ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Prof. Mohammed Yunus is a Bangladeshi banker and economist. He previously was a professor of economics where he developed the concept of microcredit. These loans are given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. Yunus is also the founder of Grameen Bank in 2006; Yunus and the Grameen bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, “for their efforts to create economic and social development from below.” Yunus himself has received several other national and international honors.

REVIEW OF THE BOOK:

Banker To The Poor is an astonishing story of how a man with a vision, strong values and tremendous patience could change the status quo and how he established a completely new and revolutionary institution of Micro Credit in the form of his Grameen Bank.

Yunus begins the book with describing the things which motivated him to start the Grameen Bank and how he analyzed the root cause of the misery of the rural women of Bangladesh who work hard day and night and are still not able to get out of the clichés of poverty, thanks to the middle men and money lenders. So he found out that how a meager loan can free the whole village from the poverty. Then he has taken a critical view on the donor system that prevailed at that time. He has discussed in detail his conflicts with the World Bank. He has justified his views against the system of donor funding with the help of the case of a beggar and how a person paying him few pennies is spoiling his life. He rejected huge amount of loans from World Bank and his success also influenced the senior leadership of World Bank to change their views.

Then he talked about his childhood and student life experiences. He had undergone lots of contrasts in his life. At one point of time they were a very happy family before his mother suffered from a mental illness which worsened with time. He was very close to his mother and he felt she had lots of influence on his life. He also admires his father. His father never accepted defeat and struggled a lot to make things better for the family. His father valued education a lot and he made sure that all his children got the best of it. He also talks about how he proved himself by successfully starting a business of packaging material. Then he shares his experiences in America where he pursued his PhD. He has analysed the differences in his country and America. He has also talked about two of his teachers who he admired a lot. One was from Chittagong College and one was the Romanian professor in his American university.

Yunus has given a detailed account of how he participated in the political movement for the formation of Bangladesh. At that time he was teaching at Middle Tennessee State University. On 25^th March 1971, the liberation war started in Bangladesh and Yunus’ earlier plans to return to Bangladesh were cancelled. He started keeping a close watch on the events in Dhaka. He had always felt for his motherland and always wanted to do something for it. The incidences back home provoked him to take action. He formed a local community of Bengalis and gave interview to the press urging American government to put pressure on Pakistan government. Through this community he did everything he could to bring this issue to the notice of international community. Later, on 16^th December 1971, Bangladesh won the war of independence but the country was ruined by then. The economy was shattered. Many people were killed and many were residing in the refugee camps of misery. At this moment, Yunus decided to go to Bangladesh to participate in nation building.

Yunus returned from America in 1972 with a lot of idealism and hope. He joined the planning commission but felt dissatisfied with his work. Therefore, he decided to join Chittagong University as a professor.

Out of his genuine concern about the world around, he kept asking many “how to” questions as well as many “why” ones. His approach was always that of a problem solver. When he discovered that on-campus housing is leading to a waste of precious asset like university after 2 pm till next morning. He wrote a report after proper research and gave it to the press and the secretary of education. When 1974 famine occurred, he became agitated. He went to the Vice-Chancellor of University and asked him to write a statement to the press so that people start talking about it. His logic was that the Vice-Chancellor was a respected man and his words will catch the attention of the intellectuals.

He did not like to sit idle about something he felt needs to be changed. Even before trying the Grameen model in the village near his university, Yunus had experimented with many innovative ways which he thought would bring a change to the life of the villagers. These experiments included the experiment of farming to demonstrate to the farmers how to grow more in each cycle which he carried out with the help of his students and setting up a new type of agri-cooperative called the Three Share farm experiment. Some of these experiments were a success, some were not. Yunus invested in these experiments on his own though he suffered a loss at times. This shows the entrepreneurial and risk taking qualities in him. But he realized that the benefits of these land based experiments are not reaching to the real poor of the society. This made him look for a model that would maximize the profit for the poorest. This led him to devise new definition of poverty where it could be precise and dependent on all the possible indicators including gender.

He had once given $27 as loan to 42 people and he had experienced the happiness that such a small sum could bring to so many people. He thought of organizing an institutional arrangement so that the poor ones could get credit when they needed and this made him visit the Janta Bank’s branch near the university campus. There he realized that the branch manager was resistant and had a long list of vague reasons for why the poor could not avail the loan. The most prominent reason was that the poor did not have any collateral against which they can avail the loan . Yunus found it ironical. The one who has money will get loan and one in real need will not because he does not already have it. He met with regional manager as well but the situation was no different than the local branch. He finally got him agreed to grant a loan of 10,000 Takas and he agreed to act as a guarantor. This was when he understood the basic exploitative principle of banking and this led him to devise a new credit delivery mechanism all together.

Yunus points out his reasons for following the strategy of lending to women and why lending to women is more than just making credit available. It should be seen as a developmental tool and can bring about significant changes in society and play a very important role in touching lives and upliftment of the poor.

Here, we would like you all to go through the following excerpt from the book in which Yunus describes how a group is formed by Grameen members and how they have to go through a test before joining. This unconventional criterion of an “entrance test” for being the member of the bank introduced by Grameen was answer to the question faced by them as to “How to ensure that only the real poor and needy joined the bank?”

A poor woman in Bangladeshi society is forever insecure and hence given the smallest opportunity to pull herself out of it, she grabs it. It only reiterates the fact that the poor and marginalised when given the opportunity can and do grab it to pull them out of the vicious circle. Yunus also goes on to outline some of the obstacles that he faced in reaching out to the women and that brings us to our “how to” question.

There was opposition from the Husbands, the local money lenders and to make matters worse, from the Government officials. As a reader the point that struck us here was that Yunus had unwavering faith in his belief that lending to women was the way ahead. That is one of the hallmarks of an entrepreneur, the ability to believe in yourself and your idea, when the whole world questions it.

Yunus is candid enough to admit that he made certain mistakes when trying to deal with the opposition that he faced. It is however, his ability to first recognise the mistake and then to be able to learn from it that has a lesson for us.

A major challenge for Yunus was to get women interested in the model in the first place. This could not simply be achieved by publicity campaigns. Then provides a very interesting description of how this challenge was over come. There were some cultural issues as well like the “purdah” system and how it was an obstacle to reaching out to women. Yunus narrates some wonderful stories of the kind of fear that women had about borrowing and the taboos that had created a fear of achievement in their minds. Yunus also touches upon perhaps what is the single biggest reason for Grameen’s success, the ability to look at their customers as human beings, rather than as mere sources who need credit. One of the excellent features of this book is Yunus’s ability to cite stories from his personal experiences to highlight the problems that were faced by him and the simple but effective means that he employed to solve them. This ensures that the reader gets engrossed completely in the book and also makes some very entertaining reading.

In his beautiful manner of storytelling, Yunus describes how Grameen Bank started operating successfully with its first branch at Jobra and then at the district Tangail. He describes in detail how the Grameen managers differentiated themselves from the government officials with their simple lifestyle and hardworking nature. In the chapter 19 of the book, Yunus has narrated the stories of Grameen managers handling the opposition by conservatives. He writes that impact made by Grameen on rural women was evident through the increased percentage women in voter turnout in 1996 elections. Yunus has also touched upon the strategy followed by Grameen considering the vulnerability of the region to natural disasters.  Yunus has also elaborated a lot about the transparent recruitment procedure, policy to hire only freshers and rigorous training, openness to criticism by trainees that are main reasons behind the innovative and creative manner in which Grameen functions. Grameen also hired some underground fighters as Grameen workers in the villages considered unsafe for working. The decision was innovative and risky but it worked.

He has written about the events that took place and how he had to struggle with government patiently to speed up the passage of his proposal of to make Grameen an independent bank. He has always given emphasis on deliberately progressing gradually. Grameen followed a clear policy of taking the final decision regarding setting up a branch in new village with the consultation of the villagers. He believes strongly that if the idea is genuine and strong, people will themselves overcome the resistance and lend their support. Then he goes on to narrating his experience in implementing the Grameen Model in different countries.

He finds no difference between the poor in different countries, the problems and consequences of poverty are same, the poor are very creative; they know how to earn a living, even how to change their lives, they need opportunity and credit brings that opportunity.

During the replication, Yunus emphasized on 100 per cent recovery, because according to his view it is not merely the money which is reflected through the recovery rate, it is the discipline which speaks loud and clear through this recovery experience. He suggested starting experiment always with the bottom 25 per cent of the population and focusing on the poorest women. Also he emphasised that before starting implementation of Grameen model there should be a thorough understanding of Grameen’s works, its philosophy and procedures. He believes in practical innovations and modifications when applying Grameen model in different parts of the world.

Yunus has also described his Philosophy on free market, capitalism, economic opportunities for the poor, government bureaucracy, microcredit and on the Grameen Model. He has discussed on self employment and its advantages and population problems. He discussed how the present credit systems (banks) failed to address the poor.

According to his view, Poverty is not created by the poor; it is created by the structures of society, and policies pursued by society.  He believes that the poor are potential entrepreneurs like all other people only thing is that they had not got an opportunity. He emphasised on utilising existing skills of the poor rather than teaching new skills and giving credit access allows them to utilise their own skills immediately.

Yunus has explained how Grameen Bank has expanded to cover many functions which have little or no relation to do with their profit margin. Yunus does not only have a commercial motive, but he has a social motive too. So Grameen bank has expanded into other areas like health insurance, housing loans, fishery sector, and education loans to improve the quality of life of its borrowers, as well as that of the community in general. He was looking at market oriented ways of improving the social infrastructure which the Govt. is not providing, or is providing inadequately. But it was not an easy shift for Grameen Bank & they faced many difficulties.

In the last chapter of this book he has explained how people’s mind has been changed & more number of people has started giving support to the poorest. Most of the people have also realized that microfinance is a strong tool for poverty eradication. He also mentioned that for a poverty free world easy access to information & free flow of commodities, finance & people are very much important. He ends with his idea of a poverty free world and how it could be achieved.

As a reader, it was amazing to note that throughout the book, Yunus has never left a single opportunity to acknowledge the efforts and support of his colleagues and members of Grameen in the whole journey of Grameen Bank. If we look at the book from the point of view of Social Entrepreneurship course, it definitely offers various lessons for aspiring social entrepreneurs like us. One of the very important lessons to be learned from Yunus’s story is that a future “social entrepreneur” always keeps on questioning the status quo to come with a promising idea. He has to try out endless number of experiments before finally arriving at the best way to operationalise his idea and thus we should keep in mind that there are no shortcuts to such experimentation. We should also learn from Yunus that when we face social resistance in implementing any idea- what we should have in plenty is patience! Lastly, we should be courageous enough to recognize our mistakes and wise enough to learn from them.

To give a concluding comment on the book, our group felt that thought the book is written in a very narrative style and the story telling manner actually makes it very interesting to read but for an entrepreneur or manager who would like to learn a few things from Yunus about how he handled the various technicalities and how he took the strategic decisions at various points of time during the journey of Grameen Bank, the book does not provide much inputs in this regard. Yunus has definitely touched upon these things but probably he has not dealt with them in detail.

ABOUT BABA AMTE

Murlidhar Devidas Amte, popularly known as Baba Amte (December 26, 1914 – February 9, 2008) was an Indian social worker and social activist known particularly for his work for the rehabilitation and empowerment of poor people suffering from leprosy. He is known to millions of Indians as Baba Amte – “Father” Amte. Like Gandhi, Baba Amte trained as a lawyer and was involved in the Indian freedom struggle against the British Empire. He spent time at Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram in Sevagram and was also influenced by Acharya Vinoba Bhave, Gurdev Rabindranath Tagore, and Sane Guruji – other important freedom fighters.

REVIEW OF THE BOOK

Wisdom song by Neesha Mirchandani is a scintillating biography of Baba Amte based on her conversation with Baba, interviews with many of his close friends and family and collective memories of those who have known Baba best.

The author, according to her perception, has divided the book into four parts. Part one deals with Baba’s birth and the contemporary socio-cultural milieu which influenced and shaped his personality. Part two focuses on his actions and experiments in championing for the social justice; his advocacy of environmental and other causes in part three; and his vision for of India of 21^st century in part four.

Part 1

Author initiates the biography with the birth of Baba as a symbol of “fragile but powerful humanity” by equating it with ephemeral harmony that developed between the soldiers of adversaries on Christmas Eve (Baba’s Date of Birth) during World War I. It sounds rhetoric initially; nevertheless as one engage himself with the further chapters throwing light on Baba’s life these skepticisms melt away.

Baba was born in a rich Brahmin family, thus by economic conditions and social status he belongs to a privilege section. However, right from his childhood he was against the status quo which reinforced stratification in society based on caste and gender. Baba was influenced by various personalities during this phase which were much ahead of their times. For instance, his mother Laxmibai Amte who even at that time was in favor of sending girls to school and emancipation of women and lower castes. Likewise he was influenced by Sane Guruji, Rajguru and Vinoba Bhave.

Baba Amte studied law from University college of law from Nagpur, 1936 against his will. The high wage that he received as a junior advocate gave him a guilt feeling. During the Quit India Movement he showed his patriotism by being the pleader on behalf of local people and was thus jailed for a brief period. He believed in the power of unity as it was a way to bring people together for social and community development. He lacked the ruthlessness and diplomacy and was not ready to compromise on his values which is a sign of a true leader. But the spiritual quest made him take refuge in religion but that experience only strengthened his view his future lied in working for the deprived people. His wife provided him emotional security that helped a lot in accomplishing his life goals. From his works, he experienced that morality among poor was far higher than among the rich. He believed that self-reliance is the way for him to accomplish his goals.

Part 2

Peppered with quotes and remembrances from Amte and the many committed men and women he inspired, Mirchandani recounts the extraordinary stories of his lifelong endeavours. The narrative encompasses the celebrated Anandwan – a sprawling rehabilitation centre for the leprosy-affected and physically challenged – in Maharashtra (1951 onwards). Amte’s defining moment came one rainy night, when he encountered a man dying of leprosy. He then began the unbelievable story of Anandwan, painstakingly hewn out of barren, rock-strewn land infested by wild animals, by Amte, his wife Sadhana and their fellow workers afflicted by leprosy. With poverty and extreme hardship as constant companions, the group transformed their harsh surroundings into verdant fields. Amte has often said that one can live without fingers, but not without self-respect. True to this maxim, beyond healing people’s wounds, he restored their dignity by providing them with work. Thus, those shunned by society and condemned to a life of begging were enabled to work in the fields and vocational training centres of Anandwan. Over the years, his dream has evolved into a town with hospitals, schools, homes, agricultural land and occupational training centres, built and run by the leprosy-affected and physically challenged themselves.

Towards the end of the sixties, Baba was extremely sick. In order to bring an end to this suffering, Baba had to undergo a life-saving spine operation in U.K. in 1971.

Baba had a strong desire to work for the aborigine Gond tribals of central India. He   appreciated their simplicity and unity. He had observed their habit of not hoarding material objects unlike the urban society. The land occupied by them is rich in flora and fauna. But their lives had been affected by trouble inflicted upon them by the forest guards who were corrupt and opportunistic. The community lacked formal education and proper healthcare facilities. Children who were disabled were left to die. Primitive methods of farming were used and life beyond the age of 40 was supposed to be too long.  But in terms of women empowerment the community was advanced. Men and women have equal status and the husband is supposed to give dowry to the wife’s parents.

