parliament is set up with the intent to involve children in functioning of the schools, and gradually expands their involvement and influence over other facets of development in their village.

The SWRC campus also houses a library open to public. The library proudly displays all the awards and recognition that SWRC and Bunker Roy have received over the years.

Protected and assured water
SWRC’ early work involved drilling tube wells and repair of hand pumps for drinking water. Nodarmal who accompanied us was very proud of the fact that Bunker Roy himself used to drive the drilling rig around to the villages. SWRC also trained women to install and repair tube-wells. Initially shunned, they are now accepted and invited by the government and villagers as tube-well experts! Water quality of the tube wells is regularly monitored by youth trained at the laboratory in the new campus. SWRC keeps a regular tab of the water quality testing activity by the ‘Barefoot Chemists’.

From digging tube wells SWRC moved its focus to harvesting rain water. Quite appropriate, given, as we were told, that water table in the villages of Ajmer had fallen by more than 15 metres in the years between 1985 and 1995. Currently one of the big projects implemented by SWRC is a rooftop rainwater harvesting system for schools. Meant to meet the drinking water needs of school children (availability of which, SWRC says, is a factor governing attendance in schools). This is part of a large project that Ministry of Water Resources, Government of India has approved – the pilot phase of which covers 300 schools in all of India. SWRC is doing some 25 projects in its area of operation.

Ramkarn who coordinates this activity (together with the women’s development programme) has been involved with SWRC since he was twelve years old. He shared with us the system SWRC has developed to ensure complete transparency in implementing of the Schools rainwater harvesting project. A committee consisting of parents and teachers is set up and this committee does the construction work. Money is transferred to a bank account operated by this committee. Each school has a file to itself, which contains all the records of work. These include capacity estimation and design calculations, muster roll of labour employed, bills of material purchase, and photographs (taken from the same angle) of the site before work, during work and after completion. Upon completion of work a social audit is conducted where the committee explains every aspect of work done to the villagers assembled. Only after this meeting approves of the work done, does SWRC accept accounts for money spent. Ramkarn says that this kind of social audit has motivated villagers to demand the same level of transparency in works done by the Gram Panchayat. He also narrated several incidents where villagers forced the Sarpanch and Panchayat Secretary to stop work that was being done in violation of norms prescribed. Ramkarn contends that the Right to Information law in Rajasthan has enabled people in demanding information from these functionaries. He adds that mere legislation is not much use unless people know how to use it, and develop collective capacities and confidence to demand their rights.

Spaces for women
SWRC mobilises women in villages to organise themselves into ‘mahila samuh’. Ramkarn was quick to add that these are not conventional SHGs. In fact, there is no thrift or credit involved at all. Work on organising women began when SWRC motivated an agitation by women labourers engaged by government contractors, for equal wages for women and legal minimum wages for all, in the early-1980s. The focus is on women from ‘landless and other marginalised families’ in the villages. During our visit to Tikavda village we found that only 20 women from a village of about 400 families were involved in the women’s group. Chotibai, the coordinator of the field centre, said that the other families are involved with SWRC’s work in other activities.

Reaching out
Apart from the campus at Tilonia SWRC has field centres in six locations of Ajmer district that cater to 20-40 villages each. The outreach of SWRC to villages is aided in a very substantial way, by its rural communications division. This division specialises in performances in the villages – street plays, puppet shows etc. – using these media to convey socially relevant messages. We were given an extempore performance of a puppet named ‘Jokhim chacha’, a wizened old man who dares to question the villagers about anything and everything. His quips are then used to generate discussions among those assembled. SWRC philosophy is also rooted in about 20 centres across the country, led by local NGOs, bound in a loose network.

Some thoughts
SWRC has made a virtue out of a disadvantage. Using people’s lack of formal education to motivate them to acquire new skills – productive and managerial, it has charted out a new paradigm of development action. The work of ‘ordinary’ men and women that we saw in different spheres was remarkable. In articulating their understanding of the development context and work and convincing ‘educated’ outsiders about the validity and effectiveness of the ‘barefoot’ approach, they are second to none.

This said, what also struck us was the disdain for the formally educated and the so-called professionals. One wonders if such forced exclusion of this category of people is necessary to promote the ‘barefoot’ paradigm. Is it that everyone in this category lives in glass palaces with little understanding of or empathy for the rural poor? It cannot be forgotten that the conceivers of the paradigm, themselves came from such backgrounds, and they continue to provide the leadership to the ‘barefoot’ workers.

