Microfinance rests on mutualism. This is very different from the individualism of free markets.
Looking for models of financial prudence and sustainability? We don’t have to look very far. Tucked safely away from the scorching heat of the meltdown, at least so far, is the vastly distributed microfinance sector in India, which offers us fascinating lessons.
With an estimated 4.3 million self-help groups (SHGs) scattered across the country, with an average membership per group of 15, mostly women, and an average savings mobilization of Rs22,000, we have the world’s largest microfinance sector and certainly its most diverse.
Author: chester.c
Invisible water, visible crisis
By now, everyone in India understands that we have a serious water crisis. Too many of our rivers are polluted, dammed, or dying. Rainfall is becoming increasingly erratic, and expected to become more so. Our groundwater is depleting fast. Our lakes are drying up or filling with sewage, especially in urban centres. Our water and sanitation infrastructure is old and creaking in many places and does not even exist in others. Agriculture, industry and urban settlements all compete for the same scarce resource. It is no longer a problem that can be discussed without remedy. Rich or poor, it affects us all, here and now.
By now, everyone in India understands that we have a serious water crisis. Too many of our rivers are polluted, dammed, or dying. Rainfall is becoming increasingly erratic, and expected to become more so. Our groundwater is depleting fast. Our lakes are drying up or filling with sewage, especially in urban centres. Our water and sanitation infrastructure is old and creaking in many places and does not even exist in others. Agriculture, industry and urban settlements all compete for the same scarce resource. It is no longer a problem that can be discussed without remedy. Rich or poor, it affects us all, here and now. But if we had to choose one area for immediate attention, it would have to be groundwater. Groundwater is fuelling much of India’s growth in rural and urban areas. This has resulted in severe scarcity and quality issues, especially in these high growth areas (see map). India has always been a groundwater civilisation. For thousands of years, different regions had the most aesthetically designed, functional open wells that tapped into the shallow aquifers. People had thumb rules that allowed them to use the water sustainably across cycles of good monsoons and drought. The coming of the deep rigs and the borewells in the 1970s completely changed the way India used its groundwater reserves. The most significant indicator is that the share of groundwater for irrigation went up from a mere 1 per cent during 196061 to 60 per cent during 200607. India is now the largest user of groundwater in the world. We draw more groundwater than two giant economies USA and China. We have approximately 30 million wells, including the new borewells and the old open wells, drawing 250 cubic km of water. Groundwater now contributes to about 85 per cent of India’s drinking water security, 60 per cent of its agricultural requirements and 50 per cent of urban water needs.
The big irony is that despite this reality, much of India’s public investments have gone into surface water dams and canals for irrigation, huge pipelines for drinking water, and increasingly for diversion to industry especially to the energy sector. Essentially, groundwater extraction is a private enterprise in India. Most Indian wells and borewells are privately owned and operated. Overwhelmed by the arrival of a new technology that allowed rapid scaleup, the government’s response has been slow. There is little and haphazard regulation of groundwater. This is a rare phenomenon in the world. Many countries have delinked land ownership from the ownership of the water beneath, and have complex systems of water rights, pricing and tight regulation. Water is a state subject in India. Administration at the Centre as well as in the states has tried but failed to fully resolve the questions of who really owns the groundwater, how it should be mapped, extracted and replenished. So, through ignorance and with impunity, farmers, governments, industry and ordinary citizens have drilled deeper, and just about anywhere with frightening results. Sixty per cent of India’s districts have serious issues of either depletion or pollution, according to one study. Excoriating the earth has unleashed geogenic chemicals such as fluoride and arsenic into our drinking water. Since authentic quality testing is difficult in most places, we do not yet know what we are doing and what awaits us. According to a study by Jadavpur University, Kolkata, 66 million people are at risk from fluorosis and as many as 500 million from arsenic induced health issues in the Ganga Meghna Brahmaputra plain. At the same time, poor sanitary practices have led to faecal contamination. Millions defecate in the open, and millions of others unknowingly contaminate groundwater through leaching from toilet pits. A WaterAid report suggests this directly affects around 37 million Indians annually through waterborne diseases. If you like that sort of imagery, it evokes a manthan gone horribly wrong. It is imperative to look at what must be done, and done quickly. What are the top five things that the government, civil society organisations and citizens can do to make our groundwater civilisation more sustainable? Make the groundwater Mapping visible Right now, there is an asymmetry of information. We need to change that by putting aquifer data in the public domain. Make invisible groundwater visible to all, so that people can prevent abuse. The government has an aquifer mapping programme. But it needs strengthening and realignment.
It is a topdown approach. It need not be. People need granular data to be waterwise. Aquifers can be mapped within five years with smart, crowdsourced, groundup information, in combination with technologies such as satellite data. Manage the demand It is linked to the first point, and reminds us that a supply side approach will not work. We need to use water more efficiently, and need better market signals for that. Groundwater in India is a private and under regulated market, and does not have the benefits that transparent, embedded markets can bring. There is also a deep nexus between groundwater and energy. If we will not price the water, we have to price the energy. Appropriate economic incentives must come sooner rather than later. There may be less resistance than the political class fears, and there are some good examples in the country already, such as the Jyotigram in Gujarat. Rationalise groundwater use This is linked to the points above. It is not good economics or good environmental stewardship to drain the aquifers of Punjab to grow rice, nor those of arid Kutch to grow sugarcane. These are no longer questions that economists can leisurely mull over. We have to incentivise the shift in production from water scarce to watersurplus aquifers, but in a sustainable way. Let’s shift public resources from surface water budgets if necessary to achieve a better water balance. Enable civil society participation It will be very difficult for the government to retrofit a sensible governance system on the current model of private, dispersed and democratised access to groundwater. NGOs do a better job of engaging people in a participatory approach, by encouraging stewardship rather than exploitation. Good public policy and laws help, but we truly need new behavioural responses that allow us to respect water. Recharge and reuse We need a massive national effort to recharge our aquifers. This requires the creation of appropriate institutions that allow us, as a society, to frame a new relationship with groundwater. Some institutional frameworks have been attempted, such as the Central Ground Water Board, with its mirrors in the states. But we need to repair and innovate these institutions. It is critical to set up new entities that help understand and manage urban groundwater better. As a society, we are now faced with tough choices. It is worth betting big on groundwater, which can actually lead us to water security. And we can become a mature groundwater civilisation. Again.
With Ayan Biswas and Arghyam
Closing Keynote | Strategic Non-Profit Management India | 2019
This is an edited version of Rohini Nilekani’s closing keynote address delivered to the 2019 class of the Strategic Non-Profit Management – India offered developed in conjunction with the HBS Social Enterprise Initiative and offered in association with the Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy at Ashoka University.
I think we are at a fairly critical time. People often refer to the social sector as the third sector, but I would argue that it actually has to be the first sector. In the continuum of Samaaj (society), Bazaar (the marketplace), and Sarkaar (the state), Samaaj must come first. Bazaar and Sarkaar were created to serve Samaaj. Samaaj includes all of us, and it created the Bazaar to serve its economic interests, and the Sarkaar to serve equality to all people, on a large scale.
