by
John Samuel
When development goes corporate and
global, the spirit of voluntary action goes straight out the window
Irony
is the hallmark of our times, the organising chord of political and
institutional discourse. When the army is directly involved in confronting
militant groups or in situations of civil war, it is supposed to be involved in
`peace-keeping' (remember the IPKF in Sri Lanka?). And when a country explodes
nuclear devices or weapons, it is also in the name of `ensuring peace'. When
the government wants to move out of the health or education sector, the
official justification is that government wants to increase `people's
participation'.
It's the same with voluntarism or voluntary action.
When we say ours is a voluntary organisation, does it really mean that the
organisation is run by voluntary action or the voluntary spirit? Isn't it
obvious that anyone who chooses to be an activist has made a voluntary decision
to do so? Isn't it ironical that an organisation with an annual budget of tens
of millions of rupees, with professional staff drawing salaries at `market
rates' and with corporate structures, should
call itself a voluntary organisation? In fact, one needs a microscope to
look for anything `voluntary' in most organisations that apply that term to
themselves.
The spirit of voluntary action is as old as
civilisation. It formed the basis of social ethics and community living. And
all great civilisations and cultures emphasised the virtue of voluntary action,
the act of going beyond oneself or
one's immediate self-interest to live
for or serve a larger cause. The
essence of spirituality as practised by almost all religious streams
encompasses an element of voluntary action. When the Bhagvad Gita says
"Find full reward of right in doing right, let right deeds be thy motive,
not the fruits thereof," when the Koran prescribes Zakat as an essential
part of pious living, or Jesus says "You are the salt of the earth",
the underlying spiritual essence is more or less the same. The Buddhist notion
of Dhamma, the Confucian idea of Jen or the Christian idea of Charity encompass
elements of voluntary human and social action.
The notion of Jen suggested by Confucius is
particularly relevant. Variously translated as goodness, people-to-people
benevolence, it is best rendered as human heartiness. Jen involves a
simultaneous feeling of humanity towards others and respect for oneself, an
indivisible sense of the dignity of human life wherever it appears. Jen implies
everything that distinguishes human beings from beasts and machines and makes
people distinctively human. Confucius says, "The man who possesses Jen,
wishing to establish himself, seeks also to enlarge others."
The idea of voluntary action has very clear ethical
and spiritual connotations. One's resolve to dedicate a part of her/his time,
resources or life is a subjective choice, which each individual expresses in
various ways. There are shades of voluntary action: right from giving food to
an impoverished child, to helping an accident victim, or giving a contribution
for the well-being of the poor, fighting injustice or being a political
activist protecting the interests of the marginalised. As long as this is an
individual choice or a subjective decision based on an individual's value
system, there is no problem. But it becomes difficult when a subjective choice
based on ethical principles gets institutionalised. This is because
institutions are often governed by institutional interests and power relations.
When individuals with strong personal convictions or voluntary spirit come
together to form an institution, eventually there can be conflict between the
institutional interests and the voluntary spirit/personal convictions of the
people within the institution.
The tension between the spirit of voluntary action and
the process of institution-building is evident in the voluntary sector. With
the increasing flow of funds and the subsequent corporatisation of the
voluntary sector, there is a growing crisis in the very ethos of voluntarism.
It's inevitable, given the paradoxes involved in institutionalising a set of
beliefs and values. There seem to be four crises, viz: crisis of values and
ethics; crisis of legitimacy; crisis of leadership; and crisis of language.
There was a time when people got involved in social
change initiatives or voluntary action primarily because of strong ideological
or ethical convictions. There were religious missionaries, Gandhians, Marxists,
socialists, liberals etc who influenced the social ethos with a strong sense of
idealism and an ability to sacrifice personal comforts. Such voluntary
activists inspired others and formed organisations for a larger cause. We have
many inspiring examples, right from Raja Ram Mohan Roy to Birsa Munda and from
Pandita Ramabhai to Verrier Elwin. Many of them became pathbreakers for larger
social reform movements. The entire freedom struggle acquired a social
reformative function because of the spirit of voluntary action. Even after
independence there was a strong stream of reformative voluntary action, led by leaders like Vinoba Bhave and others.
Now, however, social work has become more of a
profession and less of a personal commitment. From the '70s, voluntary
organisations began to be seen as agents of
development. The mandarins and the experts in the international donor
agencies not only funded them but also `streamlined' these institutions. Many
of them felt that their `development' mission is too important a task to leave
to committed voluntary activists. Professional skills began to take precedence
over social commitment or personal conviction. In the late '60s and '70s social
work colleges sprang up across the country. Management institutes began to
realise the virtues of rural development. By the time we reached the mid-'80s,
there were more professionals with the right skills and right language and less
voluntary activists. Voluntary activists as a species were either transformed
into `development managers' or faced extinction in the `professionalised'
voluntary sector. Comrades working hand in hand for reformation and revolution
disappeared into the melancholy of the '70s and '80s.
When we reached the '90s, `development' itself got
corporatised and globalised. What is best for the third world is charted out by
a set of `development experts' through a series of concept papers, strategy
charts and country papers prepared and discussed in New York, Washington,
London or Amsterdam. Once the blueprint is ready, they directly or indirectly
hire or fire professionals to put their development blueprints into operation.
Thus development becomes a packaged or designer `product' to be served almost
like a hot beverage or chilled cola to the people. And social marketing became
the `in thing'. In fact, this product-centred orientation made many of the
international development organisations develop their own pet `brands'.