SWRC offers a basket of about 20 different activities. In each village a combination from among these is implemented. Each activity has a specific target group – children, women, youth, parents of students – and seemingly work in isolation at the village level. We were unable to sense a village-wide institutional process or efforts in bringing together disparate groups within the village. The Barefoot College has apparent success in instilling skills and confidence among individuals from the weakest sections of society. How are these people then brought together to challenge hierarchies, fight oppression, demand their rights and create a more just and equitable society? How widespread effects are realised through ‘exclusive’ focus, we were unable to understand in entirety, in the brief time we spent there.

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TARUN BHARAT SANGH, ALWAR

Sometime in the early 80s, four angst ridden young men took a bus from Jaipur, in the direction of Alwar, deciding to get off at the place where the bus terminated. It happened to be Kishori-Bhikampura, off Thanagazi. Illiteracy, they thought, was at the root of poverty, and started teaching children, while at the same time building contacts with sceptical villagers. Then a wise old man told them that their problem, really, was water. The hills around them, clad once with forests and vegetation were bare, and rivers and streams ran dry, exacerbating droughts, compelling people to leave their villages in search for employment, plunging those who stayed back further into poverty.

The youth, with no technical training in ‘water’, were not sure how they could help, but the old man and his contemporaries said they knew how. ‘Johads’ were the answer. The problem was defined by the people, and they knew the solution, but they needed help in mobilising human and financial resources. Thus began the journey of Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS) in Alwar district, and the rise of their leader, Rajinder Singh, as ‘waterman’. Kanhaiyalal would have narrated this a thousand times, but every time he repeats it, he appears to draw energy from it.

Over the past two decades, TBS, as their reports state, has done near saturation work in the region – working with the object of reviving five rivers, including Arvari (the most famous of them all). Their work is among the few non-government actions which has received wide recognition, including the Magsasay Award for Rajinder Singh, and in an unprecedented event, the President of India flying by helicopter over the ‘revived’ Arvari river, and landing in Hamirpur to give the CSE instituted Joseph C John environment award to the villagers of Bhaonta and Kolyala for their initiatives in bringing the rivers to life. Prince Charles visited later. Having heard and read much (thanks to Down To Earth) about TBS, we decided to visit, to understand the work done.

We were met at TBS by a surprised, but welcoming Murari and Gopalji, who were unaware of our visit. We had spoken to Rajinder Singh the previous week, and he had assured us that if it was just the two of us, and if we were visiting for a couple of days, we could do so anytime. We were not the only visitors at the time, there were a group of students from IIRM, Jaipur. There is constant stream of visitors, shared Murari, borne out by the thick visitors register. We were directed to a room and given some hot food, while Gopalji organised for someone to take us out to the villages.

Starting at the beginning
Chotelal took us first to the twin villages of Bhaonta and Kolyala. Arriving in September, with the region having received some monsoon showers in July, and later while we were there, there was a palpable sense of water everywhere, johads and dams were full and there was a fair amount of greenery, contrasting with the dry desolate landscape which had confronted us on the journey from Jaipur. The IIRM students, led by Kanhaiyalal (a resident of Kolyala and now general secretary of TBS), had reached ahead of us. We climbed to see the series of check dams, right up to the source of the Arvari River – all designed and built by local people. No engineers were involved, they emphasise. The largest structure, near the top, was incrementally built over fifteen years, depending on the availability of resources, and needs identified by the community. There are several johads and wells in the village as well.

The most visible impact, as the villagers shared and as we saw, is the rise of water level in wells in the village. No longer do humans or livestock suffer for want of drinking water even in the driest of summers. The work brought people together as everybody contributed to the construction, and everybody benefited from the water - evidently, some, more than the rest. With rains unpredictable, erratic and inadequate in most years, crops survive where farmers have built wells and installed pumps to lift water. We were told that many of these wells are shared by groups of farmers. Each lifts as much as he needs - there are no set limits. Several farmers today cultivate a rabi crop as well – wheat and vegetables.

We later went to Hamirpur, which is at the lower end of Arvari (and where the President’s helicopter landed). A temple to Goddess Arvari has been built here. We learnt about the Arvari Sansad, a collective of 70 villages around Arvari, where work has been done by TBS to varying degrees. The Sansad was formed, when the reservoir at Hamirpur, built by villagers and TBS was leased out for fishing by the government to outsiders. The outraged villagers came together to obstruct this. Since they were responsible for building the reservoir, they would be the ones to decide its use. The contractors poisoned the fish before they left, but the villagers had won the battle. Fishing never happened there though since the reservoir silted up the following year as the dam above broke in the rains.

