(prepared abridged version for book on 25-05-2012)
LESSONS FROM OUR DEVDASI REHABILITATION PROJECT
My narrative of the work with Devdasis of Sangli and Kolhapur is titled as --
The Integrated Rural Development Programme for Women in Developing countries:
What more can be done?
(Published as a chapter in the book "Women, Development & survival in the third world" Edited by Halesh Afshar Longman Publication U.K.(1989)The Integrated Rural Development Programme for Women in Developing countries:
What more can be done?
Women are always the worst sufferers from any social evil or economic constraints. In the Third World countries which are with widening income inequalities, passing through difficult phases, the number of exploited and exploitable women is increasing. The Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) is one of the very few programmes available for any poverty ridden groups of women. But it puts great emphasis on self-employment without recognizing and providing for all the aspects of it. (The latest efforts in providing micro-finance for self-help groups also suffer from same draw_back.)
The present success story points out the roles of motivation of beneficiary, leadership, managerial efficiency and personal involvement in the greater use of the IRDP for women beneficiaries. It also suggests that such programmes have a better chance of success if women officers occupy more significant posts, in larger numbers in administration rather than being confined merely to a traditionally "soft" department such as social welfare.
INTRODUCTION:
The Integrated Rural Development Programme, popularly known as IRDP, is being tried as an important strategy by many developing countries in their attempts to alleviate poverty and reduce inequalities of income.
This story, presented as a case study relates to 1984-85 when the benefits of the IRDP were extended to a group of socially and economically exploited women called devdasis. The case study is important because it poses many questions regarding the underlying assumptions of the IRDP, especially in the context of women beneficiaries. It suggests ways in which IRDP can be modified in order to achieve its objectives better. It illustrates the developmental role of public sector and possible problems faced due to its bureaucratic structure. It shows how leadership, organizational efficiency and motivation of beneficiaries act as key prerequisites for the success of any potential development programme. Lastly, it also provides some guidelines for voluntary agencies.
I will proceed by giving a short background of devdasis, the women who are the focus of this case, then an account of the structure of the bureaucratic machine in India and its role in implementing the IRDP. This will be followed by an account of how our team used IRDP for economic rehabilitation of devdasis, the barriers encountered and the story of the final success. While so doing, I will highlight some important issues regarding programme implementation and gender considerations.
THE CUSTOMS OF DEVDASIS:
Indian society is characterized by exploitation that gets perpetuated because of poverty, illiteracy and deep-set traditions whose sanctity has not been effectively questioned. One such tradition is the custom of devdasis. These are women who, in early childhood, were offered or sacrified to God by the parents in order to ensure family well-being against the perceived anger of God, or, more importantly, to ask for a son.
Although there is no basis for this system in the Hindu religious scriptures and though the custom has been banned by law, every year nearly 10,000 girls are thus offered to God. The offering takes place ceremonially on all full moon days at the Renuka temple at Soundatti in Karnataka state, but only on Pausha Pournima (the day of the full moon in February) at a few other Renuka temples. In some cases the girls are offered as family tradition. The daughters of devdasis are also normally offered. Tradition and superstition ban them from marrying and settling down to a normal life, and finally they often succumb to prostitution and begging.
To my mind the devdasis qualify to be called the most deprived class of the society. They lack money and education, they are often from scheduled caste, they have the disadvantage of their sex and coming from villages they also miss the exposure to modern conveniences which are known, if not available, to the urban poor. They cannot acquire the social status of a married woman and a secure family life. To top all this is their own mental barrier of superstition which stops them from aspiring for a better life.
In the past twenty years some social and voluntary organisations have undertaken programs for the upliftment of devdasis. Their main emphasis has been on social and health aspects. These efforts include regular medical guidance to devdasis, organising them, settling them in married life and removing superstition. Ours was perhaps the first attempt of Economic rehabilitation. We felt that the poor families succumb to this tradition as it partly solves the problem of their livelihood.