Baba’s 1971 adventure visit to Bhamragad (the land of the Madia Gond tribals) resulted in the Lok Biradari Prakalp project started in 1973.  It was a primarily healthcare project for the tribals. His younger son, Dr Prakash Amte was also involved in the project. It was a difficult task to set up the project. Transport in the region was difficult. Providing salt to the tribals at the actual cost price was also a part of the project work.

Baba handed over this project to his son, son-in-law and daughter in the mid-seventies. Some people have criticized Baba’s decision to give leadership positions to his children. But in fact it was a very judicious decision as other people rarely agreed to work in these areas which were cut off from the cities. The project received a cold response from the Madias initially as their past experiences with outsiders had not been too positive. They had been victims of the British, naxalites and also the government. But the good work and success of this project made the people trust it gradually and in a short span of time it catered to more patients than the government hospital.

Another project taken up by Baba in this region was the education project and the Lok Biradari School was established. The school was funded by donations and other Maharogi Sewa Samiti projects and there was no government support. But the school flourished.

Both the hospital and the school continue to run successfully. Baba’s dream to serve the Madias came true due to unshakeable trust of the Madias and continuous support of his team (The  Madia Gonds, Prakash Amte, Manda Amte, Renuka Manohar, Vikas Manohar, Gopal Phadni, Prabha Phadni, students of the school , Dada Phanchal.)

Part 3

During late 1980s, Baba called for the ‘Peace by Peace’ mission in Punjab, during which he spent time with grieving families who had lost near and dear ones to the violence. After this, he again continued his mission of national integration through ‘Bharat Jodo- II (Knit India- II)’ campaign. With a troupe of 75 young men & women on bicycles, he traversed India from East (Arunachal Pradesh) to West (Gujarat) this time.

During 1990-2000, Baba became involved with the issue of building of big dams on Narmada River. This was a continuation of his protests against big dams. Baba’s campaign was against the social injustice to the people who depended on the river and against destroying the delicate ecosystem. He supported Medha Patkar through his constant silent vigil and strong moral support. Despite all the criticism of his anti-dam ‘politics’, he remained steadfast with his beliefs.

Another of the dreams of Baba was a peace missions to Pakistan which remained unfulfilled till the end.

Part 4

In the fourth part the author has explained the character attribute of Baba. Well known among his group as a writer he was also famous as a poet. His poems were full of Universal development and hidden messages. He also authored several papers on the development and related issue. Author mentions him being a follower of Universal Spirituality rather than god. He experimented with himself for all the ways he can turn up the human frailties into Competitive advantage. Several cases where his humor was quick and well targeted have also been mentioned in the book. He believed in daily life heroes rather than following up the popular faces. He had the quote that it was your work that made you visible in your life. Even during his end days he always said that do what you can. Responsibilities are non transferable.  He was one of the Change leaders who believed in the power of the Youth and that they are the one who can change the world.

Annexure-1

Baba has been honored with several international and national awards for his work done for the cause of social justice.

# Padmashree in 1971

# Rashtra Bhushan or ‘Pride of the nation’ in 1978

# Jamnalal Bajaj Award in 1979

# Damien-Dutton Award in 1983 (the highest international award in the field of leprosy)

# Magsaysay Award in 1985

# Indira Gandhi Memorial Award by the Madhya Pradesh government for his exceptional steadfastness towards social service in 1985

# Padma Vibhushan in 1986

# Raja Ram Mohan Roy Award in 1986

# UN Human Rights Award for outstanding contribution in the field of human rights in 1988

# G D Birla International Award in 1988 for his contribution to humanism

# Templeton Prize, UK in 1990

# International Giraffe Award, USA in 1990

# Global 500 award of UN environment program for outstanding contributions towards environment in 1991

# Right Livelihood Award, Sweden in 1992 (also called as ‘Alternate Noble Prize for Environment’)

# International Gandhi Peace Prize in 1999

# Dr. Ambedkar International Award, in 1999

The government of India never considered to honor him with the highest civilian award – ‘Bharat Ratna’.

The book begins with the background of Dr Kurien. It also briefly tells how a sleepy and dusty little down transformed itself into the Milk Capital India. After a few pages of his eventful early years it describes the circumstances under which he went to Anand which is very interesting given the circumstances like the Bombay milk scheme and the protest by the dairy farmers. When many would wonder how Kurien could achieve such great heights, the book slowly unravels how the glorious history began. Later in the book, we find how Dr. Kurien involved himself with the cause of the Kaira milk cooperative. The revolution would not have been possible but for Tribhuvandas Patel who is introduced in the book with his noble qualities.

Several incidents in the book validate Kurien’s point that with every challenge comes an opportunity. He also points out that how cooperative model has been tailor made for dairy sector. He also explains how through perseverance they were able to produce milk powder from buffalo’s milk though it was considered as impossible. His courage and openness sparkles when he writes about the neglect of Maniben Patel by the Congress. It is really exciting to read how they managed to commission the milk powder plant in one year and got it inaugurated by Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, the then prime minister of India.

He was compassionate to the workers and also believed that the asset of our country is its people and every government must try to unleash the energy of it s people. Book also speaks of an incident about Nestle that reflects Kurien’s pride in being an Indian.

During the conversation with Gouri Salvi, Mr Kurien revealed how he handeled Mr. Polson, another dairy product manufacturer, very meticulously to bring Amul to new height. There was continuous threat from Mr. Polson in respect of unhealthy competition, dispute over division of operational area (Division of Koira district) etc. Mr. Kurien was absolutely against imported dairy products as he wanted to make India self sufficient in dairy products with the empowerment of farmers in democratic way. In doing so he received generous help from many ministers like Krishnamachari (TT), Mr. Subhramanium. Being impressed upon Kureian’s model and tangible benefit, Mr. Krishnamachari, then commerce minister, ordered to cut down import of butter to protect Indian dairy industry and at the same time healed the chronic problem of shortage of foreign exchange reserve.  ‘Value for money’ is the message of Amul for its customer. Despite other market players’ scrupulous way to market products produced with undesirable ingredient formula, Amul stick to its quality norms and succeed to withstand threat from its rival. To kurein it is the customer’s satisfaction that does matter most.

What Mr. Kurien thought that Amul is beyond just milk products. It is all about building an institutional framework. An institution where people have their identity, they decide what to do how to do. In doing so Kurein had to sacrifice his association with family. But being with Amul was his passion which led him to keep away with many lucrative offers.” I got wholehearted support from my family, people around me that facilitated the success of AMUL” the milkman of India added.

The Kaira Union’s new cattle-feed compounding factory sponsored by Oxfam at Kanjari was to be inaugurated by the then Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri on the occasion of Sardar Patel’s birth anniversary. The Prime Minister visited Ajarpura without any protection and stayed in the houses of Ramanbhai, a villager. HE then visited the milk cooperative society and then left for Anand, followed by Dr. Kurien’s house. Shastriji was overwhelmed at the success of the dairy and wanted Kurien to replicate the same across India. Kurien said that he will operate from Anand, without a single paisa from the government. The Prime Minister, having agreed to these requests, asked him to meet the officials.

However, Kurien found that the bureaucrats of Delhi were not happy with him nor his idea and kept postponing his files and proposals. So, he decided, along with his Kaira Cooperative Union, decided to set up NDDB with their support.

He, along with H.M.Dalaya and Michale Halse, proposed Operation Flood, which was referred to as ‘the billion-litre idea’.

Mr. L.P.Singh, the Home Secretary gave Dr. Kurien a chance to present his proposal in his house and it was immediately sanctioned without involvement of any politician.

This proposal was sent to the World Food Programme and Dr. Kurien visited Rome to present the same to a 24 nation executive committee of the WFP. The presentation was well appreciated and he convinced the gathering that the food aid would be handled differently and would not satisfy the political needs. He also stressed on the impact of this aid since it gave an opportunity to replicate Anand pattern at national level. The Indian Govt nominated him as the Chairman of NDDB and in July 1970, the ‘billion-litre idea’ was officially launched.

Marketing was a major area of concern and so was procurement. The bedrock of this system was the cooperative system and it was completely decentralised. NDDB, also took the role of a canalising agency, wherein it canalised the import of the commodity and the distribution too.

Dr. Kurien exhaustively describes some of the moments which posed hurdles to the project, like the denial of govt to import dairy vending machines for a lot of reasons, and how this project is not in favour of poverty alleviation etc.

The way of handling criticism by NDDB and IDC is praise worthy. There have been instances where a long lost foe after getting a bureaucrat position takes on the oath of revenging against Dr. Kurien and thus harming OF.  It also narrates how in times of difficulties, some important people were key in the sustainability of the project. Through all this, Dr. Kurien emphasised on one theme that OF has been an important factor in the success and removal of unfair practises by middle men in dairy industry. There have been multiple cases where Dr. Kurien has offered his resignation where anybody has pointed a finger at the working or the motive of the OF; only to be rejected by the prime minister.

Political and beurocratic support is always needed to move forward with any kind of organization and Mr. Kurien realized it very well. For his beurocratic support he managed to retain his chairmanship of NDDB after being dismissed by Jagjivan ram for refusing to set up a private dairy for the minister. Inspite of belonging to a small town, he had access to all the prime ministers of India and he got his works done by leveraging upon these relationships. While replicating the ANAND pattern for oilseeds, he got a tremendous amount of support from  Govt. of India i.e. 700 cr. For reducing the import of vegetable oil and thereby reducing the outflow of foreign exchange, he started vegetable oil mills marketed under the brand name of Dhara, a low cost high quality domestically made products.

After ‘operation flood” Mr. Verghese Kurien got to visit many countries especially the countries which were developing like India. All these countries wanted that Kurien should do something for them as well, as he had done in India. During these visits he met many interesting people, with whom his experiences have been shared. One such personality was Mr.  Alexei Kosygin soviet premier, who remarked that Kurien’s work, had taken a long time and failed to bring revolution in other dimensions such as cotton, other agricultural products. Kurien was invited on state visit to Russia and after seeing the dismal condition there he was convinced that whatever he had done in India was really tough to achieve and is far better than what Soviet was doing at that point of time. He also talks about his experience in Pakistan and why the cooperative model couldn’t be replicated there. In Srilanka “Amul” was invited to start up its subsidiary there. There were many other countries who wanted Verghese Kurien to start organizations like AMUL in their country. From all these experiences kurien learnt that corruption was one of the major reasons as to why such organizations couldn’t be set up everywhere. Then there was also lack of political will in these countries. Multinationals were also playing all their might to avoid any such cooperative model coming up anywhere.

Success is a sum total learning from failures. Dr Kurien speaks of some such instances which highlight the humility and perseverance that goes into making such a great man. Speaking of his stint at Gujarat Electricity Board, he expresses his anger and frustration about the structured corruption and ill hand which are at helm of affairs in many government run institutions. He suggests the time tested policy of co-operatives for power reforms. A civic structure managed by villagers where the electric power is generated by the corporation and last mile delivery and distribution is handled by village bodies. His ideas go through waves of acceptance and reluctance by officials and ends up being a superb idea yet to be implemented.

NDDB had pioneered a programme to create a procurement opportunity for the farmers, helping them establish direct market linkages to sell their produce for a fair price to the consumers. He explains the need to liberalise agriculture before industry. Looking back one realises the significance and the fore sightedness of this great man where he truncates the erstwhile finance minister and present Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh for his policies.

Dr Kurinen  ends the chapter with anecdotes showing a glimpse about his lifelong beliefs and ideals, which shaped him , people around him and also the organisations which he was associated with such as the Institute of Rural Management, Anand. The inception of the institute came due to Verghese Kurien  strong belief in the need of managers who understand the rural temperament and the agricultural virtues. Similarly he speaks of hsi take on money, bureaucracy and the succession struggle which took place post his retirement from NDDB. He ends the book with his “dream” about cooperatives and his love for fellow men and women, which he attributes as the greatest source of inspiration, even accidentally though.

In nutshell the book “I too had a dream” shows us how a community driven organisation can be developed by beating all the odds and sustain in present globalized environment by overcoming political, social, economical and organisational bottlenecks.

- Laurie Baker

LIFE

Laurence W. Laurie Baker was born on March 2, 1917 into a very staunch Christian Methodist Quaker family in Birmingham. The family was deeply involved in church activities. Laurie’s father Charles was the chief accountant at the Birmingham Gas Corporation and everyone expected Laurie to follow in his father’s footsteps. Laurie though, didn’t like mathematics much and was interested in design. In his childhood he would accompany his father every weekend to visit cathedrals and other old buildings and then he would build models and draw pictures of what he had seen.

During childhood he was influenced by the religious atmosphere in his family, his brother, his contact with Quaker (members of Society of Friends). The major impact on his life came after he met Gandhiji in India. During his visit they discussed on need of structures of houses in rural areas of India. That time Gandhiji expressed his thought that raw material required for building houses in rural area should be made available within five miles radius of house. Baker said that initially he did not understand that idea completely but after huge experience of forty years he understood how the Gandhiji had knowledge about minute things related to rural India and how clear his vision was. Thus encounter with Gandhiji had long lasting impact on Baker’s ideology, his work and building philosophy. When Baker and his wife shifted to Kerala, many people and institutions, including the Church in Kerala expressed interest in reducing costs of building. Baker showed that this was possible by actually building a house for a poor family at a meagre cost of Rs 3000. This was well appreciated and once again, as in North India, began the spree of building houses, schools and hospitals. The government heard about Baker’s work and the Chief Minister was highly impressed. So Baker began building government and semi-government institutions also. He organised a group of masons and carpenters who agreed with his style of building to avoid opposition and problems.  Baker says that he owes a lot to them. Baker’s low-cost housing techniques were a blessing for the lower middle class.

BAKER AND HIS ARCHITECTURE

Laurie Baker can be called the conscience keeper of Indian architecture and a widely admired (but imperfectly appreciated) icon of alternative practices of modernity in Indian life. For over four decades, Baker was known for his pioneering practice of cost-effective architecture in Kerala. Famous as the builder of affordable homes for the poor, Baker was also a unique creative artist whose originality, technical control and a unique sense of space made low cost yield high architectural quality for everyone. His greatest contribution was showing that cost-effective and ecologically sustainable construction does not automatically imply shoddy building and reduced creative freedom. Baker showed, in fact, that sustainable technologies when adopted with care and creativity, could lead to a unique architectural expression, one that moved the expert and the layman alike.

Baker’s life and practice were often marked by strategic inversions of conventions in the pursuit of foundational ideals. His method of practice was the very opposite of the statutory model in India which followed the British system. Thus, while Indian architects around him followed the British way of designing and directing operations from their drawing boards as ‘consultants’ far removed from the bustle of the site, Baker organized his work as a designer-builder in the manner of the traditional Indian master craftsman. He never maintained a regular office or a battalion of assistants, often sketched on waste paper, and designed largely on site. Unlike most practising architects, he knew the trades well enough to train his workers himself and be open enough to learn from them at the same time. Every project was thus design-built with teams of craftsmen he had himself trained. This hands-on approach made it possible for him to pursue cost-effectiveness in design, otherwise impossible in the normal professional mode. Baker’s work is characterized by a fairly consistent system of design principles, building methods, and equally consistent but evolving set of idiosyncrasies. Baker always treated factors like climate, the peculiarities of site, and the high consumption of scarce energy and capital in construction as basic components of the matrix of ‘givens’ that defined the solution space of every project. The functional and habitational demands of individuals or organizations who dwelt in his spaces governed the specific configuration and character of each project. And yet, these ‘external’ factors to which he paid close attention, never appeared to constrain his instinct for producing sensuous, dramatic and engaging spaces that had a great ‘fit’ with the lives led in them.