The Arvari Sansad has dealt with several other crises since. With 140 members, of which 20 are women, the Sansad meets twice every year to discuss issues related to the river and their lives around it. Judaram, the leader in Hamipur shared, that in the Sansad they discuss cropping practices, the use of chemical fertilisers, proposals for new structures, repairs, etc. He conceded that with pressures of the market, it was not always possible to convince all farmers on what and how they should grow.

TBS supports 66% of the costs for community structures and 33% for private structures. Decisions are made by representatives of the community, mostly men – ‘whoever has the capacity to take decisions on behalf of the family (joint family not each nuclear one)’ – Kanhaiyalal clarifies. ‘Everyone agrees to the decision, and there are no conflicts within the community, since water is a universal need’.

We asked a lot of questions, to a reluctant Chotelal, to a more articulate and suave Kanhaiyalal, and some villagers in Bhaonta-Kolyala and Hamirpur. When we persisted with our questions about conflict resolution, involvement of poorer people, women, etc, Kanhaiyalal said, politely, but with a tinge of fatigue, – “Hamare paas to har tarah ke sawaal aate hain. Ham wohi karte hain jo log chahte hain. Puri paardarshita rakhte hain.”

Another day, another river
The next day we went through some villages which find themselves in the buffer and core zones of the Sariska wildlife sanctuary. Phulchand, Sarpanch of Mandalwas proudly said that theirs was the second village in the region, after Gopalpura, to associate with TBS, and build johads and check dams. Three villages in the Panchayat he represents are in the core area of the Sariska sanctuary, while the other nine are in the buffer area. The families living in the core area cannot cultivate the land, cannot build pucca houses, cannot access electricity (a few homes had solar lighting), cannot build a school (permission for running a centre has recently been given, but a pucca school building cannot be built) – in effect nothing that will make them too comfortable, and will be a cause for larger compensation amounts to be paid, when they are removed from the sanctuary (‘when’ not if’ is a foregone conclusion of the Forest Department). They have all chosen to remain in the core area, “till suitable alternatives are presented”, and rear livestock in the interim. TBS along with the Forest Department has built johads and dams within the sanctuary for animals to drink water.

Later we went to villages along Sarsa river. In Nangaldasa village, at the border of Alwar and Dausa districts, the last dam across the river, and also the largest (110m across), is in the process of being built, under the supervision of Jagdish Sharma, fondly called ‘Panditji’. Living in a shack near the construction site, he recollected the sudden rains and surge in waters, one night in July, and how he escaped to safety. 12 of the 200 odd families in the village, who will benefit by being able to irrigate their lands with the water, participate in the construction, contributing one-third of the costs. Several of these families, are from the nomadic Lambada tribe.

At 5pm, we sat down in Panditji’s shack, to eat the packed rotis and chutney that we had carried for lunch with Panditji and Chotelal. The whole day we had been accosted by villagers who force-fed us in celebrations for Badri Baba. For three to four days of the celebrations, each year, villagers took upon themselves to feed all passers-by. We were apprehensive when we were stopped the first time by youth blocking the road, during which one person would deftly pull out the keys to the jeep, which would be returned only after we had eaten. They expected nothing from us, except to eat to our stomach’s content. Which we did in the first village we stopped at, but which turned into a symbolic action as we went along. This is a recent phenomenon, most villagers shared. It was either a new found appreciation for Badri Baba, or more evidence of RSS propaganda, which appears quite active in the region. During the festivities, devotees walk long distances to Badri Bab’s shrine and the journey is completed at a temple for a local sati. The visits to the sati mata temple continue despite the government ban.

Grooming ‘water warriors’
The latest intervention from TBS is the Tarun Jal Vidyapeeth (Water School) that currently offers a two-year course in watershed development. The first batch of 20 students started their course in July 2005. The purpose is to train a new generation of ‘water warriors’, with good technical grounding as well as sensitivity to work with rural communities. Gopalji, who leads the School, is very insistent that his students learn it the hard way. The course is very practical-oriented and we found students spending bulk of their time in the field. Starting early, delayed lunches etc. are methods used by Gopalji to drive home the message that it is not easy to work in the villages. The day we arrived at TBS he had specifically instructed the kitchen staff to prepare very spicy red chilli-garlic chutney since that would be what students would get to eat when they have to stay in the villages for long. A young woman from West Bengal unable to stand the heat of the sun and the spice of the chutney together had a fainting spell and was revived by a refreshing glass of rabri (curd and dalia paste mix that is standard early morning meal in those parts).