Devdasis live in groups in villages, with older ones acting as chaperones, although nowadays it is not uncommon for them to stay with their parents. They have no rights in the family, least of all the right to property, but the parents have a right to their income when parents are providing them with lodging, boarding and shelter. They have no right to marry but they can and do live as the kept women of wealthy clients. Most of the offered girls of age between four and early twenties, eventually land up in the flesh market of big cities, but some stay back in the villages. Some return at old age. As part of tradition, at least on Tuesdays and Fridays, they have to go begging for alms in the name of the goddess and on several occasions they have to visit the temple of Renuka, spending day and night singing and dancing before the deity. For survival they mostly resort to prostitution and unskilled jobs. They also have to provide for their children.
It is estimated that every year 8,000-10,000 girls or women are offered. The system is prevalent in the states of Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh, Goa and parts of Maharashtra. The girls are offered by their parents, and rites are performed by temple priests, in spite of many laws declaring both the acts as crimes. Often, the parents are extremely poor, uneducated, and superstitious. Most are from schedule classes, though some offerings are also made from other communities. There are many variations in the reasons leading to the offerings, the rites to be performed, the subsequent living arrangements of the women, their means of survival and so on. But the common factor is the cause of perpetuation, which is undoubtedly a combination of poverty, superstition and lack of education.
THE IRDP :
The Integrated Rural Development Programme introduced in India in 1981 is intended to assist families below poverty line (The word BPL was then coined). A specially conducted survey of families living in poverty, conducted in 1980, showed that nearly 350 million (38 percent) people lived as BPL, out of whom 300 million were in rural areas. They consisted largely of landless labour, small and marginal farmers and rural artisans who have, to a large extent, lost their traditional skills and earning power due to lack of skill-upgradation and unfavourable competition from industrial production. Since most of the women were traditionally engaged as partners with the male artisans, and suffer worse from this poverty-accentuating phenomenon, the IRDP could play a special role for them.
The program has three areas of emphasis. One is to give bank finance to BPL beneficiaries for the creation or purchase of assets such as irrigation wells, cows or machinery. 25 per cent of the cost of asset, comes from the government as a subsidy, which banks treat as equity to give an additional 75 per cent as a loan. The loan is to be returned in easy instalments. The second part is to run short-term vocational courses under a scheme called TRYSEM (Training of Rural Youth in Self-employment). The third is to create infrastructure for the use of a group of beneficiaries. Normally a budget of 15 million rupees is available per district per year for subsidy disbursement, TRYSEM expenses and infrastructure creation. The Zilla Parishad of the district is the unit of implementation of the program and CEO who is an officer of the IAS (Indian Administrative Service) is in charge of this program.
THE JAT EXPERIENCE :
Attempts to rehabilitate devdasis in the present case were first started in 1984 when, as Collector of Sangli district, I attempted to prevent the ritual of offering devdasi girls at the Renuka Temple of a taluka place called Jat. These attempts met with opposition from village leaders, priests, parents and older devdasis, all of whom had come to the village to perform several tasks during the ritual, and who have a vested interested in the perpetuation of the system (older devdasis are supported financially by the younger devdasis when they are in the group). The resistance died down quickly, once they realised that I was prepared to invoke the Devdasi Abolition Act of 1934 to arrest them if necessary. They had never faced such a threat before. Secondly, there were many local level politicians in the group who did not want to be seen before a woman collector as the perpetrator of an evil system that undermined the dignity of women. Jat is a small place; similar action later created a violent situation at Soundatti, and a show of force or threats of arrest have not worked there.
At that stage, I had a meeting with about fifty devdasis whom I had arranged to call from other villages. We discussed issues of human dignity and self-respect, social rights and their deprivation, the questions of religion and faith and superstition - all abstract principles, until one of them asked “What alternatives will society offer to us?” They were roused at least to argue and think of alternatives. I grabbed the opportunity, and registered them as trainees under TRYSEM, by making an exception to the rule that they should have passed at least seventh standard. They were all illiterate. When training was offered, they came forward to meet our challenge. They were registered for a three-month poultry training course in a poultry unit run by ZP sangli at Jat.