But what has happened over the centuries, especially the last century, is that the state and the market have acquired tremendous power. Technological advancement has enabled the accumulation of that power in ways completely unimaginable even a few years ago. It is crucial that we understand the implications of the accumulation of power by the state and markets. In our hearts, we are citizens first. We are not consumers first, though sometimes a couple of companies would like us to forget that nowadays. And we are not subjects first, though a few governments might like us to forget that too. We are citizens first, we are human society members first, and we create institutions of social organization that are supposed to increase the well-being of Samaaj, but also hold the Bazaar and Sarkaar accountable.
Balancing the Scales
Both Bazaar and Sarkaar have grown extremely successful at driving scale, especially over the last few years. The market will always chase profits, acquire more customers, and accumulate power. Similarly, when the state achieves scale, it accumulates a lot of power for its continuing legitimacy. Both these forms of accumulation of power can create tremendous public good. Markets improve our lives in amazing ways every single day. The state enables the distribution of public services in a way that a sole individual could not possibly achieve.
So, what I’m talking about is more of a checks and balances mechanism that we need in the social sector, to hold these powers accountable to society. I think today, civil society has an especially critical role in holding the state to increase equity, along with efficiency, and holding the markets to reduce negative externalities to society. And it’s a very interesting time to do this because both the state and the market have also recognised that they cannot do anything on their own. Human problems are so interconnected today, especially driven by things like climate change, that the state and the market are quite open to the intervention of civil society in many areas.
While at the same time, there are other global threats as well. The three freedoms of democracy – the right to speak freely, the right to associate freely, and the right to practice one’s own beliefs, come with duties which we do not talk about enough. People must have the right to speak freely, but without deliberately hurting others; the right to form associations without turning into mobs; and the right to practice one’s beliefs, without preventing others from practicing theirs. So there are duties and rights, but these freedoms are increasingly coming under various kinds of shadows.
Never has it been more important for all of us in the social sector to play that balancing role. While the state and markets have been remarkably successful at achieving scale, it always remains a question whether the social sector can do that. I wonder if being unable to scale is a failure of imagination on our part. Mahatma Gandhi did not just try to improve the lives of people in Porbandar District. He did not just try to improve the lot of all of the citizens of India. He was trying to transform humanity at its core. His imagination was that big and nothing would come in the way. The trade-offs were not going to be that we would get independence by sacrificing our humanity. That was the scale of the imagination of his work.
There are so many other examples. Take someone like Vinoba Bhave. He was not trying to rescue land from just one district. He was talking about the redistribution of land, a very primary source of inequity in this country, across the nation. Jayaprakash Narayan’s Sampoorna Kranti was not only about one class or one identity group replacing the other. It was an imagination at a much loftier level. And that’s how they achieved scale, because the scale of their imaginations and their intent was powerful and very clear in their minds. Have we, perhaps, in the first sector lost a bit of that zeal for imagination? Sometimes I wonder about that. We belong to the tribe of Gandhiji, Vinoba Bhave, and Jayaprakash Narayan, and we need to look to the state and markets to understand how we can achieve scale in this sector as well.
The Need for Societal Platform Thinking
The motivation for scale is different in all three sectors. In the social sector, our goal is to improve human dignity, to create better access to goods and services, to restore agency, to increase creativity, and much more. Essentially, it is to give Izzat, Insaaf, and Imandari (respect, justice, and truth) to people. That is our real job, no matter which sector you work in. So when we want to scale, can we think of scale the same way that the Sarkaar or Bazaar does? I don’t think so.
Over the last 30 years, Nandan and I have been working in very different fields. Nandan has been a successful entrepreneur with Infosys, while doing philanthropic work. I have been working within the social sector for the last two and a half decades, helping individuals, institutions, and ideas spread and grow. Through our work, the goal was to create more public goods in the public sphere, but we have also failed a lot in our work in the social sector. I’ve learnt that it’s far easier to become a unicorn in the market or to become a successful state, than it is to create real, lasting social change. I meet many billionaire philanthropists around the world and they express this very humbly after first thinking “If I can create a great business, why can’t I create a great social sector organization?” But when they actually try it, they find just how hard it is to create scale in the social sector. And that’s because we have to understand why scale is very different in this sector.
Since 2015, Nandan and I have been working together on EkStep, with the goal that we will reach the 200 million children in this country with increased access to learning opportunities. What keeps us together is that we have different but hopefully complementary skills and we have brought those skills together with the pursuit of this goal. We have learned a lot from each other and so we have developed something called Societal Platform Thinking. We have to be careful when we are trying to solve complex, interdependent societal problems. Our methods have to be based on certain morally undeniable principles and philosophies. We have arrived at five of these basic principles, to help us and others get started.
The first thing we have learned is that a single solution will not work, no matter how great it is. If our aim is to solve the problem at the root cause, and scale, we have to design to distribute the ability to solve. We need to trust people and their ability to be part of the solution implicitly. Everyone can learn, everyone can solve, and everyone can be part of the solution. It is a question of design: where people need to see clearly, and where they need to be trusted to get involved in coming up with solutions. So, we have to also distribute the ability to see to solve, and we’ve come up with more detailed architecture about how to do that. That was the first big thing.
A second thing that we have learnt over time is that resources like talent, people, and money are hard to come by. When trying to scale, in terms of public good, a lot is hard to come by. So, we began to think through this, and we found that if you unpack complex social problems, you often find a core that is common. When you look at the common core, you realize that there are ways to make those scarce resources plentiful. Because sometimes there is abundance under your nose, it just exists in different forms. For example, if we think about education, it is very difficult to find professional, competent teachers. It’s very hard to train great teachers. But if we look at the system, there are parents, and teachers in abundance. So, that’s a simple example of how you can find abundance and make scarce resource un-scarce. We need to keep this in mind when we design for scale.
The third learning that is very dear to my heart, is that if we want to scale in a country like India, you need to address the diversity of context. Most of the problems that require scale are contextual. The solution that might work in one place may not work 100 kilometers down the road or it needs a little extra spices to be added into the mix to really work well – whether it’s food or social solutions. There is a lot of diversity, and pushing something will not work. So how do you design to scale up diversity? How will your solutions and your framing work to reflect diversity at scale? For that, in your design, you have to create a unified but not uniform intervention, design, infrastructure, and framework. Unified because we all have to achieve the same goal.
And for that, of course, you need good feedback. You need a digital tech backbone to distribute the ability to solve because you need multidirectional feedback loops. You need data coming in, not just being sucked up at one end, but moving around all the streams so that people can use the data well, in whatever form and when they need it. So you do need technology. But we have learnt that you have to be technology-enabled. If you are technology-led, you tend to make a lot of mistakes about outcome-thinking, because technology-led solutions can give you a false sense of success. You can just rack up the numbers, rack up some data points, but you may not actually get the social outcome that you want. This is important to keep in mind, because people today can get carried away thinking that technology is the solution.
