A conversation from earlier lingers in my head and overshadows anything else I had intended to write about. The dominant speaker was Ellen, and the topic was Vikas Samiti. Reaping the benefit of Ellen’s critical intellect and enviable ability to get to the heart of things, I shall attempt a fair, if sometimes scathing sixth week analysis of Bharti Vikas Samiti.
Whatever else, the organisation has made a name for itself. It seems that practically everybody in the six blocks it works in has heard of Vikas Samiti. I can say “Gram vikas kam kar raha hoon” (I’m doing village development work) to someone on a bus and they will, almost without exception, respond “Vikas Samiti?” or, tellingly, just “Vikas Samiti”. It is undeniable that “Samiti”, as Zelda always calls it, has made some profound differences in its area of influence - building education centres, water-harvesting structures and farm enclosures as well as more generally empowering communities, raising awareness of health problems (especially AIDS) and working with villages to ensure sustainable livelihoods.
However, as Ellen points out, it seems to be spreading itself too thin, trying to do too many projects in too many villages meaning that work is slow, sometimes ineffectual and often left unfinished. Another gripe of Ellen’s is that Vikas Samiti employs far too many people (famously having never sacked anybody since foundation over thirty years ago) and as such, or in addition to such, is paying people to come to work late, laze around, drink tea, gossip and leave early. Of course, some people work really hard, and despite his late morning arrivals and flippant manner, I think Dilip fits this bill, but many people don’t appear to do much at all.
Inevitably, perhaps, with such a large work force, communication within the organisation is not good. When I first arrived, different people wanted me to work on different projects and Sumita insisted on the need to observe protocol despite the fact that I had clearly communicated with Dilip and others throughout the summer. During the course of my work so far, earlier papers on Maal have appeared sporadically, haphazard miracles rising out of the dusty obscurity of some branch office. “That’s typical Vikas Samiti,” Dilip would say. “Things get forgotten and appear again when you’re not expecting them.” Similarly, it has never been entirely clear who is supposed to be in charge of me. Dilip waxes and wanes, often eclipsed in the earlier in the stages by Tapan. But Tapan himself appears to be fading, and has been all but replaced by a fat, earnest colleague of his called Tulsiram, who in fairness is far easier to warm to than Tapan, and has also been very helpful in the recent stages of the project. Answering to all three of them has been difficult as none of them seem to have much of a notion of what the others are doing.
A different sort of lack of communication was highlighted in a volunteer meeting recently. The girls had long ago written a list of guesthouse maintenance matters, such as faulty taps and broken curtains and, according to procedure passed it on to Savitri, the sweet, pretty and useless new volunteer co-ordinator. She passed it on to Sumita, who clearly terrifies her, and the matter stopped there. When this was pointed out to Sumita at the meeting, she brushed it off saying “Oh, well, I’ve been so busy. Why didn’t you remind me? These things are trivial, they shouldn’t be problems. Just come and remind me in future.” The use of the word trivial incensed us particularly, but she made genuine overtures of resolving the matter by appointing Ellen as the guesthouse “rep” and also summoned the chowkidar (gatekeeper) to discuss some other problems. This got rather heated and he stalked off in a temper after being shouted at by Ellen and Yogesh. As if to prove that outsiders can never understand India, he greeted me cheerily later on that day for the first time since my arrival. Wonderfully, I arrived back in the guesthouse to find our geyser fixed, meaning glorious warm water in the cool mornings and evenings.
I realise that both instances I have given relate to my own projects, and in a broader sense to the position of volunteers in the NGO’s hierarchy. This hardly seems a fair angle from which to make a balanced critique of the organisation, but so far it is the only angle I can take with any authority. All in all, I don’t wish to sound unduly negative about Vikas Samiti. The overall ethos is spot-on and there are many interesting and engaging people working here. It is also a wonderful forum for learning about development at first hand. It’s just that there are many problems of quite a serious nature that nobody seems to have the interest or energy to fix.
Meanwhile, my own work largely revolves around the writing of the microplan, and the few remaining bits of unfinished business left in Maal will be easily disposed of in a final visit next week. When I told Shiv that I would miss Kojawara and Maal, he upbraided me for “thinking with my heart, like an Indian” when I should be “thinking with my head, like an American.” Nevertheless, miss it I shall, although I enjoy working in head office as it is very sociable - the gossip, the tea drinking and all the things I railed against earlier this evening. Nathuji, the witty chaiwallah comes round very often with a metal pot of particularly good, hot, sweet tea and a supply of amusing quips in his broken English, and if that’s not enough I can always go to the ambitiously-named canteen, or the chaiwallah down the road. The library has lots of newspapers and I always try to read The Hindu to keep up with international and domestic news.
Next Post - Sunday 19th November 2006: Udaipur (will be posted Saturday 19th November 2011)
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