Reaching out
Working with about 25 full time staff and several volunteers and local organisations in the villages, TBS has supported construction of over 7,000 structures in over 1,000 villages. While bulk of the work is in Alwar district around the Thanagazi area, work has also spread to Jaipur, Jodhpur and several others districts of Rajasthan.

TBS’ work has been supported to a great extent by international donor agencies. Kanhaiyalal explained that it was difficult to work with the government on watershed projects, with corruption rife, and the absence of flexibility or long term commitments. Past experiences of working with the government had not been good, though some work was done, particularly the forest department in the Sariska area. TBS’ approach has been one of incremental development of structures along river basins, an approach not conducive to typical short term funding cycles.

Some thoughts
The dams, johads, wells that TBS has helped to develop are an apparent success. That these structures are built with local knowledge and wisdom supported by barefoot ‘engineers’ is significant in itself. Comparing investments to the scale of work, TBS can well claim to have some of the lowest overhead costs.

We were also told that a number of structures were damaged, particularly when rainfall was very heavy. In Hamirpur the reservoir of the large anicut was completely silted as a government built anicut upstream was breached in one heavy shower. Chotelal estimated that about 400 of the 7-8000 structures built by TBS would have had suffered damages at one time or the other. TBS has undertaken repair of damaged structures, we were told. Would TBS be responsible for repairs for all time to come?

Seemingly the greatest beneficiaries of augmentation of water sources are enterprising farmers, who have dug wells and installed pumps. How are different sections of the communities involved in the decision making process, and how are decisions taken on undertaking private or community works? Is the opinion of one person representing a joint family, usually a man, adequately representative of the community’s wisdom and needs?

There is little evidence of the interventions triggering larger process of social transformation, that TBS’ mission statement talks about. We repeatedly asked about the how the work on water in these villages considered or affected the dynamics of caste relations in the village. The standard response was “water is everyone’s need, so all social problems sort themselves out when work on water is to be done”. What seemed especially missing was the involvement of women in decision making spaces.

TBS claims that it has done saturation work in Alwar district, a claim borne out partially by all the water retention structures on the ground. We were, however, unable to get a sense of the realisation of what TBS sets out in its mission, vis-à-vis its claims of saturation. The mission statement, as painted on the wall outside its office in Bhikampura, covers more terrain than just water. Self-reliant village institutions acting as agents of social change, role of youth in social transformation and gender issues are captured in the mission statement. Despite our questions regarding this, TBS personnel whom we met had little to offer as responses. At the end of two days of visiting villages, the physical structures left a lasting impression, as Pragya a student of IIRM who had come with us said “abhi to mujhe sapne mein bhi anicut dikhenge”.

More Pragyas and students like her, development workers wanting to learn will continue to visit TBS in the days to come. TBS owes it to the society to help them understand the whole story; the success as well as failure; the conflicts that arose and how they were resolved; the challenges that persist, to make meaningful contributions in moulding ‘water warriors’.

What we also found remarkable was the strong feelings that TBS and Rajinder Singh seem to evoke, particularly among NGO leaders in Rajasthan. There were quite a few people who said, “Go and see for yourself what is going on”. When asked Gopalji about such strong reactions about TBS, he said he was not aware of it. “There are people who speak against us because we use foreign funds to do our work and many people think it is not good”.

What took the cake was what we heard in Udaipur, a week after our visit. “400 tankers of water were filled in some dams and johads to show how effectively they worked, before some high-profile visit.” We really do not know the truth. But from what we saw, wells have water in the month of September, all men and women we met in the villages said that these wells also had water in the month of April.

The kind of profile that TBS’ work has, it is bound to attract sceptical scrutiny, particularly when TBS itself has not refrained from making claims of instilling self governance and bringing about community empowerment in a short span of time through elementary interventions in water. What continues to feed the scepticism outside is TBS’ seeming reluctance or inability to articulate challenges in the mobilisation of communities and the limitations of their actions.

Experiences of people and organisations doing community mobilisation and motivation work show that there are a range of complexities, challenges and conflicts that arise in course of the work, especially in contested domains of water and land, resources which are scarce.

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KHAT ANDOLAN, ACHALPUR

What does it take to sit on a cot or a “khat” as it is known in Rajasthan? Apparently a lot, if you belong to the wrong caste. In Achalpura village near the small town of Bhadesar in Chittaurgarh district, a dalit boy dared to sit on a khat belonging to a Rajput. All hell broke loose, the boy was beaten up. Many organisations working in the area took up the cudgels in favour of the boy and organised a Khat Andolan in the village on September 15, 2005.