These are some of the building blocks we are using at EkStep to design and reach those 200 million people. Because of this kind of thinking, we are working with the state, civil society, and the markets to move the needle to reach those kids. And so, in the social sector, when we think of scale, not everybody needs to do 200 million, right? Obviously we can’t, if all of us are trying to chase billion and two billion numbers, it will be crazy. We need many people to be doing small things well, as well. We need social innovation labs that can take some of these ideas, because failure is very important.
Taking Risks and Embracing Failure
We all fail, but what is important is that we do not grow afraid of failure. I think a lot about Gandhiji, and how one of the reasons he went to South Africa was because he had failed as a lawyer. Imagine, that failure launched a transformational epoch for humanity. So we will all fail, but it’s how we deal with failure that’s going to be important. And so many of these social innovation labs allow for the pull and push of failing, getting up, failing again, and succeeding. It’s not that every organization needs to scale, but some of our ideas need to scale.
In this sector, it is very hard for us to acknowledge failure. Philanthropists are extremely risk-averse. Usually philanthropists are very successful in business, and they have taken huge risks to get there. But when they move to the social sector, they forget how to take risks. Since they are now dealing with people’s lives and futures and common public goods, they want every venture to succeed. Businesses are allowed to fail. In fact, failure in Silicon Valley is celebrated. But in the social sector, if you fail, you might adversely affect a thousand people’s lives because of your mistake. As social sector organizations, it is very hard to tell your donors that you have failed, while needing more money from them. It’s very hard to do that. So then everybody stumbles by trying to prove just how successful they are.
It is time that we create spaces and platforms where donors, foundations, and members of civil society organizations come together and destigmatize this notion of failure. The question we should now ask is, how do we deal with failure so that we can keep innovating? When we think about scale, failure is inevitable and necessary because without it there is no innovation, and without innovation, there is no solution for scale. The fear of failure may also lead to fear of scaling, and I think we are stuck somewhere within that fear. And there is not enough celebration of the failure that leads to other successes, like Gandhi’s first failure as a lawyer. We need to strive for platforms where donors and civil society organizations can meet in a safe space to talk about these problems.
Another thing I want to touch upon is how to think about scale in this digital age. Although we live in a digital age, civil society in India has a lot of catching up to do. Some of my civil society friends are downright technophobic, and they assume all technology is bad. This is a huge challenge for us as a country of people who are not digital natives but need to advance a younger population who are. We cannot afford to stay the way we are, we cannot stay outside the gates, because the accumulation of power is also happening digitally. Unless we understand how to work efficiently in a digital age, and through digital means, we will not have the internal resources and external tool kits to hold sarkaar and bazaar accountable. So, kicking and screaming, the Indian civil sector needs to come into the digital age, which means the donor community needs to support this as well.
At the heart of it all, we still want to restore dignity and agency to people. Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Look to the stars, but keep your feet on the ground”, and I think that is what we should keep in mind when we think about scaling our work, especially in the philanthropy sector.
Good laws make good societies: Unfortunately, we now have a spate of excessive legislation that criminalises ordinary citizens
The Union Cabinet recently cleared amendments to the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007. The amendments, according to reports, expand the list of those responsible for looking after aged family members. Now not just biological children, but also sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, adoptive and stepchildren will be liable. Official caregivers who fail to comply can face a jail term of up to six months, against the current maximum of three months, if these amendments become law.
As ordinary citizens, we don’t spend much time reading about and thinking through the creation of new laws or amendments of old ones. We forget that the main constitutional responsibility of the MLAs and MPs that we vote for is law making, and oversight of the executive to implement those laws. During my husband’s 2014 election campaign, I did not hear a single voter mention this aspect of the legislator’s role. Most were concerned with local issues, which they felt helpless to address, and expected the MLA and MP to personally deliver on.
Yet, it is good laws that make for the good, functional society that most voters crave. Good laws are fair, do not discriminate against any group and are reasonably implementable. These create the very bedrock, on which samaaj, sarkaar and bazaar can maintain co-operation and peace; be more productive and reach for higher goals.
Bad laws, on the other hand, can harass and persecute innocent people; put the burden of proof on the citizen instead of on the accuser or the state; give excessive punishment; and create an atmosphere of fear. They also create opportunities for rent seeking and corruption by putting excessive discriminatory power into the hands of enforcing authorities.
Once in a while, as in the Nirbhaya case, the broader middle classes get agitated and rightfully express rage and helplessness. This creates the environment for passing newer, harsher laws or amendments for terrible crimes.
Unfortunately, there is little evidence that more severe punishment in the law acts as enough deterrence for future similar crimes. Recent events in Unnao and Hyderabad require us to pause and think, even as we grieve.
Societies have debated the severity of punishment for vile acts over millennia, with complex moral arguments on both sides of the question.
But citizens and society should pay more attention to the trend of over-criminalisation of common human failings and frailties. Some laws have moved issues from the civil to the criminal domain with severe penalties and jail sentences for non-compliance. This is by no means new. But recent Parliament sessions have been more productive than ever in terms of both attendance and legislation, though there has been very little substantive discussion on the Bills. And this has led to even more policies, bills and laws that fall into this category.
Let’s take a few examples, in addition to the proposed amendment on parent welfare.
The Banning of Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2019 proposes up to 10 years in jail for possession and trading in cryptocurrency. Recent amendments to the Motor Vehicles Act include prison terms for certain violations, such as driving an uninsured vehicle. The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019, declares triple talaq a criminal offence, punishable with 3 years’ imprisonment. The Union government recently banned e-cigarettes and now, even just the storage of them can merit a jail term of up to six months for the very first offence. Offences on a private member’s bill to prohibit Paan and Gutka similarly proposed a criminal liability of 10 years’ imprisonment. The Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, introduces greater scope for GST officers to arrest tax evaders and offences are non-bailable if the amount involved exceeds Rs 5 crore.
A similar attempt at criminalisation was made for non-compliance of the obligations for Corporate Social Responsibility. Every officer of the company in default could face imprisonment for up to 3 years. That received such a reaction from powerful corporate lobbies that it was withdrawn in a hurry. But not every policy or law has an affected constituency with such a direct line to the government as business does.
These are just some examples of a creeping trend that should worry us all. Criminal law may be quite unsuited to address many societal issues. Some of them are about inter-personal obligations and duties, such as the very basic duty to look after your own parents who gave you life. Others affect individuals and create private wrongs and may not require a public law remedy, or may have already a civil law remedy.
Equally importantly, if ‘justice delayed is justice denied’, we have to think of the implication of more and more offences that lead to more and more imprisonment. It takes up tremendous resources of the state. Our prison system is already over crowded, with absolutely inhuman conditions. A majority of prisoners are under-trials, which means that their guilt has not yet been proven. None of us would like to be imprisoned without a just verdict.