He strongly believed in the fact that most material has their own special characteristics and if used honestly and simply, they contribute to the looks of a building merely from their colour, their texture and the patterns formed by joining them together. There is no need to cover them over with costly finishes. Let a brick wall look like a brick wall and a stone wall like a stone wall. Concrete should look like a concrete and should not be plastered or painted to look like marble.

The project that is most representative of Baker’s architecture is the Centre for Development Studies in Trivandrum. It incorporates all the elements characteristic of Baker’s style-the jails, the traditional roofs, the steeped arches, the overhanging eaves and the skylights. It demonstrates how Baker is able to transform vernacular architecture to suit the requirements of a modern academic institution.

Thus, the main principles Laurie Baker followed in designing a new building can be summarized:

• He wanted to get to know the client and what is in his mind. If s/he merely wanted to show off or flaunt his/ her wealth, Laurie would not take him/ her on. Otherwise, he would enjoy getting to know him/her.  So for designing a house, he wanted to know even the client’s eating habits. Do they all eat together at regular times? Or was it a smash-and-grab affair?

• His next principle was to use locally-available material. If the area makes good bricks, use them. If he wanted to build in an area full of laterite or stone, he would use it. This would not only be economical, but the building would also look as though it belongs to the place; it would not sport an imported look.

He said, “One of the most foolish architectural lies that anyone can imagine - build a brick building, then plaster it all over and paint bricks on the plaster to make it look like a brick building!”

• The other principle was to avoid as much as possible energy-intensive material (that is, material that requires a lot of fuel in their manufacture).

WRITINGS

Baker’s vision is also seen in his writings – published and unpublished articles, papers and seminar reports. He presents his views on simplified methods of national housing programmes, their technology and administration. His writings reflect his attitude towards conservation of both materials and heritage confirm what others have written about him. He says that his initial years of work with the leprosy Mission in India were an eye-opener for him. He saw the irrelevance of the text books, reference books and construction manuals of architecture he had studied in front of the trying conditions of India – monsoon, insects, etc. He was also fascinated by the skills of ordinary people using ordinary materials to build useful, durable buildings. He continued to educate himself about these local styles and practices and built houses, hospitals and schools in the indigenous way during his stay of 15 years on the borders of Tibet and Nepal. This led to what came to be known as ‘Laurie Baker Architecture’.

As his work spread, Baker gives two important characteristics of his architecture – ‘small’ is not only ‘beautiful’ but also essential and more important than ‘large’; and that architects must learn how to build as inexpensively as possible. The style of his architecture was a direct result of his religious affiliation to the Quakers. The Quaker belief is that however much we might be able to fool our fellow human beings, we cannot do the same to God. So there is no point in ‘putting on a big show’. A house therefore, has to be designed as a home for a family to live in comfort and peace. To make the outside of the building ostentatious and showy is totally unnecessary. This anti-facadism is another prominent characteristic of Baker architecture.

When Baker and his wife shifted to Kerala, many people and institutions, including the Church in Kerala expressed interest in reducing costs of building. Baker showed that this was possible by actually building a house for a poor family at a meagre cost of Rs 3000. This was well appreciated and once again, as in North India, began the spree of building houses, schools and hospitals. The government heard about Baker’s work and the Chief Minister was highly impressed. So Baker began building government and semi-government institutions also. He organised a group of masons and carpenters who agreed with his style of building to avoid opposition and problems.  Baker says that he owes a lot to them. Baker’s low-cost housing techniques were a blessing for the lower middle class.

Baker admits that Gandhiji influenced him profoundly. He took seriously Gandhiji’s words that houses in the village should be built of materials that are found within a five-mile radius of the house. Baker has a strong belief in local architecture and ability of local people to build their own houses.  The local architecture has the right solutions for housing needs. All that is needed is add on our modern experience to improve on what has already been accomplished. On the other hand, he was strongly critical of professional architects. He branded their approach as conservationist, stick-in-the-mud and obstructionist.

LEGACY

Baker’s ideas have caught the imagination of younger, environmentally minded Indian architects and engineers, and nearly 100 of them now work for a non-profit organization that practices his approach, COSTFORD, or the Centre of Science and Technology for Rural Development. In the past 15 years, COSTFORD has built homes for 10,000 low cost houses, for which it charges no design fee.

Milestones in Baker’s Life…

1917: Born in Birmingham, England. Educated at King Edwards Grammar School & The Birmingham School of Architecture

1938: Associate of the Royal Institute of Architects (ARIBA)

1945: Came to India as the Chief Architect of the Mission to Lepers

1970: Fellow of the Indian Institute of Architects

1981: D.Litt conferred by the Royal University of Netherlands for outstanding work in the Third World

1983: Order of the British Empire, MBE

1987: Received the first Indian National Habitat Award

1988: Received Indian Citizenship

1989: Indian Institute of Architects Outstanding Architect of the Year

1990: Received the Padma Sri

1990: Great Master Architect of the Year

1992: UNO Habitat Award & UN Roll of Honour

1993: International Union of Architects (IUA) Award

1993: Sir Robert Matthew Prize for Improvement of Human Settlements

1994: People of the Year Award

1995: Awarded Doctorate from the University of Central England

1998: Awarded Doctorate from Sri Venkateshwara University

2001: Coinpar MR Kurup Endowment Award

2003: Basheer Puraskaram

2003: D.Litt from the Kerala University

2005: Kerala Government Certificate of Appreciation

2006: L-Ramp Award of Excellence

2006: Nominated for the Pritzker Award (considered the Nobel Prize in Architecture)

REFERENCES:

Laurie Baker: Life, Works & Writings by Gautam Bhatia, Penguin Books, New Delhi, 1991

Laurie Baker: The Gandhi of Architecture; Centre for Education and Documentation

This book ‘Making India Work’ tries to suggest solutions to important problems that India faces. The assumption that the writer has made is that most of the problem India faces today is a result of the government’s criminally inept management.  The writer has the belief that with better management, political will and a mandate from the people, another India is possible. The writer describes this book as a proposal for rapid environmentally sustainable and democratic growth. The book is divided into various chapters where the writer has put his views about the problem that India faces their causes and has suggested his solutions for it. Hence it is convenient to divide the book as per the chapters and discuss one by one.

‘Case for change’ focuses on the need to bring about a change in mindset of government that the current economic model i.e. resource-intensive consumption driven growth which it is following would lead to India’s development. Over the years, chronic mismanagement and corruption has generated needless sufferings and ensured that the access to basic resources is in peril. Now is the opportunity to introduce a model of development that is in harmony with our future rather than a copy of worn idea of the past.

In this part of the book titled ‘Markets for all’, the writer suggests that an economy based on true market (both in letter and spirit) will allow India to create a system for a rapid environmentally sustainable growth. The writer has a view that currently the market is being distorted by our limited view of what constitutes an asset and government overregulation.  The writer suggests  a new economic system where government role changes from a regulator to an oversight; having standards authority meaning all having access to close to perfect information; having a credible system of exchange; an invisible but active regulator acting as a watchdog, monitoring the ownership of goods and service providers.

In this part titled ‘Ending Poverty’ he introduced three key ideas to counter the problem of poverty: Targeted Catalyst (a ground breaking system of in which the very process of eradicating poverty will build quality public services); Dematerialized cash economy (cashless economy which would eliminate cases such as Hawala and make economy more transparent), Tax reform (to accelerate growth reduce inequality without penalized in productive activity). Author shows financial projections to prove applicability of his suggestions.

In ‘Power to the People’ the writer has tried to put forward the drawbacks of our present form of governance like “the democratic deficit faced by the citizens of this country”, “the dangers of over centralization of governance”, “the govt. which is acting as an amorphous beast sucking up huge resources and achieving little for its citizens”, “huge amount of ministerial overlap”, “huge disparities between Indian states in terms of population and area”, “flawed institutions representing rural areas and cities”. The writer proposes a new structure of government (citizen → community → area → region → nation) that would restore power to India’s citizen.

In this part titled ‘justice for all’ the writer puts a straight forward argument that India’s legal system is riven with corruption, blindingly complex, and excruciatingly slow. He therefore proposes a new legal system, a simple system having four broad categories of law: Laws intended for protection of citizens, laws intended to raise the revenue of the government, laws intended to protect national interest, laws intended to redress social balances.

In this part titled ‘the new organization’ the writer has suggested a series of options/ideas with the purpose of making all types of social organizations more responsive to their members and more accountable to those who are affected by their work, need for balancing the two competing interests without sacrificing economic development. Shareholders interest, Adequate safeguard so that the effects on the local population are minimised. The writer has identified few problems in the corporation, trusts. So for increasing accountability in the corporations and the trusts the writer have proposed for a single legal entity which will take care of the two forms and the removal of the taxes will remove the major distinction between these two form of organizations. The writer have shown pretty optimistic scenario in which the Government will become less corrupt, less amorphous and less greedy. Social censor would become a powerful force in encouraging honest and ethics amongst the citizens of India.

In this part ‘Sustainable living’  the writer has tried to give a fair idea on how the overcrowding of the metros ultimately lead to scarcity of reliable water, roads, electricity and other basic amnesties. The writer sees dense development as the solution to overcrowding. He has proposed that every Indian citizen possesses a set of ‘habitat rights’ relating to air quality, water supply, sewage, power, transport, and access to open green spaces. In the end of the chapter the writer has done zoning for the model he described earlier where he included Habitat, Forest, and Biosphere. He suggested that the biosphere will be regenerated by environmental per capita quotas (EPCQs).

With a view to overcoming the quagmire of epic poverty and its progeny India is beset with, the author in this part ‘the transition’ suggests some bold steps which will bring about radical change. These changes are such that they uphold India’s strength while avoiding the traps of the West. At the outset, he proposes a complete transmutation of the Society for which a strong conviction is required among the denizens of the society. In order to manage the ‘transition’, the author evokes three major reforms: Dismantling all the ministries except defence and foreign affairs; this will reduce the government size and employment; replacing the 28 -states & 7-UTs system by a 48-Regions system; Replacing the District Administration and Panchayati Raj with Area and Community administration at the local levels. For this ‘Transition’ a National Asset Corporation should be setup which would function as a Sovereign investment fund called National Asset Fund. The NAF would be a valuable resource to help cover long term investment in public interest. Apart from these the author also suggests changes to the constitutional authorities, commissions, legal system, boundaries and puts forward his theory of standards, exchange and regulations for smooth functioning of the new economy.

In this last part ‘citizen’s republic’ the author ideates the changes that could happen in the three communities’ i.e.  Region, Area, Community. Each of these having its clear cut role and responsibility assigned to them.  The author concludes that the future of India is at stake where the rich and the poor have their own ideologies of separatist threatening the integration of the country. It is at this juncture that he calls for the adoption of a new framework, a self-regulating system which will facilitate true democracy in its essence while chucking out the old dysfunctional policies. The writer ends with an appeal to the leaders of India to take up the challenge of managing India in a better way on a new balanced development pathway so that the future of our country and world lies in balance.

The author in this book has been very effective in proposing a well thought of alternative system of governance to manage India. The book is full of examples explaining every problem and its proposed solution. The book has been very reader friendly. However at many places the link in between the chapters is not so obvious. Also it seems that not all problems have been given due importance, the solutions seems not that practical. The timeframe in which this needs to be done and who needs to take the lead is not very clear. In the end, this book looks like a man’s ideas based on a limited research on various problems. The author also needs to understand that bringing such wholesale change in current form of governance is not possible. Hence how to go about bringing this change is still unanswered?

About the Author

Ela R Bhatt (born on 7^th September 1933 in Ahmedabad) is the founder of Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA).  While she was leading the women wing of Textile Labour Association (TLA), she realized the fact that thousands of women who are working as textile workers elsewhere to supplement their family income, but there were state laws protecting the industrial workers but not these self-employed women. In 1972, she started SEWA to organize the self employed women into a union. In 2006, she wrote a book named “We Are Poor but So Many- The story of Self-employed Women in India”

Review of the book:

The Book “We are Poor but So Many”, is an account of journey of the author and SEWA (Self Employed Women’s Association) in bringing self-employed women at different places into a single union. In this narrative account, the author provides some close glimpses of the lives of the poor, self-employed women. Author also discusses the forces that overpower them, the conditions that perpetuate their poverty, the battles they fight, the prejudices they face, and their working and living conditions. In the book, the author mentions about various cases (Rag Pickers, Chindi and Garment stitchers, vendors, Banking, Health Care, Embroiders, Gram Haat and Sukhi) where SEWA has to struggle to make the women to be the part of the union.

The book is a journey through the condition of being poor, of being self employed and of being a women and how these conditions compound the problems of a person. Author also draws interesting contrast of the prevailing condition.

It begins by addressing the plight of a neglected section of the society, the RAGPICKERS, which mainly comprised of women from landless artisan community, the dalits who have been always oppressed by the higher caste. Though the work is hazardous and hectic, though the profits were less, they had no complaints as they had no bargaining power. The author mentions about the way SEWA has mobilized the women to join SEWA and fight for their rights. It speaks of how the women had eliminated the middlemen and increased their profits and how the women have succeeded in the formation of various cooperatives like Vijaya (for weavers), Gitanjali (young ragpickers and their daughters were trained to make stationery by recycling paper), Saundarya (for cleaners) and Sujata (for ragpicking).

There is mention of the chindi and garment stitchers. Chindi industry was also another informal trade center in Ahmedabad. Chindi are scrap strips of fabric 2-8 inches in length which are by products of textile manufacturing industry. The chindi stitchers were mostly muslim women, living in inner city area of Dariapur. After putting a lot of hard work in stitching the chindi into khol, they used to get a very less price. SEWA succeeded in organizing the chindi stitchers and motivating them to fight for increase in the price per khol and finally they succeeded in the struggle. Later Sabina cooperative was formed which provided economic security to women and this made them to also face the domestic problems with confidence. Similar was the case of garment stitchers where SEWA managed to increase the price from 2.5 rupees to 7.5 rupees. The author highlights the importance of merging the informal sector with formal sector in order to do justice to the women workers, majority of who are the workers in informal sector.

The book tries to describe the problems faced by the vegetable vendors who lose their space in the market due to increased shopping malls and other factors. In addition to this, they have to pay the local mafia and police. Here the role of SEWA has been talked of beautifully as to how it helped the group both financially and legally.

The book talks of the evolution of cooperative bank movement SEWA for uplifting the status of women working in unorganized sector. SEWA as Banker to the Poor Women. The need for bank among poor but economically active women was glaringly apparent because of the fact that these women were large in numbers and were in the debt trap of moneylenders, pawn shops or landlords who were charging exorbitantly high interest rate ranging from 10% per day to 25% per month. In 1972 SEWA approached the bank to help it reaching the poor. But when Ela Bhatt went to register the cooperative bank, she was dissuaded by the Registrar to forget about bank for poor people. He told Ela that these people never repay their loans on one hand and secondly they are illiterate. But Ela never deterred, she had answers for both the questions of the Registrar, firstly though they are poor but they are so many and secondly though they are illiterate they can understand signs, symbols and photographs. With these clarifications Shri Mahila SEWA Sahakari Bank Ltd, a cooperative bank was formed in 1974, especially for poor women with an initial share capital of meager Rs. 71,320 from 6,287 members. The bank was owned and operated by the members of SEWA. SEWA Bank went step by step to help the poor women working in informal sector. First it collected savings in door to door basis and once the credit worthiness was established these people were granted loan for different purposes like loan for consumption need, household needs and emergency need as well. As the poor people are prone to natural disasters and emergencies the bank also provided insurance to mitigate them. Bank appointed BankSathis who were the bank frontline operators, one among the SEWA members. They are responsible for collecting, savings and availing loans. The major challenge for the bank is to stand tall even in the times of disaster and risks. SEWA has proved itself in balancing risk and security to the poor women. With this SEWA has broken the myths that poor are not bankable.