This case study deals with the second and subsequent groups of trainees who were trained in making of knitwear and in other occupations. In order to understand why subsequent training batches were successful, something must be said about the first training batch. They could not utilise their training and start their own poultry units. In that sense the attempt was a failure, But it was a great success as it helped to build up hope among Devdasis that they could learn new skills and find alternative livelihood rather than depend on begging or prostitution. For me, the first training batch was a success as it allowed me to offer them instant answer to their unexpected question – “what is our alternative?”
Although the IRDP is intended precisely for people like the devdasis, in many ways it was an unusual attempt and was thwarted, with many queries, lack of precedents, procedural bottlenecks and so on, which even a team of well-meaning officials cannot cope with unless they are willing to take some risks. A few also feared that I was inviting the wrath of God, to which they must not be a party. Some senior officials questioned why so much effort should be wasted on devdasis. However, the immediate success was that on the last day of poultry training, nearly 100 devdasis gathered with a request to be enrolled for training. The stamp of failure was not yet put on the first batch. So myself and the CEO of ZP (Mr Ramani) decided to organise another group of twenty six devdasis for training in woolen knitwear.
THE CHALLENGE:
During their training I had insisted on one condition: that they would not go begging for alms, because this would be the biggest affront to their self respect. Did they continue with prostitution during the night? I would not ask. Should I have tried to stop it? I have asked myself this question only once and have, since then, fully believed in my answer: “in a society which denies them fulfilment of their financial, physical and social needs, I, as a privileged member of that society, have no right to put that condition.” My boundaries could be stretched only up to offering them alternatives from which they must choose themselves. With my government position as a collector, I could offer them an alternative way of earning and I could not even claim that it was better in monetary terms. But the training might break down their social barriers and superstitions, and bring an awareness of their potential to learn skills and do something worthwhile. That would be the reward, even if they continued in prostitution.
Our second training programme (March 1985) was started in machine knitwear. We faced typical problems like “how to get vocational trainers who were prepared to live in a village for six months? Whether or not these were good teachers? This question arose because under the TRYSEM program it is neither possible, nor I think advisable, to have a cadre of trainers. Giving high and regular remuneration to the trainers, is essential. Such training has not been tried much. The trainer's own motivation is also extremely necessary. Moreover, could they train a totally illiterate group? Could the trainees be asked to spend additional time on literacy lessons? Is money available under TRYSEM to cover the salary of a special literacy teacher? (No, it is not.) The training in operating a knitting machine had obvious, recognisable economic prospects, but what was the use of literacy classes? These questions was asked both by the trainees and the TRYSEM authorities. These questions will be faced in all TRYSEM or similar programs, and their success in developing countries will depend on whether their bureaucratic structures can provide a systematic answer to them. This is possible only if there is sufficient delegation of decision making at the implementation level
A further question was one regarding the attitude of the banks. In India, banks are nationalised and have directives to make some definite lending under the IRDP, yet they will prefer to process loan cases of small or marginal farmers who have been engaged in agriculture in the past. Loans can be given for cattle-keeping or a shop or a photographic unit. All these loans are given to those who are already in that occupation, and the purpose of loan is to supplement them economically. But where a new skill is to be acquired afresh, banks are reluctant to give loans to trainees who have no previous experience. How can banks give finance for capital investment without asking what was the guarantee that the devdasis would complete training and that they would be adequately trained and thereafter could market their goods? What guarantee can be given by the devdasis, or by any voluntary organisation prepared to run their training programme, or by a collector (who can be transferred the next day)? Such problems have arisen and have been solved in those very few cases in which the crucial factor was the personal initiative of the organiser. They are not solved routinely or by system-design and certainly not without much persuasion. The answers are not available within the given pattern of the IRDP. So long as that remains the case, the benefits of the IRDP cannot be widespread.
Other vocational courses are also run under TRYSEM. They may be tailoring, carpet weaving, pottery or shoe making; I am talking of all those vocations where the final product must be approved and purchased by the consumer. These courses are run not only under TRYSEM but also by many other institutions for vocational training. What happens to the trainees later? Most of the schemes do not have a system to follow up cases. In India we do not have statistics about the future pursuits of the trainees.