Maybe it is time to reflect and reimagine what issues belong to samaaj to address, however slowly and painfully, and which must fall to the state or sarkaar to uphold. Meanwhile, let’s communicate strongly to our legislators. Let’s hold lawmakers accountable to draft, to pass and to uphold good laws that work for citizens and not against them.
Laws and criminal justice: Where the Indian Elite can’t Secede
It is extremely important that the Supreme Court is re-examining colonial era sedition laws, which were repealed in the United Kingdom (UK) itself, but which no government in India has revoked, and in fact, each has used to stifle dissent. Sedition laws, however, are at the apex of a mountain of laws that need to be examined with fresh societal eyes.
Most of us believe we are good, law-abiding citizens. We have faith that laws are made with the highest public and private good in mind. We try to obey all the laws that we know of. By doing so, we participate in a society that is justly governed by the rule of law. We don’t worry much about going to jail or about the state of our prisons. We cannot imagine anything we do that could land us behind bars. And if we got caught by mistake, surely there would be a way around the problem? Jail is for others.
Is it time to revisit all these assumptions?
Many of our laws, when examined even cursorily, do not appear to propose punishments or jail sentences proportionate to the crime. Many also shift the burden of public order from the State and its apparatus to the individual citizen and his actions. These kind of laws can turn ordinary citizens into criminals with one deadly strike. Sadly, many have been passed without any legislative debate. Nor has there been widespread public discourse on things that should keep us all awake at night.
For example, did you even know that you could get arrested if you did not properly walk your dog? The maximum sentence is three months. Did you realise that flying a kite with banned thread can lock you up for two years? That driving an uninsured vehicle could get you three months in jail?
These are just a few examples. Yet, most citizens have found it difficult to apply themselves to issues of law-making or criminal justice.
Apart from all the harsh, even draconian, laws that have been around for decades and even centuries, there have been new laws and rules that give sweeping powers to the State. Mercifully, there has been a lively public debate on recent laws around free speech and privacy. In one such victory, Section 66A of the IT Act was struck down as unconstitutional. Other regressive speech laws still exist, but partly because of the ubiquitous use of social media, more citizens are realising the chilling effect on their lives.
Let’s take another recent example. The government invoked the Disaster Management Act of 2005, for the proper management of the pandemic. But some of the rules pertaining to Covid-19 could potentially make millions of citizens susceptible to sentencing, if they were to be strictly implemented. The spreading of fake news about Covid -19, including forwarding WhatsApp messages which are later found false, could attract up to a year in prison. Technically, not wearing compulsory face masks, without reasonable cause, could also put you in jail for up to one year.
Some of these laws are simply unimplementable or may not be on the radar of the officers of the State, who have the powers to make arrests under them.
But the point is that they are still on the books. And circumstances could turn in a way that someone could get into more trouble than is warranted by an unintentional infringement. All the laws I mention above have actually resulted in arrests.
Should such laws with such disproportionate punishment even exist? Should they be better understood before they are passed? Do they even serve the purpose and intent with which they are framed – usually public order and safety?
There is not enough evidence to show that severe punishment acts as the deterrent it is meant to be. Research shows that imprisonment under harsh conditions often results in a greater rate of more violent recidivism. On the other hand, there is encouraging data emerging from restorative justice systems, including the open jails in India. Can we use such evidence to re-imagine our retributive justice system to be more just, more humane and more effective at reducing crime?
So far, we, the elite, have not participated in serious public discourse on law-making and prison reform. The series of lockdowns caused many of us to experience a pale yet frightening imitation of what an actual incarceration might feel like.
Is this an opportunity for society, samaaj, to participate more vigorously in debating laws that criminalise too easily? And from there, to become more involved in the broader issues of criminal justice, including the human rights infringements in our overcrowded prisons, with 70% of inmates being potentially innocent undertrials?
The Supreme Court has now turned the spotlight on sedition. The pandemic has thrown light on the Disaster Management Act. It’s time for deeper conversations with parliamentarians and state legislators — our law makers, on how better laws can lead to a better society. In the case of Section 66A of the IT Act, such a dialogue led to its annulment.
India’s elite has managed to secede from every common public service — be it education, healthcare, transport, or energy. Pollution and the pandemic awakened us to the rude reality that we cannot secede from bad air and bad germs. Well, we cannot secede from bad laws either.
Schemes to Systems: Samaaj led Welfare Delivery Models
Rohini’s keynote at Indus Action’s Schemes to Systems conference. Philanthropist, Rohini Nilekani stresses on how the voice of Samaaj should be amplified and understood, while reducing the administrative gaps.
Thank you to Indus action and all the people gathered here. A special namaskar to the two senior politicians here – Dr Palanivel Thiagarajan ji and Mahua Moitra ji. Civil society groups must find ways to interact ever more with the political class and the business class – after all we are neither anti-government nor anti-market but we are pro people, pro samaaj. That is the first calling of the civil society sector. And everybody, bar none, is a citizen before they are a politician , a bureaucrat , A CEO or an employee, we are all citizens first, and last too, when we shed our day job identities and go home.
It is now exactly 15 years since I started speaking and writing about the continuum of samaaj, bazaar and sarkaar – and it is a continuum always in a dynamic balance and the continuous quest is to make the balance more just to all . And I have been saying that samaaj must become conscious that it is the first sector and it has to work to make sarkaar and bazaar, which come later, accountable to the larger public interest of the samaaj.
But what is the role of Samaaj actors in times like these, when people the world over, and in India too, seem to be fearful and insecure and retreating to narrower and polarized spaces?
I really believe, and this came to strongly this morning as I wrote this speech, is that today, as always, the role of empathy is absolutely critical. Empathy within, for ourselves, and empathy for others.
This is the important inner to outer journey we all struggle to make as civil society actors, isn’t it?
And in this aspect – how civil society institutions themselves behave becomes important –
How can we avoid the cancel culture so prevalent in the west, how can we reduce otherization? It is hard to eliminate otherization completely perhaps, because humans do seem often to define themselves against something else, maybe even an enemy, possibly as part of our evolutionary biology – but can we reduce this tendency through more awareness of the benefits of coming together ? Can we look outside OUR ideological walls if we want others to look outside theirs? Is it the work of samaaj institutions to create windows in all such walls?
Can we create those shared spaces, which are held without judgement, so we can discover ways to build a better society, a better samaaj?
How do we awake to and help awaken people to see ourselves as more than subjects, more than beneficiaries, more than consumers?
To see ourselves as humans in a complex web of humanity, as CITIZENS, as NAGARIKS?
And then, what are these citizens, these nagariks? What do citizens do?
Citizens are aware, they are alive to what is happening around them socially, economically, ecologically, politically. They belong to a community of other citizens. And it doesn’t matter if that is a small neighbourhood community or a global one, each is important, especially if it has thick bonds. One problem that has emerged is that social media has allowed the thriving of very thin bonds, and that has created groups of people that can be easily aroused to negativity. It is part of the work of civil society groups in fact to help build social bonds that are thick, so that people can work together in more harmony for a common cause.