Vulnerability of the poor people due to health problems is an issue discussed by the author. Sickness is recurring crisis in the lives of poor women which attributes due to many reasons like their poor living, working and financial condition.  The maximum loan is taken for health reasons and maximum default also occurs due to health reasons only. In 1990, Peoples’ Health Cooperative called Lokswasthya Cooperative was registered which was run by the traditional dais. Death after pregnancy was very common among these slum dwelling women working in unorganized sector. So the cooperative aimed at providing training to the dais for six 12 days session. Health camps were organized in urban slums and also in neighboring villages. Of all the TB centers, SEWA outperformed with highest conversion ratio of 91%. Later drug shops were started selling generic drugs at cheaper price to the poor. Apart from this SEWA introduced health insurance plan, called Vimo SEWA, to cover the risk due to any health problems. As a result of the success story of these dais in handling child births, the government was forced to include the role of dias in Reproductive and Child Health Policy. And probably this movement led the government to think about ASHA to be integral part of National Rural Health Mission.

The author speaks about how SEWA succeeded in helping embroiders of Rajasthan to become a part of SEWA. She has tried to show how many difficulties the women in the area had to face to join SEWA by fighting against their culture, how they succeeded in convincing the society and how they have proved that they can also be leaders. The role played by SEWA in empowering the women, by creating market to their products, providing work even under crisis to maintain the trust, by providing better price to their products, etc. is explained as well.

The author throws light on the problems faced by the gum collecting and salt producing women. SEWA succeeded in helping the gum collectors not only in getting good price but also in getting the license. SEWA provided the financial facility to the salt producers thereby helped them from the clutches of the local traders and provided education to their children. SEWA realized the importance of a market for marketing the products produced by the self-employed women and formed SEWA Gram Mahila Haat with the help of District associations, and Govt. of Gujarat with a vision to meet the marketing requirements of the producer group.

The book also presents a typical case of resettlement pattern followed by the Government. The case talks about the sorry state of affairs of the villagers who were displaced due to the construction of a dam over Sukhi river and the failure of the Government in providing rehabilitation to them. SEWA intervened in the area to look into the plight of the women and suggested a plethora of steps to help them improve their own condition. Village meetings, visits to successful ventures organized in other villages greatly improved their confidence levels. They helped in improving the condition of drinking water and irrigation of the village which were the first steps towards development. SEWA helped them by training them in nursery raising and by providing banking facilities.

The reforms for the workers in the informal sector are also discussed by Ela Bhatt. The informal sector employes 92% of the work force and contribute 63% of the country’s GDP, 50% of savings and 40% of exports. Yet this sector is largely neglected by the Government due to the absence of a proper union. The situation in India finds comparison with that of South Africa where SEWU (Self-Employed Women’s Union in South Africa), the sister organization of SEWA works. The author strongly feels for the plight of poor women who needs to be given scope for self-employment to enable them to come out of the clutches of poverty.

Only a holistic approach to development which promotes self-help, support local cooperative economic initiatives and emphasize sharing and pooling of resources at every level can attain significant success. Sewa is the journey that talks about the success that these women carved for themselves. It is an inspiration for many who could walk on similar lines and bring about similar changes in their lives.

“Creating a world without Poverty” is yet another attempt by Muhammad Yunus to reinforce his vision of a world sans the poor. In his debut bestseller he has outlined the ingredients of his innovative microcredit programme & how it had helped over 100 million poor families. Capitalism & free markets have done little to alleviate the woes of the hitherto marginalised sections of the population. Yunus reiterates this with facts & figures with the precision expected of a seasoned economist. Sample this, 94% of the world income goes to 40 %of world population, while the other 60% live with only 6% of the world income. (p.3).He is extremely critical of the elitist approach to free trade & the dominance of few countries in the borderless trading environment. Not one to mince his words, Yunus launches a virulent attack on the efficacy & credibility of multilateral organizations like World Bank, IMF & IFC. He disapproves of the mode of functioning of various bilateral & multilateral organizations & briefly illustrates his ideas for overhauling them.

The book written by Nobel Laureate Mohd Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank speaks on the much forgotten topic of contemporary significance, social business and future of capitalism and the kind of realignment that is desired to make the process more effective and its benefits more distributive to the poor of the world.

The narrative begins with Dr. Yunus meeting Mr Frank Riboud, the chairman and CEO of Group Danone. This meeting was about to be a watershed moment slated to affect the lives of millions. In this meeting Dr Yunus proposed to Mr Riboud a new company, a joint venture between Danone and Grameen and named it as Grameen Danone. He proposed it as a social business exercise. The notion of social responsibility was still a nascent concept in those times and the proposal was indeed a bold one. The broader agenda was to improve the nutritional status of poor families in Bangladesh. The impetus for future broad reaching change was arrived at Danone committing to the project, making it the world’s very first consciously designed multinational social business.

The narrative moves almost like a ballerina slowly unfurling the hidden nuances and each and every step looking in perfect synchrony. Reflecting over his experience with microcredit  in Bangladesh the inspiration for which was received in a manner that can be best described as serendipitous. This was an event that put in perspective the flaws that current economic models and studies had, making him all the more determined to evolve a model that would be able to include the poor as well.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE GRAMEEN BANK…

The manner in which he went ahead could be put across in the following manner:

• He helped these farmers by paying their debt from his own pocket.
• He then tried to persuade the bank located on university campus to lend to the poor.
• The banks refused to do so by saying that the poor were not credit-worthy.
• They had no credit histories and no collateral to offer and because of their illiteracy they could not even fill necessary paperwork.
• Then Dr Yunus offered too become a guarantor for the loans to the poor, that is, bank would lend money to him and he on his own would lend the money to the poor. The result of this approach was that the poor lend back the loans every time.

The pinnacle moment arrived when the managing director of Bangladesh krishi bank stepped forward to promote the idea of lending to the poor. However field level officers were sceptical of the idea of lending to the poor and the mental block of viewing poor people as unbankable and unreliable appeared as an impediment. However Dr. Younus still felt that he had atleast initiated a degree of mindset change and all he now needed was some good experiences which if documented adequately would propel interest in this sector by the bigger formal players.

Seeing no prospect of changing the rules of banks Dr Younus decided to create a separate bank for the poor, one that would give loans without collateral to offer, without requiring a credit history, without any legal instruments.

After making further efforts, in 1983, the bank for the poor was born within the framework of a new law created especially for the purpose. The bank was named as Grameen Bank.

GRAMEEN BANK DEFIES ALL….

Grameen Bank was expected by many that it would not sustain for long. They believed that it would soon explode and disappear. But not only Grameen Bank survived but it also expanded and continued to make profit just like any other bank.  Besides they also began to offer housing loan in 1984. The lending program of Grameen Bank also promotes a strong social agenda.

With the evolving system GrameenII came to existence, which was intended to further optimise service delivery to the poor and reduce overheads in a manner that access improves.

ISSUES WITH MICROFINANCE:

Dr. Younus in the course of his narrative does delve on the crucial challenges that microfinance faces and the measures that need to be put in place so that the only affordable source of credit to the poor doesn’t get severed.

Professor younus believes that market mechanisms do hold the key to a lot many problems that we are faced with. He believes in using the efficiency factor of the markets to iron out the inconsistencies in the sector. He provides market based solutions to the funding problem.

• One of them is that if an international or domestic organization can act as a guarantor, local banks can provide loan to microfinance companies.
• Another solution is that if MFIs can start accepting saving deposits.

Dr Yunus gives some suggestions to improve the condition of microcredit faculties.

• He speaks of increasing the aid volume in microfinance to Bangladesh to reach out to a bigger mass.
• He also says that each country should have a number of independent, nongovernmental wholesale funds.
• According to him conventional banks can also run microcredit programs if they have trained people, a methodology, and a management structure that will do the job. This can be done by forming a microcredit subsidiary. This is something that we are beginning to witness off late in India as well.

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Capitalism according to Younus is a half-developed structure & the multidimensional nature of human beings needs to be factored into it. He talks about developing three models within this structure i.e.

• Companies focussing on social benefits rather than financial rewards
• Companies focussing on profits but owned by disadvantaged or poor
• A Hybrid Model

Poverty according to him is the single biggest threat to world peace. According to him the capacity of poor people are never recognised. Grameen bank has also come up with a 10 point system that can be used to define if an individual has crossed the poverty line. Given the quantum of poor people, prioritisation of beneficiaries becomes of utmost importance.

An interesting point that is made here is that one needs to look at the poor through the asset base point of view and not the skill set lens. This is critical as the poor have skills that if bettered and given adequate linkage could work wonders, rather wasting time on imparting new skills, their domain expertise needs to be tapped into and developed. He emphasises on the need to establish good governance and reduction in the corruption level at all government levels.

THE DANONE EXPERIENCE…

The Grameen Danone joint venture was launched in March 2006 by Franck Riboud in Dhaka. The MOU indicated that the Grameen Danone would be a social business that would focus on maximising social benefit rather than financial profit. It also specified how they intended to help the poor. To sum up .The strategy was defined as “unique proximity business model”. The MOU combined social aspirations with practical business details in a way that captures the power of social business.

The main objective of Grameen Danone was to reach malnourished children with fortified yogurt. The strategy to reach out was clear and meant marketing a higher priced yogurt for more affluent consumers. Profit from these sales could help subsidise expansion to benefit the poor.

The objective was financial/operational efficiency to maximise social benefit. The idea was to make tasty and nutritious food and serve the community. Milk was sourced from local suppliers who had bought their first cows with a small loan from Grameen bank. These people would act both as supplier as well as customers for them. They involved the Grameen ladies in the distribution system that was to act as a key to the sales program for the yogurt produced by Grameen Danone.

THE CRITICAL QUESTIONS…

The questions that plague future entrepreneurs has been raised by the nobel laureate

• “where will the money for social business come from”?
• “Who will invest in the business which has social motive”?

The rationale that Professor Younus advances is that Investing in a social business at least make sense because when you invest your money in social business you get your money back and retain the ownership of a company that supports itself through earned income.

He actually believes that in time, more institutions to support the burgeoning universe of social business will emerge. A full fledge social stock market dedicated to trading social business share will be needed. There will be a social Dow Jones Index, reflecting the share value of some of the world’s largest, most important and most broadly representative social businesses.

ROLE OF NEW IT…

On the role that IT could play in taking resources to the masses, Younus is optimistic. The New IT cannot be controlled by a single owner or authority. It will help in giving dignity and self reliance to poor women. The science that however comes in has to adopt a strong bottom up model in the manner of its platform and design styles.

He talks about opening an organization which will be named as IT Solutions to End Poverty (ISEP). ISEP will generate ready to apply social –business ideas for using IT for poor, it could develop prototype for IT infrastructure and information system, it could study the interface between the informational needs of the poor and existing IT capabilities

PARTING SHOTS….

The book in its concluding part speaks about the vision that Dr. Younus has for the poor and marginalised of the world and how it is all about giving access to the poor that would be the panacea to the ills of the world.

He urges on redistribution as a strategy along with business accepting the fact that they cannot go on with the current strategy of unlimited profit maximisation as the process, the means and the end state.

He draws from his experience in Bangladesh which despite having very little emissions is currently at the receiving end of the global warming menace. With sea levels rising what needs to be done is strict enforcement of regulations and belt tightening rather waste time on more meaningless conferences, the fact that Bangladesh is sinking is proof enough to develop consensus. the associated fact is that with high population densities, any development intervention shall be successful only when these inter alia issues get addressed, else all interventions and financial aids shall fall flat on their faces.

Prof Younus does criticise the existing model of capitalism with its obsession with monetary profits, utter disregard for the interests of the poor and free markets that operate sans regulation. nevertheless Prof Younus is a believer in the goodness of the human spirit and believes that human beings don’t differ in capacity, it is all about access and a chance to prove oneself, once that is done the solution to  global poverty can be met and the process of consigning it to the museums can be initiated.

He believes that the poor resemble the bonsai, even the best seed planted in a flower pot would grow as much as the space it gets….given a chance the poor can prove to be as competitive as the ‘riche’ of the world….its time we move ahead and truly globalise the cause of the poor and reach out all out…..

Bapu Kuti

Joseph Cornelius Kumarappa.

Though the vision was comprehensively rejected by government and mainstream India, the threads were carried forward by individual believers like Vinoo Kaley. They felt the primacy of village industries and Kaley in particular focused on the economy around bamboo. Other areas of work were smokeless stoves, organic pesticides and low-cost housing. A peak moment was when Kaley and his associates were able to fulfil a long-standing stream dream of bringing together 250 artisans from 20 states of India. The NBA’s struggle against the Narmada dams was also based on strong ideological underpinnings that questioned conventional models of development. Another strand of this thinking was in the work of several people at the Timbaktu Collective in Anantapur district of AP.
This is a lovingly written and absorbing book. It is an important documentation of several lesser-known efforts.

In this chapter Rajni articulates that even though kumarappa’s vision was comprehensively rejected by the government and mainstream India, various individual believers have carried forward the thread of kumarappa’s legacy. Author talks about a young enthusiastic man, Vinoo Kaley who tried to make a difference in the lives of rural poor artisans. Vinoo graduated as an architect from Mumbai, he very soon realized that his education did not pay any attention to the housing needs of millions of poor. He learned that artisans since they are paid very low, have started losing confidence as well as respect towards the traditional craft sector. In an attempt to combine his skills with the traditional skills of villagers, Vinoo formed a group called “Academy of Young Scientists” with some likeminded people, primary motive of this academy being solving a variety of problems faced by poor artisans.

Subsequently, Vinoo understood Gandhi’s and Kumarappa ideas so as to why they considered village industries so critical. Bamboo became the main focus of Vinoo’s work as he grew up with a large community of bamboo workers and was aware of the problems faced by them since his childhood. During the ninetheenth century bamboo was considered as a forest weed, majority of bamboo forests were leased to paper mills at absurdly low rates. Thus, bamboo products were grossly undervalued which displaced many bamboo craftsman from their traditional livelihood. In this respect , Vinoo started lobbying at different levels for policy changes. He argued that apart from the huge dividends that bamboo products can give to the country, also large regeneration of bamboo forests would help in solving problems of deforestation and employment generation.

Along with some professional, Vinoo formed an informal group called Aroop Nirman, to work on bamboo related issues. Vinoo himself learned bamboo craftsmanship to see if his ideas can replace steel, plastic and other manmade products with bamboo products and he was fairly successful. But the challenge that still remains as pointed by Rajni is that of scarcity of bamboo and will it be able to compete with the plastic and other synthetic substances in the market. one of the major achievements of Vinoo was that through Center of science for villages and Aroop Nirman, he fulfilled a long standing dream of bringing together 250 artisans from 20 different states of India.

The initial chapters trace the evolution of market economies and culture to this day. Right from the 1940s when Friedrich von Hayek, the Nobel-prize winning economist, lamented the curbs on a ‘self-regulating market’ and economic anthropologist Karl Polanyi, who described the so-called self-regulating market as ‘utopian’ for its dehumanizing ways, to the contributions of George Soros, the Dalai Lama, Amartya Sen and Muhammad Yunus. From Wall Street icon George Soros and VISA card designer Dee Hock we get an insider critique of the malaise. Mrs. Bakshi distinguishes free market from bazaars and tries to explore how can we bring in the virtues of bazaar in today’s scenario. She believes that growth in current form unsustainable but also recognises the fact that “degrowth” would be acutely painful—causing massive unemployment, reduced competitiveness and a spiralling recession.

