Tum bilkul hum jaise nikle...you turned just like us!

"You turned out just like us" Fahmida Riaz's poem does the round in my head at regular intervals. She is a poet from Pakistan and took refuge in India at the time of the rule of General Zia Ul Haq as she stood against the fascist nature of the state. However, in the wake of rightist politics in India that emphasized ancient Indian supremacy she became disillusioned and wrote; 

Tum bilkul hum jaisey nikley/ Voh moorkhta, voh ghaamarpan/ Aakhir pahunchi dwaar tumhaarey

(You turned out to be just like us/Similarly stupid, wallowing in the past/You'v reached the same doorstep atlast.)

Now I make some changes in the lines.....

Pret paise ka naach rahaa hai/ Saarey ultey karya karogay/ Tum bhee baithey karogey sochaa
Kaun hai donor, kaun naheen hai/ Ek jaap saa kartey jao/ Sabse badhiya kaam hamara..

(Your demon [of] money dances like a clown/Whatever you do will be upside down/You too will sit deep in thought,/Who is the donor, who is not/Keep repeating the mantra like a parrot/we are the best ...we are the best)

Tum bilkul hum jaise nikle..saarey ulte karya karoge..

I just love these two lines now a days. Lets deconstruct the hum (we) and tum (you) and the relationship. Hum, the really big NGOs and donors who love to call themselves, implementer. That also reminds me of the regular shocks I get in international forums meeting organisations which claim to be grassroots in India! Grassroots they indeed are that is, if grass grows in sky and the roots lie at the top of multi-storied fully air conditioned complexes! But lets no get diverted. We are talking about "us". We, are famous for changing our focus and buggering it all up in the name of thinking "out of the box". I can almost see the hand gestures and listen the rustling of silk as I say these four magical words. "Hum" ensue geographical and programmatic changes at the drop of a hat. These "we" meet every year, if not every half a year in cold rooms and decide fate of millions. The more money we see in the issue the more interested we are. We do so with pretty much ease. These are conveniently called strategic planning exercises often planned in exotic locations. Some of us also love to make a show of our "ignorance' (inverted snobbery at its best!) and then go to an entity who is just like us to advise us (read, scratch our back) on how to spend our money. We can not trust the entities working closer to the ground, you see! We need the larger picture. But the larger picture often misses the real picture, as it does not get informed. Why? Because the entities working closer to the ground, "tum"...the you, have also learnt "our" ways. After all we are the "mothers" (NGOs) in more ways than one. 

You therefore, make sure that the presentable members of the communities speak the language of the larger entities. If they refuse to, there is always that lovely tool called "translation" ..be it from a local dialect to Hindi or from Spanish to English, translations really help. And therefore, with ample help of cued (or skewed!?) communications and translations, "tum" successfully present whatever is being asked by "hum" dressed as the things that the community wants. 

I was just about two years old in the sector when I heard this story from a junior in college. She had recently joined in one of the best paying international USA origin organisations at that time. Some donors came to check the project. The woman was taken to the village right at Delhi border and was shown a balwadi (children's creche). The donor woman asked, "Please ask them, are they happy with the facility?" The village woman, refused to give the answer taught earlier and said, "Kya achchha madam? You have put it in between two villages. Neither this village's kids come nether that village's." She gestured at both the villages with her hands. Now "achchha" or "badhiya" are the first two words that each foreigner learns in India. For the rest, the translator helped. "You heard her saying 'achchha'. Right, madam? They are very happy. She said all the children from this village as well as that village come." The presence of mind of the translator had amazed me at that time! Now I know better of course. The job depended on that presence of mind. 

Therefore no wonder that the donor goes away feeling vindictive she could indeed think of a solution to poverty sitting in her cold room and that makes her even more convinced that she should sit there longer rather than being in the field. And that's how it goes on. No one breaks the cycle. Neither "hum" nor "tum". We keep scratching each others' backs. "You want to work on rights based theories, Sir? Oh it was our long cherished dreams!"  or "You want to work on service delivery, Madam? Oh yes! That's what we actually do and that is what is needed." But what happens to the communities in the bargain between the "hum" and the "tum"? The tribal villages of south Chhattisgarh or north western Bihar get SHG building and interventions to link them to government services. No one cares to find out whether there is any government service present or not. While training the Anganwadi (ICDS) workers to provide referral services to children no one cares to find out whether a referral service for malnutrition affected children is possible as there are no Nutrition Rehabilitation Centre in the area. In the name of sustainability no one actually checks whether we are losing a critical window of intervention in a human life which could make or mar the child's potential of growing into a fully developed human being. On  the other hand, we will promote service delivery in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan among women who need to organize themselves to fight corruption, to address issues of access to justice, to counter violence. It is always this or that. Never"both". Never the openness to see what will work where nor working on a combination.

There is no need to do all that for us. We never feel the need. Because you are there to tell us we are always right. And you are there with us to turn all the work upside down whenever the cold rooms demand so. 

P.S. I must mention that I have been fortunate to work with some of the best brains in the development sector who work with all their heart. These organisations keep my faith in the sector intact and most of my blog posts are about their work and the time I spent with them. They firmly stay out of the "hum-tum" equation and thereby prevent a disastrous “love triangle”!