Citizens, when fulfilling their role, are curious about and willing to participate in the co-creation of a society that makes their own lives and all others better, more abundant, more creative. And after empathy, for me, Creativity is an important word because the zenith, the apex of human history may be the ability of people to generate beauty, through their own talent ,agency and co-operation with the talent and agency of others.
To create is the is to be human. And I don’t mean just art and sculpture and beautiful buildings and things, but also the creation of big new social ideas and societal movements too, that enable humans to take such giant strides of consciousness, as in the universal vote, as in so many freedom struggles, and so much more.
That creativity is the most precious thing for samaj organisations to nurture. And we need to debate much more on how we can generate more sympathy and more creativity as the green fuel for the engine of samaaj as a whole and for CSOs too.
But these are challenging times, and our work is not so easy.
In a kind of reversal of the global liberal order which had perhaps gone stale & lost its relevance, and more importantly, its creativity – we seem to be in the grip of a shrinking of identities to narrow and narrower selves –
From Global to National
From National to Regional
From Regional to Religional
From Religional to the Tribal
From Tribal to ??
For the political class, this narrowing of identities frankly, can be useful, as it creates easy to capture voter groups.
For markets too, it can be beneficial , as it creates good segmentation to capture consumer bases.
In fact, sometimes, I only half-jokingly say –
Bazaar has made the tyranny of choice so complex (even to buy rice, a daily staple we have to choose between price ranges, between polished and unpolished, red and white and brown, organic and non-organic, and so on, endlessly, )& the pandemic has made personal/ family choices in the social space so frightening that people want simplicity in their politics- just delegate to one entity and forget about it.
But this is a cop-out and we must all beware of this trap.
Because when we cop out of being citizens, full citizens, what we are likely to get is a monopolies or monoculture of ideas and of practices that eventually will start to make societies less stable and less sustainable. We all know the cliché of the plantation and the rainforest and most people agree that the rainforest, with its diverse ecosystems is more healthy and sustainable, and so it is with societies too. But to maintain the diversity in society, citizens, unfortunately do not have the luxury to sit back and relax. We have to tend to our social gardens, however small they might be, and in all seasons.
Because, no matter what the benefits may be to sarkaar and bazaar, for Samaaj, and for civil society this shrinking to the smaller self only generates more fear, more insecurity and more divisiveness,
inevitably leading to conflict over identities, ideas and resources.
So the role of CSO’s then is to inspire people to see ever more of themselves in relation to the outer world- through collective action, collective creation, through campaigns, projects ,workshops & more. And eventually all of these hopefully, will foster more empathy, allowing people to see themselves in others’ shoes, even looking to the well-being of future generations, and thus to become the highest embodiment of themselves
Is this all too idealistic? Ye of course it is. But if we together believe in this grand human project – of increasing empathy and creativity in society – even if it takes 25 years or a 100, then we can move inexorably towards this magnificent goal with a feeling of hope and belief that all our actions, however small, like little drops of water – will eventually create the ocean .
Thank you for this opportunity to speak among so many amazing organisations seeking to build active citizenship, and also among senior politicians, whom we look to to help shape a positive social agenda. Dhanyavad and namaskar.
What Lies Beyond the Great Anthropause
The virus has shown us the impact of a disregard for nature. Small changes to urban lifestyles could make a big difference
Recently, Apple TV released a documentary called The Year Earth Changed. It takes viewers through some delightful scenes of what happened in the world of wild animals while humans were forced to take a break from their normal activities due to the zoonotic pandemic. Leopards checked into safari resorts in Africa; deer, bears and even penguins strolled around urban areas; and dolphins and humpback whales sang free again.
For months, social media worldwide was abuzz with pictures and videos of animals and birds taking back what might have been theirs if it were not for us. Nature, it seemed, had returned to everyone’s backyard.
Yet we need to go way beyond the romance of beautiful photographs to understand what is really at stake here. We are still in the midst of the sixth mass extinction. It will take a radical shift in our development models for nature and wildlife to become truly resilient again.
It was a team of UK researchers writing for Nature Ecology And Evolution in June 2020 that came up with the catchy phrase “anthropause” to describe the global reduction of human activity and mobility during the pandemic.
Scientists have long tried observationally to measure the impact of increasing human footprints on different aspects of animal biology and behaviour. This knowledge is absolutely critical for the future. It helps us understand ecosystem connections and how to preserve biodiversity, how to prevent species collapse, how to predict zoonotic crossovers into human populations, and how to keep up with the environmental change that is speeding up around the globe.
The last 30 years have been particularly devastating for many species. The next 30 will determine whether they, along with humans, thrive or just about survive.
The anthropause gave scientists a never before opportunity to create and pool data sets across large geographies. New global collaborations are quickly developing to formalise the observation and sharing of such data to inform the future. Researchers want to use bio-logging and other strategies to uncover many mysteries. How do human-built environments affect the movement of non-human beings? Which species can adapt well to human activity and which ones are left more vulnerable? And most importantly, can small changes to our lifestyles, or smarter design of our mobility networks, have a disproportionately beneficial impact on wildlife?
What are the early results telling us?
The great human confinement brought clean air, cleaner water, reduced light and noise pollution for all. It allowed non-humans a renewed chance to move and breed more freely.
Importantly, though, it is not only a rosy picture of nature bounding back. Some species have developed an inordinate dependence on humans. Many animals subsist on food waste left lying around our streets and in gutters. Others depend on our sometimes unwise generosity in feeding them. The dramatic slowdown in normal human activity left unknown numbers of rodents, cats, squirrels, street dogs, monkeys, cows and others without sustenance.
In many places, the world’s poor, pushed back further into poverty, had to depend more on ecological resources—on subsistence hunting, logging, fishing from the wild. In India, researchers observed the near doubling of species “illegally” killed for food during the lockdown last year. Without human surveillance, protected areas have been more in danger of poaching too. And feral dog packs, the biggest threat to India’s sanctuaries, roamed unrestrained.
While citizens have reported much renewed love for returning natural beauty, some researchers have noted a simultaneous increase in the sentiment against nature and wildlife. Perhaps it is a fear reaction from knowing that this pandemic emerged from the animal world. Bats, especially, have become the target of increasing human wrath. This is unfortunate as bats are important pollinators in a worldwide decline of pollinators. Another danger is that children could absorb this fear from adults, reducing their potential to preserve their own future by conserving wildlife.
With this mixed bag of effects on the human-wildlife relationship, what can we learn? What should we do better?
If anything, this past year has taught us that small things matter. That we can personally create change that quickly and positively impacts others. Millions of people have been wearing masks to that end.
What the urban elite does matters more than ever. If even 200 million urbanites of India make some small changes in habits and lifestyle, it could have a cascading effect. It can even create a subtle system shift, leading to more positive feedback loops over time.
