Stay awake..the night is not over yet!

"Rama jagi..Ram jaga/jagi nagri saari/Maya jagi, Kala jagi/Jaagi ghar ghar nari" (Rama woke up, so did Ram/ the whole town woke up too/ Maya woke up so did Kala/ each wman in each house woke up too) Or thats what I frequently claim about the work with women on rights of the poor. In Uttar Pradesh's 9 districts, I did not work on women's rights with poor Dalit women. I did not even work on Dalit rights. I strongly believed if you work with the most vulnerable in a marginalized community and facilitate the process through which they take charge of changing their community's future, you would be able to protect the most vulnerable's rights in the most sustainable manner.

I started developing rights based projects in an  environment ridden with skepticism. "Rights based work? Umm..isn't that all about destroying national property and wasting time (of the right holder as well as the duty bearers) and money by blocking roads, jamming offices, promoting hooliganism on road, sitting on dharnas and make a tamasha?!" 

Yes, tamasha it is. Every year people march from Bhopal to Delhi and sit in Jantar Mantar. For the government its a yearly feature as they get used to seeing these people, with their disfigured faces and harrowing photos of their dead children every single year for the last 25 years. Well if Amir Khan joins you in your campaign, in other words if you can add a bit glamour to your ram leela (maidan), some dignitaries might show up and offer a few words. These words may vary from a pravachan (sermon) akin to those aired in the Astha channel to a speech praising his party chief. Hearing them one might keep wondering why it is being said what is being said! And if there are indeed some words about your issue be grateful about it. You want those words to transform into action? Now that's asking for too much. 

Coming back to my work, I was told, rights based work was all about this road-show, wherein people demand and netas make promises! And then it is business as usual.   And of course they had that worrying thought, which was often touted as a fact by development-wallas (read NGOs) and paisa-wallahs (read Donors) alike, that rights based work is not measurable. Therefore the efforts were written off even before they started. But, the work started anyway. 

It started from a very small initiative. One was extremely careful about both the 'allegations' pointed above and hence the work veered strictly within the constitutional framework and an extensive MIS was developed. We knew rights based work brings development and this development is indeed measurable and we wanted to prove it. As a result of detailed data collection and collation, the program earned reputation in the state and at the central level . At any given point of time one was prepared to let anyone know how many families got how much money from which scheme, how many Public Distribution Shops could be regularized and how many women raised which issues and what all got accepted by the Panchayat. In any given year one could tell you how much was invested in these projects and what was leveraged to benefit people. Women participated in Gram Sabha meetings and planning for village development. They drew plans and presented it to the Panchayat leaders and made sure these get passed. 

What a feat! Here was a rights based program that could tell you what happened in people's lives in the language you wanted. (empowerment) In the language of 1, 2, 3, 4 and not a,b, c, d... And one thought Voila! now they can be sleep-buddies. After all, they talk the same language.

But alas! Like most marriages this was a tumultuous relationship from the very beginning. As the numbers were there, the "pati parameshwar" wanted to know what happened beyond the numbers. Wifey darling was taken aback! She was always stopped from putting up case studies. She thought the husband couldn't care less about what actually happened! Or so she thought after watching that the watersheds, SHGs and crop intensification techniques were thriving on the basis of these numbers. How many watersheds have been created? At what rate loans are revolving in a SHG? What is the increase in productivity in a field? What is the per capita income? She never heard the "man of the house" asking what really happened to the poor farmer after the watershed was created? Could he retain his land or had to sell it off after the land became irrigated? She didnt even hear a question on how much land was irrigated by a particular watershed. She never heard a question about whether the farmer's children ate better? Did they go back to school? Did the SHG member get any asset in her name? Did her food intake increase. No..none of this. Never. Not even once. Therefore she took it for granted that all that he wanted was the numbers. 

So the poor sweetheart reeled against the barrage of questions that inundated her. She fumbled through her notes and tried to locate the numerous case studies that were produced and kept aside. What did it do to the lives of these women, Lord demanded to know! Wifey mumbled..."...but then we did not work towards changing the lives of the women. I thought you did not like changing lives of women. I thought you wanted to change the lives of poor families! A lives of women changed, as they became more confident, they traveled more, took up issues of we noted and kept it to ourselves. We did not use your much protected money to measure that change. You wanted quantifiable change. Here is your quantity backed by MIS. Please accept the offering my lord!" blah blah blah blah...She argued and pleaded. What she failed to understand was that some marriages are written off even before they are solemnized!  The night loomed large. The dawn seemed slipping away. 

But then! one must not forget that even when the Ramas, Kalas and Mayas of the world wake up, the mythical Vishnu may continue sleeping in his yog-nidra, the eternal sleep because Laxmi, the goddess of wealth continue sitting at his feet. 

So.....my dear Maya, Rama, Kala and many others...stay awake...the night is not over yet! And it might take a yug (era) or so. But till then..take heart that so many of them are waking up that it might soon become impossible to deny the coming of the dawn.