The author goes onto re- examine the doctrine of self-interest by looking more closely at Adam Smith through the eyes of Amartya Sen. Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of ‘Trusteeship’ gathers strength as the socially responsible investing phenomenon challenges the power of capital. Dalai Lama and Ela Bhatt demonstrate that it is possible to compete compassionately and to nurture a more mindful market culture. She has tried to re-embed the market mechanism in the social, ethical and environmental consciousness. She abstracts upon what kind of moral order does capitalism rest whereby she cites Bill gates philosophy of “constructive capitalism” which emphasis the role of the markets in adding social dimension to it. She then talks about the Buddhists economics whereby the philosophy of self interest is associated in directing positive results to the society at large and putting people and spiritualism at the centre, which she feels is very significant today.

Her exploration is so deep that she has gone on to question money in its current form and suggest evolving community currencies. The author attempts to rationalize the need for changing structure of conventional money, the scope and attempts of innovation of financial instruments. The use of money  merely as a token of exchange, a commercialized commodity  leaves the scope for element of mistrust  to creep  in markets  along with anxieties of ecological instability.

Next addressing the feasibility for innovation author highlights global financial chaos as opportunity for evolving community currencies so as to work for development an empowerment of community ,so as to implicit economic democracy by working of markets for society and not ruling it. The author vividly explicits the above scenario  by unraveling the details of two community currencies local exchange trading system(LETS) and Time Dollars.LETS  is  a evolved form of barter with better flexibility and convenience.  A system where individual interests r matched with those of community as it is created by people who use it.

Rajni Bakshi looks at the relationship between competition and common good. Understanding the virtue and vices of competition she explores a common ground where ‘self interest’ is backed by common good due to cooperation, led by technology. She believes that competition through cooperation will bring the ‘humane’ factor in profits. Citing the examples of SEWA and Mondragaon the author tries to question that can we see cooperative as an alternative production system.  The idea of ‘trusteeship’ given by Gandhiji is seen by the author as something ‘natural’ as no one really owns anything in this world. The author goes back to history and draws out the idea of gift economy which existed in different periods alongside commodity economy. Can we marry gift culture with commodity exchange today? It is prevalent today in some forms. Eg. Internet and open source. The open source is based upon freedom to cooperate which ultimately brings out the best. Open source does not destroy value but adds to efficiency. The reputation it brings is itself a form of value. The current economic system is restricting freedom, eg. Patents.

One of the interesting chapters was the one titled Cosmopolitan Localism. Here, Bakshi dealt with the issue of a distressed local economy that is often overshadowed by the bigger economy- what the Americans call Main Street versus the Wall Street- with a global perspective. Bakshi’s comparison of Wall Street with Main Street was both literal as well as metaphorical. Wall Street is the centre of arrogance and power, of greed and abuse, and of manipulation and exploitation. Even though Wall Street does not produce anything, any economic matter other than those profits, it is deemed by the present system of economics as the wealth creator of the world when it is not. Profit does not always equate with wealth. And certainly it is not in case of Wall Street. But Main Street is where the real exchange of economic produce and values take place. It is where real wealth is created. And it represents the place where people of varied sections of our society meet and exchange real values and produces. It is where different economic needs, and in turn social needs, are met and satisfied. And Main Street is everywhere. It is the place our grandmothers went for economic exchange. It is the place where timeless, ageless human transaction of values took place till some time ago.

How can any discussion on market be complete without ‘capital’? in one of her chapters she described the power and right of capital which plays a vital role in the tradeoff between market and bazzar. It has highlighted the values of Feuersetine and Mahatma Gandhi, in this regard who chose to follow unconventional way ignoring the severe greed.   Feuersetine set an example by treating its employees as asset rather than expenditure by paying wages when the factory was close for some accident. Gandhi idealized a probable conversion of capitalism into ‘trusteeship’ which refers to including ethics and social responsibility in commerce. CSR was also convicted for facilitating lobby for ‘trade and investment’ and creating inequity and lowering freedom of small entities of ‘bazzar’. Analysis has revolved around several questions like, ‘society or business?’, ‘only self interest or Self interest including well being of workers & environment?’, ‘only profit or integration of environment and social concerns? ’ May be we need to redefine the old adages like ‘the business of business is business’.

At the end she talks about what the world is talking today the most- implications on environment. The carrying capacity of earth cannot support the desire of every human being. She mentions about plan B.3 as recommended by Liester Brown. She also talks about Peter Barnes’ concept of GREENMAPPING- to divert money for good uses. She has tried to uncover all the related issues related to environment and its consequences to the mankind in future. She is able to visualise the scenario trend.

In a nutshell this book has made an effort towards bringing in elements from our past in our present scenario and build into it. Though the ideas do not seem ‘revolutionary’  but if practiced has the potential to turn the current practice of capitalism into capitalism with a human face. So here is a call to the market players to see this as an opportunity in also serving the society and at the same time making profits.

– by LG1

Rajni Bakshi in this book of hers has tried to explore ways in which market, unlike in the past, can work differently. An indepth reading of this book gives its readers the impression that we need to choose the middle path. She chooses to put her point across mainly through examples and practices across the world. Her book is not just about stories. The remarkable thing is that she links up the stories with the ideas already professed by thinkers like Gandhiji, Dalai Lama, Amartya Sen and others. She tries to marry their ideas with market. Her work basically reflects hope. To many her ideas would appear ‘utopian’. They would ask, “will companies compromise with profits?”

The initial chapters trace the evolution of market economies and culture to this day. Right from the 1940s when Friedrich von Hayek, the Nobel-prize winning economist, lamented the curbs on a ‘self-regulating market’ and economic anthropologist Karl Polanyi, who described the so-called self-regulating market as ‘utopian’ for its dehumanizing ways, to the contributions of George Soros, the Dalai Lama, Amartya Sen and Muhammad Yunus. From Wall Street icon George Soros and VISA card designer Dee Hock we get an insider critique of the malaise. Mrs. Bakshi distinguishes free market from bazaars and tries to explore how can we bring in the virtues of bazaar in today’s scenario. She believes that growth in current form unsustainable but also recognises the fact that “degrowth” would be acutely painful—causing massive unemployment, reduced competitiveness and a spiralling recession.

The author goes onto re- examine the doctrine of self-interest by looking more closely at Adam Smith through the eyes of Amartya Sen. Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of ‘Trusteeship’ gathers strength as the socially responsible investing phenomenon challenges the power of capital. Dalai Lama and Ela Bhatt demonstrate that it is possible to compete compassionately and to nurture a more mindful market culture. She has tried to re-embed the market mechanism in the social, ethical and environmental consciousness. She abstracts upon what kind of moral order does capitalism rest whereby she cites Bill gates philosophy of “constructive capitalism” which emphasis the role of the markets in adding social dimension to it. She then talks about the Buddhists economics whereby the philosophy of self interest is associated in directing positive results to the society at large and putting people and spiritualism at the centre, which she feels is very significant today.

Her exploration is so deep that she has gone on to question money in its current form and suggest evolving community currencies. The author attempts to rationalize the need for changing structure of conventional money, the scope and attempts of innovation of financial instruments. The use of money  merely as a token of exchange, a commercialized commodity  leaves the scope for element of mistrust  to creep  in markets  along with anxieties of ecological instability.

Next addressing the feasibility for innovation author highlights global financial chaos as opportunity for evolving community currencies so as to work for development an empowerment of community ,so as to implicit economic democracy by working of markets for society and not ruling it. The author vividly explicits the above scenario  by unraveling the details of two community currencies local exchange trading system(LETS) and Time Dollars.LETS  is  a evolved form of barter with better flexibility and convenience.  A system where individual interests r matched with those of community as it is created by people who use it.

Rajni Bakshi looks at the relationship between competition and common good. Understanding the virtue and vices of competition she explores a common ground where ‘self interest’ is backed by common good due to cooperation, led by technology. She believes that competition through cooperation will bring the ‘humane’ factor in profits. Citing the examples of SEWA and Mondragaon the author tries to question that can we see cooperative as an alternative production system.  The idea of ‘trusteeship’ given by Gandhiji is seen by the author as something ‘natural’ as no one really owns anything in this world. The author goes back to history and draws out the idea of gift economy which existed in different periods alongside commodity economy. Can we marry gift culture with commodity exchange today? It is prevalent today in some forms. Eg. Internet and open source. The open source is based upon freedom to cooperate which ultimately brings out the best. Open source does not destroy value but adds to efficiency. The reputation it brings is itself a form of value. The current economic system is restricting freedom, eg. Patents.

One of the interesting chapters was the one titled Cosmopolitan Localism. Here, Bakshi dealt with the issue of a distressed local economy that is often overshadowed by the bigger economy- what the Americans call Main Street versus the Wall Street- with a global perspective. Bakshi’s comparison of Wall Street with Main Street was both literal as well as metaphorical. Wall Street is the centre of arrogance and power, of greed and abuse, and of manipulation and exploitation. Even though Wall Street does not produce anything, any economic matter other than those profits, it is deemed by the present system of economics as the wealth creator of the world when it is not. Profit does not always equate with wealth. And certainly it is not in case of Wall Street. But Main Street is where the real exchange of economic produce and values take place. It is where real wealth is created. And it represents the place where people of varied sections of our society meet and exchange real values and produces. It is where different economic needs, and in turn social needs, are met and satisfied. And Main Street is everywhere. It is the place our grandmothers went for economic exchange. It is the place where timeless, ageless human transaction of values took place till some time ago.

How can any discussion on market be complete without ‘capital’? in one of her chapters she described the power and right of capital which plays a vital role in the tradeoff between market and bazzar. It has highlighted the values of Feuersetine and Mahatma Gandhi, in this regard who chose to follow unconventional way ignoring the severe greed.   Feuersetine set an example by treating its employees as asset rather than expenditure by paying wages when the factory was close for some accident. Gandhi idealized a probable conversion of capitalism into ‘trusteeship’ which refers to including ethics and social responsibility in commerce. CSR was also convicted for facilitating lobby for ‘trade and investment’ and creating inequity and lowering freedom of small entities of ‘bazzar’. Analysis has revolved around several questions like, ‘society or business?’, ‘only self interest or Self interest including well being of workers & environment?’, ‘only profit or integration of environment and social concerns? ’ May be we need to redefine the old adages like ‘the business of business is business’.

At the end she talks about what the world is talking today the most- implications on environment. The carrying capacity of earth cannot support the desire of every human being. She mentions about plan B.3 as recommended by Liester Brown. She also talks about Peter Barnes’ concept of GREENMAPPING- to divert money for good uses. She has tried to uncover all the related issues related to environment and its consequences to the mankind in future. She is able to visualise the scenario trend.

In a nutshell this book has made an effort towards bringing in elements from our past in our present scenario and build into it. Though the ideas do not seem ‘revolutionary’  but if practiced has the potential to turn the current practice of capitalism into capitalism with a human face. So here is a call to the market players to see this as an opportunity in also serving the society and at the same time making profits.

Review Of The Book “Making India Work” — William Nanda Bissell

– by LG2

This book ‘Making India Work’ tries to suggest solutions to important problems that India faces. The assumption that the writer has made is that most of the problem India faces today is a result of the government’s criminally inept management.  The writer has the belief that with better management, political will and a mandate from the people, another India is possible. The writer describes this book as a proposal for rapid environmentally sustainable and democratic growth. The book is divided into various chapters where the writer has put his views about the problem that India faces their causes and has suggested his solutions for it. Hence it is convenient to divide the book as per the chapters and discuss one by one.

‘Case for change’ focuses on the need to bring about a change in mindset of government that the current economic model i.e. resource-intensive consumption driven growth which it is following would lead to India’s development. Over the years, chronic mismanagement and corruption has generated needless sufferings and ensured that the access to basic resources is in peril. Now is the opportunity to introduce a model of development that is in harmony with our future rather than a copy of worn idea of the past.

In this part of the book titled ‘Markets for all’, the writer suggests that an economy based on true market (both in letter and spirit) will allow India to create a system for a rapid environmentally sustainable growth. The writer has a view that currently the market is being distorted by our limited view of what constitutes an asset and government overregulation.  The writer suggests a new economic system where government role changes from a regulator to an oversight; having standards authority meaning all having access to close to perfect information; having a credible system of exchange; an invisible but active regulator acting as a watchdog, monitoring the ownership of goods and service providers.

In this part titled ‘Ending Poverty’ he introduced three key ideas to counter the problem of poverty: Targeted Catalyst (a ground breaking system of in which the very process of eradicating poverty will build quality public services); Dematerialized cash economy (cashless economy which would eliminate cases such as Hawala and make economy more transparent), Tax reform (to accelerate growth reduce inequality without penalized in productive activity). Author shows financial projections to prove applicability of his suggestions.

In ‘Power to the People’ the writer has tried to put forward the drawbacks of our present form of governance like “the democratic deficit faced by the citizens of this country”, “the dangers of over centralization of governance”, “the govt. which is acting as an amorphous beast sucking up huge resources and achieving little for its citizens”, “huge amount of ministerial overlap”, “huge disparities between Indian states in terms of population and area”, “flawed institutions representing rural areas and cities”. The writer proposes a new structure of government (citizen → community → area → region → nation) that would restore power to India’s citizen.

In this part titled ‘justice for all’ the writer puts a straight forward argument that India’s legal system is riven with corruption, blindingly complex, and excruciatingly slow. He therefore proposes a new legal system, a simple system having four broad categories of law: Laws intended for protection of citizens, laws intended to raise the revenue of the government, laws intended to protect national interest, laws intended to redress social balances.

In this part titled ‘the new organization’ the writer has suggested a series of suggestions with the purpose of making all types of social organizations more responsive to their members and more accountable to those who are affected by their work, need for balancing the two competing interests without sacrificing economic development. Shareholders interest, Adequate safeguard so that the effects on the local population are minimised. The writer has identified few problems in the corporation, trusts. So for increasing accountability in the corporations and the trusts the writer have proposed for a single legal entity which will take care of the two forms and the removal of the taxes will remove the major distinction between these two form of organizations. The writer have shown pretty optimistic scenario in which the Government will become less corrupt, less amorphous and less greedy. Social censor would become a powerful force in encouraging honest and ethics amongst the citizens of India.

In this part ‘Sustainable living’ the writer has tried to give a fair idea on how the overcrowding of the metros ultimately lead to scarcity of reliable water, roads, electricity and other basic amnesties. The writer sees dense development as the solution to overcrowding. He has proposed that every Indian citizen possesses a set of ‘habitat rights’ relating to air quality, water supply, sewage, power, transport, and access to open green spaces. In the end of the chapter the writer has done zoning for the model he described earlier where he included Habitat, Forest, and Biosphere. He suggested that the biosphere will be regenerated by environmental per capita quotas (EPCQs).

With a view to overcoming the quagmire of epic poverty and its progeny India is beset with, the author in this part ‘the transition’ suggests some bold steps which will bring about radical change. These changes are such that they uphold India’s strength while avoiding the traps of the West. At the outset, he proposes a complete transmutation of the Society for which a strong conviction is required among the denizens of the society. In order to manage the ‘transition’, the author evokes three major reforms: Dismantling all the ministries except defence and foreign affairs; this will reduce the government size and employment; replacing the 28 -states & 7-UTs system by a 48-Regions system; Replacing the District Administration and Panchayati Raj with Area and Community administration at the local levels. For this ‘Transition’ a National Asset Corporation should be setup which would function as a Sovereign investment fund called National Asset Fund. The NAF would be a valuable resource to help cover long term investment in public interest. Apart from these the author also suggests changes to the constitutional authorities, commissions, legal system, boundaries and puts forward his theory of standards, exchange and regulations for smooth functioning of the new economy.