Here are some suggestions for citizens from environmentalists, researchers and urban designers whom I reached out to.
— We can easily contribute to reduced light and noise pollution, to allow birds and other species more freedom. If you can, shift any lights near trees where birds nest or roost. Work with your local municipality office to redesign street lighting for safety for pedestrians but privacy for birds and animals.
— Respect all life—learn what role the smallest creatures like moths and spiders play. In neighbourhood parks or private gardens, leave some spaces undisturbed and dark for birds and insects to forage and breed or rest.
— Participate more in waste management, at home and outside. Don’t throw your garbage where animals can get at it. Plastic and cows, for example, are a lethal combination.
— Rethink your mobility patterns post- pandemic. Virtual conferences have a lower ecological footprint. Avoid travelling for unnecessary meetings. Club outside activities when you can. Join the “No Honking” campaign. It is astonishing how many birds and animals benefitted from a quieter environment last year. The Year Earth Changed has particularly poignant scenes of birds singing again near desolate airports and cheetahs being able to safely call out to their cubs without the rumble of tourist jeeps in the savannah.
— Don’t stop going into the wild. Forest bathing can heal us. Many local economies depend on nature tourists. More watchful eyes on protected areas can also prevent poaching and fires. Wildlife tourism rupees support conservation and help compensate for human wildlife conflict. What we can change is HOW we go into the wild. Can we be more “in the wild”? Can we reduce our noise and light, simplify our food and other conveniences?
— Policy matters. Speak up more against the roll-back of environmental protection, in our neighbourhoods, but also for all the wild places we may never visit. Each voice resonates.
— Spread new ideas for people to chew on. Should safari parks, for example, be shut once in a while to let animals breed in peace? Should we stop vehicular traffic once a week?
— All traditional fishing communities around the world across recorded history have customary practices that stop them from fishing in breeding season. Maybe we can learn from that.
If enough of us shift our mental model to incorporate such suggestions, say the experts, people may enjoy the benefits of last year’s lockdown without its tremendous suffering.
Let’s listen to what researchers and citizen scientists are telling us from this year of observation. Maybe we can mitigate the next catastrophe, not with another great anthropause, but with a gentle withdrawal from our most harmful habits. Wishful thinking—maybe the next documentary could then be titled “The Year the Earth Changed—Forever.”
A Quest to Balance State, Society, Market
In the memory of such social sector professionals and volunteers, we have to rededicate ourselves to the work of supporting and sustaining a resilient samaaj. What better time than this current moment?
On April 24, one more life came to a premature end. Civil society lost yet another leader. Prem Kumar Varma died in Delhi at the age of 65. He was the founder and secretary of Samta, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Bihar’s Khagaria district. Everyone knew him simply as Premji.
Premji could have had two more decades to thrive and work on his crusades against man-made flooding, and the injustices that continue towards the Musahar community. It was not to be.
Like many others, Premji began his civic engagement as a socialist student leader influenced by the teachings of Ram Manohar Lohia. Later, in the 1970s, he became a follower of the Gandhian socialist Jayaprakash Narayan, with others such as Bihar’s chief minister Nitish Kumar. Their goal was social transformation through “Sampoorna Kranti” or Total Revolution, but many landed in jail for their pains.
Those were difficult but heady days for India’s civil society, as the clouds of authoritarianism were gathering before the Emergency in 1975. Many groups were able to band together to defend democracy, constitutional rule and justice. It was hard and dangerous work. But it has served as the foundation for much of the expansion of civil society movements in the country, headed by a host of idealistic leaders with an inclusive vision and a mission of equity and justice.
Premji went on to establish Samta with the goal of a more egalitarian society. He focused on the most socially and economically marginalised Musahar community of Bihar, working on issues of human rights, flood relief and rehabilitation, safe drinking water, sanitation and livelihoods. Samta joined the water security collaborative, Megh Pyne Abhiyan, that my foundation, Arghyam, was privileged to support. For half-a-century, no matter the setbacks, he persevered in the mission for social change and justice.
On a memorable visit in 2007, when we travelled together in Bihar on a field visit, Premji explained to me his theory about why things were so lopsided in the world.
“Earlier”, he said, and I am paraphrasing here, “even when there were kings and emperors, people’s lives revolved around their communities – the samaaj. But ironically, post monarchy, the sarkaar began to get very powerful around the world and claimed a mandate for people’s welfare and began to act on behalf of the samaaj. And then later, the corporations of the bazaar began to go global and acquire even more power than the State.
So samaaj, which used to be the apex formation, was slowly replaced by the power of the State and then the power of the market. Now, samaaj is at the bottom and we are struggling to make the State and the market responsive to us as citizens.”
His words had a profound impact on me, and I began to chew on the idea and read more of history to develop the theory further. I became convinced that the work of this century is to restore the balance between samaaj, bazaar, and sarkaar. I dedicated my philanthropy to keep active citizens and society at the centre, so that markets and the State are more accountable to the larger public interest.
A heartfelt thank you, Premji, for starting me on this journey.
There are many Premjis in this country, who are totally immersed in the struggle to consolidate constitutional values in society. Sometimes, they risk life and limb in the pursuit of societal transformation.
The passing on of such leaders may not be understood for the social tragedy it is, for some time to come. As various factors, including the constrictive policies of the State, force many small organisations to fold up, samaaj will feel the impact over time.
Even the smallest NGOs go where the State and market often cannot or will not. They give voice to people. They shine a light on issues which can be tackled to prevent a future cascade. They make a good society more possible.
In the memory of such social sector professionals and volunteers, we have to rededicate ourselves to the work of supporting and sustaining a resilient samaaj. What better time than this current moment?
Rohini Nilekani and Arun Kumar | Succeeding in Partnerships
This is an edited version of Rohini Nilekani’s conversation with Arun Kumar on Succeeding in Partnerships. The discussion highlights the importance of partnerships in addressing large and complex societal issues and the need for including partnerships in the organisation strategy.
Collaboration is an important topic in the social sector today. Collaboration as an idea should, in its essence, be an equal partnership of different players and actors. You cannot call it collaboration if there is one power center and everybody has to follow that power center. Collaboration is difficult in practice because it requires that all collaborators should have a common vision and mission, and learn to give up control. In collaboration, we need to see everyone as a leader or rather as players on the same team, rather than seeking leadership roles. Good collaboration is possible only if we let go of control and truly co-create a path together. There are many forms of collaboration, which can be light touch or very deep, but I believe that this is the era for us to learn how to collaborate better, both in the social sector and in the philanthropy sector, and between the two.
According to Arun Kumar, collaboration is about conceptualizing and visualizing the bigger picture that perhaps needs to be completed by a collective. One of the biggest challenges is to enable every participant to see that bigger picture and agree on its broad contours, which includes a commitment to a certain concept or ideology, which are called non-negotiables. Those who have the ability to think in abstracts and to conceptualize the big picture may not always be the most skilled in facilitation or negotiations to get the collective going. This often results in issues of attribution, clashes of egos, representation, and leadership.