This brings me to a much more important question. All our vocational training courses assume that the trainees inherently possess four skills; first, of marketing their goods, second, of inventory control; third, of correctly pricing the product; and fourth, of managing working capital. It is as though all they need to be taught is some vocational skill. The courses are, therefore, typically devoid of any component for entrepreneurial or managerial skill development.
In our training program it was sharply becoming clear that within the funding pattern of TRYSEM it was not possible to appoint extra staff who would keep the accounts or suggest designing and market strategies or who would liaise with banks. The important point to make here is that rural development departments are normally not orientated towards commercial management, and hence the IRDP in its present form in India will not achieve much towards self employment unless the aspects of business management and project management are emphasised, both among the implementers and the beneficiaries. Lastly, there are always problems related to implementation. When large quantities of training material are needed, as in this vocational course, the funding is not adequate. The cost of repair and maintenance of machines is not provided. If the training needs to be extended, extra money is not provided. In spite of all this, the IRDP is the only existing programme which contains some hope for a group like the devdasis.
In short, the trainee group at Jat faced the problem of banks not giving loans initially, then the trainer moving away leaving behind a semi trained mechanic, the raw material was always getting quickly exhausted and not replenished, six months' training duration proved inadequate and so on.
THE INTEGRATED APPROACH:
While these problems were being faced one-by-one during the training program and we would frantically try to find solutions as quickly as possible, I was transferred to the post of managing director of the Western Maharashtra Development Corporation (WMDC), which is a public sector undertaking of the government of Maharashtra, under the Department of Industries and based in Pune. Its mandate is to promote balanced industrial growth, and especially facilitate small scale industries. Luckily, Sangli district was included in its geographical jurisdiction. I recognized that I could use the industrial and promotional activities of the WMDC to combine with the devdasi training programme at Jat.
It was only a lucky coincidence that I was posted to WMDC. What I was planning and advocating was new; namely, to combine the organisational skills and capacity of financial investment of the WMDC with a rural, women- orientated training programme. Many people doubted the wisdom of doing so, but luckily I won the support of the Chairman of the board Shri Ulhas Pawar, a politician with good heart, and my colleague officers at WMDC, who were willing to share this extra burden.
Many outside WMDC felt and advocated that this activity was best left to someone in the Rural Development or Social Welfare Department; in their view it could not be categorised as industrial development. The word devdasi kept on playing on their minds. The govt departments have a sharp dividing line between the mandates of different departments – they are governed by something called “Rules of business” which, in my opinion, completely destroys the spirit of coordination and team work. My argument was that those departments do not have managerial and entrepreneurial skills, which is the main factor missing in the training and management of rural development progams. I pointed out that as soon as the training was over these women would need working capital, marketing arrangements and accounting skills. They would thus need to become entrepreneurs and on their own they could not do so successfully. Such debates are inevitable in administration and they took large chunks of my time during the next three years.
I was most surprised and chagrined by the attitude of many senior colleagues, who would ridicule my efforts and say that no person working in the (prestigious!) Department of Industries needed to concern oneself with these downtrodden women, as the department was meant for high--flying industrialists, and that the devdasis would be better left to the Social Welfare Department. I was told that I was attaching too much personal emotions to the whole issue, which is anathema to the spirit of bureaucracy. Some even said that I was not able to come out of my complex of being a woman and so on. On the other hand, many officers supported my efforts precisely because I was promoting the cause of needy women and they shared my concern for them. Perhaps I did get emotionally attached to the project, which, in the hind-sight, I found necessary for successful implementation of any scheme. This case has taught me that a detached efficiency is not always the best tool for achieving development, as is normally believed among bureaucrats – being emotionally attached is a plus point, with a small rider that I am discussing later.
In WMDC, we started by giving the trainees of Jat an order for knitwear with some advance financing (about Rs. 50,000). The results were very good. The trainer mechanic, who, by this time, was also frustrated and prepared to quit, decided to stay on. Attendance improved. The trainees started to discuss marketable colour combinations. The secretary of the RD dept. allowed an extension of the training period for a further six months, a discretion available but rarely used. WMDC used the knitwear for a market survey. Costing, accounting and even procurement of orders and transportation were all arranged by the WMDC. It was, in a true sense, the nurturing of an infant industry. When the first batch of knitwear received a good response, we thought of larger participation.