The clarion call for the meeting was the slogan – “aazadi hai saath par, chale baithe khat par” (Been free for sixty years, let us now sit on a cot). About a hundred cots were brought in from several villages, more than five hundred dalits from the area congregated along with a number of social activists from across Rajasthan. The dalits sat on the cots, in full public view and many men and women from amongst them spoke about experiences of humiliation they had to suffer at different times from the so-called upper castes. There was a lot of slogan shouting, singing and laughing at the expense of their exploiters.

Initially, the speakers were very circumspect. One woman even asked what the need was to sit on cots. She immediately got her reply from another woman in the crowd. Promptly, she was brought to the mike and her two-minute speech helped change the flow of thoughts. After her, several men and women started narrating their own experiences, of the tyranny of the so-called upper castes, of the humiliation they have had to suffer.

In one case, this young man named Ramalal visited a village on some work there. He sat at the chabutara in the centre of the village dominated by the jat caste. He was then asked about his caste. Fearing that if he told the truth (of belonging to the chamar caste) there would be trouble he used the name of another caste better than his own. Unfortunately for him, the jat youth did not want to share the platform with anyone beneath them, dalit or not. He says he left the place without complicating matters. More misfortune was in store for him. Back in his village, people of the barawa caste, whose name he had used, came to know about him claiming to be one of them. All hell broke loose and a squad of goons was set after him. He was saved by the intervention of some activist friends.

Several young men narrated incidents of them being not allowed to sit on cots. A young woman asked if such incidents happened only with men. She narrated her experiences, in several villages where she had gone to conduct meetings for the NGO she worked with, when once her caste became known, other women would ask her to get off the cot.

The difference in the positions of older and younger men was very apparent. The older men would talk about cases of humiliation they suffered and leave it at that. The younger ones were using their time for giving calls to arms. One particularly fiery young man was very clear, it is no use sitting on these cots, ”baithna hai to prasasan ki khat par baitho, rajniti ki khat part baitho” (let us occupy the seats of political leadership and the administration). Yet another young man directed his ire at the so called dalit political leaders whom he called ‘paltu titar’ (pet birds) of the hunters upper castes are. Like the hunters who use the tamed birds to attract more of their ilk (when the pet ones scream, the ones in the jungle will think “Oh, one of us is in trouble, let us go help him”), and snare them, the dalit legislators and leaders are only there take advantage of their caste status and bring in the votes.

There were several activists who spoke too. Two of them were rajputs and the master of ceremonies did raise some laughter by referring to this fact. However, the more interesting speech was that of the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). His frequent references to ‘Dalit ki beti, behen Mayawati’ were well received. How she managed to arrest Raja Bhaiyya, the Rajput strong man in UP (who raised crocodiles in his pond and fed them with bodies of dalits), how she brought upper caste IAS and IPS officers to their knees! He himself – ‘grandson of a cattle flayer’, ‘son of a stone quarry contractor’, younger brother to a ‘police officer’ – was now “a registered chamar” who had resumed the original occupation of flaying, not cattle but all those upper caste goons out there, who rob dalits of their izzat. The crowd that had gone into a state of slumber with all the speeches preceding this one were awaken with a jolt and this leader received such ovation. No wonder, the BSP has been able to make strong inroads into the political sphere in many States of North and Central India.

The other aspect evident at this meeting was the large number of adivasi leaders who had arrived as a show of solidarity. All of them laboured the point of adivasi – dalit unity. They were concerned by the fact that both nationally and in Rajasthan, the so-called upper caste controlled system was trying to drive a wedge between these two communities. Some dalit leaders also stressed this point, but a sense of despair was evident in the voices of the adivasi leaders who had come from places as far as Jodhpur.

Print and television media was there in a substantial number. Television cameramen were trying hard to get the people not to move around so much, so as to not block their recording. Away from the hearing of the media men, some young men were heard remarking about the upper caste bias of the media. They were wondering if anything about the meeting will be shown on TV or printed in the papers, given that all editors were the so-called upper castes. Whatever, the large number of media persons at the venue was apparently the result of the networking capability of the general secretary of the Rajasthan PUCL (People’s Union for Civil Liberties, one among the organisers of the meeting.

As the day progressed, speakers graduated from mere citing of humiliating incidents to asserting the right to dignified life. Most slogans heard in the later part of the day were then about the khat being only a symbol, dignity and respect being the key issues. Later in the day, the meeting was to adopt a resolution, one that probably would go down in history as the “Achalpura declaration”.

(written in September 2005)

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