In the development market, people became consumers of
development aid and `targets' to be covered. From time to time, the World Bank
or UN mandarins will evaluate the macro performance and prescribe new medicines
and operations for old ailments such as poverty, inequality, deprivation,
environmental degradation etc. Many of the international aid and support
organisations began to market and sell the `development' medicine prescribed by
these worthies. Thus, many of these organisations were transformed into
wholesale or retail agents of a development paradigm designed by a set of
experts who are culturally, socially and mentally alienated from the so-called
target population.
The erstwhile activists and community workers have gradually
been replaced by line managers who will monitor development. In their
enthusiasm to deliver the goods, somewhere along the way, values and ethics
took a back seat. Viability, sustainability (read survival) and pragmatism took
the front seats. People with any `ideological hangovers' or `ethical dogmas'
became anathema to the proponents of a top-down development paradigm.
In the new scheme of things, ideas like participation,
decentralisation and democracy have become strategies or tactics rather than
ethical principles. In the course of the hyper-institutionalisation of social
action, voluntarism itself ceases to become an ethical principle based on the
subjective choice of individuals. Voluntarism has become an institutional
strategy to strengthen the `outreach' mechanisms.
While in the '60s and '70s, an individual's
convictions determined the choice of his career, in the '90s, career options
and priorities determine commitment and personal convictions. Such a reversal
of meaning and process makes voluntarism
more an irony and less of an ethical
choice. This would eventually lead to the privatisation of the development
sector and make it a cosmetic corollary to the corporate sector. The ongoing
crisis of values and ethics of voluntarism will undermine the very raison
d'etre of voluntary social action.
The crisis of legitimacy and leadership are the direct
result of the crisis in values and ethics. The gap between the self-perception
of the voluntary sector and public perception is increasing in an alarming way.
Though there are hundreds of genuine voluntary social change initiatives, the
corporatisation of mainstream development organisations tends to create an
entirely different image. Such a public perception may not be necessarily true.
The substantial change in the public perception happened partially because of
negative and sensational press coverage and partially because of tremendous
change in the lifestyles of erstwhile voluntary activists and present-day
development managers.
Till the early '80s there was a convergence between
socio-political movements and voluntary organisations. Leadership of the
voluntary sector emerged out of the larger social reforms and political
movements. Many of the leaders of social action opted for constructive work
through voluntary action rather than power politics and party dynamics. This
meant that there was broad social legitimacy for voluntary organisations, as
the majority of activists and workers represented the social and community
ethos of their time. They identified
themselves with the community and the people with whom they were
working. They came from the communities and lived and worked with the people.
This gave these organisations and leaders the moral authority to represent the
larger interests of the people.
While the earlier generation of social activists learned from the
communities directly, the new generation of development managers learned their
lessons from books and figures. They derived their legitimacy from their
professional pedigree and social locations.
While the activists of the '60s and '70s derived their
power from the people and grassroots support base, in the '90s, development
leaders derived their power from the institutional infrastructure and the
extent of clout in international development circles.
The power of conviction, integrated with the power of
the people and power of knowledge, was potential enough to challenge dominant
power relations. That is why tens of
thousands of young people responded to Jayaprakash Narayan's call in
1974. When leaders fail to inspire people with their lives, deeds and words,
the organic link between society and leadership ceases to exist. The role
models of top-ranking development professionals are not Jayaprakash Narayan or
Niyogi or Safdar Hashmi. The visible
urban-centric leadership in the corporatised development sector has begun to
look more like vulgar imitations of the corporate executives of big industrial
houses or transnational corporations. We cease to have leaders in the
proliferation of managers driven by enlightened self-interest. That is what can
be termed as the crisis of leadership.
The alienation of development professionals from real
life situations and the deprived sections is partially responsible for the
crisis of legitimacy faced by the voluntary sector. When someone writes a
wonderful paper on the public distribution system, without ever being anywhere
near a ration shop, it somehow fails to relate with real life needs and
situations. Real life experiences and insights are increasingly being replaced
by research studies conducted by `development tourists' from the the western
hemisphere.
We are living in a time when experts derive their
experience and perception through dehumanised institutional systems
--proposals, reports, memos, charts, seminars etc. The Internet may be an
effective means of communication, but it is far away from the sight of the
deprived millions. There seems to be no more space or time for great sorrows
and little happiness in an increasingly dehumanised development machinery.
While the values of voluntary action are rooted in the micro-level everyday
experiences of an individual, the logic of international development
institutions is driven by macro trends and the sheer demand for and supply of
funds. This contradiction is at the root of the identity crisis faced by many
of us in the social change sector. Because as long as the people at large do
not own the process of social change, the question of representation becomes
very tricky.
The erosion of legitimacy is also because the people
and communities have begun to see themselves as the beneficiaries or consumers
of the development programmes, rather than seeing themselves as the
changemakers. Unless people at large feel a strong sense of belonging to the social change initiatives, the long-term
social viability and legitimacy will be in peril.
The internal contradictions within the development
sector are often glossed over by cleverly manipulating words and their meaning.
The progressive-looking words become the most effective tactics and strategy to
subvert the value and spirit of voluntarism. When words become deceptive,
meanings become elusive. Such elusiveness provides an intellectual shade for
the subversion of values, experiences and beliefs in a corporatised world of
development. The co-option of words is used to pave the way for the co-option
of individual activists. It is far
easier to interpret the crisis than to change the course of the ongoing
subversion. What we need is a reinvention of
the values and ethics that make voluntary social action a truly humanist
endeavour.