In this last part ‘citizen’s republic’ the author ideates the changes that could happen in the three communities’ i.e.  Region, Area, Community. Each of these having its clear cut role and responsibility assigned to them.  The author concludes that the future of India is at stake where the rich and the poor have their own ideologies of separatist threatening the integration of the country. It is at this juncture that he calls for the adoption of a new framework, a self-regulating system which will facilitate true democracy in its essence while chucking out the old dysfunctional policies. The writer ends with an appeal to the leaders of India to take up the challenge of managing India in a better way on a new balanced development pathway so that the future of our country and world lies in balance.

The author in this book has been very effective in proposing a well thought of alternative system of governance to manage India. The book is full of examples explaining every problem and its proposed solution. The book has been very reader friendly. However at many places the link in between the chapters is not so obvious. Also it seems that not all problems have been given due importance, the solutions seems not that practical. The timeframe in which this needs to be done and who needs to take the lead is not very clear. In the end, this book looks like a man’s ideas based on a limited research on various problems. The author also needs to understand that bringing such wholesale change in current form of governance is not possible. Hence how to go about bringing this change is still unanswered?

Review of the book “Bapu Kuti ” –Rajni Bakshi

–by LG4

Bapu Kuti is subtitled “Journeys in Rediscovery of Gandhi”. Bapu Kuti is the hut in Sewagram Ashram in central India that was Gandhiji’s home during a significant portion of the latter part of his life. In the 50-odd years since Independence, the Ashram and the Kuti have become a focal point for efforts towards alternate directions of development. The author therefore uses the Kuti as a central thread around which she weaves several stories of efforts by people to evolve and implement meaningful visions of society.
Below are notes of the stories that are covered in the book:
The work of Aruna Roy, Nikhil and several others in Rajasthan culminating in the nationally known MKSS (Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghathan), and the Right to Information movements which recently bore rich fruit in the national Right To Information law.
The journey of Professor T. Karunakaran. He did a brilliant Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from the Delhi IIT but moved into rural technologies and models of rural sustainable development. He is interested in alternate models to the ‘economies of scale’ systems which he believes to have inherent social and economic costs. He evolved a ‘networking’ model of rural industrial activity which would foster a village-centred economy that is sustainable and eco-friendly.
Ravindra Sharma grew up in Adilabad town of Andhra Pradesh. He was fascinated by the traditions of small town and rural India. Things like the ‘budubudukalodu’ and ‘gosamolu’ and the Haridas. The Kolatam dance and the street dramas of scenes from the epics and old texts. Religious processions from the nearby maths. Traditional artisans like the handloom weavers, the Nakashi artisans carving and painting wood.
As the winds of change blew bewilderingly swift through towns like Adilabad all the local traditions and crafts vanished at an alarming rate. Ravindra Sharma has spent all his life grappling with these changes and what he should do in the face of this attack on all these things that he loved. He has organized his efforts around a Kala Ashram that he founded, that is dedicated to preserving the traditional arts and crafts.
The Ganga Mukti Andolan works in and around the town of Bhagalpur in Bihar. It works on issues related to the emancipation of the fishermen who are oppressed by an age-old zamindaari system. At the same time it is also concerned with the well-being of the Mother Ganga herself.
Dr. C.V. Seshadri came from a distinguished family of South India and studied chemical engineering in Bombay and the US. Despite further research at distinguished institutions in India and abroad his interests moved away from pure research and invention to deeper questions of the philosophy of science. For example he argued that the law of thermodynamics is enunciated in a way that betrays a deep cultural bias and encourages a certain way of looking at the world. He was scathingly critical about Indian science for being a ‘good passive reciever’ of all things western and commented “I could say no one except Indian scientists believe that science is value-free”. He felt the profound failure of this kind of science and technology in solving India’s problems.
Murlidhar Devdas Amte (later known as Baba Amte) grew up a rich man but he was sensitive enough to see the unfairness of the privilege he enjoyed. He renounced his wealth and started afresh. He took part in various peoples’ organizations and even worked as a scavenger for 9 months. Then a traumatic encounter with a dreadfully suffering man infected with leprosy led him to his major life work, the setting up of Anandwan, a community for the leprosy-infected. Another major effort that Baba Amte was part of was the struggle against the building of large dams on the River Narmada, spearheaded by the Narmada Bachao Andolan.
One of Dastakar Andhra’s original steps was to help six weavers in the small town of Chinnur in AP to form the Chinnur Cheynetha Kala Sangam. Through this sangam they worked with the weavers to develop their skills and their trade into a stable sustaining livelihood. The initiatives evolved into attempting to understand the evolution of the cotton textile industry in India and the ways it moved towards centralized mass-production thereby spelling doom for the decentralized spinning and weaving industry of village craftsmen. How to reverse this and bring back the vibrant village textile industries ?
Alternate economics as exemplified by Schumacher’s “Small is Beautiful” have nowadays reached a certain level of acceptability. In recent India these lines of thought can be traced back to Gandhi and his economist disciple

Joseph Cornelius Kumarappa.

Though the vision was comprehensively rejected by government and mainstream India, the threads were carried forward by individual believers like Vinoo Kaley. They felt the primacy of village industries and Kaley in particular focused on the economy around bamboo. Other areas of work were smokeless stoves, organic pesticides and low-cost housing. A peak moment was when Kaley and his associates were able to fulfil a long-standing stream dream of bringing together 250 artisans from 20 states of India. The NBA’s struggle against the Narmada dams was also based on strong ideological underpinnings that questioned conventional models of development. Another strand of this thinking was in the work of several people at the Timbaktu Collective in Anantapur district of AP.
This is a lovingly written and absorbing book. It is an important documentation of several lesser-known efforts.

In this chapter Rajni articulates that even though kumarappa’s vision was comprehensively rejected by the government and mainstream India, various individual believers have carried forward the thread of kumarappa’s legacy. Author talks about a young enthusiastic man, Vinoo Kaley who tried to make a difference in the lives of rural poor artisans. Vinoo graduated as an architect from Mumbai, he very soon realized that his education did not pay any attention to the housing needs of millions of poor. He learned that artisans since they are paid very low, have started losing confidence as well as respect towards the traditional craft sector. In an attempt to combine his skills with the traditional skills of villagers, Vinoo formed a group called “Academy of Young Scientists” with some likeminded people, primary motive of this academy being solving a variety of problems faced by poor artisans.

Subsequently, Vinoo understood Gandhi’s and Kumarappa ideas so as to why they considered village industries so critical. Bamboo became the main focus of Vinoo’s work as he grew up with a large community of bamboo workers and was aware of the problems faced by them since his childhood. During the ninetheenth century bamboo was considered as a forest weed, majority of bamboo forests were leased to paper mills at absurdly low rates. Thus, bamboo products were grossly undervalued which displaced many bamboo craftsman from their traditional livelihood. In this respect , Vinoo started lobbying at different levels for policy changes. He argued that apart from the huge dividends that bamboo products can give to the country, also large regeneration of bamboo forests would help in solving problems of deforestation and employment generation.

Along with some professional, Vinoo formed an informal group called Aroop Nirman, to work on bamboo related issues. Vinoo himself learned bamboo craftsmanship to see if his ideas can replace steel, plastic and other manmade products with bamboo products and he was fairly successful. But the challenge that still remains as pointed by Rajni is that of scarcity of bamboo and will it be able to compete with the plastic and other synthetic substances in the market. one of the major achievements of Vinoo was that through Center of science for villages and Aroop Nirman, he fulfilled a long standing dream of bringing together 250 artisans from 20 different states of India.

Review of the book “Creating a world without Poverty”—Muhammad Yunus

–by LG5

“Creating a world without Poverty” is yet another attempt by Muhammad Yunus to reinforce his vision of a world sans the poor. In his debut bestseller he has outlined the ingredients of his innovative microcredit programme & how it had helped over 100 million poor families. Capitalism & free markets have done little to alleviate the woes of the hitherto marginalised sections of the population. Yunus reiterates this with facts & figures with the precision expected of a seasoned economist. Sample this, 94% of the world income goes to 40 %of world population, while the other 60% live with only 6% of the world income. (p.3).He is extremely critical of the elitist approach to free trade & the dominance of few countries in the borderless trading environment. Not one to mince his words, Yunus launches a virulent attack on the efficacy & credibility of multilateral organizations like World Bank, IMF & IFC. He disapproves of the mode of functioning of various bilateral & multilateral organizations & briefly illustrates his ideas for overhauling them.

The book written by Nobel Laureate Mohd Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank speaks on the much forgotten topic of contemporary significance, social business and future of capitalism and the kind of realignment that is desired to make the process more effective and its benefits more distributive to the poor of the world.

The narrative begins with Dr. Yunus meeting Mr Frank Riboud, the chairman and CEO of Group Danone. This meeting was about to be a watershed moment slated to affect the lives of millions. In this meeting Dr Yunus proposed to Mr Riboud a new company, a joint venture between Danone and Grameen and named it as Grameen Danone. He proposed it as a social business exercise. The notion of social responsibility was still a nascent concept in those times and the proposal was indeed a bold one. The broader agenda was to improve the nutritional status of poor families in Bangladesh. The impetus for future broad reaching change was arrived at Danone committing to the project, making it the world’s very first consciously designed multinational social business.

The narrative moves almost like a ballerina slowly unfurling the hidden nuances and each and every step looking in perfect synchrony. Reflecting over his experience with microcredit  in Bangladesh the inspiration for which was received in a manner that can be best described as serendipitous. This was an event that put in perspective the flaws that current economic models and studies had, making him all the more determined to evolve a model that would be able to include the poor as well.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE GRAMEEN BANK…

The manner in which he went ahead could be put across in the following manner:

• He helped these farmers by paying their debt from his own pocket.
• He then tried to persuade the bank located on university campus to lend to the poor.
• The banks refused to do so by saying that the poor were not credit-worthy.
• They had no credit histories and no collateral to offer and because of their illiteracy they could not even fill necessary paperwork.
• Then Dr Yunus offered too become a guarantor for the loans to the poor, that is, bank would lend money to him and he on his own would lend the money to the poor. The result of this approach was that the poor lend back the loans every time.

The pinnacle moment arrived when the managing director of Bangladesh krishi bank stepped forward to promote the idea of lending to the poor. However field level officers were sceptical of the idea of lending to the poor and the mental block of viewing poor people as unbankable and unreliable appeared as an impediment. However Dr. Younus still felt that he had atleast initiated a degree of mindset change and all he now needed was some good experiences which if documented adequately would propel interest in this sector by the bigger formal players.

Seeing no prospect of changing the rules of banks Dr Younus decided to create a separate bank for the poor, one that would give loans without collateral to offer, without requiring a credit history, without any legal instruments.

After making further efforts, in 1983, the bank for the poor was born within the framework of a new law created especially for the purpose. The bank was named as Grameen Bank.

GRAMEEN BANK DEFIES ALL….

Grameen Bank was expected by many that it would not sustain for long. They believed that it would soon explode and disappear. But not only Grameen Bank survived but it also expanded and continued to make profit just like any other bank.  Besides they also began to offer housing loan in 1984. The lending program of Grameen Bank also promotes a strong social agenda.

With the evolving system GrameenII came to existence, which was intended to further optimise service delivery to the poor and reduce overheads in a manner that access improves.

ISSUES WITH MICROFINANCE:

Dr. Younus in the course of his narrative does delve on the crucial challenges that microfinance faces and the measures that need to be put in place so that the only affordable source of credit to the poor doesn’t get severed.

Professor younus believes that market mechanisms do hold the key to a lot many problems that we are faced with. He believes in using the efficiency factor of the markets to iron out the inconsistencies in the sector. He provides market based solutions to the funding problem.

• One of them is that if an international or domestic organization can act as a guarantor, local banks can provide loan to microfinance companies.
• Another solution is that if MFIs can start accepting saving deposits.

Dr Yunus gives some suggestions to improve the condition of microcredit faculties.

• He speaks of increasing the aid volume in microfinance to Bangladesh to reach out to a bigger mass.
• He also says that each country should have a number of independent, nongovernmental wholesale funds.
• According to him conventional banks can also run microcredit programs if they have trained people, a methodology, and a management structure that will do the job. This can be done by forming a microcredit subsidiary. This is something that we are beginning to witness off late in India as well.

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Capitalism according to Younus is a half-developed structure & the multidimensional nature of human beings needs to be factored into it. He talks about developing three models within this structure i.e.

• Companies focussing on social benefits rather than financial rewards
• Companies focussing on profits but owned by disadvantaged or poor
• A Hybrid Model

Poverty according to him is the single biggest threat to world peace. According to him the capacity of poor people are never recognised. Grameen bank has also come up with a 10 point system that can be used to define if an individual has crossed the poverty line. Given the quantum of poor people, prioritisation of beneficiaries becomes of utmost importance.

An interesting point that is made here is that one needs to look at the poor through the asset base point of view and not the skill set lens. This is critical as the poor have skills that if bettered and given adequate linkage could work wonders, rather wasting time on imparting new skills, their domain expertise needs to be tapped into and developed. He emphasises on the need to establish good governance and reduction in the corruption level at all government levels.

THE DANONE EXPERIENCE…

The Grameen Danone joint venture was launched in March 2006 by Franck Riboud in Dhaka. The MOU indicated that the Grameen Danone would be a social business that would focus on maximising social benefit rather than financial profit. It also specified how they intended to help the poor. To sum up .The strategy was defined as “unique proximity business model”. The MOU combined social aspirations with practical business details in a way that captures the power of social business.

The main objective of Grameen Danone was to reach malnourished children with fortified yogurt. The strategy to reach out was clear and meant marketing a higher priced yogurt for more affluent consumers. Profit from these sales could help subsidise expansion to benefit the poor.

The objective was financial/operational efficiency to maximise social benefit. The idea was to make tasty and nutritious food and serve the community. Milk was sourced from local suppliers who had bought their first cows with a small loan from Grameen bank. These people would act both as supplier as well as customers for them. They involved the Grameen ladies in the distribution system that was to act as a key to the sales program for the yogurt produced by Grameen Danone.

THE CRITICAL QUESTIONS…

The questions that plague future entrepreneurs has been raised by the nobel laureate

• “where will the money for social business come from”?
• “Who will invest in the business which has social motive”?

The rationale that Professor Younus advances is that Investing in a social business at least make sense because when you invest your money in social business you get your money back and retain the ownership of a company that supports itself through earned income.

He actually believes that in time, more institutions to support the burgeoning universe of social business will emerge. A full fledge social stock market dedicated to trading social business share will be needed. There will be a social Dow Jones Index, reflecting the share value of some of the world’s largest, most important and most broadly representative social businesses.

ROLE OF NEW IT…

On the role that IT could play in taking resources to the masses, Younus is optimistic. The New IT cannot be controlled by a single owner or authority. It will help in giving dignity and self reliance to poor women. The science that however comes in has to adopt a strong bottom up model in the manner of its platform and design styles.