During this period WMDC also used the support of a voluntary agency named Bhagini Nivedita Pratishthan Sangli for marketing. Earlier, during my days as collector Sangli, they had undertaken to provide hostel facility for the childrn of trainee devdasis. But their participation in marketing could not continue for long because they had a staff shortage. Also, their main field was nutrition and the health care of the school children. Since then I have been acutely aware of two factors that undermine the working and potential of voluntary agencies. First, is their lack of voluntary workers, sometimes resulting from paucity of funds. Second is their lack of managerial ability, efficiency and technical knowledge despite their well--meaning and hard--working volunteers. These qualities are as necessary as sincerity. The combination of sincerity with knowledge and efficiency is extremely rare. But is it less rare or less needed in government jobs?
Next, WMDC prepared a scheme to run a training-cum-production center for the devdasi trainees. The idea was that this scheme would run for three years, during which WMDC would invest money and provide all support, like accounting, inventory management, marketing and so on while also imparting training to them in these areas. These services were identified as crucial. The scheme would need an investment of nearly Rs. 500,000. We were faced with two sets of questions -- some bureaucratic (including my own bureaucratic rigidities) and some having much wider implications. The bureaucratic questions were the most trivial and the most time-consuming. For example, why are the devdasis not being trained instead, in vegetable selling? Or, did the progam come within the purview of the Department of Industries, or of Social Welfare or of Rural Development, and if it was not of the former, then why should I pursue it. More frequently asked question was “when devdasis are in the domain of Social Welfare then why should those "belonging to SW department", accept my methodology or work given that I was not from "their department". The file when referred to finance or planning department also faced similar querries.
Thus, WMDC had to enter into lengthy correspondence with several departments in govt. of Maharashtra. Finally we were able to ignore them all when a Joint secretary of the Department of Women and Child Welfare in the Government of India, found this idea important and made the funds available. What I want to point out is that this is not a unique situation. Such conflicts will arise when bureaucracy does not show dynamism. Traditionally, bureaucracy is characterised by accountability, which means that one must be seen to be acting strictly within the given job description and within the set rules of financial control. This ignores two vitally important aspects in any development program. First, every development programme will require the coordination of functions of many departments, out of which one that shows maximum promise of success will have to be accepted as the 'leader' for any project. This is no reason for other departments to withdraw their support. In the present age of specialisation, all government sectors must draw from the expertise of one- another rather than try to build up their own cadres in every function. What actually happens is either a race for power-grabbing or complete abandoning of any project. The coordinated management, in which IAS officers are supposed to be experts is lacking. The second aspect concerns financial propriety. Financial rules are necessary in order to prevent misuse of the vast funds which a government officer handles. However, since the present rules do not recognise the element of risk in any development project, they insist that any project selected for implementation must be, in effect, 100 per cent risk free. This is never possible yet, because of this approach, there is no attempt or methodology to quantify a reasonable risk, or assess possible areas of failure. Thus there can be neither any risk monitoring nor a scope for on-line changes during the implementation of the govt. program.
While tackling these issues, WMDC, in December, 1986 had started another training group in knitting at Gadhinglaj in Kolhapur District for forty trainees. Gadhinglaj taluka has an estimated devdasis population of 5,000 whereas their population in Jat is only about 500. This training was also funded by DRDA of Kolhapur District and supplemented by the local Social Welfare Department. Later (between December, 1986 to December, 1988) two training groups for silk reeling and one more for making knitwear were also started. The total number of beneficiaries had thus risen to 160 by December, 1988. Thus despite all initial bottlenecks, WMDC has systematized a way of using the IRDP more effectively. The trend to involve more women through training would continue in future years. The number to be added per year had been deliberately kept low for reasons which I will shortly discuss.