To be successful in your mission, a broad agreement is necessary. Kumar mentions the example of Child Rights and You (CRY) which headed an almost seven-year long campaign with a coalition of more than 200 organizations from all over India. Although there was no agreement on how to start a common school system or the medium of instruction, there was one common goal theme that everyone was committed to – that there should be free, compulsory universal education. Kumar also mentions the Right to Information and food security as other successful examples of collaborations.
Kumar speaks about his experience in 2020, where after the lockdown was announced in Mumbai, 14 organizations came together to collaborate and coordinate, to share information and find the cheapest mode of transportation, making sense of the procurement. They were organizations working in different geographies and on different issues, but there was an overriding need, and they came together beautifully. Another example shared was of Mission 24, an initiative by Apnalaya. It was aimed at improving entitlements in M-East Ward, which is right at the bottom of all 24 wards of Mumbai. With limited resources, it was difficult to keep people together on questions of advocacy, and to keep them committed for a long time. Advocacy and policy level change invariably knock at the door of ideologies, so it becomes that much more difficult to keep everybody together. However, if we are aiming for sustainable change and sustainable impact, there is no running away from collaboration.
But we also need to consider broader questions when it comes to collaboration. For example, Kumar asks whether we can view collaborations beyond the lens of a funding project, and view them as an investment in a longer term cause. What we can focus on is research, data, evidence, advocacy and policy change since these are areas where funding is scarce and collaboration difficult. This would mean looking beyond implementation and multiplying operations in the name of collaborations.
Having set up and worked with many organizations like Akshara Foundation, Pratham Books, and my foundations, Arghyam and EkStep, I think philanthropists have understood the need to collaborate. More so among themselves so that we can fund areas broadly, which it is hard for individual philanthropists to continue to fund, till it reaches the impact that it needs to reach.
There have been a few good examples of collaboration recently. The India Climate Collaborative has more than 20 donors and donor organizations working together to respond quickly and effectively to the challenge of climate change. The scale of the problem is only going to grow, and although we are still finding our feet in the ICC, the commitment and collaborative framework is in place. Similarly, with the Independent and Public-Spirited Media Foundation, we recognise that good media is the foundation of a good democracy and a good society. A few of us came together to birth this organization which has noteworthy trustees – who make decisions to find good media so that the voices of the people around our country can be better represented through various media. This has also been a collaborative effort from the beginning.
It is becoming clearer that collaborations can help you to de-risk from all kinds of failures. I think the era of collaboration in the philanthropy sector is upon us. I hope this means that a diverse set of civil society organizations will get funded.
Diversity is crucial when it comes to solving complex societal problems because we need different kinds of ideologies, methods, experiments, and innovations to be backed by philanthropy, citizen movements, and civil society leaders so that when something works, we can try to scale. Cookie-cutter solutions will not work at scale – this is why our team has conceptualized what we call Societal Platform Thinking. Our main goal for this was to ask ourselves, during these challenging times, how we achieve the most impact at scale. Carrying out a successful pilot and then trying to scale up was not as effective, so we are flipping that around to understand what works at scale. For that, we need the Samaaj, Bazaar, and Sarkar, to be involved if we are going to solve complex societal issues. Our whole effort was focused on reducing the friction to collaborate between these three sectors. In order to do that, we’ve put together a framework on www.societalplatform.org, along with many public digital goods for people to use, toolkits, processes, and our team is always available to answer questions.
Solutions do not come from only one end of the pipeline, and if we want more collaboration, we have to learn how to distribute the ability to find solutions. How do we create more agency in a distributed way? How do we scale up diversity? How do we use technology for the public good? How do we allow people to solve problems in context? And how do we bring Samaaj, Bazaar, Sarkar together to do what they do best? This is how we are looking at collaboration. Globally, we are seeing increasing examples of good collaboration as well as from the civil society side in India. NGOs like Pratham, probably the largest education NGO in the world, require all kinds of collaboration at all levels.
While collaboration remains extremely difficult because it is hard for people to give up their space, egos, branding, and their need for attribution, the need for collaboration has trumped the need to go it alone. The pandemic has made it increasingly clear that we need to work together rather than in silos. We saw this happen over the past year, with people coming together in ways they had never done before, mounting a whole logistics model to tackle pandemic-related issues. They had to resolve their differences to be able to work together, and I think it has taught us how to collaborate a little better from the heart.
It is not an easy task to work across sectors, but we must keep at it and keep in mind that there is a common interest between society actors, civil society institutions, and market actors to work together to uphold rule of law.
Civil society organizations come from a lens of equity, and social justice; I am sure many in the market do too, but it is also about innovation, efficiency, and creating prosperity for a wide number of people. Both of them must uphold the rule of law to be able to function and have the license to operate in society. Corporations need to not only follow the rule of law to the extent possible, but also uphold the rule of law so that business can be done peacefully. Of course, the state is not infallible, in our country or anywhere else in the world. Power does extend itself in human beings and when they have power, they try to extend their power, and the state has a monopoly on many powers.
It is in the interest of civil society institutions and market institutions to make sure that the Samaaj, Bazaar, and Sarkaar remain in a dynamic balance and that one sector does not become so powerful that the other two are left at the mercy of any one of them. Each needs to work together to keep the others in check if we want a good society.
Global research points to the fact that when corporations attempt to become better corporate citizens – by reducing negative externalities which society has to pick up the cost of, by treating their employees better and working towards improving the world rather than destroying it, those companies are doing better. There is not only a moral but a strategic imperative to get there. Businesses are not going to put themselves at risk because they constantly need the state to approve of everything that they do. But there are always openings to collaborate on some aspects which are morally undeniable and need to be done for a better society.
In India there is a good separation between the markets and the state, and I see the opportunity for samaaj institutions to work with the state to ensure that we have better markets which do not try to capture value only but distribute value down the line. The age of partnerships and collaborations is truly here and whether we fail or succeed, we have no choice but to keep trying.
It may not be easy for civil society organizations to collaborate with people whose ideas may be completely different from theirs. However, given the circumstances now where the trust between the state and civil society organizations has reduced considerably over the last few years, I think it is imperative that civil society actors create new networks for collaboration so that the interests of society are better represented with a diversity of views.
Civil society institutions need to come together and collaborate better. They can seek some philanthropic support for this as well, because sometimes we may not be good at storytelling or presenting our messages. I would request my civil society friends to come together through more platforms to tell your stories, and bridge the divide between yourselves and Indian donors. The age of the foreign donor is going away and there may be a kind of philanthropy nationalism emerging. Everyone wants to fund in their own countries and Indian philanthropists are coming together to fund new areas and new collaborations. So civil society actors have to come together as well.
To Fail is to Have Dared
In this interview with IDR, Rohini speaks about why we need to underwrite failure in the social sector, how philanthropists can support failure in practice, and shares some of her own failures as an activist philanthropist.