He talks about opening an organization which will be named as IT Solutions to End Poverty (ISEP). ISEP will generate ready to apply social –business ideas for using IT for poor, it could develop prototype for IT infrastructure and information system, it could study the interface between the informational needs of the poor and existing IT capabilities

PARTING SHOTS….

The book in its concluding part speaks about the vision that Dr. Younus has for the poor and marginalised of the world and how it is all about giving access to the poor that would be the panacea to the ills of the world.

He urges on redistribution as a strategy along with business accepting the fact that they cannot go on with the current strategy of unlimited profit maximisation as the process, the means and the end state.

He draws from his experience in Bangladesh which despite having very little emissions is currently at the receiving end of the global warming menace. With sea levels rising what needs to be done is strict enforcement of regulations and belt tightening rather waste time on more meaningless conferences, the fact that Bangladesh is sinking is proof enough to develop consensus. the associated fact is that with high population densities, any development intervention shall be successful only when these inter alia issues get addressed, else all interventions and financial aids shall fall flat on their faces.

Prof Younus does criticise the existing model of capitalism with its obsession with monetary profits, utter disregard for the interests of the poor and free markets that operate sans regulation. nevertheless Prof Younus is a believer in the goodness of the human spirit and believes that human beings don’t differ in capacity, it is all about access and a chance to prove oneself, once that is done the solution to  global poverty can be met and the process of consigning it to the museums can be initiated.

He believes that the poor resemble the bonsai, even the best seed planted in a flower pot would grow as much as the space it gets….given a chance the poor can prove to be as competitive as the ‘riche’ of the world….its time we move ahead and truly globalise the cause of the poor and reach out all out…..

Review of the book “We are Poor but So Many”—Ela Bhatt

–by LG7

About the Author

Ela R Bhatt (born on 7^th September 1933 in Ahmedabad) is the founder of Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA).  While she was leading the women wing of Textile Labour Association (TLA), she realized the fact that thousands of women who are working as textile workers elsewhere to supplement their family income, but there were state laws protecting the industrial workers but not these self-employed women. In 1972, she started SEWA to organize the self employed women into a union. In 2006, she wrote a book named “We Are Poor but So Many- The story of Self-employed Women in India”

Review of the book:

The Book “We are Poor but So Many”, is an account of journey of the author and SEWA (Self Employed Women’s Association) in bringing self-employed women at different places into a single union. In this narrative account, the author provides some close glimpses of the lives of the poor, self-employed women. Author also discusses the forces that overpower them, the conditions that perpetuate their poverty, the battles they fight, the prejudices they face, and their working and living conditions. In the book, the author mentions about various cases (Rag Pickers, Chindi and Garment stitchers, vendors, Banking, Health Care, Embroiders, Gram Haat and Sukhi) where SEWA has to struggle to make the women to be the part of the union.

The book is a journey through the condition of being poor, of being self employed and of being a women and how these conditions compound the problems of a person. Author also draws interesting contrast of the prevailing condition.

It begins by addressing the plight of a neglected section of the society, the RAGPICKERS, which mainly comprised of women from landless artisan community, the dalits who have been always oppressed by the higher caste. Though the work is hazardous and hectic, though the profits were less, they had no complaints as they had no bargaining power. The author mentions about the way SEWA has mobilized the women to join SEWA and fight for their rights. It speaks of how the women had eliminated the middlemen and increased their profits and how the women have succeeded in the formation of various cooperatives like Vijaya (for weavers), Gitanjali (young ragpickers and their daughters were trained to make stationery by recycling paper), Saundarya (for cleaners) and Sujata (for ragpicking).

There is mention of the chindi and garment stitchers. Chindi industry was also another informal trade center in Ahmedabad. Chindi are scrap strips of fabric 2-8 inches in length which are by products of textile manufacturing industry. The chindi stitchers were mostly muslim women, living in inner city area of Dariapur. After putting a lot of hard work in stitching the chindi into khol, they used to get a very less price. SEWA succeeded in organizing the chindi stitchers and motivating them to fight for increase in the price per khol and finally they succeeded in the struggle. Later Sabina cooperative was formed which provided economic security to women and this made them to also face the domestic problems with confidence. Similar was the case of garment stitchers where SEWA managed to increase the price from 2.5 rupees to 7.5 rupees. The author highlights the importance of merging the informal sector with formal sector in order to do justice to the women workers, majority of who are the workers in informal sector.

The book tries to describe the problems faced by the vegetable vendors who lose their space in the market due to increased shopping malls and other factors. In addition to this, they have to pay the local mafia and police. Here the role of SEWA has been talked of beautifully as to how it helped the group both financially and legally.

The book talks of the evolution of cooperative bank movement SEWA for uplifting the status of women working in unorganized sector. SEWA as Banker to the Poor Women. The need for bank among poor but economically active women was glaringly apparent because of the fact that these women were large in numbers and were in the debt trap of moneylenders, pawn shops or landlords who were charging exorbitantly high interest rate ranging from 10% per day to 25% per month. In 1972 SEWA approached the bank to help it reaching the poor. But when Ela Bhatt went to register the cooperative bank, she was dissuaded by the Registrar to forget about bank for poor people. He told Ela that these people never repay their loans on one hand and secondly they are illiterate. But Ela never deterred, she had answers for both the questions of the Registrar, firstly though they are poor but they are so many and secondly though they are illiterate they can understand signs, symbols and photographs. With these clarifications Shri Mahila SEWA Sahakari Bank Ltd, a cooperative bank was formed in 1974, especially for poor women with an initial share capital of meager Rs. 71,320 from 6,287 members. The bank was owned and operated by the members of SEWA. SEWA Bank went step by step to help the poor women working in informal sector. First it collected savings in door to door basis and once the credit worthiness was established these people were granted loan for different purposes like loan for consumption need, household needs and emergency need as well. As the poor people are prone to natural disasters and emergencies the bank also provided insurance to mitigate them. Bank appointed BankSathis who were the bank frontline operators, one among the SEWA members. They are responsible for collecting, savings and availing loans. The major challenge for the bank is to stand tall even in the times of disaster and risks. SEWA has proved itself in balancing risk and security to the poor women. With this SEWA has broken the myths that poor are not bankable.

Vulnerability of the poor people due to health problems is an issue discussed by the author. Sickness is recurring crisis in the lives of poor women which attributes due to many reasons like their poor living, working and financial condition.  The maximum loan is taken for health reasons and maximum default also occurs due to health reasons only. In 1990, Peoples’ Health Cooperative called Lokswasthya Cooperative was registered which was run by the traditional dais. Death after pregnancy was very common among these slum dwelling women working in unorganized sector. So the cooperative aimed at providing training to the dais for six 12 days session. Health camps were organized in urban slums and also in neighboring villages. Of all the TB centers, SEWA outperformed with highest conversion ratio of 91%. Later drug shops were started selling generic drugs at cheaper price to the poor. Apart from this SEWA introduced health insurance plan, called Vimo SEWA, to cover the risk due to any health problems. As a result of the success story of these dais in handling child births, the government was forced to include the role of dias in Reproductive and Child Health Policy. And probably this movement led the government to think about ASHA to be integral part of National Rural Health Mission.

The author speaks about how SEWA succeeded in helping embroiders of Rajasthan to become a part of SEWA. She has tried to show how many difficulties the women in the area had to face to join SEWA by fighting against their culture, how they succeeded in convincing the society and how they have proved that they can also be leaders. The role played by SEWA in empowering the women, by creating market to their products, providing work even under crisis to maintain the trust, by providing better price to their products, etc. is explained as well.

The author throws light on the problems faced by the gum collecting and salt producing women. SEWA succeeded in helping the gum collectors not only in getting good price but also in getting the license. SEWA provided the financial facility to the salt producers thereby helped them from the clutches of the local traders and provided education to their children. SEWA realized the importance of a market for marketing the products produced by the self-employed women and formed SEWA Gram Mahila Haat with the help of District associations, and Govt. of Gujarat with a vision to meet the marketing requirements of the producer group.

The book also presents a typical case of resettlement pattern followed by the Government. The case talks about the sorry state of affairs of the villagers who were displaced due to the construction of a dam over Sukhi river and the failure of the Government in providing rehabilitation to them. SEWA intervened in the area to look into the plight of the women and suggested a plethora of steps to help them improve their own condition. Village meetings, visits to successful ventures organized in other villages greatly improved their confidence levels. They helped in improving the condition of drinking water and irrigation of the village which were the first steps towards development. SEWA helped them by training them in nursery raising and by providing banking facilities.

The reforms for the workers in the informal sector are also discussed by Ela Bhatt. The informal sector employes 92% of the work force and contribute 63% of the country’s GDP, 50% of savings and 40% of exports. Yet this sector is largely neglected by the Government due to the absence of a proper union. The situation in India finds comparison with that of South Africa where SEWU (Self-Employed Women’s Union in South Africa), the sister organization of SEWA works. The author strongly feels for the plight of poor women who needs to be given scope for self-employment to enable them to come out of the clutches of poverty.

Only a holistic approach to development which promotes self-help, support local cooperative economic initiatives and emphasize sharing and pooling of resources at every level can attain significant success. Sewa is the journey that talks about the success that these women carved for themselves. It is an inspiration for many who could walk on similar lines and bring about similar changes in their lives.

Review of the book “The Gandhi of Architecture” by  Laurie Baker:

–LG 8

“We still do not see that the most important industry in the country is the building industry. We refuse to see that it can absorb every type of worker from the highly-skilled scientist to the completely non-skilled labourer. It can solve a large part of our unemployment problem, and, furthermore, it can start immediately, if we will it, as no other industry can.”

- Laurie Baker

LIFE

Laurence W. Laurie Baker was born on March 2, 1917 into a very staunch Christian Methodist Quaker family in Birmingham. The family was deeply involved in church activities. Laurie’s father Charles was the chief accountant at the Birmingham Gas Corporation and everyone expected Laurie to follow in his father’s footsteps. Laurie though, didn’t like mathematics much and was interested in design. In his childhood he would accompany his father every weekend to visit cathedrals and other old buildings and then he would build models and draw pictures of what he had seen.

During childhood he was influenced by the religious atmosphere in his family, his brother, his contact with Quaker (members of Society of Friends). The major impact on his life came after he met Gandhiji in India. During his visit they discussed on need of structures of houses in rural areas of India. That time Gandhiji expressed his thought that raw material required for building houses in rural area should be made available within five miles radius of house. Baker said that initially he did not understand that idea completely but after huge experience of forty years he understood how the Gandhiji had knowledge about minute things related to rural India and how clear his vision was. Thus encounter with Gandhiji had long lasting impact on Baker’s ideology, his work and building philosophy. When Baker and his wife shifted to Kerala, many people and institutions, including the Church in Kerala expressed interest in reducing costs of building. Baker showed that this was possible by actually building a house for a poor family at a meagre cost of Rs 3000. This was well appreciated and once again, as in North India, began the spree of building houses, schools and hospitals. The government heard about Baker’s work and the Chief Minister was highly impressed. So Baker began building government and semi-government institutions also. He organised a group of masons and carpenters who agreed with his style of building to avoid opposition and problems.  Baker says that he owes a lot to them. Baker’s low-cost housing techniques were a blessing for the lower middle class.

BAKER AND HIS ARCHITECTURE

Laurie Baker can be called the conscience keeper of Indian architecture and a widely admired (but imperfectly appreciated) icon of alternative practices of modernity in Indian life. For over four decades, Baker was known for his pioneering practice of cost-effective architecture in Kerala. Famous as the builder of affordable homes for the poor, Baker was also a unique creative artist whose originality, technical control and a unique sense of space made low cost yield high architectural quality for everyone. His greatest contribution was showing that cost-effective and ecologically sustainable construction does not automatically imply shoddy building and reduced creative freedom. Baker showed, in fact, that sustainable technologies when adopted with care and creativity, could lead to a unique architectural expression, one that moved the expert and the layman alike.

Baker’s life and practice were often marked by strategic inversions of conventions in the pursuit of foundational ideals. His method of practice was the very opposite of the statutory model in India which followed the British system. Thus, while Indian architects around him followed the British way of designing and directing operations from their drawing boards as ‘consultants’ far removed from the bustle of the site, Baker organized his work as a designer-builder in the manner of the traditional Indian master craftsman. He never maintained a regular office or a battalion of assistants, often sketched on waste paper, and designed largely on site. Unlike most practising architects, he knew the trades well enough to train his workers himself and be open enough to learn from them at the same time. Every project was thus design-built with teams of craftsmen he had himself trained. This hands-on approach made it possible for him to pursue cost-effectiveness in design, otherwise impossible in the normal professional mode. Baker’s work is characterized by a fairly consistent system of design principles, building methods, and equally consistent but evolving set of idiosyncrasies. Baker always treated factors like climate, the peculiarities of site, and the high consumption of scarce energy and capital in construction as basic components of the matrix of ‘givens’ that defined the solution space of every project. The functional and habitational demands of individuals or organizations who dwelt in his spaces governed the specific configuration and character of each project. And yet, these ‘external’ factors to which he paid close attention, never appeared to constrain his instinct for producing sensuous, dramatic and engaging spaces that had a great ‘fit’ with the lives led in them.

He strongly believed in the fact that most material has their own special characteristics and if used honestly and simply, they contribute to the looks of a building merely from their colour, their texture and the patterns formed by joining them together. There is no need to cover them over with costly finishes. Let a brick wall look like a brick wall and a stone wall like a stone wall. Concrete should look like a concrete and should not be plastered or painted to look like marble.

The project that is most representative of Baker’s architecture is the Centre for Development Studies in Trivandrum. It incorporates all the elements characteristic of Baker’s style-the jails, the traditional roofs, the steeped arches, the overhanging eaves and the skylights. It demonstrates how Baker is able to transform vernacular architecture to suit the requirements of a modern academic institution.

Thus, the main principles Laurie Baker followed in designing a new building can be summarized:

• He wanted to get to know the client and what is in his mind. If s/he merely wanted to show off or flaunt his/ her wealth, Laurie would not take him/ her on. Otherwise, he would enjoy getting to know him/her.  So for designing a house, he wanted to know even the client’s eating habits. Do they all eat together at regular times? Or was it a smash-and-grab affair?

• His next principle was to use locally-available material. If the area makes good bricks, use them. If he wanted to build in an area full of laterite or stone, he would use it. This would not only be economical, but the building would also look as though it belongs to the place; it would not sport an imported look.

He said, “One of the most foolish architectural lies that anyone can imagine - build a brick building, then plaster it all over and paint bricks on the plaster to make it look like a brick building!”

• The other principle was to avoid as much as possible energy-intensive material (that is, material that requires a lot of fuel in their manufacture).

WRITINGS

Baker’s vision is also seen in his writings – published and unpublished articles, papers and seminar reports. He presents his views on simplified methods of national housing programmes, their technology and administration. His writings reflect his attitude towards conservation of both materials and heritage confirm what others have written about him. He says that his initial years of work with the leprosy Mission in India were an eye-opener for him. He saw the irrelevance of the text books, reference books and construction manuals of architecture he had studied in front of the trying conditions of India – monsoon, insects, etc. He was also fascinated by the skills of ordinary people using ordinary materials to build useful, durable buildings. He continued to educate himself about these local styles and practices and built houses, hospitals and schools in the indigenous way during his stay of 15 years on the borders of Tibet and Nepal. This led to what came to be known as ‘Laurie Baker Architecture’.