The policy issues have to be settled more carefully and the role of leadership becomes important. The issues must be decided on clear philosophical principles if they are to provide continuous guidance. The first principle in selecting trainees was that devdasis must feel themselves to be a part of the mainstream of society. So we included 20 per-cent non-devdasis in every batch and we also tried to select the devdasis from different educational levels. A few devdasis do attend schools up to different standards. The mix was considered necessary to have a demonstration effect on those lagging behind, and has worked out well. Literacy and numeracy had to be a part of their training, and this was found very difficult to impart. We also insisted that each trainee group formed itself into a co-operative society in which WMDC would be shareholder but not a sharer of profits accruing to the society. The members would earn wages from the co-operative society according to their output. When the co-operative society published its yearly accounts and declared profits, they would share the profits too. Some part of the profit was to be kept aside by each co-operative society in an educational fund, to be used for future training groups if needed. WMDC would provide the clerical and managerial support to every batch and thus to every cooperative society initially for three years. The members were to train themselves to run the affairs of the society. They had to spend some time in acquiring managerial skills, thus forgoing some wage-earning. This was, of course, too much to demand from an uneducated, unprivileged, downtrodden group of women. Even well-educated people are not necessarily good managers. Yet, their real emancipation will come only when they are no longer pliable and manageable by others, easily surrendering before all forms of exploitation and victimisation. The devdasis also understand this. Each woman's learning speed may be slow and different from that of others, but there is no escape from this learning process.
This brings me to the best part of the project. The desire to learn comes not from the lure of increased earnings: in fact, the devdasis earned more wages when their time was not spent on learning these different skills. The argument that learning will prevent their exploitation is understood by them, but only in theory. It was far inadequate to motivate them in learning managerial skills. In their opinion, if their management could continue to be with WMDC, that would, in fact, protect them from exploitation. They would far prefer if management were to remain with WMDC forever and if they did not have to train themselves in management.
I did not share their view. First, no dependence can be free from exploitation, and second, the burden of this trust would be too heavy on WMDC. But there is a third and more important reason, which I will discuss shortly. Their willingness to learn came through self-confidence that we systematically tried to build. For this purpose we arranged visits by university teachers and students and promoted their mixing with the trainees. We had personality development camps ranging from three to seven days, conducted by visiting voluntary organisations. Third effort was to call them to Pune in groups of four or so, for a week's training, during which they were trained by WMDC staff in basic office management skills such as filing, stapling, punching, telling the time, making phone calls, using xerox machines and calculators and such innumerable primary level, trivial skills which at our level we never notice and at their level they had never experienced. Gradually, their interest grew as we took them to secondary and higher levels of learning such as purchasing wool, managing their stalls during exhibitions, making out receipts, procuring small orders, operating their bank accounts, measuring the work output, making wage payments, writing up cash books, visiting other offices, explaining their problems to those officers, writing out applications and so on. With different speed this has proceeded. Some learned to ride bicycles, and wanted to learn jeep and car driving. Some liked photography, some have learned computer data-operating skills, and at the end of the day they feed the data of the total work done by each individual. In turns they undertake inspection and quality control. Some have taken an examination in co-operative accounting. Some are appointed as instructors for subsequent trainee groups, including training in reeling for some farmer group in faraway villages of Aurangabad and Solapur. We encouraged them to demand and receive full trainer's salary on such occasions. A few still have to show any worthwhile progress, but this was to be expected. As for work quality, the silk reeled by them is sold at the silk exchange in Bangalore (the main silk market in India) for the best prices, while the sale of knitted garments has exceeded $40,000 per year (600,000 rupees). Their average earning is 400 rupees per month (The Minimum Wage Act prescribes 300 rupees per month as the lower limit).