When working on complex issues of social change, failure is inevitable. Yet, people in the social sector are reluctant to talk about it. Why do you think this is the case?
When I think about failure, I think about the different ways in which it is perceived across samaaj (civil society), sarkaar (state), and bazaar (markets). In bazaar failure is underwritten structurally by financial markets. You’re allowed to go there and try something really crazy. And if you fail—not that anybody chooses to fail—there is a safety net for you. That’s why bazaar can afford to glorify failure a little bit, and say ‘fail forward’ or ‘fail fast’.
Sarkaar, on the other hand, is not incentivised or structured in a way that invites failure. That’s why they will prefer to see a proven model that they can take to scale, rather than try to innovate, because innovation involves a lot of failures. And this is alright because the government’s goal is not to provide risk capital to society, but rather to provide equity and service delivery.
Coming to samaaj, there is a greater risk appetite to try out things to help society, but there is less underwriting of the risk of failure. And this needs to change, because we are talking about people and their lives; we’re talking about their emotional, financial, and social well-being. So, in this context, it is important for social sector organisations to talk about failure, recognise it early on, and course correct. To do this effectively, we need patient philanthropic capital that will allow organisations and missions to experience some failures, some learning, and some experimentation, to find what works.
You make a very important point about philanthropy providing risk capital and staying the course. What does this look like in practice?
The way I see it, there are three main things that can create an enabling environment: trust, patient capital, and allowing the conversation on failure and innovation to be upfront and transparent. For me, it all begins with trust. The relationship between the philanthropist and nonprofit partner has to be built on trust, so that the nonprofit feels accepted when they are trying to do something different. Because if they’re not trying to do something different, how are things going to change? And some of these experiments will fail, either because the demand for those services or the institutional structures that support them are not ripe enough. Philanthropy needs to create space for these failures to be talked about and explained, and then allow more experimentation.
Once a funder trusts an organisation, they need to think about committing to multi-year funding.
We also need to be very conscious of timeframes, when talking about failure. Take the education sector in India, for example. About 25 years ago, parents were not very committed to putting their children through 14 years of schooling. Dropout rates were high and the number of out-of-school children was large. But thanks to the work of nonprofits, government policies, and markets, the understanding that education might lead to a better life for their children began to grow, and the demand for education built up rapidly. Today the idea of education being necessary has been completely internalised in India. Though it took some time, what might have initially seemed like a failure to the nonprofits and philanthropists working in the space, (the number of children with no access to education), today looks like a lot of success.
Once a funder trusts an organisation, they need to think about committing to multi-year funding so that the nonprofit is not spending 30 to 40 percent of their organisational bandwidth trying to raise funds, instead of trying to innovate on the ground.
In spite of a growing recognition among philanthropists that the programmes they support might not work, nonprofit grantees might still be hesitant to talk about their failures in fear of losing funding. How do we address this?
I think the social sector putting forward more stories and examples of short-term failures that allowed them to innovate and succeed in the long-run will build an understanding and make philanthropists more open to having a longer timeframe with their grants. In doing this however, both the philanthropist and the organisation need to make sure that failure is not glorified. We are not trying to achieve failure; we are going to fail because it’s not always possible to succeed, and it’s important to accept that.
While doing this we also have to be careful to distinguish between the failure of the organisation and the failure of some individuals within the organisation. There is a different way of responding to failure of some individuals—perhaps from a moral lapse—than a failure coming out of a good intent to innovate. The analysis of the failure and its origins is extremely important. Creating the space to do this—first internally by the organisation and then a little more openly—should become a structured process. I’m sure many organisations do this already, but it would be helpful if we could come together to create frameworks, toolkits, and processes, which are easy for organisations to follow and share publicly.
Beyond acknowledging and analysing failure internally within organisations, what can we do to ensure that others can also learn from failures, even if not their own?
This is a very important point because the goal of the social sector should be to ensure that even if organisations, institutions, or leaders fail, their mission shouldn’t fall by the wayside. We need to keep space for others to continue the task—the societal task—even if some organisations fail. One way I see of doing this is by converting the effort and knowledge of organisations into digital public goods; using open source technologies that allow people to come in and share, discover, and learn. In a sense, this is a de-risking from the failures of individual leaders, organisations, and innovations—sharing knowledge so that we don’t make the same mistakes again.
We are not trying to achieve failure; we are going to fail because it’s not always possible to succeed, and it’s important to accept that.
But beyond just individual organisations or philanthropists, how can we learn from the failures of the social sector as a whole? To me, what would be interesting would be if we had a process to look at the failures of the social sector in India over the last 40-50 years. Because by now, it should have been in a less risky space. Could we have done something differently, together?
We are now seeing a new wave of young social sector actors using technology and other new methods to increase equity and access. What can they learn from the old wave of social sector players, who worked from the 1970s to the 2000s? What were their failures? What can we learn from them and do differently?
Can you tell us about some of your failures, and what you’ve learned?
In my professional life, I’ve experienced many failures, some worse than others. But my very first failure in my professional life as an activist philanthropist was way back in 1992, when I set up an organisation called Nagrik, after one of my very close friends died in a horrible road accident. Along with a few others, we laid out our goal to create safer roads.
We worked on it for a few years without a large budget, but I don’t think the budget was the problem. I think the problem was that we didn’t quite know how to go about it. There was a lot of enthusiasm, passion, and intelligence in the group, but I think we didn’t structure ourselves. And so, the whole initiative faded away; but the problem didn’t go away at all. India continues to have the highest number of road accidents and deaths in the world, with 150,000 annual deaths.
When I think about my own failures, I also go back to the fact that what looks like a failure today may look like success tomorrow.
It was a failure at many levels and I take a lot of the blame for the lack of strategic thinking on myself. But it taught me a few lessons about how not to do things, how to think through things, how to set realistic goals, and how to ensure that you have a professional cadre working with you—not just enthusiastic, good Samaritans.
And when I think about my own failures, I also go back to the fact that what looks like a failure today may look like success tomorrow. We cannot predict when this will happen, and especially as philanthropists, we need to be aware of this. It’s been nearly 15 years since Arghyam, the nonprofit organisation I set up and fund, started working on supporting sustainable water and sanitation solutions. Somebody could look at us and say that the water situation in India has actually gotten worse in this time. Is this a failure of the organisation and the vision? I think we could say that Arghyam could have been much more impactful. But one could also say that the water problem in India is so huge and so complex that it is completely unrealistic to expect one organisation to do anything more than shift the needle in some aspects of the water situation. And we have been able to do that. We have been able to make the issue of groundwater more visible among practitioners, donors, and policy circles. Some of the policies that our partners have been able to embed in government frameworks will hopefully create more sustainability and equity in the water sector, sooner rather than later. To a certain extent, we succeeded in nudging, catalysing, and innovating. But of course, if you look at the whole water sector, then Arghyam has by no means finished its journey towards its mission.