As his work spread, Baker gives two important characteristics of his architecture – ‘small’ is not only ‘beautiful’ but also essential and more important than ‘large’; and that architects must learn how to build as inexpensively as possible. The style of his architecture was a direct result of his religious affiliation to the Quakers. The Quaker belief is that however much we might be able to fool our fellow human beings, we cannot do the same to God. So there is no point in ‘putting on a big show’. A house therefore, has to be designed as a home for a family to live in comfort and peace. To make the outside of the building ostentatious and showy is totally unnecessary. This anti-facadism is another prominent characteristic of Baker architecture.

When Baker and his wife shifted to Kerala, many people and institutions, including the Church in Kerala expressed interest in reducing costs of building. Baker showed that this was possible by actually building a house for a poor family at a meagre cost of Rs 3000. This was well appreciated and once again, as in North India, began the spree of building houses, schools and hospitals. The government heard about Baker’s work and the Chief Minister was highly impressed. So Baker began building government and semi-government institutions also. He organised a group of masons and carpenters who agreed with his style of building to avoid opposition and problems.  Baker says that he owes a lot to them. Baker’s low-cost housing techniques were a blessing for the lower middle class.

Baker admits that Gandhiji influenced him profoundly. He took seriously Gandhiji’s words that houses in the village should be built of materials that are found within a five-mile radius of the house. Baker has a strong belief in local architecture and ability of local people to build their own houses.  The local architecture has the right solutions for housing needs. All that is needed is add on our modern experience to improve on what has already been accomplished. On the other hand, he was strongly critical of professional architects. He branded their approach as conservationist, stick-in-the-mud and obstructionist.

LEGACY

Baker’s ideas have caught the imagination of younger, environmentally minded Indian architects and engineers, and nearly 100 of them now work for a non-profit organization that practices his approach, COSTFORD, or the Centre of Science and Technology for Rural Development. In the past 15 years, COSTFORD has built homes for 10,000 low cost houses, for which it charges no design fee.

Milestones in Baker’s Life…

1917: Born in Birmingham, England. Educated at King Edwards Grammar School & The Birmingham School of Architecture

1938: Associate of the Royal Institute of Architects (ARIBA)

1945: Came to India as the Chief Architect of the Mission to Lepers

1970: Fellow of the Indian Institute of Architects

1981: D.Litt conferred by the Royal University of Netherlands for outstanding work in the Third World

1983: Order of the British Empire, MBE

1987: Received the first Indian National Habitat Award

1988: Received Indian Citizenship

1989: Indian Institute of Architects Outstanding Architect of the Year

1990: Received the Padma Sri

1990: Great Master Architect of the Year

1992: UNO Habitat Award & UN Roll of Honour

1993: International Union of Architects (IUA) Award

1993: Sir Robert Matthew Prize for Improvement of Human Settlements

1994: People of the Year Award

1995: Awarded Doctorate from the University of Central England

1998: Awarded Doctorate from Sri Venkateshwara University

2001: Coinpar MR Kurup Endowment Award

2003: Basheer Puraskaram

2003: D.Litt from the Kerala University

2005: Kerala Government Certificate of Appreciation

2006: L-Ramp Award of Excellence

2006: Nominated for the Pritzker Award (considered the Nobel Prize in Architecture)

REFERENCES:

Laurie Baker: Life, Works & Writings by Gautam Bhatia, Penguin Books, New Delhi, 1991

Laurie Baker: The Gandhi of Architecture; Centre for Education and Documentation

“I became an entrepreneur, because I wanted to contribute to the betterment of my village!”

My Story

Intro

Technology is already transforming lives in India, improving education and fueling economic growth, but many places are still left behind in the degital dived. Amit founded the ROSE Computer Academy with the vision to spread computer literacy all over in India.

About Me

My name is Amit Kataria and I am 23 years old. I grew up in a middle class family in Choma Village of Gurgaon, Haryana (INDIA). My father is a farmer and my mother is a housewife. I studied at the Govt. Sr. Sec. School, Patel Nagar, New Delhi and graduated from the Delhi UniversityIn 2008 I won the All India ICT Business Competition Award organized by YES and started my own business, a computer school, when I was only 19 years old.

I became an entrepreneur, because I wanted to contribute to the betterment of my village. Even though Choma is prosperous where almost every family owns land but the literacy rates are very low. While the whole of Haryana is getting industrialized, Choma village had no computer institute. People have not realized the importance of computer literacy for their children and themselves. I learnt computers and realized its potential in making my community more independent and in the long run contributing to the strengthening of the economy and the nation at large. That’s why I opened ROSE Computer Academy in my village.

My Venture

My venture name is ROSE Computer Academy, which I started in 2007. The Academy have a fully furnish computer lab with ten computers where we teach all kind of comuter skills such as basic computer knowledge but also computer languages and DTP. So far more than two hundred students successfully completed their courses and two women open their own enterprises.

We also provide coaching classes from class first to Graduation for students, and more than 82 students joined school. For last two years ROSE students have achieved 100% result for those students who were going to school, including those students who were failing for last two years.

In the near future I want to expand our and open 2 or 3 more branches near by the villages. My dream is “Literate India”, I want to open ROSE’s branches all over in India so that I can give education every child of my country as well as I want to spread computer literacy all over in India. My aim is to train them in such manner that they can earn their livelihood easily.

Reference http://www.paragon100.asia/index.php/component/content/article/51-india/102-amit-kataria

Anup

LG-7

“I am an entrepreneur because I wanted to to learn better.”

My Story

Intro

Rural artisans in India often lack the skills, knowledge and market access to professionally market their products and to earn a sustainable income. Vijaya founded Chitrika to develop the people behind the art and to enable those creative minds to escape poverty.

About Me

Working on crafts-based livelihoods has been my passion since 2004. After gaining my professional qualification in rural management I started exploring crafts-based livelihoods in India. Looking at the current approaches and scale, I felt a need for an organization to promote and revamp producer enterprises into business enterprises. Professionalizing the sector was the key aim wherein artisans will be the key players. Since organizations were either focusing on design or marketing, I wanted to create an organization where all these services can be provided under one roof with appropriate institutional structure. Traveling extensively across Andhra Pradesh and India, understanding the social and economic implications of crafts inspired me to start my organization.

My Venture

Chitrika is an artisan support organization working in Andhra Pradesh. The organization was founded to support artisans in marketing, production and institutional aspects. Apart from support to artisans in their current livelihoods, Chitrika will also aid them in accessing better livelihood options outside the value-chain. Chitrika’s focus is to create self-sustaining institutions of artisans for supporting their marketing and production initiatives. Transferring the marketing skills, building market intelligence network and providing access to technology are crucial to translate market knowledge into marketing skills. When such kind of systems are created, where the artisans are in direct contact with the dynamic scenarios, a way to sustainable artisan livelihoods will emerge and this sums up Chitrika’s core philosophy.

Chitrika will primarily work in Andhra Pradesh and our key activities can be broadly classified as 1) Collectives Promotion, 2) Linking the artisans to vectors – market, technology and finance, 3) Education of producer, user and marketer, 4) Enhancing the current artisan practices through – better technology, environmental friendly processes and producer-controlled interventions.

One of the key aims of Chitrika is to promote artisan owned and managed business enterprises, which are currently rare and require creating a structure where there is a possibility for private players to invest. The key innovative features about the project are:

1. The Structure: Where the artisan business enterprises have the majority stake in the company and the rest of the shares held by interested investors. Also each business enterprise of the weavers will have their own support units – raw material bank, dyeing unit, printing unit and garmenting unit.
2. Range of services: Production, marketing, business enterprise management services are rendered across the structure
3. Use of technology in marketing, production and inventory management

Reference: http://www.paragon100.asia/index.php/component/content/article/51-india/216-vijaya-switha

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LG-7

“I am an entrepreneur because it is inspiring to work for your own venture and life can not be better when work becomes play. If your hobby is your work, you will enjoy each bit of the journey.”

My Story

Intro

Online retailing has revolutionized the market and while major brands like Amazon dominate the European and American markets, small brands have a great advantage and market share in Asia. Prabhpuneet is establishing her online bookshop in India by combining the passion for books with her dedication to customer service.

About Me

I am Prabhpuneet Kaur, born and brought up in Delhi, India. Born in a happy joint family, I have always learned to stay together, to enjoy and share the joys of life. While studying in school, I learned to play harmonium (instrument), I loved singing (solo & group) and I also learned kathak (Indian dance). I joined a lot of quizzes, panel discussions; which I think shaped my personality. I was good at sports, started races early on in life and then played table tennis for the school team. I also took interest in Yoga and Reiki. I was the head girl and was given responsibility to manage various meeting, conferences and school functions. As I loved solving Mathematics questions, I studies mathematics as my subject for higher studies at Hansraj College, Delhi University, Delhi. Than I found the man of my dreams, Jasneet Singh and got married to him in 2006 (Love marriage).

Till school I only read the text and reference books I was given, but during college I started reading novels, fiction, nonfiction and got addicted to it. I used to talk a lot about books with my husband and friends and one day Jasneet suggested that since I am so passionate about books and keep encouraging people around me to read, I should take care of a bookstore efficiently as I would give a personal touch to the business. This is how the idea struck and we started building the online website. Now since work is play, I never feel stressed about work and good responses from customers encourages me to go further and expand it.

My Venture

I started Bookcurry E Services in 2006 but officially launched the website in 2007. Bookcurry is an online bookstore, where customers from all over the world can browse the latest books and purchase them, which will be delivered to them at their doorstep through courier. We offer great discounts and ensure a quick response and delivery. Our book variety ranges from fiction, nonfiction, management, technology and various different genres.

We make sure the customer doesn’t have to wait for ages to read a book, as we send the book in 2 days or maximum a week. In case we know that the book is not easily available, we inform our customers so that they don’t feel cheated. You wouldn’t find the personal touch that we provide to our customers with the other websites. Often customers just enquire about the content of the book or its availability and we are happy to help. Since we understand, we are not selling apples or oranges, we are selling intellectual property, customers appreciate our initiative and take interest in the venture. Never when you interact with us would you find that you are talking to machines, but would experience the human touch and the right suggestions irrespective of the fact that the customer would buy the book or not.

Our aim is to spread knowledge and increase the number the bookreaders and lovers. Further plans are to touch those interior areas of India (to begin with and than the world) where books are not easily available. We have got enquiries from various villages in India where the bestsellers don’t reach but the people are willing to invest in books. This gives us encouragement to expand the business and help each and every one to read. We have been supplying books to the school libraries and as a social initiative thought to collect the books from people who want to donate and distribute them to NGO’s and associations working for the upliftment of kids and society.

Reference: http://www.paragon100.asia/index.php/component/content/article/51-india/132-prabhpuneet-kaur

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LG-7

“I am an entrepreneur because I always felt strongly for using technology for social good and NGO post was a small way to start doing that.”

My Story

Intro

Solutions are local, but ideas are global. Across different geographies, people are constantly working on social issues and in the process, gaining new insights and identifying new solutions locally. What is missing is an effective channel to take this information from one place to another, from one group to another, in a focused and timely fashion. Parul and her group of co-founders started NGO Post to effectively channel information from one place to another, from one group to another, in a focused and timely fashion, so that soluations don’t have to be reinvented.

About Me

I was born in a small town called Khetrinagar (near Pilani) in Rajasthan and my childhood was spent in many cities all over India. I have a B. Tech in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and a M.S. in the same from University of California, Los Angeles. Currently, the hat I wear during the day is that of a researcher at IBM India Research Labs; nights and weekends are dedicated to NGO Post.

I am especially passionate about applying technology to help solve some of our contemporary social issues. I am learning about the various needs & opportunities regarding this and hope to make some meaningful contributions in the future. The belief and motivation behind NGO post partly stems from here.

Regarding hobbies – I like doing so many things that I am always confused which one to do n general. I love to try out new things, whether it be a new book, new cuisine, new place for travel or any new activity.  Listening to music, reading, dancing, outdoor activities and travel are all very high up on my fun list.

My Venture

NGO Post is a web-based platform for sharing, discussing social welfare ideas and initiatives and connecting with people working on social issues, globally. The NGO Post website provides a citizen-journalism platform for the social-work sector – every individual can share, create or add to content, as well as rate the usefulness of content leading to a democratic filtering mechanism. It gives the power of free expression to the people, as well as leverages their collective knowledge to build a very diverse, comprehensive and rich knowledge resource. Through state-of-the-art social networking features, NGO Post has enabled a large community of users to contribute information and interact with each other forming a virtual global community of social workers.

Need: Solutions are local, but ideas are global. Across different geographies, people are constantly working on social issues and in the process, gaining new insights and identifying new solutions locally. What is missing is an effective channel to take this information from one place to another, from one group to another, in a focused and timely fashion. This often leads to “re-inventing the wheel” problem where people spend a lot of time on solving problems that have already been solved elsewhere. In contrast, the result of a collective knowledge sharing could be far more efficient and effective solutions to the world’s problems than today’s well meaning, but isolated efforts. NGO Post is becoming the platform for such knowledge sharing.

Reference: http://www.paragon100.asia/index.php/component/content/article/51-india/130-paurl-gupta

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LG-7

“I am entrepreneur because I prefer to initiate good things rather than waiting for them to happen.”

My Story

Intro

India, which is the largest handicraft producing country in the world, offers a range of crafts and products that is almost unlimited. However all these products of lasting beauty and value are often produced in conditions of abject poverty wherein the craftsmen often live in bondage to local money – lenders. Medhavi founded Happy Hands Foundation to uphold the Indian arts and crafts in the growing modern society.

About Me

After completing my graduation in English Literature from Kamala Nehru College, New Delhi, I moved to Pune to complete my further education. I did my MBA in Communication Management – and the years spent studying, were perhaps the best! I have been involved with theatre a lot, so that spelt most of my life in undergrad, and eating comes naturally to me, so postgrad was a lot about that. Besides that, I love reading, traveling, and catching up with friends!

I love honest, simple people – and for me, things are either black or white.

I have always believed that dreams keep us going – people thought I was going cuckoo when I said that I wanted to start my own social venture – but I was onvinced… I am hugely passionate about the sector, and I just had to follow my dream. Being all of 22, I realized that my generation was just not into Indian handmade products, or the culture we pride ourselves over – and thus began Happy Hands Foundation. I am hugely thankful to my friend, Suneera, for believing in my dream and hopping alongside on the journey..

I can sum up in a line borrowed from Robert Frost: “I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood, and i— i took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

My Venture

Happy Hands Foundation is a not-for-profit organization working towards the development of arts and crafts of India. We not only work with artisans and craftsmen across the country, but also aid other communities in learning the crafts for an alternative survival.

Through our innovative events we market these handmade products (jewellery, bags, home décor items, pen stands, etc) into urban spheres and have been engaging the youth for the cause. We believe in reviving the traditional crafts and culture (such as puppetry) through contemporary ways and thus create various avenues for different audiences to interact with India’s rich heritage.

We feel that it is important to educate the artisan not in terms of his skills, but in terms of design. Our interactions with the artisans have led us to believe that their will and determination is guided by principles of dignity. To empower them, we therefore feel it necessary to open them to design interventions where they learn and develop a designer’s perspective and hone their skills appropriately.
Our artisan clusters and work expanse ranges from Uttarakhand to Orissa and Andhra Pradesh and even the Andamans. In all, we cover about 10 states and 16 clusters affecting hundreds of artisans and their families. We also work for a womens’ group in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa and aid them in learning local crafts through workshops every month.

Happy Hands Foundation also plans to hold an Arts Management course under its Red Earth programme, allowing young people to develop expertise in the field.

Reference : http://www.paragon100.asia/index.php/component/content/article/51-india/188-medhavi-gandhi

Anup

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