On the whole the project was very successful. One justification for so much involvement by WMDC was that Devdasis was a group whose members could not be expected to get any benefit from various government schemes, simply because government departments do not know about them. Unfortunately devdasis are not the only group with such a fate there are several others like vaghya-murali, nandibailwale, dombari, etc. They cannot knock at the doors of offices to take advantage of various schemes. In that sense WMDC has acted in the role of a voluntary agency, providing supporting services and also filling short-term financial gaps. WMDC approached many offices for them, trying to get whatever benefits were available under different schemes. We thus secured a grant of Rs 5,00,000 for building a working women's hostel for them from the Women and Child Welfare Department. The National Chemicals and Fertiliser Corporation agreed to provide funds for a work shed and nursery, and for expert staff for our proposed training activity in forest nursery. The CEO Sangli built twenty houses for them at Jat under the program of houses for the houseless. IRDP agencies in both Sangli and Kolhapur districts gave money for training and subsidies for equipment. Now the Central Silk Board is in a position to support some more programmes in sericulture activities because the World Bank has asked them to undertake women's programmes. In the space of three years WMDC has been able to integrate the beneficiary programs of many departments and get not only the money but also their expert staff to use for the benefit of trainee devdasis. However, such help is slow to come. Any other agency which tries to provide a similar co-ordinating service must have its own financial standing and expertise in accounting, marketing dealings and knowledge of various departments which run different beneficiary programmes. This is a guideline for the voluntary agencies.
The other side of such support, however, must also be considered. The devdasis have often asked why WMDC must withdraw its support at a later date. The answer, which is obvious to me, is that the role of WMDC must be limited to that of initiating at the first stage, and only as a stand-by in the later years. Such work needs staff members who are both dedicated and efficient. No organization has a large number of them. Hence, there has to be a scheme by which the work of these staff members is handed over to a different group, so that the staff is kept free for their original work or for subsequent trainee batches. I also felt strongly that those who take over, must come from within the beneficiaries themselves. WMDC achieved what it did because of the high level of efficiency and dedication of the staff and their sense of immense satisfaction that, as a team, they were contributing to a vital social cause. Their skills in entrepreneurial management were of crucial importance. Very often I also received useful suggestions from other staff members who were not closely linked with this work .
Those who were involved in training, and especially those who were involved in personality development and literacy training, were puzzled as to why I insisted that every beneficiary should be asked to learn everything. Would it not give much quicker results if only a core group was identified as potential managers and was given much more concentrated attention? That can be one way to proceed. However, I would accept a much slower speed if it meant better understanding of the running of the organization by a larger number, than a system in which a few managed and others remained as ignorant as before and therefore as prone to exploitation as before. That is why we have arranged the training in such a way as to include each beneficiary in the learning process. In my opinion the most important point of this success story is the lesson that there is no substitute to learning and no short cuts to the process of learning.
Digressing slightly, I have often seen voluntary agencies running training programmes. They either restrict their role to training only, or if they have to get involved with management as well, then they cannot extend their help to more groups because all their manpower is used up just in the management of one group. I do not want to undermine the work of those voluntary agencies who have remained confined to the management of only one group. But it reduces the scope of help by that voluntary organization. They have to learn how to train the beneficiary group for managerial training too and then withdraw their role in the management. I hope that the example narrated here will help them to modify their strategy.
Another small digression is about the role of women officers. It would be wrong to make a generalization that only women officers can be aware or sensitive to problems of women trapped in a situation like those of the devdasis. In my opinion any officer sensitive to such social problems would have acted similarly.
I, however, must question the normal belief that women officers are suitable only for working in the departments of Social Welfare or Health or Child Care or that they alone are useful in those departments to solve the problems of women. This case shows that the solution to women's problems does not lie necessarily in the schemes of the Social Welfare or Rural Development Department. It is therefore important that women officers be posted in all departments without bias.
There was also the question of giving similar organizational support to many other groups of educated unemployed , who had been given skill training under TRYSEM, but had thereafter remained stranded because no attempt was made to develop their entrepreneurial skills. As I mentioned earlier, that component is not built into the training schedule of TRYSEM. Many such groups approached us. Giving support to these groups would bring us faster results because they have an educational background. We would have more success stories to our credit. However, to provide comprehensive support to TRYSEM beneficiaries is not the assigned role of the WMDC, it is not the assigned role of anyone. We would have been allowed to do it very sparingly and that permission was given only for the devdasi group and with lot of grudge. To my mind, this lack of recognition of the need for comprehensive support for trainee groups reduces the potential of programmes like TRYSEM or the IRDP. Theoretically, many public sector corporations can fill this gap. Indeed, some have tried it in the past. However, they have been trapped in the roles of permanent managers because they did not have the express policy of withdrawing after an initial period of support. As for WMDC, this type of role can be taken up only selectively. WMDC does not have large enough staff to undertake similar activity for many groups; at least not unless such role is assigned to it. The general consensus in WMDC was that we need not worry so much about collecting success stories and should restrict our small capacity to help this most neglected section of the society. Other groups are much higher up in the social and economic hierarchy and have a better chance of survival without the WMDC. However, in the system of the IRDP and TRYSEM, something must be included for them. That is another main point in this case study.
In conclusion, I must add that to my mind even the IRDP is not the best programme for imparting the necessary managerial and entrepreneurial skills. This training must be built into the Indian educational curriculum and should be started much earlier rather than having the students spend eight to fifteen years before they are taught these skills. Our educational system must recognize the fact that 50 per cent of children drop out before they have spent four years in school. At that stage they and their parents realize that their wage-earning capacity has not been improved by the four years of schooling. For society as a whole, the returns on investment in universal education can be infinitely high when fully realized, but to an individual the returns come too slowly and the situation can be frustrating. Often the time investment that ranges from a minimum of eleven years to a maximum of twenty years, is beyond the individual's reach. This is true of all developing countries. On the other hand, we have supposedly quick-gain programmes like TRYSEM in which vocational expertise is supposed to be achieved in three to six months with a further assumption that any one who has the vocational expertise can automatically market it. Both assumptions are wrong. All our educational experts must do some heart-searching on the validity of these assumptions, on the one hand, and on redundancy and time wastage in our educational system, on the other. Only then shall we be able to tap the full potential of poverty alleviation programmes like the IRDP.
NOTES:
1. For more information on the IRDP, the reader is referred to the Sixth Five Year Plan of India.
2, 3. The administrative hierarchy in India is as follows. The central government functions from Delhi. The federation of India is divided into several state governments. The smallest unit is a village; about 500 villages make a taluka and about fifteen talukas make a district, which is the most important administrative unit. Each state has several districts. The bureaucracy is responsible for carrying out all development programs within the perspective outlined by the political leadership, although itself it is required to remain apolitical . Most of the key functions of bureaucracy are performed by the IAS officers. In general , the IAS officers are known for high efficiency, sincerity and their apolitical functioning. Unlike in the colonial days, now the bureaucratic machinery of most developing countries is given the task of carrying out speedy development. In India, the IAS officers at district level work, either as district development officers (or CEO) and are in charge of all developmental activities, including the IRDP, or, they work as collectors, who look after revenue collection, maintenance of law and order through police, district planning, and overall co-ordination of government functioning in that district. More senior IAS officers work as heads of public-sector corporations and secretaries of various departments. The author is herself an IAS officer and was actively involved in implementation of the case study presented here.
4. In India, formal vocational education starts after schooling and is conducted mainly by the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and to a small extent by the Districts Industries Centre (DIC).
5. Some readers may even question the whole ideology of giving low-level skills to the TRYSEM beneficiaries and requiring that they turn into small-scale entrepreneurs. Knowing the tough competition which the small-scale business faces from the large concerns, this may be a valid question. However the purpose of this case study is not to go into those long-term questions but to suggest how best the IRDP can be utilized when it is the only available programme for the groups like the devdasis.
6. I have learnt from subsequent collectors of Sangli that the practice of offering young girls as devdasis at the temple in Jat has stopped. At Soundatti also, the government has partly succeeded, as no offering now takes place openly.
Not part of the book: The project got active support from the entire staff of WMDC, collectorates of Sangli and Kolhapur, Zilla Parishad Sangli, and Panchayat and Tahsil staff at Jat apart from some high-ranking indidviduals such as Shri Ulhas pawar (chairman,WMDC), Shri Sharad Kale (Secretary Industries Maharashtra), Smt. Sujaya, (JS in Social Welfare in GoI), V. Ramani, (CEO Sangli), Smt Shashi Mishra (Secretary Socal Welfare Maharashtra), Bhagin Nivedita Pratishthan Sangli and Bank officers of MSFC in Sangli.
